Slashdot Log In
RIAA Wants to Include Song Files it Can't Produce
Posted by
Zonk
on Sun Sep 24, 2006 02:52 AM
from the hidden-files dept.
from the hidden-files dept.
NewYorkCountryLawyer writes "In UMG v. Lindor the RIAA is trying to include song files it doesn't have copies of as part of its 'distribution' argument. The defendant Marie Lindor is asking the Court to preclude them from doing that. She points to the RIAA's own interrogatory response in which the record companies swore that their case was based upon their investigator seeing a screenshot and then downloading 'perfect digital copies'. They produced eleven (11) copies of song files, but want to be able to prove twenty seven (27) other songs for which they can't produce the files."
Related Stories
[+]
ACLU, EFF, & Others Fight RIAA for Debbie Foster 298 comments
NewYorkCountryLawyer writes "In a landmark legal document, the Electronic Frontier Foundation, the American Civil Liberties Union, Public Citizen, the ACLU of Oklahoma Foundation, and the American Association of Law Libraries have submitted an amicus curiae brief in support of the motion for attorneys fees that has been made by Deborah Foster in Capitol Records v. Debbie Foster, in federal court in Oklahoma. This brief is mandatory reading for every person who is interested in the RIAA litigation campaign against consumers."
[+]
RIAA Says It Doesn't Have Enough Evidence 208 comments
NewYorkCountryLawyer writes "In Elektra v. Wilke, the Chicago RIAA case in which defendant Paul Wilke has moved for summary judgment, the RIAA has responded to the summary judgment motion by filing a motion for 'expedited discovery', alleging that it needs expedited pretrial discovery because it does not have sufficient evidence to withstand Mr. Wilke's motion. The RIAA's lawyer said: 'Plaintiffs cannot at this time, without an opportunity for full discovery present by affidavit facts essential to justify their opposition to Defendant's motion.' The motion and supporting affidavit are available online."
[+]
RIAA Subpoenas Neighbor's Son, Calls His Employer 593 comments
NewYorkCountryLawyer writes "To those who might think that I might be exaggerating when I describe the RIAA's litigation campaign as a 'reign of terror', how's this one: in UMG v. Lindor, the RIAA not only subpoenaed the computer of Ms. Lindor's son, who lives 4 miles away, but had their lawyer telephone the son's employer. See page 2, footnote 1." From Ray's comments: "You have a multi-billion dollar cartel suing unemployed people, disabled people, housewives, single mothers, home healthcare aids, all kinds of people who have no resources whatsoever to withstand these litigations. And due to the adversary system of justice the RIAA will be successful in rewriting copyright law, if the world at large, and the technological community in particular, don't fight back and help these people fighting these fights."
This discussion has been archived.
No new comments can be posted.
The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way.
Sounds like.... (Score:5, Interesting)
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Sounds like.... (Score:5, Insightful)
Don't they also pay companies to flood P2P networks with junk files?
I don't see how a filename is indicative of anything, other than the string concerned having been distributed. Not even on balance of probability.
Re:Sounds like.... (Score:4, Interesting)
Besides, even if they downloaded a file and had it, it's difficult to prove that that file came from the defendant's computer. It still largely comes down to how trustworthy a jury would find the RIAA witnesses and evidence to be.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Sounds like.... (Score:5, Informative)
However, so far as we can discern what the contents were based on the name, which is a jury question, it's still possible to win a suit without actually showing what the contents are. But I wouldn't like to have to do that, since it's not a strong position.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
It would depend on what the file consisted of, but it's entirely possible.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Heck, it could be a complete fluke of quant
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
2) I'd probably believe that the other copies were real too.
3) Then I'd jury nullify anyway most likely.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
It's pretty easy to get deselected.
But if I'm not going to admit that I believe in jury nullification.
