The RIAA vs. John Doe, a Layperson's Guide

Grant Robertson writes to tell us that he has made a pass at translating a recent guide to surviving an RIAA lawsuit from technical lawyer-speak into a much more easy to understand layperson's guide. The law, being complex and sometimes cryptic, allows ways for the RIAA to tilt the odds in their favor forcing unsuspecting victims to settle rather than fight. Take a look at Ray Beckerman's tips to survival translated into words anyone can benefit from.

Comments

More such as this.

[mcai8rw2]

I wish there were more 'guides' like this. Usually the corporations hide the true meaning of their T's & C's behind so much confusing babble that the end user usually has zero idea of what is actually going to happen to them in certain scenarios.

Its like contracts...I read them. Over and Over again...it doesn;t mean I understand what they mean. We all need pet solicitors.

Re:More such as this.

[Agent00Wang]

The confusing babble is part of the reason why we have lawyers. Nearly everything can be argued in court and lawyers just make more (paid) work for themselves by having the T&C be confusing in the first place.

Re:More such as this.

[DeXOR]

It's a nice guide to what happens if the RIAA sue you. Unfortunately it doesn't give much more insight into what to do about it other than getting an experienced lawyer(duh!).

Re:More such as this.

[Denial93]

It is also a clear explanation of why RIAA legal tactics are grossly unfair, awill hopefully draw some attention to this fact. Do you honestly believe the target audience of this is just the couple of people who get sued?

Re:More such as this.

[dwandy]

The confusing babble is part of the reason why we have lawyers.

The lawyers is part of the reason why we have confusing babble.

There... fixed it for ya.

Re:More such as this.

[Anonymous Coward]

1. Procure weapon (handgun, knife or Baseball bat)
2. Kill RIAA Lawyer
3. Argue that it wasn't homocide as lawyers aren't human anyways
4. Spend 10-20 years with free room and board.

Re:More such as this.

[Anonymous Coward]

Maybe a Babelfish/Firefox extension for Legalese to English? Or maybe Google would like to try their hand at it?

Re:More such as this.

[Anonymous Coward]

Babe...
You'll be out in only 3 to 5, for killing a scumbag RIAA lawyer.

Re:More such as this.

[NewYorkCountryLawyer]

Dismissing it all as "babble" may sound like fun, but it's babble that affects people's lives, so we should all try to understand it. And I think reading the judges' "babble" -- rather than reading others babbling on about it -- is the best way to understand what is really going on.

In this particular area, sophisticated tech people who read the judges' decisions are immediately aware that the judges don't know what they're talking about, and that the RIAA lawyers are deliberately trying to play on that and confuse the judges. And sophisticated tech people are also aware that the judges' rulings, if they buy into what the RIAA's lawyers are arguing, can imperil the entire internet, in areas that go far beyond the subject of music file sharing.

Which to me says that the tech community needs to connect their babble to the babble of the good guys in the legal community, and work together, to make the truth understood to the judges, before it's too late.

So you can babble on about the lawyers creating the babble, but you should recognize that there are some lawyers trying to cut through the babble and help get the truth out, and you should be helping them rather than lumping all lawyers together.

Sorry if I've babbled on too long.

Re:More such as this.

[NewYorkCountryLawyer]

Unfortunately, there really aren't any good options.

1. Pay an extortionate settlement.
2. Represent yourself which is hard and stressful and not the best way to defend a case.
3. Pay lots of money to a lawyer and pray you might get some of your attorneys fees back at the end.

Normal options, like reasoning with the other side and getting them to go away, or to take a reasonable settlement, don't work here.

I was hoping to be able to knock out the cases at the John Doe stage, but the 3 motions we made in Manhattan federal court were all denied.

I am hoping that we can get dismissals of the complaint at an early stage, but so far, of the 7 dismissal motions I know of, 5 have been denied, and 2 are pending. If the 2 pending motions are denied, it will be a pretty uncomfortable posture to try to get these knocked out early stage, at least until we get to an appellate court, which would be a year or more away since denials of dismissal motions are not appealable.

I wish I could give people a good option, but I don't know of any. I'm hoping for one to come along.

This John Doe guy had it coming IMO.

[Anonymous Coward]

He's always in the shit with John Law.

I hope they sue his ass off.

Re:This John Doe guy had it coming IMO.

[jkauzlar]

Featured article today on Uncyclopedia: RIAA CEO discusses the analog hole. I'm not sure why this hasn't made the front page of slashdot...?

Well...

