Slashdot Mirror

Only on my blog and p2pnet.net. I submitted it to Slashdot on March 26th, but it was rejected.

My stories, which are usually submitted under "yro" -- "Your Rights Online" -- sometimes go through mysterious voting patterns in Firehose. Sometimes I'll submit a story, it immediately starts ascending in the Firehose, and then all of a sudden it starts plummeting.

http://digg.com/tech_news/University_of_Illinois_joins_the_RIAA_and_MPAA_against_Piracy

Sent Mar. 31, 2007, over a year ago. It's not exactly news that the great state of Illinois is rolling over on this. :p Heck, one of their extortion centers operates locally: http://www.p2pnet.net/story/15512

That being said: I can't find a reference to the legislation being referred to in the article; does someone have a link?

is that it appears that MediaSentry has been telling the State that it IS in compliance. Hmmmm.... could that be yet another crime?

p2pnet news | RIAA News:- A long-time p2pnet reader and computer programmer says he's 99.9% certain he's unearthed the name of the company that may be running the RIAA's so called 'Settlement Center'. See http://www.p2pnet.net/story/15512 for more information This is just another hole in the hull of the RIAA rat ship.

I think the point is whether they win or lose, RIAA will have to submit to discovery, which should have the effect of uncovering all sorts of dirt about their legally questionable methods of finding people to sue.

Yes, this was discussed in an earlier Slashdot story, " RIAA Argues That MP3s From CDs Are Unauthorized", and in a bunch of other places:

* Boing Boing p2pnet reddit Heise Online (German) Truemors BlogRunner/Digital Rights Hugh Casey IDG (Polish) Geek News Central CE Pro Gizmodo TechDirt Read/Write Web Thomas Hawk's Digital Connection TDPRI WhatReallyHappened.com Slyck Root.cz (Czech) Craigslist Forums Hard OCP Wired.com Uneasy Silence Overclock.net Wake World SpaceBattles.com Hydrogen Audio BrickFilms.com Hockey Zombie iLounge Zune Scene AllmanBrothersBand.com Golem (German) PC Magazin (German) Tweakers (Dutch) Mackauf (German) Wake Space Kino-eye.com Digital Copyright Canada Northwest Progressive Institute Louisville Music News Frant

"The illegality of the private investigations is also known to defendants," says Lybeck in the court document.
Most states require licensing or registration of private investigators. In Oregon, unlicensed investigators are subject to civil and criminal penalties. These licensing laws are well known to reputable investigators. On information and belief, MediaSentry and his investigators are not and have not been licensed to conduct private investigations of private citizens in Oregon or any other state. Their investigations are illegal.
For years, the RIAA and its member companies have been using flawed and illegal private investigation information as part of their co-ordinated scheme and comment enterprise to threaten, intimidate and coerce payment from private citizens across the United States.

I'm simply delighted how law enforcement is called bad guys in this analogy =^.^=

There is more than just law enforcement that is interested in the contents. BSA, RIAA and MPAA are the ones I was not mentioning by name. The US post office can open your mail.. But there is a huge red tape procedure to follow. X-ray is one thing to look for explosives. Opening every letter to see if it has the lyrics of a popular song by the RIAA is not permitted by the post office. Inspecting every letter by the DHS for bomb plans is also not permitted, except electronic mail. The post office may know you mailed a CD to your buddy. The package is not inspected to see if it contains the latest teen pop rap.

Online the privacy standards are now seen as a problem to internet users as attacks on users are clogging up the court system an fleecing many to pay the extortion money to the settlement support center. If there was privacy, this would not be a problem.
http://www.p2pnet.net/story/6337
http://recordingindustryvspeople.blogspot.com/2005/09/suits-against-settlement-support.html
http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20051004-5382.html

I did a Google search for the settlement support center. It must not be very popular. I could not find a link to the site.

