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RIAA Doesn't Like Independent Experts
Posted by
ScuttleMonkey
on Mon Sep 04, 2006 05:48 AM
from the pirates-are-everywhere dept.
from the pirates-are-everywhere dept.
Krishna Dagli writes to tell us Ars Technica is looking at the latest in the comedy of errors that is the RIAA's crusade against supposed pirates. From the article: "As one might expect, Arellanes isn't too keen on the idea of sending her hard drive (PDF) to an RIAA star chamber for examination. Citing the RIAA's numerous missteps in its ill-conceived crusade against music fans, she requests that the court require a "neutral computer forensics expert and a protocol protective of non-relevant and privileged information" be used to conduct the examination."
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How much longer can this go on? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
That should obviously be court costs for the winner.
Re:How much longer can this go on? (Score:5, Funny)
Parent
Re:How much longer can this go on? (Score:4, Funny)
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
How about, "I got sued by the RIAA and all I have left is this lousy t-shirt."
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Re:How much longer can this go on? (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent
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On the case itself, wouldn't the best course of action be to make a few exact copies of that harddrive, just in case the original craps out if nothing else and also so the data can't be slightly altered by the "expert" witnesses.
Re:How much longer can this go on? (Score:5, Insightful)
The RIAA want their expert so they can grossly invade the privacy of the user (an issue which an obviously biased judge seems to forget when looking at personal, rather than business use) so other information can be used to force the issue in their favour.
Deleted embarassing photos or private letters or even childrens photos (and nobody wants the pervert asshats at the RIAA pawing over the photos of your friends and family), no, you destroyed incriminating evidence.
They obviously want to go far beyond what they are entitled to, like a bunch of perverted freaks. Deny everything, admit to nothing, make them prove anything.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
RIAA: We're suing you.
Me: On what grounds?
RIAA: For the contents of your harddrive!
Me: But you don't know what's on my harddrive.
RIAA: No, but once you give it to us, we'
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
A private citizen or a corporation can use/introduce evidence gathered during the commission of a crime, while a law enforcement agent or agency cannot. Thus if they have gotten any evidence from someone's ISP they can use it.
At the same time, if your government (local, state, or federal) or your ISP promises you safety from search and seizure of logs, and then gives them to them anyway, arguably you cou
Re:How much longer can this go on? (Score:5, Funny)
RIAA bets 1 bogus charge
Defendant raises 1 "let me see your evidence"
RIAA sees "let me see your evidence" and raises 1 "give me your hard drive"
Defendant raises 1 countersuit
RIAA folds.
Parent
RIAA paying when they drop or lose a case (Score:3, Informative)
It seems that every other week I am reading about another flaw in the RIAA's legal cases. Now it seems that anybody who wants to fight and starts getting close to winning has the RIAA cancel the case. Will there come a time when enough people (or their lawyers) get educated as to the ways to win/stop the cases that the RIAA will start using different means of oppression? Am I right in thinking that in the US, the RIAA does not have to pay the court costs for the loser if they withdraw the charges?
In gene
How can you allow such treatment? (Score:4, Interesting)
With all the recent actions of NSA, RIAA, MPAA, it seems like you hardly care about things like:
-freedom
-what is not explicitly banned should be allowed
-all citizens should be considered innocent unless explicitly proven otherwise, within US agencies, it seems the assumption is the other way around
Perhaps your life is still very bearable with those restrictions, but I would firmly rebel against such treatment...
I can't provide you a withsimple solution, but it seems nothing is being done to counteract the wrong-doings of your government, it can only deteriorate form that point
I don't know how many people have changed their minds recently, but I don't want to go to USA anymore.
Re:How can you allow such treatment? (Score:4, Interesting)
Parent
Re:How can you allow such treatment? (Score:5, Insightful)
If the US courts still work anything like the UK courts on which they were modelled, decisions in one court can set precedents. If enough people claim "fair use" and win, the scope of fair use will be widened. I guess the RIAA would sooner drop a case than continue prosecuting it and risk further expanding fair use. In the best case, a jury could even decide that P2P filesharing constitutes fair use!
Also, there are two things very wrong with the US legal system. One is that lawyers are allowed to demand payment before a verdict is agreed upon by all parties. And two is that even if you win a case, you have to pay your own costs. These two make it possible to bankrupt someone in the courts before a verdict is delivered. In a truly fair legal system, the lawyers would only be paid after all appeals were exhausted and both sides' costs would be borne by the losing party.