[cpt kangarooski]

There are some minor errors in it, and I'm busy right now, but hopefully I can go through line by line and post about them this evening.

Still the main piece of advice he gives -- immediately get a lawyer who knows what he's doing with regard to these sorts of cases -- is good advice. Waiting too long, or going without one for a while can irrevocably screw up your defense if you don't do the right things, in the right order, at the right times.

Re:Well...

[gstoddart]

Still the main piece of advice he gives -- immediately get a lawyer who knows what he's doing with regard to these sorts of cases -- is good advice. Waiting too long, or going without one for a while can irrevocably screw up your defense if you don't do the right things, in the right order, at the right times.

Now, you seem to know more about legal stuff than I, but are there many lawyers who would have had experience in John Doe suits with no evidence which are being filed in a state the person isn't even a resident of?

Is there another class of lawsuit which does happen frequently which these cases are analagous to? The description from the first few paragraphs detailing how they go about collecting their 'evidence' seems like there wouldn't be all that many lawsuits which are similar to this because they're just so damned shaky to begin with.

Maybe I'm missing something, but it sounds like looking for someone with 10 years of Vista experience or something -- there just aren't any. :-P

Cheers

Re:Well...

[BalanceOfJudgement]

Now, you seem to know more about legal stuff than I, but are there many lawyers who would have had experience in John Doe suits with no evidence which are being filed in a state the person isn't even a resident of?

Maybe not but at the very least the lawyer will be very familiar with things like filing dates and court proceedings so you at least can make sure the administrivia are taken care of properly (some judges look very unkindly on people who don't get their paperwork right and at least the lawyer can do that part for you).

That buys both you and your lawyer time to figure out where to either a) get more information or b) find someone who does know what to do. Screwing up the early steps can be a fatal error though, which is what the GPP was getting at.

GPP is a lawyer by the way (his sig).

Re:Well...

[Bios_Hakr]

Here's an even better idea. Contribute to a legal defense fund that will stand up for John Doe whenever the RIAA begins a suit.

The only easy place to quash this tactic is to stop the suit against John Doe. But, since they drop that suit as soon as they have your ISP billing info, it's all over.

I really like the summary judgement idea. You force the lawyers to produce filenames, IP addresses, dates, times, and ISP connection records.

Send it to all the judges !!

[Anonymous Coward]

Shame someone with a few spare dollars couldn't get this sent to most of the judges throughout the US. Maybe one or two of them will realise how the RIAA is playing with them in order to get what they want !

Re:Send it to all the judges !!

[doctor_nation]

Part of the point of the article is that the judges can't do anything if you don't show up. And the RIAA makes it very hard for you to show up. But when you do show up, the judges seem to be in the favor of John Doe.

Re:Send it to all the judges !!

[Sharth]

part of the article is that you're fucked if you don't show up.

I am less than a layman

[Don_dumb]

I read TFA and still didn't understand parts of it, despite that it is well written.

However, I would be grateful to know how this compares with the RIAA's attempts in other nations, especially here in the UK. TFA did allude to Canada and The Netherlands but only a mention. Some of the tactics outlined did seem to be only possible in the US (in particular the limitations of state laws)

Re:I am less than a layman

[digitrev]

Basically, in Canada, the judges tell the RIAA that they have to have a damn good reason before we're going to order the ISPs to release John Doe's information.

Re:I am less than a layman

[DarkDragonVKQ]

I think in some countries in the EU (if not all) if you lose a court battle you have to pay the defendant's fees. So the tactics the RIAA used really wouldn't bode well for them. Imagine if they sued, racked up thousands of dollars in legal fees then tried to drop the case once they couldn't win. They'd have to reimburse the defendant. If only the US had a court system like that..it'd make civil suits less frequent.

Re:I am less than a layman

[punkr0x]

Did you read the original article by Ray Beckerman (linked in the FA)? I thought it was pretty straightforward and very easy to understand. (IANAL or anything close). Grant Robertson just sort of stretched it out and threw a lot of examples in there, and made it harder to follow in my mind.

Re:I am less than a layman

[Jens Egon]

IANAL, but I think that:

Here in Denmark they will have to pay everyones expenses, even the Courts, if and only if the Court rules that the suit was baseless.

Re:I am less than a layman

[Don_dumb]

That is interesting. I am suprised that the US doesn't have this device to reimburse the fees of the winning defendant, that seems like legal bullying "come on, defend yourself, at your cost", surely that means that an organisation has nothing to lose by suing anyone/everyone, especially as TFA did point out that less is needed to prosecute in a civil case.