I had to search for RIAA demand letter to find the info. Even then, I found just refrences to the letter, but not a copy of the letter with information to the settlement support center.

http://recordingindustryvspeople.blogspot.com/2007/04/uc-santa-cruz-passes-along-riaa.html

You shouldn't be able to be caught if you don't want to be, it's all a matter of your risk tolerance.

My risk tolerance is quite low. I've never lost the lottery, or received a settlement letter. Both for the same reason. I didn't play.

The RIAA has played. I find less new music. I find more and more CD's infected. I find more incompatible file formats, most with defective by design DRM. They blame the lost sales on Piracy. They are wrong. The legal product is broken and overpriced.

Instead of fixing their product and fixing the price (not price fixing), they have been caught red handed in a sabatoge effort.

http://www.p2pnet.net/story/13397

II. BACKGROUND

Plaintiffs filed a complaint against Defendant on November 14, 2007, alleging copyright infringement. According to the complaint, Defendant used and continued to use an online media distribution system...

Apropos our discussion on "public reaction" I see that the Associated Press has just picked up the story about Tanya Andersen's class action against the RIAA, a story that was reported here on Slashdot two weeks ago after it had been first reported on Jon Newton's web site p2pnet.net and on my lowly blog. And if you go the "commentary & discussion" section near the end of the blog post, you'll see a list of just some of the online media that have been discussing it, including Wired.com, Ars Technica, TechDirt, The Register, Yahoo! Tech, and many others, including European news media as well.

True it is that these stories are of greater interest to people interested in music, computers, the internet, p2p file sharing of music, videos, and games, or law.... but that includes MOST people under 50, a lot of people over 50, and almost everybody under 40.

Ironically, of all the people I know, the only one I can think of who would not be interested in any of this is.... believe it or not... Marie Lindor. She's never even turned on, let alone used, a computer, and she's worked such long hours as a home health aide, leaving early in the morning, getting home late, working weekends, and being a homemaker throughout... she doesn't have time to listen to music.

And she never even heard of file sharing.

I believe the relevant link is this one. The rest are court documents etc.

Here they're spending about $5000 in attorneys fees to try and squeeze $543 out of a 20 year old. I guess
-they really do need the money, and
-they're really bad businessmen.

Elsewhere on the website, Mike O'Donnell, a University of Chicago law professor, gives a good discussion of why the RIAA's policy of identifying people solely by their "unique" IP address is a load of crap. I'm honestly surprised more people haven't used this kind of a defense when the RIAA targets them. Maybe it's because it's not well-known knowledge yet?

In any case, I'm glad that I'm living off-campus next year as my university is on that list and is now notorious for its one strike policy. WTF is up with the idiots in Kansas anyways?

I didn't say, and I'm not saying, that shouldn't be happening. Rather, I was trying to underscore the completely distorted emphasis on what is, after all, a minor event in the scheme of things.

Thanks to an ongoing PR blitzkrieg in the mainstream media, duping music in any way, shape or form is coming to be regarded as a major crime and police forces are being suborned by the entertainment industries to act as copyright cops and in the process, they're being stopped from dealing with far more important incidents.

Counterfeiters are lumped together with file sharers under the now-generic term 'piracy,' which makes it much easier for the Big 4 - EMI (Britain), Vivendi Universal (France), Sony BMG (Japan and Germany) and Warner Music (US) - to drag innocent men, women and children into court, accusing them of being thieves and criminals of the same ilk as the counterfeiters. But there's no similarity whatsoever. And not one of these approximately 30,000 cases has yet been decided, and no one has yet been found guilty of the non-existent crime of file sharing, or anything else.

Sharing means exactly that. Sharing. No one has deprived of something he she used to own, no money has changed hands and it's often argued that file sharing is, in fact, an invaluable form of viral marketing.

The Big 4 use their so-called trade organisations such as the RIAA (Recording Industry Association of America), BPI (British Phonographic Industry), IFPI (International Federation of Phonographic Industry) or, CRIA (Canadian Recording Industry Association of America), to name but a few, to suggest files share shared equal sales lost, and that sharing is exactly the same as someone walking into a retail outlet and shoplifting ------- or duplicating a disc and selling it in a flea market.