Parent
Re:How can you allow such treatment? (Score:4, Interesting)
It sounds nice, but if you don't sort of implicitly assume that all cases are resolved in a just manner. Well... Suppose you have $citizen who wants to sue $EvilCorp for being evil. The citizen does so. The citizen loses. The citizen has to pay EvilCorp's lawyers millions. That's a really good way to discourage suing EvilCorp. (Or consider the other way around. $EvilCorp sues $citizen because it's evil. They win. To add insult to injury, the citizen now also loses millions paying for the lawyers.)
That's the three-second Slashdot version, admittedly, but loser-pays is not all peaches and cream and pretty fluffy bunnies. Here's some random Internet paper that looks to present a few of the issues:
-- MARC I. GROSS LOSER-PAYS -- OR WHOSE "FAULT" IS IT ANYWAY: A RESPONSE TO HENSLER-ROWE'S "BEYOND 'IT JUST AIN'T WORTH IT'" [duke.edu]Parent
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Actually, they've decided they prefer power to either.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:How can you allow such treatment? (Score:5, Insightful)
Holding people without charge for years, shooting unarmed civilians or searching people for having beards or being Asian is fine, of course, and a necessary response to terrorism.
I'd like to say that such people can be safely ignored as the sad lunatics that they are. But, sadly, they are becoming more of a political force now than they have been for years.
Phil
Parent
Re:How can you allow such treatment? (Score:4, Informative)
28 days is the current limit, although the government wanted 90 days.
Replace Asian with Irish and that was the case for a *long* time. Travelling in possession of an Irish Accent was a defacto offence throughout the 70s and 80s, which is why the treatment meted out at airports these days is making me absolutely furious, having had enough friends and relatives who were on the receiving end of this.
Parent
Re:How can you allow such treatment? (Score:4, Insightful)
You are of course refering to the Daily Mail?
Parent
Re:How can you allow such treatment? (Score:5, Insightful)
How are gutting judicial oversight, running up the national deficit, invading countries without just cause and removing civil liberties like privacy and free speech coming from the bottom-up?
I see plenty of people apologising for Bush after he announces each new violation of civil liberties or due process, but very few people campaigning to have cameras in every house and strip-searches every time you enter a building before he announces the ideas.
"Many of the defiencies in the legal system (mostly that it seems Justice is bought, and that courts seem to care more about protocol than right or wrong anymore) stem from English Common Law and works it's way up from there - sort of like how Microsoft's security problems continually stem from the same sources. Until we address more than the symptoms, the problem continue to happen."
Hmmm. Our democracy has problems, true, but it's lasted for several hundred years longer than yours so far. You've now got fewer civil liberties than us, your country's younger, and you're already vastly more institutionally corrupt than we are.
<FLAMEBAIT>
I'd say your problems stem fro mthe things you did differently, not the things you did the same... >:-)
</FLAMEBAIT>
Reversing the 1886 decision to give corporations most of the same rights as people would be a good start.
"But you should specify where in the EU you are from. I recently hosted an Englishman at my place, and he says that while England is a police state"
Hyperbole, although it's slowly tending in the same direction as the USA. It's common knowledge in the UK that whatever the US does, five years later the UK is at least seriously debating.
"and none of the younger generation want to live there any longer,"
Hyperbole. If the younger generation wanted to leave we all could. People grumble and worry about the government, but not nearly as much as in the USA. TBH, polls indicate we worry more about the US government than our own, as they're much more of a threat to world peace.
"he's for more draconian reforms since "if you have nothing to hide, what do you have to worry about?" Funny that, since he's moving out of England soon."
Where's he moving to? Highly amusing if it's the USA.
Referring you to a quote by Robert Anton Wilson (IIRC): "It only takes 30 years for a liberal to turn into a conservative, without changing a single idea".
Also, remember the usual caveats about generalising from a single data-point.
Parent
Sigh. Not this shit again (Score:5, Insightful)
1) If you get your news on the situation from
2) Please take the time to enlighten yourself about the US legal system (difference between criminal and civil) before spouting off about it.
3) Get off your fucking high horse. Are there disturbing things happening in the US? Yes. Are there in your part of the world too? You betcha. I don't know what country you are from and really, it doesn't matter. Wherever it is, I guarantee there's some scary big brother stuff that some people are pushing. Hell, some of it you may already have and are just used to it, you might even think it's normal whereas it'd scare me. Either way this "I'm scared to go to the US," is an attitude that screams ignorance.
Seriously it is really tiresome seeing Europeans with this high and mighty "We are so free over here and the US has become a horrible dictatorship," attitude. It's as bad as Americans that see the French as weak, cheese eating surrender monkeys.
I know it's trendy to hate on the US. It's even trendy for many over here. But if you are going to do it, at least be intelligent about it.