That really stinks.

Re:I am less than a layman

[NewYorkCountryLawyer]

Thanks, punkrOx.

Re:I am less than a layman

[NewYorkCountryLawyer]

Under the Copyright Act, the prevailing party may be awarded attorneys fees. In Capitol Records v. Foster, the defendant has made a motion for her attorneys fees.

Re:I am less than a layman

[NewYorkCountryLawyer]

That's right,digitrev. In Canada and the Netherlands they recognized that the RIAA's "investigation" was fake and felt the evidence wasn't sufficient to warrant giving out confidential information.

In the U.S. they seem to have rubberstamped the RIAA tactics.

Although I wonder if there's some judge out there who laughed them out of court.... but hasn't been heard from because the case was ex parte.

Re:I am less than a layman

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, a lot of the tactics seem to hinge on exploiting the inability of US lawyers to practise across the country. There hasn't been too many filesharing suits in Australia, and certainly not many against "John Doe" (I'm not even sure there's a provision for suing an unknown in Australia...), but all lawyers are constitutionally entitled to practise in every state...

Re:I am less than a layman

[Don_dumb]

Thanks for the further information. It just seems fair to prevent someone from being punished for being in the right.
Can I just ask, this only applies to cases that relate to the Copyright Act? So people can still be sued and have to pay their own fees to prove, they haven't done anything wrong and yet have to pay massive legal fees, if the case is not about copyright?

Bye the way, we do attack and make many jokes at lawyers, but I at least do understand that lawyers are supposed to be there to defend the rights of people and I am grateful that you are one who still does.

Re:I am less than a layman

[NewYorkCountryLawyer]

In America, the "American rule" prevails, which is that each party normally bears their own attorneys fees. The exceptions are (a) a statute which provides otherwise, and (b) a contract which provides otherwise. The Copyright Act constitutes such an exception.

Useful guide, but not to survival

[Clovert Agent]

Great piece, but it's far from a guide to survival. It's a translation into Laymanese of how you're going to be screwed by the RIAA's gaming of the legal system.

1) You're going to lose a motion and not be told how or why
2) You're going to be sent legal documents but will not be able to get a lawyer to defend you because the lawyer won't have the information he needs
3) You're going to have your information handed over to the RIAA and there's nothing you can do
4) You're going to land in a civil case and the precendents are murky enough that you may well lose, but it's certainly going to cost you a bundle anyway

What I'd like to see is a real survival guide on the back of this. For example, when you get the notice that you've lost that first motion, what should you do? What can your lawyer do to get up to speed and file a motion to dismiss in time? What can you present to the judge to show that the case, on the evidence to hand, is baseless?

Good article, and a great starting point, but it'd be so much more useful with some real advice rather than just being a well-written explanation of exactly how screwed you are.

Re:Useful guide, but not to survival

[Pieroxy]

It is all in the blog entry my friend. Your best course of action is to get a lawyer with two qualities:
1. FAST !!!!
2. Knows about the RIAA tactics.

Re:Useful guide, but not to survival

[Anonymous Coward]

if your point 1 is really holding true, i would state that the united states are not anymore per definition a democratic system, as you as the ppl always have the right to get these informations about any motion filed against you, esp your lawyer has to get all information from the court, if they don't comply its against constition and the motions is irrelevant.

no, i am not american and i don't know much about your legal system either, but this one is a single must for a democracy and no country who allows this to its people can be allowed to be called a free democracy ...

Re:Useful guide, but not to survival

[RicRoc]

I would like to suggest that somone build and maintain a list of lawyers in each state with the knowledge (and experience) to tackle RIAA. Then anybody who needs a lawyer can quickly find one -- that would be good survival advice!

I'm not in the Netherlands, I'm in Denmark (is there something rotten here?) so the survival advice is probable a bit different. However, I still might need a lawyer with relevant knowledge, so perhaps have countries as well as states in the list? Still, I would like to see a clear writeup from a European/Danish standpoint.

Re:Useful guide, but not to survival

[Danse]

It is all in the blog entry my friend. Your best course of action is to get a lawyer with two qualities:
1. FAST !!!!
2. Knows about the RIAA tactics.

Great. Now explain how to find such a lawyer.

Re:Useful guide, but not to survival

[westlake]

it's far from a guide to survival. It's a translation into Laymanese of how you're going to be screwed by the RIAA's gaming of the legal system

I tend to a somewhat different take on things:

1 The RIAA only has to show that is more reasonable than not to believe that you downloading without a purchase or uploading without a license to distribute.

