Judge ‘Not Persuaded’ She Erred on AHRA Opinion for Automakers
Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson “is not persuaded” she erred in February's ruling that CD-copying hard drives shipped in Chrysler, Ford and General Motors infotainment systems fall outside the scope of the Audio Home Recording Act (AHRA) (see 1602220055). Her Monday…
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order (in Pacer) in U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia denied an Alliance of Artists and Recording Companies (AARC) motion that she reconsider her February ruling (see 1605180048). AARC is “hard-pressed” to explain how the AHRA’s “murky legislative history upon which it relies can support the conclusion” that a digital musical recording “could be either analog or digital,” Jackson said. AARC’s “contention that Congress somehow nevertheless meant that a ‘digital musical recording’ could be analog or digital flies in the face of the plain text of the statute, and the AARC offers no support for its implicit suggestion that a statute should not be interpreted to mean what it says,” she said. The jurist agreed with AARC’s contention that her ruling “does not preclude the possibility that a hard drive partition could constitute a DACR under the statute,” she said of a digital audio copied recording.