The story I refer to, published in The Oregonian, says police grabbed, "50,000 items worth about $758,000". The implication is this was all music industry 'product'. But also mentioned, though only in passing, are, "knockoff designer purses, sunglasses and clothing, and counterfeit brand-name toys".

The owners of these items would no doubt love to see the police giving the same kind of undivided attention to their products as the CDs and DVDs. But that isn't happening.

The story says Beaverton police, "got a tip about counterfeit items being sold at a Beaverton market in December, and the investigation led them to the Hillsboro flea markets".

No prizes for guessing where the tip came from, and about "20 recording and movie industry investigators" arrived from California to "help" police (who numbered in their dozens, according to the story) identify counterfeit items.

Beaverton's population in 2006 was, says the Wikipedia, estimated at 84,270. So you'd hardly call it a major city. Nonetheless, the movie and music cartels assigned 20, TWENTY!, 'investigators' with "dozens of police officers" taking part in the raid?

The report says the CDs were going for $4.50 each, and the DVDs for between $4 and $12. But let's deduct, say, $10,000 for the sunglasses, etc. That leaves $748,000 for 50,000 (or so) DVDs and CDs, which also means the $4.50 to $12.00 claim doesn't compute.

Meanwhile, the issue isn't whether or not counterfeiting is illegal, or if police

I didn't say, and I'm not saying, that shouldn't be happening. Rather, I was trying to underscore the completely distorted emphasis on what is, after all, a minor event in the scheme of things.

Thanks to an ongoing PR blitzkrieg in the mainstream media, duping music in any way, shape or form is coming to be regarded as a major crime and police forces are being suborned by the entertainment industries to act as copyright cops and in the process, they're being stopped from dealing with far more important incidents.

Counterfeiters are lumped together with file sharers under the now-generic term 'piracy,' which makes it much easier for the Big 4 - EMI (Britain), Vivendi Universal (France), Sony BMG (Japan and Germany) and Warner Music (US) - to drag innocent men, women and children into court, accusing them of being thieves and criminals of the same ilk as the counterfeiters. But there's no similarity whatsoever. And not one of these approximately 30,000 cases has yet been decided, and no one has yet been found guilty of the non-existent crime of file sharing, or anything else.

Sharing means exactly that. Sharing. No one has deprived of something he she used to own, no money has changed hands and it's often argued that file sharing is, in fact, an invaluable form of viral marketing.

The Big 4 use their so-called trade organisations such as the RIAA (Recording Industry Association of America), BPI (British Phonographic Industry), IFPI (International Federation of Phonographic Industry) or, CRIA (Canadian Recording Industry Association of America), to name but a few, to suggest files share shared equal sales lost, and that sharing is exactly the same as someone walking into a retail outlet and shoplifting ------- or duplicating a disc and selling it in a flea market.

The story I refer to, published in The Oregonian, says police grabbed, "50,000 items worth about $758,000". The implication is this was all music industry 'product'. But also mentioned, though only in passing, are, "knockoff designer purses, sunglasses and clothing, and counterfeit brand-name toys".

The owners of these items would no doubt love to see the police giving the same kind of undivided attention to their products as the CDs and DVDs. But that isn't happening.

The story says Beaverton police, "got a tip about counterfeit items being sold at a Beaverton market in December, and the investigation led them to the Hillsboro flea markets".

No prizes for guessing where the tip came from, and about "20 recording and movie industry investigators" arrived from California to "help" police (who numbered in their dozens, according to the story) identify counterfeit items.

Beaverton's population in 2006 was, says the Wikipedia, estimated at 84,270. So you'd hardly call it a major city. Nonetheless, the movie and music cartels assigned 20, TWENTY!, 'investigators' with "dozens of police officers" taking part in the raid?