Parent
Re:Sigh. Not this shit again (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm not one of the "US-hater" crowd, but I think I should at least point out why so many people take America's politics so seriously when, to a US citizen, it probably seems like none of their business.
Basically, this all comes back to us. If the RIAA/PATRIOT act/name your favourite anti-American act seemingly supported by the federal goverment here prevail in the US, international pressure appears for our countries to adopt similar ("compatible") measures. I get very much up in arms about these things happening on my doorstep (I live in the UK, and we have a lot of equivalent situations, as you point out), but all the while, in order to be conscientious, I have to keep an eye on the goings-on in the US, and I feel the right to speak on them, even though it is not my government, because the decision made will come back to me.
Of course, the extreme incarnation of this nonsense is people gaining a large resentment of the US, which on the whole it does not deserve. The US is a country whose base principles are those of freedom, and even if it didn't affect the rest of us, the perversion of these principles would be a tragedy to behold for those of us with "more traditional" societal backgrounds.
But, yeah, don't feed the trolls and so on.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
You reap what you sow.
The image your government projects is that of trying to spread freedom and democracy around the world, when they actually just work in the interests of the USA. And many Americans are also under the belief that the USA is the place with the most freedom in the world. These things wouldn't be so bad if it wasn't for the fact that m
Re:Sigh. Not this shit again (Score:4, Insightful)
Welcome to the great empire of the USA.
Parent
supporting democracy (Score:3, Informative)
hear hear. The US has been spreading democracy since WWII (before, too, just not as well marketed). We've had some great successes! I mean, just think of the democratic governments we've replaced with dictators in such culturally diverse locations as the Philippines, Nicaragua, San Salvador...
You left out Chile, where under Gen Pinochet thousands were killed and tens of thousands simply "disappeared". And East Timor [wikipedia.org] where after Indonesia invaded with the support of the US 200,000 were murdered. That
Re:Sigh. Not this shit again (Score:5, Insightful)
However:
"3) Get off your fucking high horse. Are there disturbing things happening in the US? Yes. Are there in your part of the world too? You betcha. I don't know what country you are from and really, it doesn't matter. Wherever it is, I guarantee there's some scary big brother stuff that some people are pushing."
There are several things wrong with this position:
1. You don't know what country your reader is in, and yet you're absolutely sure there are equivalent problems going on. This is clearly bullshit, since you don't know exactly what's going on in every other country on earth. Also, anyone from (for example), Sweden could then bitch about the USA all they liked.
It also speaks volumes about why the US administration is allowed to get away with it. You blithely assume the US is no worse than everyone else, so by extension whatever the US government does is "normal" across the world. It is not. The USA is the current thought-leader (and worse, arm-twister) pushing this kind of gutting of democracy and abuse of power across the world.
Tony Blair would be having wet dreams about the kind of police state he could construct, were it not for the US destabilising whole regions of the globe, upping the frequency of terrorism and cultivating the atmosphere of fear TB needs to get his (and Bush's) agenda across.
2. You appear to not understand the difference between a qualitative and a quantitative difference. Do many/most other countries have problems with lack of education/authoritarian governments/new technology eroding civil liberties/corrupt representatives/corporate interference in politics? Yes.
Does any other country on the face of the planet have as many problems (and quite as publically) as the USA has for the last decade or so? No.
3. You reap what you sow. The rest of the world has spent over a century listening to the USA's claims to be the leader of the free world, shining example of democracy and free-market capitalism, and epitome of open-minded tolerance. Although never as white as you painted it, the USA was generally viewed as arrogant, but essentially the "good guy". Now your freedoms are violated and removed, your democracy is tainted and corrupt and your political and legal processes are often an open market for corporations to purchase the results they want.
And if this wasn't a come-down enough, at the same time your administration is crowing even louder than ever about your "Freedom" and "Democracy" (which seem to be different to "freedom" and "democracy", since both of those are clearly being eroded right before everyone's eyes).
"Hell, some of it you may already have and are just used to it, you might even think it's normal whereas it'd scare me. Either way this "I'm scared to go to the US," is an attitude that screams ignorance."
Not if you're asian. Or wear a turban and sandals. Or a muslim. Or expect officials to have any kind of sense of humour. Or don't like instantly acquiescing to authority without explanation. Or vocally disapprove of the administration's policies. Or have a name that sounds like a known alias of a terrorist. Or...
Sure, if you're a middle-class republican white guy you're laughing. Any different and there's a small (but significant) chance you could end up in legal trouble. And given the world no longer trusts the US legal system, that's a frightening possibility.
Would I still visit the USA? Yes, but I'd be careful while I was there.
