RIAA-fighting Maine Law Professor Speaks Out

NewYorkCountryLawyer writes "In an interview with Jon Newton of p2pnet, Prof. Deirdre Smith of the University of Maine says that 'our students are enthusiastic about being directly connected to a case with a national scope and significance'. The UM Cumberland Legal Aid Clinic is the first law school legal clinic in the U.S. to have taken on the RIAA, to have the opportunity for hands-on experience fighting the RIAA's effort to rewrite copyright law. Smith went on to say that the case is probably one of the first intellectual property cases the clinic has ever taken on, and that if it proceeds further, she expects to also 'draw on the considerable expertise in IP among members of our faculty and the Maine Center for Law and Innovation, another program of the Law School'. "

caveat

Prof. Deirdre Smith of the University of Maine says that 'our students are enthusiastic about being directly connected to a case with a national scope and significance'.

Of course they are. Just not personally.

This professor is clearly a terrorist.

He is clearly trying to strike a blow and trying to destroy the very foundation of our society, which is intellectual property. And if he is successful at undermining that, in any way, he'll attack physical property. And using brainwashed law students to help him do it, thus also destroying our future. This man has no shame!

Re:This professor is clearly a terrorist.

Yeah, it's actually a she, if you had read the summary.

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This is slashdot. Be happy the GP read the TITLE.

About time

While it's debatable whether this challenge has much of a legal chance - from what the lawyer the lawyer types I've spoken to told me, it's not much of a challenge - the simple fact that this defense sets a rather important precedent - that schools shouldn't bend over without fighting it out first.

RIAA/MPAA - is the bad press worth it?

honestly is all the bad press doing them any good? yes i agree people ripping and selling songs is wrong, no i don't think kids swaping songs is wrong. when i was younger i'd listen to a few songs off my mates collection and if i liked it i'd go hunting for that artists full collection for purchase.

i guess this really frightens no talent hacks, if people get to hear their trash before buying it, they'll fade away pretty quick.

Re:RIAA/MPAA - is the bad press worth it?

When did it become up to people to pay what they feel like paying?

When supply outdid demand.

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When did it become up to people to pay what they feel like paying?

When supply outdid demand.

False. The price is still set by the seller, who is under no obligation to sell/give away — however saturated the market may be.

Re:RIAA/MPAA - is the bad press worth it?

What's very interesting is that the companies that are part of the RIAA have been repeatedly charged with illegally price fixing and keeping CD's at above market value (aka they're stealing from the whole country). The MPAA broke copyright to bring you the "University toolkit" and refused to co-operate with the copyright holder. The Sony Rootkit was based on open source software that was used without permission and broke copyright. It's obviously OK to steal. It's just uncool to get caught doing it.

Re:RIAA/MPAA - is the bad press worth it?

The seller has been awarded a market-distorting copyright monopoly.

No, they have not. There are plenty of ways for the creators of the non-tangible intellectual property (be they musicians, movie-makers, or clothing designers) to sell their works. Some of them choose to sell their rights to a middleman such as a record-company, of which there are plenty.

The seller should be free to set a price, but not to prevent sale of properly attributed third-party copies.

There you go. Your mention of "properly attributed" reveals internal inconsistency of your point of view, thus demonstrating it as objectively wrong. If the creator has no right to control their creation, why should anyone bother "properly attributing"? Oops...

If they don't want something copied, they're free not to release in the first place. Screw 'em.

And if you don't want to be killed, you're free to stay indoors. Fortunately, the government is upholding the laws (mostly)...

Re:RIAA/MPAA - is the bad press worth it?

And if you don't want to be killed, you're free to stay indoors. Fortunately, the government is upholding the laws (mostly)...

That is a perfect illustration of how copyright is positioned, incorrectly, as equivalent to a human right.

Antigua and Barbuda has won the right, in an international tribunal, to disregard copyright protection of U.S. recorded performances.