I just don't believe in the justice system any more. They've criminalized so much- we've seen innocent people sent a
Re:Sounds like.... (Score:5, Informative)
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Yes they do flood the internet with junk files which look like song files but aren't. The only way to tell if it's a real song file is to listen to it from beginning to end. See Reply Memorandum of Law at pages 2-4. As you can see from the deposition testi
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Whether or not Bittorrent constitutes redistribution is something for the courts to decide. Assuming the tracker i
This is a fine idea (Score:4, Funny)
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
I read here on
That is a LOT of financial incentive to fake data.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Staff attorneys (of which major labels have many) are not, and in all likelihood they have a bunch of paralegal interns doing the grunt work and the staff attorney probably just signs whatever paperwork they produce and
Re:Sounds like.... (Score:5, Interesting)
Spare me. When you're trying to prove someone is guilty of a CRIME, you need to go the extra mile and make sure it's air-tight. If you can't be bothered to do that, then you've got no business taking your case to court. We're not talking about some farmer assuing his neighbor of stealing horses here. This is a big fat well-funded group that has the resources and teams of lawyers/investigators to gather the evidence correctly.
Who's to say that the file called "Enter Sandman" wasn't really an audio clip from Aunt Milly's piano recital?
Re:Sounds like.... (Score:5, Informative)
Well, this is a civil case, so as it happens no one is trying to prove anyone guilty of any crime. I guess they dodged a bullet there.
Who's to say that the file called "Enter Sandman" wasn't really an audio clip from Aunt Milly's piano recital?
Sure. And a jury can decide which of the two possibilities is most likely to them (since that, and not the stricter 'beyond a reasonable doubt,' is the standard here), and then whichever possibility they find to be most likely is true, for the purposes of the case.
So if you were a juror, and you were being fair to both sides, and they asked you what you thought the file was based on the name, which do you think it probably would be, even if that probability was only a 51% likelihood?
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Are you simply too stupid to figure out what the GP was saying, or are you deliberately trying to confuse the issue by foc
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
You shouldn't do something evil just because it's legal when the government has been corrupted as badly as it has.
I think the people are doing something wron
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Assuming that they're seeking statutory damages, and that they are able to get them, both of which are very likely, the law does not require that they b
Re:Sounds like.... (Score:4, Interesting)
Undeniably correct? Which accusation are you referring to, because I know it wasn't the part about their business being significantly damaged by file sharing. In fact, that claim is undeniably FALSE, as this study points out: http://www.unc.edu/~cigar/papers/FileSharing_March 2004.pdf#search=%22file%20sharing%20record%20sales %22 [unc.edu]. Notice, in the abstract: Downloads have an effect on sales which is statistically
indistinguishable from zero, despite rather precise estimates. This would seem to make sense, as most of us should be familiar with the sales reports from Kazaa's high point, which showed the CD sales had more than recovered since Napster's debut -- and Kazaa had far more traffic than Napster, further weakening the claim that the RIAA would be bankrupted by file sharing.
Perhaps this theory would help: most people who use file sharing networks would not have purchased the album in question anyway, so no actual sales were lost. Think about that statement, and think about who is using file sharing networks. Before Napster came out, were college students out buying hundreds of CDs (the equivalent of the thousands of MP3s that some had downloaded and shared)? Certainly not, most cannot afford to spend upwards of $5000 on album collections. So downloading those tracks should not be counted as a lost sale, any more than sharing CDs in a dorm building should (but I wouldn't put it past the RIAA to count it that way). This is why I am always skeptical of economists who say that millions of dollars per year are lost to piracy, because I am forced to ask whether or not the people using pirated music, movies, books, or software were actually going to buy these things to begin with (especially with software, especially when it costs more than $100). The problem is that basic economics does not apply here; the fact that music is available for free does not mean that people will automatically flock to the free stuff, as we learned that they should in economics 101, and the reasons behind this are still being studied.
Lack of evidence... (Score:2)
make accusations
fail to provide solid evidence
hope pure intimidation works.
Profit?
STB
Re: (Score:2, Interesting)
If the copyright cartel enforcers are required to have downloaded copies from the alleged infringer in order to maintain a suit, then something like Peer Guardian becomes more effective: p2p'ers can be seen online, yet they're safe
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Lack of evidence... (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm sorry, but there is a very logical way of establishing what the "p2p'er" was sharing was infringing, and it's called an inference based on circumstantial evidence.