Would I blame anyone who fitted any of the above descriptions from being wary of doing so? No.
Parent
Re:Sigh. Not this shit again (Score:4, Insightful)
Amen. Mod points won't do you any more good at this point, so I'll vocalize. I am a middle-class (formerly) Republican white guy. And I'm not laughing.
Things in the US have progressed to the point where our dominant pacifist religion -- not just individual groups of followers, but the very religion itself in the general sense -- is somehow being twisted to create millions of unthinking followers and supporters of our imperial escapades. I think I saw a shirt the other day pointing out this hypocrisy: "Who Would Jesus Torture?"
Friends ask me why I am down on the US and how can I even consider expatriation... They say, "You are a small business owner, with a beautiful wife, and a high standard of living. What more could you want?"
Well, as a software developer, patent law keeps me up at night. I'm terrified that by innocently innovating and providing my customers with valuable software, especially software that can provide them with some useful insight into their businesses, that I may be unknowingly stepping into a minefield and risking my future. Abuses of the kind in TFA are pertinent examples of what can happen when you accidentally surface on a large corporation's radar these days.
My wife is Chinese, and I get to see all the prejudices, stupidity, and xenophobia first-hand. The state of immigration these days is one of "guilty until proven innocent, and even then don't expect humane treatment just because you're innocent." Arcane laws cost us up to two weeks out of the year, getting unnecessary fingerprints and updated biometric tokens. She is forced to carry around a government-issued ID with who-knows-what kind of data encoded into a 3cm-wide (read: frickin' HUGE) magneto-optical strip, 2d barcodes, and holograms that cover it on both sides.
What more could I want? Liberty. Justice. Freedom. The benefit of the doubt. Rationality. Take your pick.
And since I'd like not to be harassed when the day finally comes to leave, I'm posting anonymously. Who knows what will happen here while I prepare? In many oppressive regimes, men have spent years in preparation to leave, only to be arrested and executed on the night of their departure. I think learning from history does not make you paranoid, especially given its tendency to repeat itself.
Parent
Re:Sigh. Not this shit again (Score:5, Informative)
When my wife (who was a resident of the U.S.) decided to give birth to our daughter in a U.S. clinic, I applied for a visa so I could attend the birth of my first child. Everything was set for the trip, and even though I worked in Austria at that time, had a lot of cash on my account, I was not issues a visa out of concerns that I might not leave the U.S. Oh, btw. I am a Croatian citizen.
Quite a few Americans I talked to were comparing their democracy to the Romans or the Greek. There is one similarity they quite likely missed: The Greek and Roman treated non-citizens barbaric. Regardless of what you think, your gvt. treats non-US-citizens like shit
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Re: (Score:2)
Re:How can you allow such treatment? (Score:4, Informative)
Parent
Re:How can you allow such treatment? (Score:5, Insightful)
When the corporations in question can quite brazenly buy politicians and get laws rushed through Congress specifically to make these charges possible, that's quite enough INDIRECT power to give me the shits.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Yes, these corps have no real power. [wikipedia.org] It is indirect, but the fact that congress pushed the DMCA and other bills is starting to show who congress represents.
It is time for Americans to push Joel hefley's ideas concerning how to stop this slide towards corruption and fasicism.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
I would like to be as optimistic about Europe. But I'm not...
In most EU countries the EUCD (=local DMCA) has just been voted. Despite the bad example DMCA set, the powerful media industry managed to make the law voted nearly everywhere (ah yeah.. Denmark is a bit of an exception). It's just been voted, so it will take a while before you have the first cases... but there will be.
And regarding the involvement of the NSA. I'm sure similar practices are used by security services in Europe. You just don't know
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And searching a hard drive proves what? (Score:5, Interesting)
I imagine that they will change their tactics. More deals to deliver bundled music subscription services with internet access, for example. Or perhaps we'll see something like myspace clean up in the next few years. Really, how long does it take to steal market share online?
Re:And searching a hard drive proves what? (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent
Re:And searching a hard drive proves what? (Score:5, Informative)
Like let's say you are renting a place from me. I claim you've done damage and thus owe me money, you claim you don't. We can't settle it so I sue you for the cash. We then argue it in civil court. So the one that wins will be whoever provides more convincing proof. Doesn't have to be beyond a reasonable doubt, I just have to argue a bit more convincingly than you and I can win, at least a partial judgement.
Also, there's no real burden for filing a civil suit. You just go to the courthouse and do it. I don't have to present evidence or anything, I just file a suit against you and you have to respond. So that's how the RIAA gets these cases to trial.
Now in terms of proof, well that's why they drop any case that people actually start fighting. They don't have any good proof. However you don't have to have good evidence to file a case, just to win it.