If, instead, they won the "right" to kill Americans, that would be different, no? In reality, no tribunal could grant such a "right." And there you have the difference between copyright and self-ownership.

The right to waive U.S. copyright isn't even as significant as, say, a letter of marque. So copyright is really pretty low on the rights food chain.

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That is a perfect illustration of how copyright is positioned, incorrectly, as equivalent to a human right.

The right of the creator to control their creation is — correctly — understood as a human right. There is no (or there should be no) di

Re:RIAA/MPAA - is the bad press worth it?

The right of the creator to control their creation is -- correctly -- understood as a human right.

Not around here, it's not. Copyright is optional, artificial, utilitarian, economic -- and nothing else.

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The right of the creator to control their creation is -- correctly -- understood as a human right. There is no (or there should be no) distinction between tangible, material property and the non-tangible intellectual kind.

You are absolutely correct. Bu

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>The right of the creator to control their creation is -- correctly -- understood as a human right

Not at all.

Copyright is an inducement for creators to create things and make them available for others to use. The targeted benefit was to society- not to

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The right to waive U.S. copyright isn't even as significant as, say, a letter of marque.

God damn them all, I was told we'd leech the seeds for american gold
we'd fire no guns, shed no teeeaaars
Now i'm an embargoed shell of an antiguan peer, the last of beckermans priivaateeers

Re:RIAA/MPAA - is the bad press worth it?

When did it become up to people to pay what they feel like paying?

That's no more of an arbitrary way to compensate a copyright holder than the legislated way of doing it that has become disconnected from the stated purpose for the government granted limited monopoly.

By "arbitrary" I mean that copyright and patent monopolies are a creation of government. Government could very well decide that copyright no longer exists and, unlike natural rights, there would be no appeal to a universal notion of human rights. If it became too burdensome to protect copyright for, say, recorded performances, governments could rationally decide to not protect them, or to scale back protection to where infringement would be inconsequential under law. This is very different from the rights government is prohibited from infringing on, and that are presumed to exist with or without a government that is instructed to respect those rights.

So, literally, it is up to people to decide what to pay.

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When did it become up to people to pay what they feel like paying?

It's always been that way. If you want free, you listen to the artists on the radio. If you want to pay a $1/song, you buy from iTunes or similar service. If you want to pay $9,250/song, you get sued by the RIAA and lose. :-(

Regards,
Art

Nice initiative but...

Doesn't having a law college student handle your court case feel like having a med. college student do surgery on you?

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Doesn't having a law college student handle your court case feel like having a med. college student do surgery on you?

Yeah -- maybe we should start calling them "interns" and "residents," too.

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Not necessarily. THe defense they are mounting at this point is essentially pure issue of law. No facts to try to dispute, no witnesses to depose, no jury to persuade... all things that an experienced attorney will excel at over a novice. Pure law and l

Re:Nice initiative but...

Not necessarily. THe defense they are mounting at this point is essentially pure issue of law. No facts to try to dispute, no witnesses to depose, no jury to persuade... all things that an experienced attorney will excel at over a novice. Pure law and legal theories OTOH, are the bread and butter of the academic legal environment. The students may not be as efficient at research in the subject area as an attorney who has 20 years experience in IP law and knows the leading cases by heart, but they are more open to theories and arguments to research that may be out of the mainstream (for now). They are devoted to the cause and will spend hundreds of hours pouring over research and caselaw that a practicing lawyer will not spend. The RIAA can't spend the other side into the ground because they are not racking up billable/noncollectable hours.

Exactly correct. Except the part about "theories and arguments...out of the mainstream (for now)". In my opinion it's the RIAA that's premised its legal position on "theories and arguments... out of the mainstream". The brief the Cumberland Legal Aid Clinic filed is (a) superb, and (b) conservative. It's the RIAA lawyers that are the radicals here.

Re:Nice initiative but...

