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FSF Reaches Out to RIAA Victims
Posted by
ScuttleMonkey
on Mon Nov 19, 2007 04:20 PM
from the armor-for-the-little-guy dept.
from the armor-for-the-little-guy dept.
NewYorkCountryLawyer writes "In what has been termed the ''RIAA's worst nightmare', the Free Software Foundation has announced that it is coming to the aid of the victims of RIAA lawsuits, by establishing an Expert Witness Defense Fund to assist defendants in RIAA cases. The purpose of the fund is 'to help provide computer expert witnesses to combat RIAA's ongoing lawsuits, and to defend against the RIAA's attempt to redefine copyright law.' The funds will be used to pay fees and/or expenses of technical expert witnesses, forensic examiners, and other technical consultants assisting individuals named as defendants in non-commercial, peer-to-peer file sharing cases brought by the RIAA, EMI, SONY BMG, Vivendi Universal, and Warner Bros. Records, and their affiliated companies, such as Interscope, Arista, UMG, Fonovisa, Motown, Atlantic, Priority, and others."
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News: RIAA Expert Witness Called "Borderline Incompetent" 170 comments
NewYorkCountryLawyer writes "Prof. Johan Pouwelse of Delft University — one of the world's foremost experts on the science of P2P file sharing and the very same Prof. Pouwelse who stopped the RIAA's Netherlands counterpart in its tracks back in 2005 — has submitted an expert witness report characterizing the work of the RIAA's expert, Dr. Doug Jacobson, as 'borderline incompetence.' The report (PDF), filed in UMG v. Lindor, pointed out, among other things, that the steps needed to be taken in a copyright infringement investigation were not taken, that Jacobson's work lacked 'in-depth analysis' and 'proper scientific scrutiny,' that Jacobson's reports were 'factually erroneous,' and that they were contradicted by his own deposition testimony. This is the first expert witness report of which we are aware since the Free Software Foundation announced that it would be coming to the aid of RIAA defendants."
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Too late (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Too late (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent
And what about? (Score:5, Interesting)
Do it as in Europe - losing side pays for everything, and they will stop pretty quick.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Hmm, that sounds great in theory. The problem comes when the better-represented party, rather than the party in the right, wins. Not that I disagree that an organisation pursuing frivolous lawsuits should foot the cost of those lawsuits when they're found wanting for whatever reason, but neither system is perfect.
On the other hand the only trial of multinational-vs-regular folks I could think of, outside the RIAA/MPAA/IFPI etc sphere, was the 'McLibel [mcspotlight.org]' case. In which the defendants won. Despite the litigio
Re:And what about? (Score:5, Insightful)
How would one of those being sued in this case come up with the money if they lost? Being innocent of the charges isn't always enough to ensure that one wins the case. All that would do in these cases would be to encourage the RIAA to pay more and represent a larger incentive to settle out of court.
When it comes to the cost of lawyers, often times people with a strong case can gain an attorney on a contingency basis, meaning that they lawyer takes a larger slice of the award in exchange for potentially working for free if they lose the case.
Other times an attorney will do the work pro bono publico, although the practice can at times be shady, as sometimes the attorney will seek an award in addition to what the complainant is asking for anyways.
What I would like to see is for the court expenses be limited to what the less wealthy side can afford, and if the wealthier side wants to spend more, require them to cover the difference whether they win or lose. With the Judge in the case ruling whether the sums of money involved are reasonable.
Parent
Re:And what about? (Score:5, Interesting)
Parent
Re:And what about? (Score:5, Insightful)
Please cite the studies that show that this is indeed the case. I could look at the people that settled and make an assertion that is equally valid that the settlements were simply extortion fees paid by people that didn't have the money to pursue a legal case, and not necessarily an admission of guilt.
I have seen claims made by the RIAA in reports of cases that they have made that were simply untenable—that an IP address uniquely identifies an individual, that a person that sent a laptop to be repaired and had the hard drive replaced was intentionally destroying evidence, and that a computer screenshot that shows an IP address is conclusive proof that a person was sharing files (I can construct a screenshot that shows any IP address and make any claim I want by those rules of evidence).