The report says the CDs were going for $4.50 each, and the DVDs for between $4 and $12. But let's deduct, say, $10,000 for the sunglasses, etc. That leaves $748,000 for 50,000 (or so) DVDs and CDs, which also means the $4.50 to $12.00 claim doesn't compute.

Meanwhile, the issue isn't whether or not counterfeiting is illegal, or if police

Yeah, it would be a good movie.

Here's a good article to start the research with.

Having read the briefs available at
  http://uncrooked.pbwiki.com/
here's a non-lawyer's opinion.

First, many of the demands are ridiculous, such as lengthy apologies for changing small bits of articles almost no one seems to have read (until Mr. Crookes himself drew attention to them), and demanding that google return nothing when "gang of Crookes" is entered in a search engine. This despite the fact that major newspapers carried the story and used that phrase. So evidently THEY do not believe that using it to refer to Mr. Crookes' political allies is defamatory.

Second, this is certainly SLAPP as understood in the US, so the first thing google and yahoo should do is apply for a change of venue and countersue (for triple damages). It's not the defendant's ability to pay lawyers that defines a SLAPP so much as the suit being "against public participation", that is, political statements, by the individuals. Every statement listed in the suits regards Crookes' behaviour in the party not in his business.

Another factor that makes a SLAPP "strategic" is usually the timing. Elizabeth May, whose faction in the Green Party opposed the David Chernushenko faction Crookes supported strongly, had just announced a major deal with the Liberal Party of Canada. The suits were filed interestingly just after, distracting attention and reducing ability of May allies to support her in that controversial move. You can read more about this in blog posts:
    http://technorati.com/tag/Wayne+Crookes

Third, the defendants are in fact mostly individuals. Have a look at this, which lists all the defendants (in an awesome logo!):
  http://p2pnet.net/story/12037

They're mostly individuals. The companies seem to have been targetted to gain more information and incriminating information against the individuals.

Fourth, the goal here seems not to get money so much as information useful to suppress dissent. This seems to be a classic attempt to leverage political information out of a corporation, the way Yahoo was coerced into providing data on dissidents in China. Canada is no better than China in this regard since it allows people to be sued for "libel" despite the statements being both political and true.

What's more, the individuals all have a track record of being involved in actual political debates, many as candidates for the Green Party of Canada itself. This is clearly a politically-motivated suit by Mr. Crookes and his "gang". The Green Party of Canada under his mentorship or influence (while Dermod Travis was there) filed two similar politically-motivated suits against Gretchen Schwarz and Matthew Pollesel, which were dropped as soon as the 2006 election was over.

This certainly would be considered a SLAPP suit in the US. In California, it would expose Mr. Crookes and his "gang of Crookes" to triple damages in a countersuit. After all, he's called very large publicly traded companies "reckless" and unconcerned about enabling harassment (i.e. spreading truth).

Given that people use search engines precisely to get true information, and given that yahoo for instance would be placed in an impossible position if it had to obey demands from foreign courts for information that exposes it to lawsuits under the US Alien Tort Claims Act, yahoo probably has no choice but to respond strongly to discourage this kind of nuisance lawsuit.

Well...that's a simple fix.

If you don't like industry encroachment...then don't play along.

Oh, were it that simple for someone like Patti Santangelo, the mother who was taken to court for acts of piracy that she wasn't committing, or Tanya Anderson,, the disabled mother who was unaware that her 10 year old daughter may have been downloading music, yet was dragged into court she couldn't afford for an old fashioned shakedown. As a matter of fact, just start looking at the cases on Recording Industry vs. People, and consider what kind of human would gleefully drive such an industry.

It's easy to say all this "just say no" stuff, but only because you haven't been wrongly accused. Follow even a few of these cases, and Valenti stands out as a man so exceedingly greedy that he stands out at the head of a group of a thousand greedy labels. Dante reserved the eighth circle of hell for those guilty of deliberate, knowing evil, and Jack himself appears to qualify for Bolgia 8, where fraudulent advisors are encased in individual flames. Break out the marshmallows, Virgil.