The problem arises out of the fact that it's unbalanced. Since it's not the government going after you, there's no right to a lawyer for civil court. In person to person cases, it rarely matters, it's usually just small claims court and lawyers don't enter the picture. That's what you see on things like Judge Judy and such, that's small claims court. Because of the statutory amounts involved with copyright violations, it's not small claims. So you have one side with resources and lawyers, the other just being some person with no special assets.
Thus it's no surprise most people settle. Responsible or not (civil court determines responsibility, not guilt) it's an expensive proposition, so people take the settlement offer. It's not cheap, but you'd pay that much in legal fees anyhow.
The good news is in at least one case that someone fought back, the judge awarded her legal fees, even though the RIAA dropped the complaint. However, you can't rely on that. It's up to the judge.
That's the whole reason this goes on is because it's all civil law. This is perhaps the best example I've yet seen for the need for tort reform. Our civil system was designed so that people had easy access for remedies in disputes. Unfortunately it's being abused by those with resources to bully people to doing what they want.
So if you want a chance to put a stop to this one of the biggest things you can do, other than refusing to buy RIAA music and encouraging others to do the same (they can blame it on copyright infringement if they want, doesn't matter if their member labes get no money, they go out of business) is to encourage your representatives to get behind tort reform, and to support any that do. When people hear tort reform they think about medical malpractice lawsuits. While that's certainly an issue these shotgun lawsuits are another part of it.
It is actually something that we can get changed. People on
Parent
Re:And searching a hard drive proves what? (Score:5, Insightful)
Coercion is the practice of compelling a person to involuntarily behave in a certain way (whether through action or inaction) by use of threats, intimidation or some other form of pressure or force.
So when the RIAA comes to you and say: Sign this paper or I'll sue you (ie, I'll drown you under legal fees you can't afford), why is this not coercion? How is all this legal?
Parent
Re:And searching a hard drive proves what? (Score:5, Insightful)
Next time, stay awake in Civics class.
Parent
Privileged communication (Score:5, Interesting)
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
recipe for success? (Score:5, Insightful)
Step 2. Leverage my ability to never die and to farm the responsibilities for my actions out to replaceable 'employees'
Step 3. Become the dominant cultural organisation to such an overwhelming extent that the majority of humans don't even consider the idea that my powers are illegitimate.
Step 4. profit!!! (no, really)
Misleading Article (Score:4, Informative)
The way expert witnesses work is that each side always gets to have their own expert witness examine the facts of the case. One expert witness for the plaintiff and another for the defendant. And not surprisingly, the plaintiff pays for and chooses their expert witness while the defendant does the same. Then in court each expert witness presents their findings.
You don't have a situation where the RIAA pays for and has to use only the defendant's choosing in an expert witness. That's because the defendant could just pick an expert which will say what the defendant wants.
All rules of evidence allow an expert witness of the own parties choosing. If there is confidential information then what the Judge will do is just issue a protective order noting that information cannot be used in the suit or released.
is Ars exempt from journalism ethics? (Score:3, Insightful)
Setting aside my personal opinions about the RIAA's actions (and yours), I find this one line to show an incredible amount of bias. But wait; there's more!
"That case aside, the RIAA's history doesn't inspire much confidence in its ability to objectively examine what could be a piece of crucial evidence."
"Neither plaintiffs or defendants are objective parties in a legal dispute."
"When one of the parties has a history of bullying witnesses into perjury and is seemingly incapable of admitting they were wrong and clearing the names of those they wrongfully accused, it becomes even more crucial." Wow, that is an incredible accusation; bullying witnesses into perjury! How many times has this happened? What did they say to perjure themselves? Were they bullied into lying in the RIAA's favour or in their own favour? If they lied in their own favour, why would the RIAA bully them into doing this? If they lied to protect themselves, then why was telling the truth a less attractive option?
Much more insight from Ars into this accusation would be very interesting.
Well Earned Criticism. (Score:4, Informative)
bullying witnesses into perjury! How many times has this happened? What did they say to perjure themselves?
It only has to happen once to put the stink on your organization. If you follow the links you find RIAA representatives threatening a teen to make her lie in court. If you follow the other link where the RIAA tried to bully their media partners into ignoring due process, you find another outrageous violation. When you look at the big picture you see an organization that has bought a lot of crappy laws and then abused them beyond their limits so that they can threaten a lot of innocent people with ruin. The whole thing reeks of abuse.
The US Constitution established copyright to promote the usefull arts. What the RIAA is doing has little to do with that.
Parent
Wrong PDF file; here are the correct links (Score:3, Informative)