Slashdot Mirror
Interview with Student Sued by RIAA
TinoMNYY24 writes "Jesse Jordan, owner of chewplastic.com, was on CNN this morning discussing the RIAA settlement. You can read a poorly spelled transcript of the interview. Jesse is one of the two students at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute that were sued by the RIAA."
RPI's other search engine, run by a school-funded computer club, was taken by the school's request.
It simply ran a Windows Share crawler which indexed files people were already sharing over the standard Microsoft networking tools. When you searched, it would provide a link to the file in question with a url pointing to the windows name of the computer and directory the file was last indexed in.
It is very very similar to google and web services. They both index public information, and rely on the technology of the client and server in question to procede further with the connection and transfers.
The reason I think these students were targetted was because they also were sharing, or had on their computers music that (allegedly, this is what I hear) didn't belong to them. So while the lawsuit about the search engine itself is sketchy at best (imo, ianal, etc), if they didn't settle a music piracy suit could probably easily be brought up against them.
I may have some of my facts wrong, but as I recall he initially had some illegal mp3s on his machine which would make hims a direct as well as alleged contributory infringer. He may be planning on removing his illegal mp3s and then putting the engine back up so that he is now above reproach.
Consider spending months and months, and 100s of thousands of dollars to defend yourself.
Yes you could countersue, and you might get your court costs covered. But where do you get the money you need to fight with (not even considering you might never get it back, even if you win)?
The US justice system is a tool for people/companies with money. If you can't afford to fight a suit brought against you, then you have to settle (which despite not admitting wrongdoing, always makes you look guilty.)
.sigs are for post^Hers.
Speaking as an RPI student...
RPI costs >$30,000 a year to attend. Assuming this kid is paying full price and living on campus, it comes out to somewhere around $17,000 a semester, plus incidental costs (books, etc). If he needed to do well in his finals to pass his courses, it would be more economical to pay off the RIAA than have a shitty semester.
--
Phil
Help Jesse pay the $12,000. Go to Chewplastic.com and click the "contribute via paypal" link that's at the top of the page right now. Fuck the RIAA.
"They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety."
There's really nothing in this interview that implies that the reason the RIAA went after him was because of the search engine and not some other reason-- such as him possibly having some bootleg mp3's on his computer. It seems likely to me that the reason he settled was because he in fact was doing or aiding some infringing in some more direct way and at this point he'd prefer everyone think that the RIAA went after him for some more arbitrary reason (as it makes him seem less guilty). Not that I agree with the RIAA's tactics at all, but if all this kid did was to put up a google-like search engine I think he'd probably have the ACLU or the EFF or several other organizations ready to pro-bono defend such a landmark case. It seems to me there's something being swept under the rug here...
Right off hand, I know Dave Grohl of the Foo Fighters said, "What? do they want me to start putting a quarter in my car radio?" and Fred Durst has said, "Yeah, we [Limp Bizkit] make too much money anyway". Granted, Fred Durst isn't as cool as Dave Grohl...it's still something to think about. ~Scuba Steve
Don't laugh. That is in the works.
The kid set up a paypal link on his site (chewplastic.com) so help him pay the rediculous extortion by the RIAA. I threw the kid $20 to help.
These people look deep into my soul and assign me a number based on the order I joined.
You can kill people with a gun, but I haven't seen any lawsuit against S&W for creating a tool that can be used to commit a crime.
Cincinnati recently dropped their suit against gunmakers. Expect to see more of these.
05/01/2003 "CINCINNATI - The City Council voted unanimously Wednesday to drop a lawsuit against gun manufacturers and distributors, but retained the option of refiling it within a year.
The council's 8-0 vote followed the recommendation of its lawyer, who said the litigation appeared to be an uphill battle.
Cincinnati was among about 30 cities and counties nationwide in recent years that had sued the gun industry, seeking to recover costs of responding to crimes committed with firearms.
The firearms industry has said it is not liable for the lawful manufacture and sale of non-defective products. A number of the lawsuits have been dismissed by courts.
Cincinnati's lawsuit, filed in 1999, was rejected by an Ohio appeals court in 2000. The state Supreme Court reinstated it in 2002."
Right before the site got /.'d he added a paypal donation thing to the top. For anyone that can't see the page anymore, the paypal address is jordaj@rpi.edu. The last time I saw the page there were 1200+ users online. If we all donate $10 that covers what he owes and he can use anything leftover to fight back against the RIAA. We all need to take some action against the RIAA before this gets even worse. Where this guy has already been in court with the RIAA and his lawyers are familiar with them, we could get him to take some kind of action against them with all of us supporting. I dunno, I'm not familiar with the legal process or how our laws work, but I know taking $12,000 from a poor college student for downloading a few mp3s is not justified.
This SLAPP suit will lead to many others, as only the rich can afford to defend themselves in court. There is one thing we can do to voice out anger. Boycott the recording industry, and any company that uses SLAPP suits.
How ya like dat?
Name a popular RIAA member artist that condones their music being ripped off their CD and freely traded on P2P networks. I'm not talking about concert bootlegs or limited samples, I'm talking about direct CD rips.
The Offspring were vocal Napster proponents. And before you say they're not popular, go look up their sales. Further, you then argue that
The ONLY artists that don't mind - or even LIKE - their music being freely traded are indies.
Which is also clearly not true, as they're a big-label band.
That's one off the top of my head. I'm sure there are others.
It is a crime.
To take from novel copyright infringment page:
Congress has distilled the crime of felony copyright infringement to four essential elements: (1) a copyright exists; (2) it was infringed by the defendant, specifically by reproduction or distribution of the copyrighted work; (3) the defendant acted "willfully"; and (4) the defendant infringed at least 10 copies of one or more copyrighted works with a total retail value of more than $2,500 within a 180-day period. See 17 U.S.C. 506(a)(2); 18 U.S.C. 2319(a), (c)(1).
Otherwise it's a tort, not a crime.
"One man can change the world with a bullet in the right place."
- Mick Travis, "If..."
As an actual RPI student, I can tell you for a fact that there are several other uses for Phynd on our campus. For example, a lot of people share course files that are required, research papers they've written, etc.
so the next person doesn't die, thats why.
The hospital will only change procedures if they get sued. She should have said "there could be a problem that mimics pancreatitis, so I strongly suggest you take an MRI" then scheduled for an emergency MRI.
If at that point you failed to show up, or refused, THEN it is on you, but until she insisted she had not done due diligence.
I am not a big SUE for anything type of person, but it does have other effect.
Plus, you didn;t have to sue for millions, you could of sued for 100,000 plus law fees and a change in policy. It owuld have been enough to get there attention, not so much that you are raping the system.
Also, most multi-million dollar lawsuits end up appeal until there a reasonable amount.
of course the media doesn't report "that person we told you got 100 bazillion dollars only got 100K after the apeals."
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
Because, even if you win, you have to fund the lawsuit for years until you do.
There was a case years ago where a widow was suing an insurance company for the life insurance payment from the death of her husband. The insurance company dragged their feet for years, clearly in the wrong, but hoped she'd drop it. She didn't. She won punitive damages at the end ("unconscionable" actions by the insurance company) in addition to the amount she was owed to punish the insurance company for doing that, but there wasn't any guarantee of a dime during the years she fought it--and I think that she lost basically everything while paying for the lawsuit. Most people don't want to go through that. (Unfortunately, I'm having trouble finding a link to the case online, and I don't have my textbook to look it up.)
--RJ