Let's be quite clear
1. The plaintiff's agent, "the enforcer", obtained someone's IP address and a list of shared songs.
2. The plaintiff's agent actually downloaded 11 of the shared songs, so that the plaintiff was presumably able to verify that the songs actually corresponded to the file's name and/or metatags.
3. You have a list of shared filenames and quite possibly metadata tags, and concrete evidence that items on the list actually are what they purported to be.
4. You can quite logically draw the conclusion that the shared filenames really are what they purport to be.
The burden of persuasion on in a civil case is not "beyond a reasonable doubt," but a "preponderance of the evidence." If you can stand up before a jury or ordinary people and convince them that it really is more likely than not that each file downloaded from this source was really something other than what it claimed to be, then you need to start your own law practice. Also, the defendant in the case is arguing that they shouldn't even have to make that argument to a jury, simply because "the enforcer" did not download each and every file.
I'm reasonably sympathetic to the defendants in these cases given the haphazard manner in which the license holders are initiating their lawsuits and the excessive penalties, but one you get beyond matching an IP to a subscriber, the arguments that the defendants are making quickly start to become ludicrous. Open wireless access points are attractive nuisances. Children using the office computer to amass a thousand songs are negligently supervised. You can surely argue against these points if there is a de minimis infringement, but when someone is building a trading a library of a thousand songs, it's hardly tenable to argue that ignorance is an excuse.
Feel free to argue that you must have all the evidence you need to win a trial before filing a lawsuit, and to argue that you must have actual copies or physical specimens of each an every infringing work or device. When a corporation is a defendant, it will be more than happy to use those ludicrous arguments to its advantage to make it even more difficult for individuals to prove and obtain relief for copyright infringement, patent infringement, theft of trade secrets, and the like. It won't actually happen, and the defendants are going to lose these types of arguments, but the intellectual breadth of the typical Slashdot legal analysis continues to astound me.
Re:Lack of evidence... (Score:5, Interesting)
It goes to damages. The damages are determined on a per-violation basis. The RIAA is arguing that they don't need the actual files to be obtainable to prove damages. I have evidence that says that they do:
From:
http://blogcritics.org/archives/2002/10/04/081226
and...
So yes, they need the actual files given this track record especially when they are seeking $150,000+ per file.
B.
download them (Score:5, Insightful)
Why don't they share with us what format they got the first few "perfect" copies... Monkey Audio?
Reverse it (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
Well, you could show the court some screenshots... who could prove you edited them?
You don't need the files anyway.
stupid court system (Score:5, Informative)
Evidence (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Continuing the spread of crap... (Score:5, Funny)
"We used a reverse DNS lookup to find out that this was the computer used for the downloading."
"Our investigator downloaded a perfect copy of the file downloaded by the defendant in a process of reverse spectral resonance."
"We figured 'To hell with it' and crossed the beams. Once we realized the universe didn't end, we found a burn mark that resembled the offending computer's IP address."
What new wonders of the universe will the RIAA educate judges on next week?
Re:Continuing the spread of crap... (Score:4, Informative)
What's really funny... (Score:3, Interesting)
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
if a screenshot is the only prove (Score:5, Funny)
This is not Metallica - Enter sandman
This is not Madonna - Confessions On A Dancefloor
This is not King Kong (Peter Jackson)
Re:WTF? Copies? Files? (Score:5, Informative)
Re: (Score:2)
Using a screenshot which may easily faked showing names of songs that may never have been RIAA property is about as legally compelling as sworn testimony from an alcoh
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
In the US - Goliath seeks out David...
Re: (Score:2)
Isn't this more or less just an attempt to reduce the completely ridiculous amount of money they're going to have to pay?
They haven't lost the case yet. They are reducing what they have to defend against, or if their client is going to admit guilt, po
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
First of all, copyright protects the right to make copies. So, technically, if I download a file from you, I am
Re:boycott the RIAA (Score:3, Informative)