TechMiso

In what has got to be one of the wackiest technology related stories I have read in quite some time, Wired’s Threat Level is reporting that kids across the United States are getting high on the internet thanks to so-called ecstasy-inducing MP3 files:

Kids around the country are getting high on the internet, thanks to MP3s that induce a state of ecstasy. And it could be a gateway drug leading teens to real-world narcotics.

At least, that’s what Oklahoma News 9 is reporting about a phenomenon called “i-dosing,” which involves finding an online dealer who can hook you up with “digital drugs” that get you high through your headphones.

Oddly enough, an Oklahoma school is taking this whack-ass threat seriously. They ended up sending out letters to parents to warn of this supposed new “drug” making its rounds on the internets. A side effect of this is the school has now banned iPods on school grounds to hopefully prevent students from becoming “cyber-drug” fiends. Seriously.

For the life of me I can not believe this is serious. No matter how much these digital drug dealers try, I can not fathom how this would even work to create some crack-like state of ecstasy. This whole idea is ridiculous.

Now I’ve listened to some MP3 music which made me want throw my laptop out of a fourth story window because the music was absolutely horrifyingly bad. I’ve listened to other highly intense music which made me feel all tingly inside.

But never have I listened to an MP3 which made me high, as if I had just gotten baked off some of the good stuff. Never. Ever.

The article is worth a read, if for no other reason than the amusement factor. Maybe it was meant to be taken in stride, maybe it is completely serious. Whatever the case, it sounds like there are some morons out there “educating” our students about things that do not yet exist.

The lesson in all this: keep your kids away from the Oklahoma Mustang Public School district because they will surely not be receiving a quality education from idiotic teachers like those who believe one can get high off an MP3 file.

In a move that is surely upsetting the Recording Industry Association of America, Judge Nancy Gertner followed in the footsteps of a previous verdict, slashing a $675,000 verdict by a factor of 10, stating over half-million dollars in damages for merely file-sharing a few MP3 files is unconstitutionally excessive.

“Weighing all of these considerations, I conclude that the jury’s award of $675,000 in statutory damages for Tenenbaum’s infringement of thirty copyrighted works is unconstitutionally excessive,” she wrote. “This award is far greater than necessary to serve the government’s legitimate interests in compensating copyright owners and deterring infringement. In fact, it bears no meaningful relationship to these objectives. To borrow Chief Judge Michael J. Davis’ characterization of a smaller statutory damages award in an analogous file-sharing case, the award here is simply ‘unprecedented and oppressive.’”

This is the second time a damages award in a P2P file-sharing victory has been minimized by a Judge. Previously, a Minnesota jury awarded the RIAA $1.9 million but Judge Michael Davis reduced the damages to $2250 per song.

It is good to see these trials starting to backfire against the RIAA. They came in with an agenda to make examples of a few people, hoping for huge verdicts which would scare people from using P2P networks to share music. Unfortunately for the RIAA, as we all are quite well aware of, this has not happened – more music is being shared today than ever, while the recording industry continues to generate record-breaking revenue.

File-sharing is hardly hurting the bottom lines of the companies the RIAA represents. In fact, many would argue quite the opposite – that file-sharing is aiding the industry in generating more revenue by allowing people to be exposed to music they otherwise would never have previously considered purchasing. Try before you buy, if you will.

Although the Tenenbaum case was mostly a joke, it is quite nice to see a judge apply some common sense to these verdicts. The amount of damages written in to copyright law is there as a deterrent for people who attempt to profit off illegally selling music. The idea of file-sharing was not a glimmer in anyones eyes and was never taken in to account when the law was written. Is it time for Congress to revisit this clause and update it so it takes modern technology in to account?

In a pleasant surprised, federal Judge Louis Stanton ruled in favor of Google in the landmark $1 billion copyright infringement lawsuit Viacom had brought against the company.

The judge granted Google’s motion for summary judgment, saying that the company was shielded from Viacom’s copyright claims by “safe harbor” provisions of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. That law generally protects user-generated sites from liability for copyrighted material uploaded by users as long as the operator of the site takes down the material when notified by its rightful owner that it was uploaded without permission.

The ruling dismisses the 3 year old case, awarding summary judgement to Google. In his ruling, Judge Stanton stated the YouTube owner performed the required actions Congress had intended when enacting the DMCA. The “safe harbor” provisions were included in the law specifically for situations like this.

TechDirt has one of the more comprehensive write-ups about the ruling, so if you are itching for more details then head on over to their coverage. Bottom line: this is good news and a huge victory for fair use and the DMCA safe harbor provisions. I do not feel for Viacom whatsoever and believe they were doomed from the start, deserving to lose this lawsuit.