Mock Trial Competition

[cecil71421]

The case in the link below is the trial of A&M Records Inc. vs. KC Jones in a dispute to settle whether or not KC Jones illegally downloaded music. There were several witnesses to the case who have testified for or against KC Jones, and the trial is based on their affadavits and the evidence presented. The evidence has already been verified by the plaintiff, defendents, and witnesses. The question is, did KC Jones illegally download the music?

The case can be found here
www.scbar.org/public/files/docs/LRE/hsmtcase09.pdf

It's sort of lengthy, but interesting. It helps if you know anything about limewire or music downloading, but in any case, this should be entertaining.

Also, when trying to interpret the case, consider the evidence and testimony in the affadavits without bias. Hopefully we won't all side with KC Jones because we have downloaded music ourselves, or with the company because we are opposed to illegal downloading. If you find anything in favor or against the plaintiff or defendent, feel free to present it, even if other evidence seems to outweigh it or it seems minor. Miss no details, for it makes or breaks the outcome of the case. I expect that this will make for an interesting debate.

[Rand]

Nevermind, thanks for fixing it, Kija.

[FenrirXIII]

An interesting loophole in the copyright/music downloading issue is proof of ownership. I didn't read the entire thing yet, but I will when I get the free time in and out of today.

I believe if you download a song, it's ok as long as you own a CD that was purchased from a retail store with the same song on it. It goes into your right to make backups of the material you have purchased fairly.

Now, lets say I have a friend in canada. He buys a HardDrive, ships it down to me in the states here, and says 'its mine, but I need you to put it in your computer because mine doesn't have an extra HDD slot.' I allow him remote access to this harddrive, since it is his after all. Well, he starts putting music on it, that he downloaded from the internet. Is it a crime if I listen to the music? It's not my HDD, and he's not putting the music on that HDD for me to listen to. Am I an Accessory? To avoid being prosecuted should he restrict access to the HDD via password or something?

Most of the copyright laws are/were made for a 20th century world, with the internet as a non existant entity. This very debate about how they should be redefined is going on all over the world, most particularly up in canada. Check out this website, being sued on a copyright infringement basis. They are based in canada, and are fighting the case. It's somewhat interesting, although it is under Canada's laws. lol www.isohunt.com

The biggest weight in these cases tends to be precedence, and severity(like, number of music songs downloaded compared to other people in other cases- and if they were all downloaded on the one person's Laptop and KC didn't own that laptop, then you could even try to force the prosecution to prove that KC used any of those songs in his DJ buisness, otherwise he could deny ever using the songs or removing them from his friend's laptop. He'd be putting all the blame on the friend, but the friend was already prosecuted and settled, right? so that friend is kind of safe already.)