Would Joel Tenenbaum or Jammie Thomas-Rasset be sued today? What I understand is Technically, Joel and Jammie were sued for uploading. Practically, Joel and Jammie were sued for downloading and were unfortunate victims of not turning off seeding after downloading music via torrent: Their 'uploading' was not that they were really the original uploaders of the music like there was this torrent file and then it was uploaded from an account belonging to them. Rather, they were just seeding which is automatic in torrent clients (unless you set upload speed to zero or something...so I've heard). Nowadays, it's much easier to both illegally download music and not have problems re the turn off seeding: Just download from youtube. Their trials were mid-2000s which is when YouTube just began. Over a decade later, not only is YouTube huge but also are there so many ways to download from YouTube. Copyright law has not changed (in their favour) at all since then yet I think because of the advent of technology, they are almost definitely not likely to be caught for illegally downloading - at least music...movies are another matter - because they'd be just downloading! 5.1. Btw, the relevant difference I see between music and other stuff like movies/books/games is that full songs are legally uploaded on YouTube for us to listen to for free. It's the same idea as radio. It's not like movies which may be fully legally uploaded but we still have to pay or books which afaik aren't uploaded fully at all. Question: Did I misunderstand anything? Edit 1: I'm asking not if they'd be sued if they were caught or whatever but rather if maybe in the 1st place they wouldn't even be caught. The conjecture I'm driving at here is that effectively (when I say 'effectively' here I mean in a de facto as opposed to a de jure sense) their crime isn't exactly copyright infringement but not having good enough technology to commit copyright infringement. The key difference here is YouTube downloading. YouTube wasn't as big then as it is now. And apparently it's a huge grey/gray area or whatever re downloading. YouTube is effectively radio without schedules. So you can think of downloading from YouTube as similar to home taping or whatever. But yeah ok it's wrong if the RIAA have continued to catch people regardless of the advancement of technology (how would they know if their catch rates are as effective btw?) but simply stopped SLAPP or whatever. Edit 2: Another thing I thought of based on comment of Brandin: De minimis. One user downloading something from YouTube, even if it's an infringement, is extremely small in terms of damage. (...) On the other hand, if you place something on a website or on a torrent, and let hundreds of people download that copy, the damages are much more significant So yeah the RIAA has less incentive to go after youtube downloaders, so I figure Jammie and Joel would not be sued because they would not caught with today's technology.
The RIAA changed their litigation strategy in the late 2000s and it (and its members) generally no longer sue individuals. See https://hbr.org/2008/12/why-the-riaa-stopped-suing If you're just asking for a prediction about whether Tenenbaum or Thomas-Rasset would be sued today if they were to impermissibly make copyrighted music available to the public again, my preduction would be no. But I have to say this is an odd prediction to ask us to make. And I wouldn't have much to argue against somebody who predicts the other direction.
It depends where you and your friend are and where the copyright was created. Ripping music for personal use is considered fair use/fair dealing in most jurisdictions. Having multiple copies/devices for personal use is OK too - practically, you can't watch more than one at a time unless you have a very unusual brain. If the intention is that both you and he would have and use copies then that is a violation.
Rolling Stone has a short non-technical article on a dozen famous cases. This page is a massive database on music copyright infringement cases going back to 1844, along with analysis of the cases. That analysis may well suffice for your interests: here is an except from a recent case: In fact, there is no melodic material in the section in question in the plaintiff’s work. The harmonic progression of the arpeggiated chords of both songs is utterly commonplace and not copyrightable expression. Neither are “structure, tempo, instrumentation” when, as here, these elements in both works contain no protectable authorship individually or combined. The plaintiff’s references to “iconic notes” and “feel” are meaningless. What excited the plaintiff was merely the fact that a portion of the defendant’s song sounds like his. This similarity, however, doesn’t support a claim of infringement of a musical work when, as here, the musical elements of the portions of the songs in issue underlying the recorded sounds of both works contain little or no protectable original expression Apart from providing the appellate court rulings, this also includes original complaints and petitions, certain trial court rulings, and amicus briefs which are the &quot;technical&quot; core of the court's finding of fact. However, you will need to read a varied sample of these cases and not just pick one at random. This will at least provide the raw material basis for discovering how these decisions are made.
Copyright almost certainly exists in the images, since presumably someone took those pictures and so they would own the copyright of those images. However, that doesn't mean you don't own the film, you just that don't own the copyright. You can have it developed to see what's there without copying the images. Just tell the developer you only want the film developed and for no prints to be made. If there's child pornography you could end up in a lot of hot water. While you'd be innocent of any crime, if the developer reports the images to the police you'll have to convince them that you had no idea what was on the film. It's extremely unlikely that there's anything untoward on the film however. I'd note however that unless the film is only a couple years old then it's likely the pictures have faded significantly. If it's ten or more years old, there might not be anything recognizable.
