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RIAA Not Done With Jesse Jordan
digime writes "In a recent Slashdot article it was reported that 19-year-old college student Jesse Jordan gave up his life savings to the RIAA for running a campus search engine. He has recovered over 83% of his savings lost to the RIAA, and his search engine is back up. "The RIAA started yelling and tried to rescind my order of dismissal after they signed it because of comments that I made on CNN.", Jordan says on his site. "A very well-known top lawyer at the RIAA, while making threats of further legal actions, referred to himself as a 'dentist' that I would not want to 'have another visit with'"
Stick it to the man!
...so you can lose all your money again.
I think it is time for someone to pull the RIAA's teeth
And a clearly-spoken public campaign to discredit these scum at the RIAA. The "dentist" can go fuck himself. The threat by this "top" RIAA attorney is assault and he needs to be criminally prosecuted.
One of the big problems with our legal system is that it is easy to bully someone with a frivolous lawsuit when they can't afford the time or money to defend themselves. As the defendant pointed out, a lawsuit against AltaVista would have just as much justification behind it (little to none) but they didn't go after them because AltaVista can afford to defend themselves.
Apparently, that is not correct, as it says the following on the search engine's website (also linked in the article):He does, however, say "I am legally allowed to run my search engine - it is not forbidden by my dismissal. I have a first amendment right to free speech.", so maybe he intends to bring the search engine back up for real
Switch back to Slashdot's D1 system.
Dismissal
I don't think Jessee will mind a mirror of the settlement PDF.
I've had enough abrasive sigs. Kittens are cute and fuzzy.
1) Get sued for $12k
2) People donate money
3) Get sued again for $90b
4) People donate hella money
.
.
5) Profit?
A very well-known top lawyer at the RIAA, while making threats of further legal actions, referred to himself as a 'dentist' that I would not want to 'have another visit with'
So wait a minute... dentists are supposed to be the ones working for you. So, it seems to me that he's saying he's not the kind of guy you'd want to hire twice. Nevertheless, his comment sounds a lot like this:
Booga booga booga!
http://mediagoblin.org/
These are the folks who ashcroft should be worrying about.
Repeal the DMCA!
This seems right up their alley... this kid was running a general purpose search engine. It indexes everything it finds. It returns results. He made no money off of it. He was intimidated into settling, pure and simple.
Can I run a search engine now? Exactly HOW are google and alta vista immune from similar suits? Simple -- they can pay lawyers who could kick the crap out of the RIAA.
It's a travesty of justice. I wish one of the multi-letter organizations would help this guy.
If I read your dismissal action correctly, you are prohibited from trading/transmitting/etc/etc/ad nauseum any sort of copyrighted works via your phynd service.
It also states that the "defendant shall not engage in or sell" software that encourages copying, trading, blah, blah, blah.
How are you keeping your Phynd service up again(or are you just offering it for download)? Is it your contention that your software is intended to do nothing of the sort (ie. just a tool to be used for good OR evil)? That's the only loophole I can see in that document... anyone better with legalese than myself find something different?
I'm a little confused here.
Even if a man chops off your hand with a sword, you still have two nice, sharp bones to stick in his eyes.
Not if you do it twice.
Well, the MPAA is horrible and is taking away rights! But hell, here comes X-2, The Hulk, Lord of the Rings, etc.
The Slashdot crowd is all about boycotts, except when it makes life inconvenient for them. Then they'll pony up to the bar faster than... something that ponies up to the bar really quick.
...well, the RIAA was caught price fixing, and settled rather than face conviction, so I guess it's only expected that they should behave like criminals :)
Ha! Looks like you fools who donated could have saved yourself the trouble and made your donations straight to the RIAA.
What sucks about the legal system is that anyone can make something up and file a law suit against you, and if you don't have the funds to deal with and defend the allegation then you're screwed in court.
The RIAA was probably looking to make an example out of this person(making examples out of people is what they love) and probably got unlucky with this guy. The best weapon that these guys _think they have against activity they don't like is a detterant (making examples out of people for fun and profit). They'll do it again at a time of their choosing, they've got the dough and the legal beagles to screw with you.
Lawyers are like legal hitmen, give them enough money and they'll do anything you want - desperados, got to feed the family.
Analytic & algebraic topology of locally Euclidean meterization of infinitely differentiable Riemmanian manifold
Would not moving the site and the contents outside the US help avoid this or would the person still be responsbile?
Rus
Cheap UK and US VPS
The RIAA has nothing to worry about, Slashdot has taken care of it FREE OF CHARGE!
until Mary Bono - wife to the late Sonny Bono, who was the father of the blessed Copyright Extension Act - get's into office. Out with Hillary and in with Mary who called the RIAA her 'ideal job'.
Jesus, what a family legacy..
Hello???
The guy was not violating any copyrights....
He's running a search engin, remember?He is NOT, repeat, NOT, hosting the files. Talking about search engins, there's one you should know about.... it's here.... Oh wait.... If you search for ANYKNOWNARTIST.mp3... there's a 25% chance that the robot has indexed a page with a link to the file... Well, damn those criminals, lets sue them....
As stated in a post above, the RIAA have exactly the same legal right to go after Altavista, Google or whatever.
1. No sig. 2. ???? 3. Profit!!!
'Fatal error: Call to undefined function: message_die() in /opt/chewplastic/htdocs/db/db.php on line 88'
Oh, and strategically placed "campaign contributions".
If that bit about "visiting the dentist" is accurate, I hope he gets his teeth knocked out in some unfortunate freak accident with a ballpeen hammer.