What I have NOT seen is any evidence offered that sharing files in any way hurts the RIAA, its member companies, or even the artists, performers, or composers. How much do radio stations pay to play a single recording and make it available to millions of potential listeners? And how much per song is the RIAA demanding for people that they claim are sharing files? How long will the courts allow the RIAA and its companies to claim damages anywhere near the amounts they are currently claiming? If the damages they claim are intentionally misleading, then isn't this perjury?
The RIAA can make up any "facts" it wants to support their cases and then pull damage amounts from their asses and present them to the courts with a straight face. This is simply ridiculous, and it is my earnest hope that they finally get called on it and be made to pay the piper.
Parent
Re:And what about? (Score:5, Interesting)
So when a single mother of 4 who works double shifts at walmart and can barely make ends meet gets sued by the RIAA the court costs become $0 ?
Sounds like a great way to screw the lawyers (and the RIAA).
Where do I sign up ?
Parent
Re:And what about? (Score:5, Insightful)
Ya know, my karma will probably get beat all to hell for this, but not all lawyers are bad.
Get charged with a crime you didn't commit and then tell me how you feel about defense attorneys. Get injured by someone whose insurance company refuses to pay for your treatment and tell me how you feel about them.
Do you have a negative opinion of the lawyers working for the FSF? How about the ACLU lawyers fighting for your civil liberties? How about this guy [wikipedia.org] or this guy [wikipedia.org], both of whom were lawyers.
Lawyers represent their clients. You'd be doing better to direct your anger at the RIAA for the lawsuits and not their lawyers.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Rich corp spends $50,000 suing poor single mom, who spends $1,000 defending herself. They win, she pays $1,000 of their expenses. They lose, they pay $1,000 of the mom's expenses.
Two Rich cops sue each other: They each spend $1,000,000. Loser pays full amount.
I think this would have the effect of making pen
Re:And what about? (Score:4, Insightful)
Yes, because when Grandma needs to seek justice against some large corporation that wronged her, she should definitely have to worry about paying their legal fees if she loses.
Parent
Re:And what about? (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent
Re:And what about? (Score:5, Insightful)
That's done to an extent already. Legal fee awards in cases are normally capped to "reasonable" levels. When trying to determine what is reasonable, the opposing side's legal fees are considered directly relevant. If I'm asking for 50k in legal fees, you're going to have trouble complaining that my legal fees are unreasonable when you spent 100k on the same case. This was the direct cause of the interesting legal wrangling over whether or not the RIAA's legal billings would be revealed as part of the Foster case -- she was seeking legal fees, and the RIAA was contesting her fees as too high.
I'd much prefer to see it codified in a loser-pays system as you and the GP are suggesting, though.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Not good. (Score:3, Interesting)
for them to get involved in intellectual property disputes of this nature (I specify because
I could see reason to become involved in software patent IP issues). The last thing the free
software community needs is to be identified with people downloading illegally from the pirate's
bay, *nova, etc.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
I could see reason to become involved in software patent IP issues).
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
-mcg
Re:Not good. (Score:5, Informative)
Parent
Re:Not good. (Score:4, Informative)
Parent
Re:Not good. (Score:4, Informative)
Parent
Can you imagine... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Can you imagine... (Score:5, Funny)
:)
Parent
Bad idea (Score:4, Interesting)
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
new. This is nothing that companies like Microsoft haven't already created
FUD about. This is pretty much business as normal.
Who "supports the FSF" anyways?
Companies buy support contracts from Novell or Redhat.
They may not even be aware of the whole "GNU/Linux" thing.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
I thought the EFF was the software equivalent of the ACLU?
--Rob
Copyright (Score:4, Funny)
Everyone is copying everything.
Go FSF! (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Go FSF! (Score:5, Informative)
Any other questions?
Parent
Re:Go FSF! (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm not sure what you are talking about, here, but it's not art. Maybe it's widgets. Widgets are not art - they are products designed to sell to some perceived or existing market.