1. They're not college students, they're law school students.

2. They're not in it alone, they're working under the supervision of a very eminent lawyer.

3. Many if not most of the best briefs written in the legal profession are written in large part by young people working under the supervision of a more experienced lawyer. The younger lawyers and law students may have more time for scholarship and writing than us oldsters who are so busy taking phone calls and meetings and sending out bills and supervising youngsters.

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Just out of curiosity: Did you pay the better workers a better wage based not on education but on performance?

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Just out of curiosity: Did you pay the better workers a better wage based not on education but on performance?

Performance in the law, especially trial law, is based enormously on experience. A doctor fresh out of medical school is better equipped to handl

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it depends on the class work that the students do some are real good others are just read the book that are some times not that good.

It looks to me...

like the RIAA stepped in something squishy right over the top of their shoe, and they're at that point where they're praying it's just mud, and afraid to look down.

How did they ever get caught pulling their crap at a university with a whole faculty devoted to making lawyers? Can't you just see it...all those sweet little law students looking hopefully up at them, like a school of piranha that have learned how when their owner taps on the tank, a pork chop will be along shortly?

RIAA going after students at Unis with law schools

How did they ever get caught pulling their crap at a university with a whole faculty devoted to making lawyers?

Hell the RIAA went after students from Yale [yaleherald.com] which has a good law school. Now my question is why didn't Yale do the same thing as the Maine un

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It looks to me... like the RIAA stepped in something squishy right over the top of their shoe, and they're at that point where they're praying it's just mud, and afraid to look down. How did they ever get caught pulling their crap at a university with a whole faculty devoted to making lawyers? Can't you just see it...all those sweet little law students looking hopefully up at them, like a school of piranha that have learned how when their owner taps on the tank, a pork chop will be along shortly?

Yep, I think the RIAA made a mistake taking on the college and university world. Right now there are a lot of envious law students all across the country wishing their law school was doing the same thing. I don't think it will be long before you see a lot

Will RIAA be Hiring Maine Grads in the future?

I wonder how many of those students will end up working on the other side once they graduate. It would be kind of like a hacker working for a security company. They'll be more familiar with the strengths and weaknesses of all the arguments and could demand

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I wonder how many of those students will end up working on the other side once they graduate. It would be kind of like a hacker working for a security company. They'll be more familiar with the strengths and weaknesses of all the arguments and could demand

Here's the problem. No physical material !

The Riaa makes it seem like you're a thief who went into the record store and stole a bunch of CDs'.

This is ip ifringement. Not the exact same as theft.

The songs can be deleted and nothing is left. Is that the classical definiton of theft?

Where is the evi

what is the real problem?

Good for them, but contrary to what was written, the problem is not that the RIAA is re-writing the copyright laws. The problem is that RIAA is exploiting the anachronism of our current copyright laws. The laws truly do need to be re-written to incorporate

Re:what is the real problem?

...the problem is not that the RIAA is re-writing the copyright laws...

I beg to differ. Here's just one example. The RIAA insists that "making available" is the same as copyright infringement. But take a look at Title 17 USC 106(3) [cornell.edu] which defines the exclusive distribution right as "to distribute copies or phonorecords of the copyrighted work to the public by sale or other transfer of ownership, or by rental, lease, or lending". This is the statute that the RIAA uses to sue, that is, they claim their exclusive distribution right granted by this statue is being infringed. But note, this statute clearly indicates a "sale or other transfer of ownership", and courts have consistently ruled that this means an actual transfer must take place to be considered infringement. The RIAA was successful in getting the judge in the Capitol v. Thomas [blogspot.com] case to instruct the jury [wired.com] that "The act of making copyrighted sound recordings available for electronic distribution on a peer-to-peer network, without license from the copyright owners, violates the copyright owners' exclusive right of distribution, regardless of whether actual distribution has been shown.". So it may be true that the RIAA is not literally rewriting copyright law (they have lobbyists that do that), but they sure are trying to rewrite copyright law by establishing precedents via cases against those who can't afford to defend themselves.

