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Uh, that was about a very small bit of two songs that were very similar/identical. The notion that you can't just steal a large part a song and it'll be legal because it's not the full work is a pretty obvious one. Beyond that a ship-of-Theseus type ambiguity kicks in regarding to how much is needed to be taken for it to be thefth, as it does for most things that can be taken apart.

I guess it is worrying that the trial didn't decide if bits that small are protected or not before going on to decide if infringement happened, but I think this is mostly worrying for Katy Perry as it indicates that the hired lawyers are bad at their job.

>The other thing that really concerns me about this is how easily it could go wrong. Music, in particular, seems to be filled with legal landmines. Imagine hosting your own webpage for your band covering pop songs. Do you now have to fear federal prosecution?

I don't see anything in the law suggesting strict liability applies, therefore the state has to also show mens rea ("guilty mind"), i.e. the act was willful (or criminally negligent). Or am I missing something?

> Kim Dotcom is a great example for how much protection is already enjoyed by copyright holders.

That was downloads. Commercial download piracy did indeed already have a lot of serious legal penalties. Commercial streaming piracy did not.