November 19, 2003
Derek Slater is Spot On Regarding Aimster

See his letter replying to this Politech post asking for support of John Deep's Petition for Writ of Certiorari.

    The Aimster case's facts form a bad foundation for a reevaluation of Sony in the P2P era. At best, Aimster is a somewhat centralized service, not wholly unlike Napster, and has thus far had trouble proving any non-infringing uses. At worst, Aimster actively encouraged infringement on its fully centralized P2P service. Its tutorial's screenshots showed how to download copyright holder's content specifically, and the centrally-controlled Club Aimster service helped automate acquisition of copyrighted works on Aimster. The record industry alleges that John Deep has boasted that Aimster is "Napster squared."
    [...] With that in mind, why give the Court a chance to write an overbroad opinion? We'd be better off with the Court evaluating Grokster and Morpheus, a much more similar situation to Sony. The Court doesn't like protecting shady characters and, if the Court adopts my "worst case" interpretation, it will be happy to rule against Deep and anyone who seems remotely like him. The Court will treat all P2P as a tool of infringement, rather than just a tool.
    [...]Let's not put Sony on the line here by bringing Aimster's case before the Supreme Court. To give Sony, P2P, and Internet innovation their best chance to survive, we should wait to bring the best possible defendant before the Court. If you must support this case, please do so only by focusing on the proper standard of review, as the EFF did its appeals amicus.

When I got the email this morning from Declan McCullah, I thought it was odd, but didn't have the time to look at this today, nor could I have done as good a job as Derek in reply.

Posted by Mary Hodder at November 19, 2003 07:09 PM
Comments

Aimster would be a terrible basis for any attempt to fight the RIAA or other similar groups. Aimster/Madster is/was exactly like Napster in all its important essentials of operation (I know, I worked for Mr. Deep during the development and first deployment of Aimster/Madster), and the history of the principal (Deep) involved in the suit would completely muddy the legal waters. He's lied directly several times about specifics, I suspect opening himself to perjury charges, and there's any number of things ranging from misleading to outright lies in the picture he's tried to paint of the service. Focus on one of the other filetrading services for defenses, bring THAT one to the SCOTUS, but not Aimster.

Posted by: Ryk E. Spoor on December 18, 2003 06:10 AM
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