NewYorkCountryLawyer Debates RIAA VP

NewYorkCountryLawyer writes "At Fordham Law School's annual IP Law Conference this year, Slashdot member NewYorkCountryLawyer had a chance to square off with Kenneth Doroshow, a Senior Vice President of the RIAA, over the subject of copyright statutory damages. Doroshow thought the Jammie Thomas verdict of $222,000 was okay, he said, since Ms. Thomas might have distributed 10 million unauthorized copies. NYCL, on the other hand, who has previously derided the $9,250-per-song file verdict as 'one of the most irrational things [he has] ever seen in [his] life in the law', stated at the Fordham conference that the verdict had made the United States 'a laughingstock throughout the world.' An Australian professor on the panel said, 'The comment has been made a few times that America is out of whack and you are a laughingstock in the rest of the world. As the only non-American on the panel, that's true. We do see the cases like Thomas in our newspapers, and we think: "Wow, those crazy Americans, what are they up to now?" This whole notion of statutory damages is not something that we have within our Copyright Act. You actually have to be able to prove damage for you to be able to be compensated for that.' NYCL also got to debate the 'making available' issue, saying that there was no 'making available' right in US copyright law, despite the insistence of the program's moderator, the 'keynote' speaker, and a 'majority vote' of the audience that there was such a right. The next day, two decisions came down, and a month later yet another decision came down, all rejecting the 'making available' theory."

First post!

[Harmonious Botch]

Notice is hereby given that Harmonious Botch claims copyright to the phrase "First post", both with and without an exclaimation mark, in uppercase or lowercase or any combination thereof, whether actually posted as a first post, a later post, or not posted at all, in alphabetic characters or other representation, including, but not limited to, brail, 1337, and morse code, in English, or any other language, whether posted on Slashdot or any other forum; and all derivative phrases, including, but not limited to: "Frist post", "Fist pots", "Frost p0st", "Frist pozt", "Frost pots", "Forced p0st", "Forced pots", "Firts post", "Fist post", "Frost post", "Fist pozt", "Frost pozt", "Forced post", "Furst post", "Frist psot", "Firts psot", "Firts p0st", "Fist p0st", "Frost psot", "Forced psot", "Forced pozt", "Furst psot", "Frosty piss", "Frist pist", "Firts pist", "Furst p0st", "Forced piss", "Fist pist", "Frost pist", "Forced pist", "Fist psot", "Furst pist", "Frist p0st", "Frost p0st", "Frist pozt", "Firts pozt", "Furst pozt", "Frist pots", "Firts pots", "Furst pots", and any similar phrase, both with and without an exclaimation mark, in uppercase or lowercase or any combination thereof, whether actually posted as a first post, a later post, or not posted at all, in alphabetic characters or other representation, including, but not limited to, brail, 1337, and morse code, in English, or any other language, except for French - I'm not that desperate, whether posted on Slashdot or any other forum.

That's a long summary

[noidentity]

Sure was a long summary... wait... you bastards, you tricked me into reading the article!

Re:First post!

[luckymutt]

First Post! oh crap...who do I make the check out to?

Re:Good Grief!

[Psychotria]

Additionally, his real name is NewYorkCountryLawyer. This by itself was news enough for me to read the story.

Re:That's a long summary

[DrugCheese]

now we'll just have to barely skim the summary before making informative posts

Normally I skip self-submissions...

[statemachine]

But it is the RIAA who've sunk lower and lower in my opinion over the years, so that's my justification for reading it.

Couldn't NYCL have gotten a sock puppet to post this to soothe my feelings about conflict of interest? I keep hearing about a guy named twitter....

Re:Ms. Thomas had 100Mbps feed to the Internet?

[Nullav]

Assuming a bitrate of 256Kb/s, that's 1/32nd of a second. You may as well sue me over that comma; I apparently just plagiarized your post.

Re:Who are these people?

[Anonymous Coward]

I wonder how many Americans would agree that the quote-unquote "intellectual elite" should run the country.

You do realize that when you type something like this you don't have to actually say "quote-unquote". You just put the "'s before and after the phrase right?

Re:First post!

[Anonymous Coward]

"Forced pozt", "Furst psot", "Frosty piss", "Frist pist", "Firts pist",

The lawyers always win...

It sounds like some sort of Ubuntu release name to me...

Re:What?

[NewYorkCountryLawyer]

Who is NewYorkCountryLawyer, and why does he talk about himself in third person?

You must be new here.

jIH 'oH wa'Dich

[Skeetskeetskeet]

HA! You weren't counting on me posting in Klingon! Take that you lawyers!

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Re:Good Grief!

[easyTree]

And, once again, WON ANY SIGNIFICANT CASES, BECKERMAN? Of course the answer is NO...

Is it just me or does this conjure memories of <every-film-you've-seen-involving-an-exorcism>, where the malignant spirit is mocking the priest as he attempts the exorcism ?

Re:Ad hominem ?

[_Sprocket_]

I think there's a picture of the good Professor next the "ad hominem" in the dictionary. Or, at least, there will be on the Wikipedia soon.

Re:First post!

[Frosty Piss]

If Ubuntu uses "Frosty Piss", I'll sue.

Re:There is no 'I told you so' more poignent

[CorSci81]

I personally had to not laugh out loud when I read the idea that a lawyer thinks a room full of lawyers is a fair representation of the "intellectual elite". To me that's not unlike saying a jar full of leeches are a fair representation the most medicinally beneficial animals. Sure, sometimes they're useful, but generally they're just out to suck your blood.