Jon Newton wasn't connected to the case at all, actually until he got sued for reporting on it. He is defending a libel suit of his own: http://p2pnet.net/story/11964.

Actually, you can make quite a bit of money on an indie film that is freely distributed. If the film is relatively popular, an embedded advertisement such as a scene in a local restaurant, or someone using the advertised product can bring a film maker a lot of revenue (especially if he is the seller of the advertised product). You also stick it to the MPAA. The media cartel hates competition, but they can no longer do any thing about it. The garage studio is going to put the media cartel out of business. It is now only a matter of time. The RIAA not only goes after innocent people, they also go after their children just to add fuel to the fire. An article on p2pnet.net shows just how much hatred the media cartel has generated for itself. The article is pretty informative, however, the comments are really telling!!!

http://p2pnet.net/story/11878

Actually, you can make quite a bit of money on an indie film that is freely distributed. If the film is relatively popular, an embedded advertisement such as a scene in a local restaurant, or someone using the advertised product can bring a film maker a lot of revenue (especially if he is the seller of the advertised product). You also stick it to the MPAA. The media cartel hates competition, but they can no longer do any thing about it. The garage studio is going to put the media cartel out of business. It is now only a matter of time. The RIAA not only goes after innocent people, they also go after their children just to add fuel to the fire. An article on p2pnet.net shows just how much hatred the media cartel has generated for itself. The article is pretty informative, however, the comments are really telling!!!

http://p2pnet.net/story/11878

I can remember Japanese example.

Many Japanese geeks & suits think if DMCA-styled "notice & takedown" safe harbor existed in Japan,File Rogue service could escape from devouring JASRAC.

Meanwhile, this was only round 1. It had a deadline of March 20th.

116 settlements is nothing.

Let's see what happens after the initial shock reaction dies down, and students start talking to each other, to their student legal services offices, to lawyers, etc. After they start reading and seeing what their legal rights are. After their ISP's and colleges get to think through what is going on here.

Round 2's letters have just gone out, to 405 students at 23 universities just added to the RIAA hit list.

I'm betting that more people in this group, having had a time to do some research, are getting their act together to resist.

Do you actually think this child did anything at all? The RIAA has zero evidence that she did.

Everyone out there, please boycott those labels.

And if you know of any recording artists on those labels, write to them and let them know what is going on.

Thank you.

What isn't mentioned in Herr Brandenburg's interview is that Fraunhofer have been playing both sides. If you've bought an MP3 capable player, you've paid Fraunhofer royalties. But Fraunhofer have been playing both sides: developing tools to track MP3s using watermarks so record companies crack down on piracy:

http://www.computerworld.com/securitytopics/securi ty/story/0,10801,108506,00.html
http://p2pnet.net/index.php?page=reply&story=878

They've been expanding their IP business too: Next time you run BitTorrent or eMule (they do both), run it with a network tracker. You'll see computers from Fraunhofer affiliates all over the world taking a peek at what you're downloading.

http://greatinca.net/blog/emule-ip-blocker-hits-04 022006/

Does this mean Fraunhofer's merry band of teutonic scientists can be both co-defendants and expert-witnesses in your case?

It seems obvious to me he's a friend of the RIAA. He runs an anti-P2P company according to this link http://p2pnet.net/story/10845/ and had some kind of DRM scheme or something...

I've been reading all these articles for years now. And I find it laughable how these so called "analysts" predict future growth potential for their industries.

- "Study Predicts $42.8 Billion Music Market by 2005"
http://www.stereophile.com/news/10837/
http://p2pnet.net/story/1167?PHPSESSID=b43903d88ca b374c1c0915849c2c4c92

- "The video game industry will grow to $50 billion by 2008"
http://blogs.business2.com/business2blog/2005/02/v ideo_game_grow.html

Then it looks like these industries seem to think they are entitled to this money, that they should be getting. And if they aren't hitting the numbers, then something must be wrong! People must be stealing their music, or their movies, or their video games. Perhaps, maybe there's just too much competition in their industry - and a lot of the players must die off?