First I should point out that the Google question is about a different situation, the "snippet" issue where a tiny part of a web page is redistributed, where the issue of resolved in the US by appeal to the "fair use" defense. The proposed scenario as written here is broader since it would go beyond a couple of lines, and goes up to the limit of copy an entire web page. That is copyright infringement, with or without an associated link. Copyright protection is not just about attribution, it is about control. If you can limit your copying appropriately, you may survive under a fair use analysis; but you need to hire a lawyer with experience in copyright litigation to vet your notions of what is "a small amount" etc.
These images were quickly taken down to settle this problem. It doesn't settle the problem, at least under US law, because a former infringer may still owe statutory damages under 17 USC 504 (and I imagine under some analogous Canadian law). Ceasing the infringement does not extinguish the plaintiff's right to those damages, although it may limit the size of the damages. However, the opposition in question continued to try and sue for more, claiming that the information on these properties were taken from them (which is apparently incorrect and lacks proof) Information, in and of itself, is not subject to copyright protection in just about any jurisdiction in the world (see for example 17 USC 102(b)). It has been suggested in the comments of another answer that this may nevertheless be a trade secrets violation, but that would only be the case if the information had been non-public and the site appropriated the information from an unpublished source belonging to the plaintiff. If the plaintiff deliberately caused this information to be published on their own website, then trade secret law certainly does not apply to it. Nevertheless, if the site copied literal text or images from the plaintiff's website, or closely paraphrased it, that is an infringement of copyright. Copyright protects the creative elements of the text, even where the text is serving a primarily utilitarian or functional purpose. but they continue to drag this on in an assumed attempt to try and make the defendant basically spend all their money fighting this off before it gets before a judge. It is unclear what you mean by this. The normal process is for the plaintiff to send the defendant some sort of written demand, the defendant either complies or they don't, and then the plaintiff either files a lawsuit or they don't. If the plaintiff never files a lawsuit, the defendant is under no obligation to continue interacting with the plaintiff, and can simply wash their hands of the matter. Depending on the circumstances, this may or may not be wise, as settling is often more cost-effective than going to court. Ignoring the plaintiff increases the likelihood of a lawsuit being filed. But if there is no lawsuit, then there is nothing to &quot;fight off&quot; in the first place.
Copying is illegal, creating an identical work by coincidence isn't. If it is not a criminal case, then a court decides whether it is more likely that the identical work was created by copying or by coincidence. Creating an identical work through a random process isn't going to happen, claiming this would be an awful defense. On the other hand, it is quite possible that two software developers using very stylized code adhering to struct coding conventions can produce quite large bits of identical code. Your links titled "metadata" and "hash" don't actually link to a description of metadata, or the description of a hash, but to a description of torrent files, which is something totally different. Systematically distributing files whose only purpose is the illegal duplication of copyrighted works should not be done without consulting a lawyer, as has been said on other threads (whether posting links to copyrighted files is legal). The chances that a random process will generate a file identical to an existing copyrighted file of say over 100 bytes are virtually zero. If there is an illegal copy of a copyrighted file, and you claim that you created it through a random process and coincidence, you will lose, and deservedly so.
Copyright law doesn't say the art isn't copyrighted if it was made unlawfully. It seems the art can be copyrighted and the act of making it can be a criminal offence. I'm not aware of any such copyright cases that have gone to trial. A fairly well known case that settled out of court is that of Jason “Revok” Williams and H&amp;M. Williams noticed his art in a photograph used in an H&amp;M marketing campaign. His lawyer sent a cease-and-desist letter to H&amp;M. In response, H&amp;M applied for a court order stating that the product of an unlawful act could not be copyrighted. Following some bad publicity H&amp;M relented and settled with Williams. H&amp;M stopped using the photograph and withdrew the application for the court order. (News source) ... The debate over street artists’ copyright privileges has entered courtrooms quite a bit over the past few years, according to Philippa Loengard, deputy director of Columbia Law School’s Kernochan Center for Law, Media and the Arts. ... The [H&amp;M] claim wasn’t surprising, Loengard said, but it also doesn’t hold up. At its core, a copyright requires only two things: that the work is original and that it is a tangible medium of expression. [Loengard said,] “ … Copyright is not a legal or illegal sanction of the activity that was done to produce the work. Copyright is a separate entity.” Another case settled out of court is that of Joseph &quot;Rime&quot; Tierney and Moschino. Tierney sued Moschino for using his art on its designs. One day before the court was notified of the intention to settle, Moschino sought to have the case dismissed on the grounds that unlawfully made art could not be copyrighted. (News source) &quot;As a matter of public policy and basic logic, it would make no sense to grant legal protection to work that is created entirely illegally.&quot;