Artists don't have to be paid to produce art, they produce it because the want to. Indeed, often because they have to. They have done it since the first cave man chiseled a bear on a cave wall, and they will continue to do it forever.
There have for a long time been people that valued art enough to ensure that the artist were paid for their work, and thus had more time for art instead of having to also perform other work to make a living. This is a good thing. Recently there have been whole corporations that hired artists to produce art works, then made money selling copies. Often huge amounts of money. Many artists got very rich.
Unfortunately, that kind of system also attracts the widget makers. Teams of widget makers often get together and produce something they call "art" (it's not) and make huge sums of money selling copies.
Good. If all you're doing it for is money, it's probably not very good anyway. Without all those widgety things crowding the ether, the truly insightful and inspiring art will flourish, enriching us and encouraging other would-be artists. I'd say it's more like "one supports our culture, the other corrupts it."Parent
I wonder (Score:5, Insightful)
I can see the connection (Score:5, Insightful)
If the RIAA is able to effectively take advantage of non-tech savvy courts, it's not too much of a stretch for other IP related companies to start filing claims, infringement suits, etc. against open source applications that compete with theirs.
Maybe I'm off base, but that's a possible reason for the FSF to be taking this course. It's more of a message to the business community at large that you're not going to have it that easy strong arming the technology world.
What do I know though, I was a history major..
HARK! (Score:5, Funny)
Hardly a nightmare... (Score:3, Interesting)
Its sloppy, its crappy, but when you have "Identify user's ip, user name, and the same username used on a bunch of legitimate sites", it becomes hard to contest the evidence sufficiently to establish nonresponsibility.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
That's the way I interpret FSF's involvement. They're not arguing innocence or guilt, they're just making sure both sides have appropriate technical representation vs. the ridiculously one-sided "Grandma Jones and her AOL account vs. RIAA's team of electrical engineering PhDs".
The problem isn't so much copyright law (Score:3, Insightful)
The big issue that has come into play is the RIAA's tactics in gathering evidence. Many times an IP address was proxied and the wrong person ends up on trial. The RIAA's biggest misstep comes into play when they search/seize without proof that the questionable internet activity came from the household they are searching.
There have been many trials which have gone very poorly for the individual even though the RIAA gathered evidence at an incorrect location and *happened* to stumble upon something questionable.
Don't get me wrong, it's still great that an individual has more resources when fighting an RIAA lawsuit, but many problems come up not because of the RIAA's loose definition of copyright, but because the individual defending them self doesn't know their rights.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Why? (Score:4, Interesting)
I quote "The Free Software Foundation (FSF), established in 1985, is dedicated to promoting computer users' rights to use, study, copy, modify, and redistribute computer programs.". Thats computer programs, not MP3z. FFS, people donate money to the FSF for their work, if I had and found out they were spending it on this I'm be pretty miffed.
Right, tin hat on...
Re:Why? (Score:4, Insightful)
I'm a card carrying FSF member, and I fully support this sort of behavior on their part. The issue of file sharing is already threatening software freedom - if they can help to make it clear that the RIAA are just jerks trying to abuse the legal system, the RIAA will have less power to try to outlaw software. That's what this is really about - whether software that allows people to share arbitrary data with each other should be considered to be evidence of criminal activity.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
The RIAA, on the other hand, is one of the primary promoters of DRM.
Their lawsuit circus is mostly for show. One, they use it to create ammo for their lobbyists ("look how many evil people are out there, we're suing in the thousands but we simply can't get them all, we need new laws, give us new laws, btw. how's the wife? how about a nice holiday with her to fix things up again? or a nice willing young lady
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
it is very much in their interest to get involved with this before it starts to have direct effect on them, as by then it has gathered inertia and will be that much harder to reverse.
Re:Why? (Score:4, Informative)
Because they are promoting computer users' rights to use, study, copy, modify, and redistribute computer programs, that's why. They see the connection between the shoddy evidence gathering of the RIAA and the possibility that merely possessing certain software programs will be considered as evidence of infringement.