Regards,
Art (IANAL)

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So it may be true that the RIAA is not literally rewriting copyright law (they have lobbyists that do that), but they sure are trying to rewrite copyright law by establishing precedents via cases against those who can't afford to defend themselves.

Just a

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The RIAA is constantly citing its 'victories' in district court ex parte cases (cases where the other side doesn't even know there's a case), default cases (cases where the other side either didn't know there was a case or failed to defend it), and pro se

Pissing off/on the Lawyers of Tomorrow...

At this point someone over there at the RIAA/MPAA have got to realize they are pissing off/on the legal minds ,business leaders and congress critters of tomorrow, this must be making them spot. It's one thing to get the little old lady who's grandson was over at christmas and installed limebearfreezemule and began downloading all his favorite songs, then left with the software starting everytime(and sharing!!!) granny went online; her only hope is to pay for a lawyer and that is not likely to happen, she'll be dead in a few years anyway... IT IS A TOTALLY DIFFERENT thing to sue those who are in the process of learning the law or (choose on of the others i previously mentioned), they will be in their prime to fight back soon enough and will do it with great force. My name is Innigo Montoya, you have sued my father, prepare to die.

Not "of the University of Maine"

Warning: nitpicking bellow.

Professor Deirdre M. Smith is an Associate Professor of Law at the University of Maine School of Law, and the Director of the Cumberland Legal Aid Clinic. The University of Maine School of Law is actually a part of the Universi

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Damn terrorists.

Interestingly, when I challenged an author of an equally stupid comment to substantiate their insinuation, that "the establishment" would label any opponent "terrorist", one of the replies [slashdot.org] tried to portray some legal challenges as a form

meh

if people haven't brought up examples it is because they don't care to respond, not because they don't exit. i don't even care too much about this issue, but i read your post - spent 5 minutes on google and found this. [cpsr.org] it is a bit long so i'll throw the relevant part into my post.

Rep. Howard Berman (D-Hollywood) recently introduced the P2P Piracy Prevention Act (H.R. 5211). This law essentially gives any copyright-holder the right to break any existing law while engaging in technological measures (such as hacking) in the course of protecting their content. They must give prior notice to the government, but there is no approval is required, and the government must keep secret any notice it receives. Large copyright holders sought this immunity in the counter-terrorism bills that greatly increased penalties for hacking, but the absurdity of equating file sharing to terrorism forced them to withdraw their bid that time. The chances of success are hopefully slim, but it's hard to tell.

so in 2002 copyright holders tried to gain the ability to completely ignore the law to go after those they thought to be violating copyright and tried to do so under the auspices of counter-terrorism. like i said, it took 5 minutes to find that with a google search on the words "copyright violation equated with terrorism".

Re:uhm (Re:meh)

you don't care about the facts.
 
these businesses tried to pass copyright law inside anti-terrorism legislation. that's not a strawman. it's not lame. you are saying that the author imagined that this was an anti-terrorism bill?
 
as i insist? i don't insist anything. Jack Valenti testified before the government in an investigation entitled "International Copyright Piracy: Links to Organized Crime and Terrorism". Are you going to tell me that he wasn't there to talk about copyright and ties between piracy and terrorism? the name is a straw man imagined up by whoever chaired the subcommittee?
 
you asked for examples. i was bored - took ten minutes to find you a couple and you then turn around and say they aren't examples at all. i see in other parts of this thread you've equated violating copyright with murder. at the same time your original post i replied to says that the statement certain legal whores who allow or act to bring certain types of "private lawsuit" is alluding to the riaa as terrorists. so gaining the right to hack people's computers in an antiterrorism bill is a straw man - but the words private lawsuit in quotes is a satisfactory allusion to terrorism. you live in a weird reality. and the funny thing is, you just haven't done any homework. google riaa and terrorism. you will find hundreds of hits where people clearly and definitively state that they believe the actions of the riaa are terrorism. you can drop your weak example. why i'm helping you out with that, i don't know. you should really do the work yourself.