2 The chances are pretty damn good that you or someone in your household has been making heavy use of BT and the P2P nets. It's your account and your responsibility.

3 The evidence doesn't have to be rock solid, just persuasive enough to argue for a settlement out of court.

4 Talk of "malacious prosecution," abuse of process, is so much hot air. You won't be able to prove malice in a legal sense and it will be very expensive even to try.

5 You are not a hardship case. You not going to become the next poster child for the EFF.

Re:Useful guide, but not to survival

[DavidTC]

1 is completely wrong. Under no interpetation of copyright law can they bring a lawsuit against you for illegal downloading. None at all.

Your confusion is understandable, however, as every single news story gets this wrong, talking about 'p2p downloaders', when, even if it was demonstrated that they were downloaders, that wouldn't be the slightest bit illegal. It's akin to calling muggers 'pants owners'...almost all muggers do, indeed, own a pair of pants, and even use it during the commision of a crime, but they aren't being arrested for that. It's fucking PR by the media companies that are owned by the same people doing the lawsuit to try to make people think downloading is illegal.

Anyway, what the RIAA is bring suit on is the idea that you distributed copyrighted files. Aka, that people downloaded from you. As there is no way on a p2p network to know this, not even, in most cases, by the server, that seems a little unlikely for them to be able to prove.

Bittorrent is a little different. The RIAA is still doing mainly traditional p2p stuff, and, frankly, very little music is traded using bittorrent, but it might be a reasonable legal assumption that any file downloaded by someone via bittorrent has also been uploaded by them to someone else. OTOH, various forms of caching have been found legal, and arguably that's really all you're doing...the person running the torrent is the one who actually put it in the system. And they'd have to demonstrate that you actually allowed your client to upload anything.

However, as the article pointed out, as they don't even have any evidence you have the files, just files with names that imply they are copyrighted work, their case is incredibly weak and if they actually ended up in court, they'd lose, period. At minimum they'd have to demonstrate that you actually made their work available, and a screenshot produced by someone in their employ is not a demonstration of that, or even a screenshot produced and witnessed by an independent party.

Then they'd at least have to prove some likelyhood of someone having gotten that file, in whole or in part, from you.

See, the problem with the RIAA's lawsuit is that they could do all this before sueing people. They could match up username and IP, demonstrate to the court's satifaction that said user was violating their copyright, and then have a slam dunk case as soon as they tracked down that IP, which isn't anywhere near as hard with a court order as the RIAA is apparently having with it, suing people who don't even have computers.

Instead, their sole purpose seems to be to make the news fighting 'downloaders', which ike I said, isn't even illegal, and producing a word-of-mouth intimadation campaign.

If they were actually trying to fight piracy, they'd be going after the binary Usenet posters, which would be, incidentally, infinitely easier to fight in court, as none of them unknowningly shared their music directory and didn't know they were pirates, the result of their activity can be check from a multitude of places so it can't be fake, Usenet providers already retain a history of posters for abuse purposes, they post whole albums in lossless formats, including cover and disc scans, which are a exact-same-quality replacement for the album, etc, etc.

No, they're going after p2p 'downloaders' (Despite the fact they have to attack them via their uploading) for PR about how evil downloading is, and nothing else.

Re:Useful guide, but not to survival

[Pieroxy]

Great. Now explain how to find such a lawyer.

Let's see... Well, in the blog you can find the name of two people that got out of their lawsuit. I am sure that 5 minutes alone with Google will allow you to find the name of their lawyers...

That said, 'please' would have been welcome ;)

Re:Useful guide, but not to survival

[Anonymous Coward]

Under no interpetation of copyright law can they bring a lawsuit against you for illegal downloading. None at all.

IANAL, but I believe this isn't technically correct. If they could show that you purposefully downloaded a song that you knew to be copyrighted and that you also knew the person supplying you with the song was not authorized to distribute that song, you would still be guilty of willfully violating copyright laws.

However, there are a few reasons why downloading doesn't get people into trouble. For one, it's far more difficult for the RIAA to collect information on downloaders than uploaders. They would have to aggregate a lot of data over a period of time...with uploaders, the entire list of songs being shared can be retrieved fairly trivially. This would be made more difficult by the fact that many people access the internet in such a way that their IP changes over time. Since they don't know someone's identity until they've won their motion for discovery, they wouldn't be able to associate separate browsing sessions with each other and, worse yet, could assemble a single profile that represents the browsing of several different individuals. Also, even if they were able to collect all the necessary data on a user, it could be argued that the RIAA is legally able to distribute the copyrighted content and no copyright infringement occurred. Second, I don't believe the $750/song number applies to downloads. More likely, the court would look at services like iTMS that change $0.99 per song and apply a similar number for damages.

