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That is an interesting case, but has anything new happened since 2004?

Kaleidescape vs DVD CCA Mostly deals with Contract law, although the Fair use is pulled into it because of the nature of the product being made. Kaleidescape was a company that was creating a home server system were by users could copy DVD’s to it, and play without access to the original. This brought into question if these copies broke the Millennium copy right act or if they fell under fair use of the act. The suit was actually over that they broke contract in allowing a DVD to be played without the original with part of their contract not allowing for this. In their defense fair use was brought up, the system was meant to be a backup of their DVD’s as an insurance method not as a way to make illegal copies. The Judges determined that the product was not made for the coping of DVD’s mostly because of the availability of other means to do so.  The case was not a breakthrough for Fair Use, although it did demonstrate that such systems can be legal under the act, and do not break copyright. The case ended with Kaleidescape found in violation of the contract, but not in violation of any copyright law.

In Anderson Vs. Atlantic Recording Corporation, Andersen was counter suing for malicious prosecution of her in Atlantic vs Andersen. She said that she had been harassed by the different companies endlessly. In the initial case she was compensated by $107,951 to settle all the legal fees that she had to pay in the original case. She claimed that this wasn't enough and then went on to file the malicious prosecution. Unfortunately for her, she was dismissed in her claim for wrongful initiation of civil process, dismissed her claims for injunctive relief, denied her motion for Class Certification, and denied her request for leave to file a Fifth Amended Complaint. It looks like her initial case is the only compensation that she will be getting. One of the main arguments against her was that the RIAA had sufficient reason to prosecute her. Her internet was being used to illegally share music files. This led the companies to, with sufficient reason, search her with the different means that they did. I personally don't feel that they were justified to do all of the things that they did. I don't believe that she got sufficient compensation for what RIAA did to her, But, we all know that personal opinion doesn't matter in this situation. 

As the textbook states, Google began a project in 2004 to catalog collections of books to allow internet users access to an online library via Google search engine. In 2005, the Association of American Publishers filed suit against google for copyright infringement. Google was making digital copie of the books. The problem in the situation is that Google would be making money from individuals works without properly comensating the authors. The book goes no further in explaining the facts of the case, which would make perfect sense considering the sut did not reach agreement until 2012. So finally after seven years of struggle between the two companies the lawsuit has ended. They came to a settlement agreeing that Google would acquire permission from the publishers whether or not they would like their books removed from the Google library project. If they did not remove their books, then they recieved a digital copy of their books in which they could use. In the outcome of this case between AAP and Google, both recieved a worthy settlement. The innovation of Google Books now allows users access to digital copies of books and it increases the availability of books to individuals with an excitement for reading. Google is continuing to provide content innovations while respecting the rights of individuals.

Supreme Court has ruled in favor of the unlocking of cell phones. Both AT&T and T-Mobile took the case to the Supreme Court yet mostly all phone companies have entered similar suits and will provide software to unlock phones after contract is up. The case was about unfair business practices that they were holding locking down phones to the service plans and not letting the consumer change plans. AT&T was forced to allow IPhones to be able to be connected to any service provider. Other plaintive also called anti-trust suit to allow for the unlocking of phones. The lawsuit used the Digital Millennium Copyright Act to convince the judges that this was unlawful and they should have to provide the ability to go to any provider. Basically the phone companies now are required to let consumers unlock their phones after they complete the contract they have with the original companies. Now because of this the phone companies have incentives in place for people to come back and continue the use of the company. For instance one company will lower monthly payment rates each month by certain amounts, the longer you stay the cheaper it is.

Napster was essentially a program that shared files, mostly for music. What is does, is that you can download a song onto your computer in a file using the program and someone else looking for that song can find it in your file and download it. The downloading and connecting to other people's files could only work if you were apart of the program. Napster was known as a peer-to-peer architecture, but utilized it illegally. They eventually ran into difficulties with copyright infringement, which caused the file-sharing program many problems. After just a few months in 1999, the program was sued for $100 million dollars in damages, but they protested that they had no liability because the program was just providing a "directory service" and they weren't copying files.

By 2001, Napster was forced to shut down and later went bankrupt since it was gone. Years later, Napster had turned into an online music store. Soon later after that, in 2011, Napster joined Rhapsody, which was another online music store where you pay monthly fees to listen to music.

According to the text, Capitol Records, Inc. v. Thomas-Rasset was the first RIAA suit to go to trial. Thomas was accused of sharing 24 songs over Kazaa. The record label won the trial, and was awarded $220,000 in damages. However, Rasset was given a second trial when the jury instructions in the first were found to be in error. She lost that trial as well, and was told to pay nearly $2 million. However, the damages were reduced to $54,000. The record label was unhappy with the reduction, so a third trial was held to determine damages. Rasset was told to pay $1.5 million, and the amount was again reduced to $54,000. The record label was miffed, and won an appeal that raised its reward back to $220,000. The case goes to show that record labels are well-equipped to fight piracy, and that they are not afraid of asking for outlandish sums in damages. The fact that the case was tried four times suggests that the record label wanted to deter future piracy by making an example of Thomas-Rasset.

Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capitol_Records,_Inc._v._Thomas-Rasset

In October 2001, the RIAA sued the makers of Grokster and two other companies for damages of 150,000 per infringement.  In the reading it states that the case was almost identical to the Sony and Napster case.  It was also estimated that about 90% of the shared files were downloaded illegally.  In April 2003, judge, Stephen Wilson ruled in the favor of Grokster.  The decision was eventually appealed on August 2003. On August 17th, 2004 the Ninth Circuit court took the case. They also ruled in the favor of Grokster.  Again the decision was appealed.  Later in December 2004, the Supreme Court took the case.  At the same time Mark Cuban announced that he would finance Groksters fight against the Supreme Court. The Supreme Court unanimously ruled in the favor of RIAA.  Grokster officially closed their site on November of 2005.