In reality, people face an increased rise in the cost of living. But they're not making any more money. So these entertainment industries are competing for precious dollars that need to be spent elsewhere.

How about some breakdowns:

- Salaries are stagnant across the nation. LA, SF, and NYC are the large cities. The salaries there should be higher than anywhere else, but companies hate, and I emphasize "hate" to pay any more than $50k/year for a person. $70k/year starts to afford you a mini-comfortable life, but you still got to watch your expenses. Six-figure incomes seems to be the holy grail that everyone wants to achieve - but not everyone can. And most people with good jobs, are already working 50-60 hours a week, this also includes travel time, lunch time, and preparation time in the mornings.

- Property values in the large cities have skyrocketed. You need to make over $125,000 annually just to qualify for a $500k home. This started after the dot-com boom. People with extra money buying up property. Then everyone tried to get into the house flipping craze, which really artificially jacked up property value. People are signing off on 30 and 40 year mortgages now.

- So this jacks up the rent. Rent keeps increasing. California is quickly becoming a land of renters. $1050/month is the minimum you can expect to pay for a tiny 1-bedroom apartment in LA. The only way to keep your cost of living low is to have 2 or 3 roommates. Unless you want to live in the ghettos with ghetto-birds always flying around your neighborhood at night. There you might find a 1-bedroom apartment for $700 - make sure to wear a bullet-proof vest.

- Energy costs have gone up. LA's average for gasoline is $2.50/gallon for 87 octane. $2.90/gallon for 91 octane. People are spending $125/month on gasoline now just to commute to work.

- Anyone with a job has car expenses. If they have a newer car, they'll have monthly car payments. If they have an older car, all paid off, they'll have maintenance expenses, and risk of the car breaking down. And there's the insurance cost to drive in LA.

- Most people have a cell phone now, which is $60/month.
- Internet - cable modem is $50/month.
- Cable TV - Basic cable is now $50/month.
- Food will cost you $300/month, if you want to eat cheap.

- And most people with a good job, also has student loans to pay off - which can range from $25k to $60k. And whatever credit card expenses they incurred during college when they didn't have a job.

- And if you're a guy, and you want a girlfriend, then you've got "dating expenses." Clubs love to charge guys $25 for cover, and let the girls in for free. Drinks in Hollywood are $13/piece.

And now... I can get to the entertainment expenses.
- A movie ticket is $10/piece.
- Then there are all the other fun things that you want to do to enjoy

That's right kids - we're one step away from failing to have the ability to sort by color and shape.

Why should we be trusted to sort colors and shapes when we're being "protected" from dangers like listening to music while crossing streets

If the recording industry is hurting soo badly, where the hell are they getting the money for all theese lawsuits & lawyers ?

Wrong! Most charges don't go to court, they go to the settlement center.

"The cartel's demand for $7500 came through the RIAA 'settlement centre,' but Santangelo plans to fight although,

So it makes its victims an offer they can't refuse - Settle. Or else. "
http://p2pnet.net/story/5925

Yeah, I'm replying to myself, but anyways...
There's a transcript here of the discussion in Canada regarding MediaSentry. (I'm using MediaSentry as a company below, not as the software)

Some good points from the article:

• From page 53.... as MediaSentry's software does put up "junk files", have employees of MediaSentry listened to, or verified the content of the files allegedly downloaded (or shared) by the defendant? If not, how can you be sure its copyrighted material and not "junk"?
• From page 59... a user may think they have closed down Kazaa (or other p2p) but in reality it has just been minimized to the taskbar, and given how XP may only show a certain number of applications, the user may have no visual indication at all that it is still running

And from the judgement:
[15] The Motions Judge held that: a) Rule 233 was not applicable because it presupposes the existence of specified documents. Here, the documents that would reveal the identity of the 29 persons did not pre-exist. Rather, documents containing the information would have to be created by the respondents through the use of existing logs and tapes. b) The affidavits filed in support of the motion were deficient in that the evidence failed to satisfy the requirements of Rule 81 because "major portions of these affidavits are based upon information which Mr. Millin gained from his employees. Accordingly they consist largely of hearsay.... Mr. Millin gives no reason for his beliefs." c) Because of the conclusions in (a) and (b), there was no clear evidence that the requisite relationship between the IP addresses and the pseudonyms had been established.