They say the first thing to go is your penis. Well, it's either that or your brain. I forget which...
I am a reporter for the Washington Times and I interviewed Jesse Jordan on Friday night and he said, "I dont think they want me to run the site anymore, but we shall see about that.It's still a question I haven't really answered, I do plan to follow the agreement."
He also explained the reason the Phynd search engine is "up" right now is so people can see how it worked and let people decided for themselves if he broke the law and so media members, like myself, can see how it worked and have a better idea of how to describe it in articles.
The European companies are just as bad. Indies might be ok, but most of them are pretty deep in bed with the biggies just to survive too. I only buy from bands directly. There are actually some really good musicians out there selling CDs pressed on their own computer. Go to gigs. If you like em, buy their CD.
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Friends don't let friends enable ecmascript.
Because nobody knows as many assholes as an attorney for the RIAA.
It seems Jesse has recovered much of his life savings through donations. He has a paypal link on his site (unfortunately I can't give the link to you--it uses post). If you want to donate, go here, sign in/register, and send money to jordaj@rpi.edu
One of the other college students sued by the RIAA, Daniel Peng, also has a paypal donation page.
I don't even bother anymore. There's nothing on CD that I even WANT. I'm an old fart now, and don't much care for their content anymore.
I also don't much care for CNN / MSNBC / Faux News, so I don't watch them anymore either. I've also quit watching clear channel stations.
The news, and musical artists, are both manufactured now, nothing's real anymore.
-- I am. Therefore, I think!
What the have in common, also, is something that really pisses me off - they always invoke "the artist" and the artists rights when they pull this crap. The Sonny Bono act was touted as a victory for, exampled, Harold Lloyd, the silent film star whose films were going to go into public domain. He's been dead for years, but it was being treated as his victory because his grand-daughter would be able to restrict distribution of his old films, and make a profit on them.
The idea that "the artist" - which is really a misnomer, since the term should be "whoever happens to own the rights to a work" - has some God-given right to perpetual profit from and control of their work - is untenenble. I certainly don't: I do my work for hire, and if I want more money, I have to do more work. But the Bonos and the RIAA and MPAA seem to think that an "artist's" granddaughter not having to work for a living is more important than an open society and a free discourse about the cultural works in it.
Just a note, a CD produced on a personal computer is a burned disc, not a pressed one. Mass produced discs are called pressed because that accurately describes their process of creation. The pits are literally stamped into the reflective layer, then the plastic coating is added. With CD-Rs you have a disc with the plastic and reflective layer already setup. However there is an additonal element, a dye added. A laser is then used to burn the dye to the reflective layer, causing it it become less reflective in the burned spots, giving the same effect to the reader laser as a pit on a pressed disc.
So, if you are speaking of mass producd silver discs, they are pressed. Individually produced discs off a burner are burned. The distinction can be an important one when you are talking about selling CDs since pressed CDs are much cheaper per unit, but have a higher minimum production run.
Great, organized crime on both sides of the fight, that would be interesting.
One line blog. I hear that they're called Twitters now.
Could this be an ethics violation? Each state bar association has its own ethics rules. It could be possible that making threats like this, threating to rescind a lawsuit etc.., could be an ethics violation. Especially if it was done without any legal basis and only as a threat. It might be good to file an ethics complaint with that states bar. It might not get him punished, but it would probably be a thorn in his side.
A law professor of mine was a US attorney. He said that when they had a case against a mafia figure, the mob attornyes would ALWAYS file an ethics complaint against the prosecutors. The complaints always proved false, but they would show that the mob was willing to fight hard and would sometimes shake up the government attorney. Having an ongoing ethics investigation could prevent an attorney from getting a new job, promotion etc.
IANAL
http://www.windmeadow.com/
Click here for the Transcript
This quote from his webpage says it all... The RIAA obeys the laws when it benefits them...and flouts them when it benefits THEM!. It's only too bad that they have such deep pockets with which to bribe Congress. Their arrogance will prove to be their undoing in the long run though. Only freaks like Orrin Hatch will be left once that happens..and frankly I think Hatch is so far out on the lunatic fringe that he's more a liability then an asset for them these days
Oh, how useful.
Have you read the terms of use?
Terms of Use: As of January 15, by using Phynd, you agree to have your shared (non-password protected) data indexed. Do not worry, if you do not wish to have your files indexed in Phynd, just add a password to your shares. Alternatively, if you would like to be removed from the database, please use the Feedback form and I will remove you within 24 hours.
Bringing Phynd back up in "dummy mode" is a means of collecting permission to index people's files. His original case was severely prejudiced by the fact that he himself was sharing files. His case was weak because he did not get authorization to index people's files. And he did not provide a removal mechanism.
I am going to seriously oversimplify the settment here and say that it pretty much says that he can't do anything illegal and that he can't knowingly facillitate illegal downloads. If the service goes live again I assume his will honor copyright holder requests for the removal of specific links to infringing files.
This kid's got a huge set of balls flaunting his system in the RIAA's face. It all boils down to whether he got good legal advice or not. There is good reason to think the premise of the Phynd system is perfectly legal. With these minor changes he may be perfectly entitled to bring his system back up. If the RIAA tries anything he may in fact win a suit against the RIAA. Worst case the RIAA wins a hundred billion dollar suit against him and he files for bankruptcy. Not only does he have virtually nothing to lose, it would wipe out the three year $7000 debt he still owes to the RIAA. By suing and winning the RIAA could conceivably wind up getting LESS money from him than if they do nothing.
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- - You can't take something off the Internet! That's like trying to take pee out of a swimming pool.