Playing RIAA Attorney for a Day (Jason Schultz)
With the growing concern over Senator Hatch's Inducing Infringement of Copyrights Act introduced this week, EFF decided to take the debate up a notch today by drafting a mock complaint against one of the most egregious "inducers" -- Apple's iPod music player.
The Complaint, alleged inducement against Apple, Toshina (who supplied the iPod's hard drive), and CNET (who provided a review of the iPod including instructions on how to move musc files between it and multiple computers), lays out exactly how easy it would be to sue a company for inducement on any of their flagship computer products. We tried to make the complaint as simple as possible but at the same time, substantive enough that it would be difficiult for Apple or any other company to dismiss the case before trial. [For all you lawyers out there, try to think of how you could succeed on a 12(b)(6) or Rule 56 motion].
It's often hard to conceive the potential damage Congress can inflict upon us until too long after the fact (e.g. DMCA), so we hope this will help focus the issue.
[Copyfight]