This is actually an incredibly interesting (and cunning) assertion. I hope she takes it all the way, and doesn't accept a settlement from the defendants. Having some case law on this matter would be, at the very least, entertaining. It seems the judge would have to rule either that porn is "useful art", or that it cannot be copyrighted. One little copyright troll may just have inadvertently kicked the proverbial hornets' nest.
tl;dr; Argument of the defendant is based on:<p>“Article 1, Section 8, Clause 8 of the United States Constitution, known as the Copyright Clause, empowers the United States Congress: ‘To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries,” the lawsuit details, adding:<p>“Early Circuit law in California held that obscene works did not promote the progress of science and the useful arts, and thus cannot be protected by copyright.”
This is pretty interesting to me as I used to work at an adult media company a couple of years ago.<p>Amazingly, it was one of the best jobs I've ever had. Although the CEO started getting obsessed about 'protecting their copyright'.<p>It had gotten to a point where they hired a full-time lawyer that spent all his time essentially black-mailing customers much like the lady in this article. They would ask for a settlement upfront of several thousand dollars. Most people paid because they didn't want their name associated with that type of lawsuit and were afraid of the backlash they would receive if their friends or family found out.<p>This, among other things led to me leaving that company.
The Internet needs more of this, that people don't just defend against the copyright lobby, but strike deep into their home territory. Put the copyright lobby on the defensive.<p>Idea for a startup: a litigation funder against copyright trolls. A copyright troll might say: we can make this case go away if you give us 'y', at which point a litigation funder steps in and says we will make it go away for 'z', where z<y. Basically the business case revolves around diverting settlement funds away from the copyright trolls, and giving the victims some benefit in the form of a discount. The trolls would have to fight back by bringing stronger cases or by competing on price and reducing the settlements demanded, in an effort to make the litigation funder uneconomic. It would be even more profitable if lawmakers could be lobbied to force losing copyright trolls to cover the cost of both sides of the litigation.<p>A sideline for the litigation funder could be funding the aggressive defence of copyrights on free software in return for a cut of the damages. Part of the trick would be to chose targets that free software authors might be pleased to take down: such as aggressive movie studios.
From a legal layman's perspective, this should be wrong. For simplicity, let's consider a work of porn that has absolutely no "artistic value" whatsoever (judging this will not be objective, but let us assume we can do it). I unequivocally believe that <i>you should be able to copyright this work</i>, because it's your creation.<p>The main point here is not whether a work has artistic value but if it has <i>any</i> value at all (if not, nobody cares anyway). You should not be able to say: "You work is not artistic so I'm gonna copy it and torrent it".
I'm not sure if she's saying "you can't copyright porn" exactly. She's saying that particular movie they accused her of downloading is obscene, and you can't copyright obscene materials.<p>porn != obscene, they have different definitions under law.
This almost looks like a win-win situation. If they win people will be granted the right to freely share porn - which might have a downside[1].
If they lose that would certify porn to <i>promote the progress of science and the useful arts</i> which is both fun and liberating for consumers :)<p>[1]less porn productions?
Although the Constitution says the stipulation of copyright is 'to promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts,' it does not say that everything copyrighted must further that aim. Seems to me in general it just suggests that by giving people control of their intellectual creations, science and art will benefit.