Slashdot Mirror
Programmer Challenges RIAA Investigators
NewYorkCountryLawyer writes "In court papers filed today in Manhattan federal court, programmer Zi Mei has slammed the investigation on which the 'ex parte' orders obtained in the RIAA's cases against consumers are based. Armed with Mei's affidavit, a midwesterner -- sued in Atlantic v. Does 1-25 in New York City as 'John Doe Number 8' -- has asked the judge to vacate the 'ex parte' order on the ground that the RIAA doesn't have the evidence it needs to get such an order. If Doe wins, the RIAA's subpoenas to the ISP, for its subscriber's identities, will be thrown out."
is the summary trying to say? it's nonsensical gibberish
Chances are the majority of accused John Does are guilty but there's always the chance of a false positive(Mythbusters drug test), incorrect data reporting, creative accounting practices, wait that was Enron, I mean creative data reporting, MediaSentry: if we add to this big list of shared songs to the small one we just found the RIAA will may us more money.
I don't recall hearing the results of any challenge to their data mining, but if they go with the closed source/proprietary code/industry secret response I hope it results in all their "evidence" being tossed.
unfortunately the pdf link is broken or has been slashdoted
F7 doesn't work, ignore spelling and grammar
The real problem with the state of civil litigation is that corporations are allow to act as a "person". It's a matter of an inequity of resources. A corporation typically has enormous financial, and legal resources compared to an individual.
The real solution is to treat corporations as the commercial organizational entities that they truly are, rather than as persons. For that matter governmental organizational entities also ought to be treated as such.
There needs to be a change to the civil standard between individuals from *proof by a preponderance of evidence* to a more rigorous standard. Proof beyond a reasonable doubt is too strong a standard a civil standard between individuals, or between organizational entities. In a civil case between an organizational entity, and an individual where the organizational entity is the plaintiff, then the *reasonable doubt* standard ought to hold.
Part of the reason for the *proof beyond a reasonable doubt* standard in criminal cases is to prevent malicious prosecution. A high standard for burden of proof in criminal cases reduces the potential for false witness to be used as a means to 'get even with', harass, or intimidate individuals. The high standard lessens the potential impact of 'frame ups'.
"Oh drat these computers, they're so naughty and so complex, I could pinch them." --Marvin the Martian
er, anonymous connections?
As in the ISP activates a particular access key to a wireless network in an area of town assuming that X much money is deposited in Y postbox in a brown envelope.
That way the ISP ceases to have the names/addresses of it's subscribers however much they get subpeonaed for them.
Or is that illegal (since they won't have a proper paper trail for where the money is coming from).
Could they handle billing offshore so the data wouldn't be in the US?
The Problem isn't that they are seeking money lost on pirating... Anyone who's owed money that isn't getting it. has a right to be pissed off (just ask the artists that are under the RIAA). The Problem is that they, the RIAA, are hypocritical. They are attacking run of the mill people who have pirated a couple songs... When they should REALLY be going after the massive black markets in indonesia, malaysha, china, etc. But, it's a lot easier to sue 80-year old women, or 20-year old guys with no money than to run up against the Triads. You know, another thing, obtaining music isn't really the crime, it's listening to music you haven't paid for. If it was just HAVING the music, then every person in the world could get sued as a potential distributor. Also, RIAA should be forced to go back and sue everyone who ever made tape copies BEFORE going and suing people who are downloading songs off the net. It's unfair that they are able to pick and choose who to sue when it should be an unbiased, across-the-board thing. But, NO, IPs are easier to harrass people with. Shoot, most people who pirate go and actually buy the music. And the harder and harder they make CD DRMs (aka SONY), they will only be making things harder for the honest people when hackers will ALWAYS find a way around it. I don't care what kind of scheme you have. It will be hacked... sooner or later. Usually sooner... look at the 'unhackable 360' as evidence for that-and just wait for dvd-John to get into the mix. Anyway... my rant... people who make billions in profit and bitch about not making another billion piss me off... like they need another hot tub in their jet.
Nothing is more destructive of respect for the government and the law of the land than passing laws which cannot be enforced. It is an open secret that the dangerous increase of crime in this county is closely related with this.
