Fergie's Tech Blog

'Between the RIAA and a Hard Place'

A guest op-ed piece by Andrew Harden, via The Recording Industry vs. The People.

In the case of Elektra v. Barker, attorneys for the Recording Industry Association of America have made the argument that simply having a "Shared" folder on your computer can be considered grounds for infringement and, by extension, prosecution. These RIAA lawsuits have long been criticized, and the arguments which the RIAA uses to support them have been as well. But this particular point is, at best, a Slippery Slope.

The problem with this is that nearly every PC in use right now, running a modern operating system like, for example, Microsoft Windows XP, has a "Shared" folder on it. In fact, it might even have several. But you know who created these folders? Not the people using them, not some fiendish Internet pirates (sans eye patch and cool boat), but rather, Microsoft itself. This folder, most likely called "Shared Documents" and perhaps its counterparts "Shared Pictures" and "Shared Music" were created by Microsoft's Windows installer program. They were placed by default. Is there an option during the installation process to stop this? No. Is there a way to stop the installer? Well yes, but that would involve the reverse engineering of proprietary code, which might involve copyright violation by itself.

posted by Fergie @ 4/25/2006 10:36:00 AM