How did this case come to be so heavily litigated? In an interview on P2Pnet, you said...

P2PNet interview with Ray Beckerman:

Beckerman: [...] I can say that in Elektra v Santangelo, the basis for our motion to dismiss complaint was that the complaint failed to allege any specific acts of infringement. In response plaintiff disagreed, arguing that its vague complaint did satisfy the pleading standards, since it alleged that a Kazaa account attached to Ms. Santangelo's IP address had a "shared files folder". Our reply papers reminded the Court that that alone would not make out a claim for copyright infringement, and that the Courts have consistently required specific acts of copying, and the dates and times of those acts. A fully set of the motion papers is now online. In the unlikely event that our motion is not granted, there are numerous other issues that would come into play later on in the case.

p2pnet: On a scale of one to 10, where do you place your chances of winning?

Beckerman: I think our chances of winning the Santangelo case are a 10. Our motion was based on black letter law. The plaintiff's 'opposition' papers were weak, digressive, and nonsensical. I believe they will be laughed out of court.

IANAL, but from the information at hand, I'd be inclined to buy the opinion you're selling in those statements. Apparently though, the RIAA managed to get that motion denied, otherwise the case should have been over last August. So what happened? How is a case that failed to cite specific acts of copying still in court?

As the submitter, I would also like to point out that FightGoliath is the legal defense fund for Patti Santangelo, and appears to still be taking donations.

Now they just need to combine it with this: http://p2pnet.net/story/4447

If you don't think that compassion and decency have a place in the law, I feel sorry for you.

I don't share that outlook. I wouldn't have gone into the legal profession I did. I came here to help make the world a better place, not a worse place.

Ms. Schwartz is a very sick woman who didn't infringe anyone's copyrights. The RIAA's lawyers are aware of both of those facts. They should have dropped this case, but they and their lawyers are ghouls. In my view anyone who doesn't get that it's wrong to persecute helpless people this way isn't my kind of people.

I suggest you read what Jordan Glass had to say about these lawsuits in an excellent article on p2pnet.net.

Sorry if you feel I "weaseled" out of answering the question. I think I did answer it.

If you don't think that compassion and decency have a place in the law, I feel sorry for you.

I don't share that outlook. I wouldn't have gone into the legal profession I did. I came here to help make the world a better place, not a worse place.

Ms. Schwartz is a very sick woman who didn't infringe anyone's copyrights. The RIAA's lawyers are aware of both of those facts. They should have dropped this case, but they and their lawyers are ghouls. In my view anyone who doesn't get that it's wrong to persecute helpless people this way isn't my kind of people.

I suggest you read what Jordan Glass had to say about these lawsuits in an excellent article on p2pnet.net.

Sorry if you feel I "weaseled" out of answering the question. I think I did answer it.

More shocking to me is this:

To boost their claims without actually having to prove anything, the RIAA is also using the mainstream media to publicly harrass and humiliate the Santangeo family via a 'court document' which, although it still hadn't been indexed at the time of writing, or seen by the Santangelos or their lawyer, Jordan Glass, was last week freely distributed to the media.

AllOfMP3 has been censored at the DNS level by the Danish ISP, Tele2/Get2net, following a court ruling. They've appealed the ruling and expect the censorship to be canceled, but who knows...
See more at Google News.
Direct links to first few hits: 1, 2, 3.

Coincidentally, one of my colleagues worked for the Danish police making the pedo-filter working out which IP addresses to block, delivering those to all danish ISPs who have to block these by law. I asked her about pirates, and her comment was "why should the police care?".