- Albert Einstein
Now, personally I think the US "everyone pays their own fees" system sucks, because it's wide open to abuse by large and well-funded organisations in this sort of context
No, what sucks is the complex legal system that requires expensive representation. It's a de-facto standard and nothing more, by lawyers for lawyers. Everyone pays their own fees is the epitomy of fairness; it is simply an unfortunate and unavoidable byproduct of the ability of groups to leverage their power over individuals combined with overly complex laws that lead to the current situation. You really can't do anything about the RIAA suing people, in a free country you can generally sue anyone for civil action if it's justified, and currently copying other people's stuff falls under civil law. The problem is that no one has the expert witnesses nor the expert social engineers^W^W lawyers needed to sway the jury.
Probably one could fix the entire legal mess in this country by requiring a jury of legal experts instead of a jury of one's peers. When one's peers are lagging behind some second and third world countries in math and english and reasoning scores, who on earth would want them on a jury? They'll buy the big flashy lawyer's story in a heartbeat, because obviously no one who looks and acts just like them could get the attention of such an obviously famous and important lawyer unless they had done *something*... I welcome the singularity, that's all I can say.
a file called 'Eminem - When I'm Gone.mp3', a reasonable person would expect that it would contain that song
It's very common on P2P to get files whose contents and titles have absolutely nothing to do with each other. Much of that is put there by the RIAA, so they cannot deny the reasonable doubt that exists there.
Question: How does a 'John Doe' fight a lawsuit?
My guess: At some point, their ISP notified him, they retained a lawyer and the lawyer is making motions and appearing on his behalf.
This works, but only for people who can afford a laywer .
How are you supposed to represent yourself in a John Doe case?
[Fuck Beta]
o0t!
A few years ago, the US government bullied my country into making new law under the threat of a trade war.
This new legislation allows copyright holders to obtain an "ex parte" court order to enter and search private homes without informing the people living in these private homes if the copyright holder can show that it is "probable" that someone living there has infringed on a copyright. There is no requirement that the police be involved in such searches of private homes (first time this has been allowed in my country), and the law gives the copyright holder a right to be present at the search (never before have the other side in a civil case been allowed to be present during a search of a private home in my country).
This has regularly been abused. In very few cases the "evidence" found in such searches has ever been used in a court of law. Instead most cases have been settled before court by the people searched in fear of the copyright holders releasing information on what was found during the search (legal or not).
I used to have a hard time understanding why some people were thinking the US was imperialistic and why the US had to be opposed in any way possible, but no longer.
Tomorrow it may be my door that the US entertainment industry kicks down.
Does somebody want to take a guess if I still like the US?
I'm not sure how this applies to ISPs in any way shape or form.
Anonymous ISP here... good question! My understanding of GLB as explained by the law-speaking guys is that it doesn't usually apply, but we offer a package of enhanced services to community banks including managed VPNs and their auditors are pretty inclusive on who's doing what. It's like SAS-70 - I'd probably never initiate one myself but we have to do it since our customers (and their auditors) expect us to. You'd be surprised how many companies that have no business passing a SAS-70 manage to do so btw...
GLB is probably something good for an ISP to know if it deals with customers in the financial industry.
"Mei is the programmer whose affadavit the midwesterner wa "armed" with."
The original poster had it right. It is gibberish.
There's a reason you're taught proper english in high school. Its so you may communicate with the widest variety of people possible. What was written was the equivalent of mumbled slang typed into a computer. What you end up with ugly and incomprehensible.
It was nice of you to try to interpret, but in doing so, you raise just as many questions as the original article.
I realize typing in all that information is difficult. I realize that it requires 5 minutes of thought before typing. But the result is a set of sentences and structures that even someone not as "hip" as you can understand.
You'll do better next time, sport. Thanks for trying though.
I would also like to see it made clear that corporations, as a condition of their being allowed to operate, have no such right.
It would be interesting to see if a "structurally" anonymous ISP would actually be allowed to operate. There has been pressure on ISPs, and collusion between telcos and the government, to allow taps. But, to my knowledge, there has so far been no legislation forbidding the protection of your customers' privacy through technical means.
If anyone in
Get your teeth into a small slice: the cake of liberty
I am sorry, but the number you have dialed:
"4th Ammendment"
has been suspended by the President due to wartime. Please hang up and try your call again in 3 years.
-Eric
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.