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these businesses tried to pass copyright law inside anti-terrorism legislation.

My understanding is, they wanted an exception, that would apply to their activities — to prevent the anti-hacking provisions of the law from applying to their own invest

Re:RIAA fighting professor?

Less misused. More inflated so it doesn't really have any meaning anymore. Everyone who commits a crime today that goes beyond petty theft is a terrorist. Someone running amok? A terrorist. Someone bullying is terrorizing. Nobody is afraid anymore, everyone's in terror. When you watch the news, you have to get the impression that under every other bed, a terrorist is lurking, and a splinter cell of Al Quaida is running the laundry on the ground floor.

When you keep plastering people with terror here and terror there, they will first be afraid, then notice that you're crying wolf, then they'll start ridiculing you by applying the term you wanted to use to frighten them to anything that is considered remotely "bad", in a mocking way of exaggerating, just as much as you did.

With "you", in this case, not necessarily being you, but whoever uses a far too strong and powerful term to describe something that's anything but as horrifying as it is being made.

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When you keep plastering people with terror here and terror there, they will first be afraid, then notice that you're crying wolf

Well, here we go. You seem to agree, that somebody somewhere has "cried wolf" a few too many times. If such is, indeed, your opinion, would you, please, substantiate it with a few examples of somebody being publicly suspected of terrorism without a good reason?

Restricting myself only to stories that have appeared on slashdot, and which I remember immediately off the top of my head:
1) Boston freaking out over homemade lite-brites of cartoon characters. (2 guys arrested)

2) The TSA freaking out over a girl w

meh deux

i had another five minutes. read the footnotes of this article [filmmakermagazine.com]. The links were to an mpaa site and they have been pulled - but there has to be a way to track down stuff like Valenti, "International Copyright Piracy: Links to Organized Crime and Terrorism," Testimony before The Subcommittee On Courts, The Internet, And Intellectual Property, Committee on the Judiciary U.S. House of Representatives. It also says Valenti joked about wanting Dmitry Sklyarov executed. well - i'm gonna go do some other stuff - but you may want to think about a new approach on this issue because saying that you are awaiting requested examples from the 'other side' is basically saying 'i have built my position on ignorance of the publicly available facts.'

Re:RIAA fighting professor?

I always thought it was a dig on that anti-piracy campaign that went something along the lines of "When you download movies off the internet, you're supporting terrorism."

The most complete article I can google up comes, oddly enough, from Kuro5hin. [kuro5hin.org]

Some Guy named Rick McCallum shot off his mouth about how Piracy and Terrorism are the same.

I don't know about the states (I'm living in Germany with the Military, so the only english-language TV we get here is AFN) - but the anti-drug campaign that runs along similar lines is still going strong here, with a bunch of kids talking gravely about how they helped kill police officers and fund criminals when they're doing drugs is still going strong.

There is a (small) amount of support for the arguement, physically pirated discs (as opposed to bittorrent downloads) - are usually pressed by organized crime in Asia. A bit of the money they make off that probably ends up in the hands of one terrorist organization or another.

Same with Drugs, the Poppy fields in Afghanistan provide the vast majority of funds for the insurgency there.

Re:I'm a fan of NewYorkCountryLawyer, but...

Why would it be tacky for me to post an important story from p2pnet that happens to quote me? Usually I'm posting important stories from my own blog which quotes me even more heavily.

Re:Nah, not so much.

The public good appears to be his motive, not a financial one.

You mean I can't get rich defending poor and working class people being sued by multibillion dollar cartels? Why didn't you tell me that sooner? Dammit. Why couldn't I figure that out?

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All those law courses and no time to take a single economics class?

Well, that'll teach you. =)

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I'm a poor business man.

What would you expect from a country lawyer who winds up in Manhattan?