Sunday, January 22, 2006

free culture: catalogs

Continuing my review / summary of Lessigs book

Ch 3: Catalogs

In 2002 Jesse Jordan, a young student, modified a search engine on a network at a technology research institute in New York. This was the sort of thing he was supposed to be doing as a technology student.

The search engine accessed the public folders of the students at the institute. It so happened that these folders contained many music files.

The RIAA (Recording Industry) sued Jesse Jordan for wilfully violating copyright law for the amount of $150,000 per infringement. There were 100 infringements so the RIAA demanded that Jesse pay them $15 million dollars.

In the end this was settled by Jesse paying his life savings of $12,000.

He never admitted any wrong doing but couldn't afford to defend himself, which would cost up to $250,000.

Interview with Jesse Jordan here.

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