I used to be a lawyer, see. Jurors are supposed to keep their mouths shut during a trial and, in fact, until they are excused from the proceeding and are instructed they can blab about it.

I would assume that includes sending information on Twitter about a trial, too.

No, it’s not Twitter’s fault. However, it may get blamed…

I see your point, and actually agree, with your argument about Twitter. What tipped me over the edge and into writing this post was the comment, “…Twitter is just a tool.”

I do think the Xerox analogy actually plays much better in the Napster argument and in fact that is the argument I typically use.

I would like to take issue with one of your comments however. You said, to paraphrase, that Napster was bad because there wasn’t a significant number of people using it for legal purposes (ok, sorry, that was a quote, lol). So on its face you argument acknowledges that there were SOME people using it for legal purposes and therefore it HAD a legitimate use.

So if we extend this line of reason into other areas…

- if a significant number of people use guns for illegal purposes, we can make all guns illegal

- if enough criminals will just use a car to facilitate their get-away, we can finally outlaw cars!

- or maybe… since banks get robbed all the time, just outlaw banks and there will be no more bank robbery!

Or on the other hand, maybe we should continue to subscribe to Blackstone’s Formulation that “better that ten guilty persons escape than that one innocent suffer”

The underlying principle we have both ignored so far is personal accountability. Guns are not outlawed because guns don’t kill people, people do (btw, for anyone who thinks that just a trite little saying…apply your rule fairly! More people are killed with cars than guns every year! Think about it!), well, and then there is that Bill of Rights thing…

The point is, don’t punish the machine (or web service) because it’s users are bad, punish the users… Hey, isn’t that what they’re doing now…? Hhmmm…

Thanks again for stopping by and the comment! I Love a great debate!

Thom

As I recall, the main reason that Napster was shut down was that it’s primary use was to facilitate copyright infringement. There wasn’t a significant number of people using it for legal purposes.

Twitter, on the other hand, is not used primarily for illegal purposes. It has other uses in both design and practice that make it different from Napster.

Additionally, Napster wasn’t shut down for facilitating illegal transactions in general, but for facilitating copyright infringement specifically. That’s a significant difference.

Twitter is more analogous to the telephone in this case, or event a piece of poster board and a magic marker.

And I’m not even sure the use of Twitter by this juror should result in the verdict being overturned. OF course, IANAL, but from what I read, the juror posted the comments after the verdict. It’s more analogous to “bragging” about his jury duty in the bar with friends where anyone can overhear it. Absent some evidence that he went into deliberations with biases against the defendant, I’m not sure why there’s a problem here.

The Napster/copy machine argument is and interesting one, and it seems like the copy machines are a much closer analogy to Napster than Twitter is. As I recall in the 80s, there were actually copyright infringement suits brought against some libraries and Kinkos over just this sort of use. I believe they were settled, though. My memory of the era is a bit clouded by youth.

If Napster was jsut serving up 15 or 30 or 60 second snippets of music than they would likely have been protected under fair use. Copying a few pages out of a book isn’t a problem. Photocopying the entire thing is. Offering a song snippet isn’t a problem. Offering the entire album is.

Interesting post.