See, I don't just rely on who I know, but on scientific study
"it would take 5,000 downloads to reduce the sales of an album by one copy"
http://www.p2pnet.net/zero/FileSharing_March2004.p df
"this would imply a yearly sales loss of two million albums, which is virtually rounding error' given that 803 million records were sold in 2002. Sales dropped by 139 million albums from 2000 to 2002"

So if your friends aren't buying many CDs, there are likely lots of reasons for that.

If you want a more juicy article you might want to try p2pnet.net

The exact technical procedures through which the IP addresses in this case were harvested and the technical validity and reliability of those investigative techniques are not explained. Since plaintiffs has not shown how they harvested the IP addresses, it is impossible to discern that these IP addresses were not simply invented.

...

When a regular node connects to a supernode, the regular node sends to the supernode a list of hashes corresponding to file names and metadata for all files in the regular node's shared folder. The supernode then adds this data to the supernode's master index. The transfer of the regular node's hash data to the supernode does not involve the uploading of any files from the regular node's shared folder to the supernode. Only the hash data is transferred to the supernode, not the files themselves. Because the supernode's hash data is an aggregate of all hash data collected from the regular nodes connected to it, the supernode responding to a search request may simply be providing a list of files that actually reside on other computers, not the supernode's computer.

This is from the well-presented expert testimony about how p2p networks works and the problem with the evidence presented by the MPAA. I never found a contention to those arguments in the other papers I looked at, only:

As has previously been explained to the Court in the Whitehead Declaration filed with the original Ex Parte Motion to Take Immediate Discovery, upon finding Defendant disseminating large numbers of copyrighted works, Plaintiffs gathered substantial evidence of Defendant's illegal conduct. Plaintiffs could not ascertain Defendant's name, address, or any other contact information, but could identify the Internet Protocol ("IP") address from which the Defendant was unlawfully disseminating Plaintiffs' copyrighted works. Even if Defendant's arguments were appropriate at this stage, which is not the case, (3) those arguments lack merit. Defendant claims that Plaintiffs have failed to set forth any basis for their allegations that Defendant downloaded copyrighted files, distributed such files to the public, and made such files available for distribution to others. As to the allegations of unlawful downloading and distribution, Plaintiffs respectfully submit that such allegations are well supported on the face of the Complaint, which shows massive infringement by Defendant. For example, Plaintiffs have gathered substantial evidence that Defendant has unlawfully disseminated hundreds of Plaintiffs' copyrighted works and have attached to the Complaint screenshots showing these works. See Ex. B, Complaint. Thus, Plaintiffs have already presented substantial evidence that Defendant was disseminating hundreds of copyrighted sound recordings without authorization and had previously illegally downloaded hundreds of copyrighted sound recordings.

3. Should the Court nonetheless wish to consider Defendants' argument that Plaintiffs have allegedly provided insufficient evidence to state a prima facie claim of copyright infringement, Plaintiffs respectfully request an opportunity to provide such evidence. Although Plaintiffs believe that the statements contained in the Affidavit of Defendant's expert Zi Mei are not relevant and should not be considered at this stage of the proceedings, Plaintiffs note that Defendant's expert is hardly independent, as he has openly sought help from Internet users in fighting Plaintiffs. See Help needed in RIAA case, http://www.p2pnet.net/story/7752 (last visited March 17, 2006) (Appendix A); Help Zi against the RIAA,

Here's a nice profile of Mr. Wilke's lawyers.

I know Slashdot moderators might moderate me down for just agreeing with you, "beadfulthings", but I agree with you on all counts: (1) the cases are fishing expeditions, (2) the defendants can ill afford to fight back, and (3) Daliah Saper deserves our respect for what she's doing.

Just to try to keep my karma by being "informative", and "interesting", here's a great article on Paul Wilke's fight against the evil empire, and a helpful link to his lawyer Daliah Saper, just in case you ever have legal trouble in Chicago.