CopyNight Houston Message

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Hi, there, all,
Here's a little announcement about the Houston copynight meeting. It will be
# Last Wednesday of each month, 7:00 pm (June 29)
# Stagshead Pub, 2128 Portsmouth (close to Richmond/Shepherd) (map)
http://www.copynight.org/locations.html#hou
I have a feeling we're going to have a lot to talk/bitch about on Wednesday. :)
Preliminary remarks, I have to say that the Grokster decision is one of the most bizarre Supreme Court decisions ever.
It seems to overrule Betamax and vacate two lower court decisions. That is practically unprecedented.
9 to 0 suggests that it didn't buy any of the reasoning at all.
Interesting amicus briefs were filed by world's foremost programmers claiming that the act of using p2p and distributed networks was not a conspiracy to infringe copyright but simply the best design for networks these days. I found this evidence particularly convincing among all the arguments.
I'm sure the decisions will have subtler reasoning about inducement, etc. But these are very subjective standards.
Please join me to bitch and complain about Grokster. Two days will give me more level-headed opinions.
Although our agenda will be more conversational and social this time around, I definitely want to have a debate scheduled for next month about copyright issues. More later
Robert Nagle
Look forward to seeing you Wednesday.