The FSF has a policy against using proprietary software; it's not as if they are defending the illegal downloading of copyrighted material. Rather, it seems they are concerned, and rightly so, that a judicial precedent may establish the mere possession of file sharing programs as a de facto evidence of guilt, regardless of whether or not any infringement actually occurred.
Think about that for a moment. The whole Web is just one large, distributed, filesharing program. Imagine the consequences if everything was outlawed because of what it could be used for, rather than outlawing the specific act it might be used for. Even though the RIAA cases deal with copyright, it is more of a war on technology than anything else, and it has far-reaching implications for even those who do not infringe copyright. The real problem that the RIAA is fighting is filesharing itself - it could completely supplant them as the arbiter of music; their very survival depends on keeping individuals from sharing music - copyrighted or not - amongst themselves. The RIAA knows very well that once musicians discover publishing via filesharing, their stranglehold on the industry is over.
So what does the RIAA want? That's right - to control your computer, and dictate which software you are allowed to run. That's the only way to protect their content monopoly, and you can bet their going to try any means possible to accomplish it, consumer rights notwithstanding.
Parent
Donate (Score:5, Informative)
20 years from now (Score:5, Funny)
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Place your bets (Score:4, Funny)
The end of digital restrictions or the dominance of GNU HURD?
Re:Ray Beckerman is the fund adviser (Score:5, Insightful)
I would think the best way to help the average Joe is to give his average lawyer a set of clearly-defined, well-argued precedents and examples to base the defense on. Having the precedents and example arguments be stronger will help more people in the long run than trying to help everyone at once.
There's no way the fund can help everyone directly; I imagine it will help more people in the long run by carefully choosing its battles and winning them well than by diluting its resources and helping lots of people who, while individually deserving, won't have the same multiplicative effect on the resources spent.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
who appointed Ray Beckerman the primary RIAA gestapo?
As far as I know, Ray Beckerman volunteered to help the cause. And it is indeed volunteering: he goes well beyond the normal call of duty for his pay/occupation. He pursues his cases with a diligence and excellence that is remarkable.
What about having a disinterested party as the fund adviser?
I understand the need for transparency, but if Ray is willing to undertake the task (and it will no doubt involve some tedious paperwork and such), then that's great. He is in a position to make informed choices, and to use this money to greatest effect.
Moreover it's not l
Re:Ray Beckerman is the fund adviser (Score:4, Insightful)
"What about having a disinterested party as the fund adviser?
I frankly don't understand your point (or why anyone modded you up), and if you RTFA you'd see that Ray Beckerman is not the "sole" advisor. "The Fund will be advised by Ray Beckerman, the author of Recording Industry vs. The People, along with a group of selected attorneys acting as advisors"
I also want a VERY interested party to decide where funds should go, and why wouldn't it go wherever it hits the RIAA the hardest? You do realize it is a common law system right? Court decisions are relied on by other courts, meaning that if you hit the RIAA hard, you might knock them out for all future lawsuits.
If the objective is to kill these RIAA lawsuits in the most efficient and effective manner, then why the hell wouldn't I want Ray Beckerman managing it?! Hell - I'm donating BECAUSE Ray is managing it, and being in Canada I don't even get a tax dedcution!
Parent
It's easy to complain (Score:5, Informative)
But hard to do anything about it. You have a complaint - do you have a solution? Who would you suggest if not Mr. Beckerman?
He's passionate about the topic, a lawyer, and has (IMHO) the correct views on the problem.
this money wont go to help the average Joe fighting the RIAA, it will go to whichever Ray thinks will hit the RIAA the hardest
That's called preventative medicine, and is further proof that his heart is in the right place on the issue. If all he wanted was to get paid, he could endlessly represent vanilla RIAA cases until retirement. He's actually trying to solve the problem.
Disclaimer: Not associated with Mr. Beckerman, just a fan. Go Ray!
Parent
Re:Ray Beckerman is the fund adviser (Score:5, Interesting)
Parent