So the RIAA ends up going after uploaders because it is technically easier and higher damage amounts can be sought.

Re:Useful guide, but not to survival

[Ykant]

If they were actually trying to fight piracy, they'd be going after the XXXREDACTEDXXX posters, which would be, incidentally, infinitely easier to fight in court

Shut up, man! Don't give them any ideas! That is the only avenue by which I can (without fear of ridicule) listen to such classics as "Popozao".

Re:Useful guide, but not to survival

[Danse]

Let's see... Well, in the blog you can find the name of two people that got out of their lawsuit. I am sure that 5 minutes alone with Google will allow you to find the name of their lawyers...
That said, 'please' would have been welcome ;)

That would be great, if they lived (and were licensed to practice) in my state. I'm kind of thinking along the lines of something useful to people that live in the other 48 states. More than 2 lawyers would be required for that I would imagine.

Re:Useful guide, but not to survival

[DavidTC]

If they could show that you purposefully downloaded a song that you knew to be copyrighted and that you also knew the person supplying you with the song was not authorized to distribute that song, you would still be guilty of willfully violating copyright laws.

I don't know of any law under which they could do that. Seriously. Just because something seems 'wrong', or is the other half of an illegal act, doesn't make it illegal. It's not legal to build or sell a house in violation of various building codes, but it's legal to live in them, for example. In my state, it's illegal for teenagers to purchase cigarettes, but it's legal for them to smoke them. Laws don't always make sense.

And copyright laws dates back to a time when there was a fundemental principle of the law that said: 'You should always know if an action is illegal'. This is why they used to require a copyright notice, so you know if it was legal to make copies. More importantly, if someone handed you a work, be it copyrighted or not, you are allowed to assume they have the right to do so, because there is no obvious magical way to determine if they have the right or not. You only had to care about copyright if you wanted to copy it.

This principle has taken a beating in recent years, but there's still no legal requirement to know that a work is copyrighted (unless you want to copy it), that the distributer of the work has permission to do so, that the distributed is actually following their contact and returning royalties, or anything of that sort, at all. However, if the RIAA could, somehow, demonstrate that all that was, in fact, known, there is still no law against it, although their certainly could be, like receiving stolen property. But there isn't such a law, and the RIAA wishing and hoping and threatening and speaking gibberish won't magically make such a law appear out of thin air.

For one, it's far more difficult for the RIAA to collect information on downloaders than uploaders. They would have to aggregate a lot of data over a period of time...with uploaders, the entire list of songs being shared can be retrieved fairly trivially. This would be made more difficult by the fact that many people access the internet in such a way that their IP changes over time. Since they don't know someone's identity until they've won their motion for discovery, they wouldn't be able to associate separate browsing sessions with each other and, worse yet, could assemble a single profile that represents the browsing of several different individuals.

No, that doesn't make any sense. They can prove some user downloaded from them, whereas they can't prove anyone downloaded a shared song, just that some person shared it. It would be a lot safer court case, pretending it was illegal.

Also, even if they were able to collect all the necessary data on a user, it could be argued that the RIAA is legally able to distribute the copyrighted content and no copyright infringement occurred.

Well, that's why they couldn't do it, but their lawyers or someone hired to gather evidence could. However, even pretending downloading was illegal, sharing without authorization is certainly illegal, and, as you pointed out, if they're sharing with authorization, they're essentially operating iTMS without DRM or charging.

Re:Useful guide, but not to survival

[DavidTC]

It is rather surreal, isn't it?

People ask me where to get music online, and I have no idea what the current p2p thing is. They ask where I got my music from, and usually don't believe me that XXXREDACTEDXXX even exists until I show them.

my RIAA survival guide

[MrSquirrel]

My RIAA survival guide: 1. Go to the RIAA headquarters 2. Use fire... and lots of it 3. Sip drinks with those little umbrellas in them on a beach

Re:my RIAA survival guide

[digitrev]

So you suggest the Milton defence?

Re:my RIAA survival guide

[rockchops]

>> "So you suggest the Milton defence?"

No, the Chewbacca defense!

Re:my RIAA survival guide

[MrSquirrel]

I believe you have my stapl... mp3's

Re:my RIAA survival guide

[AuMatar]

No- Milton burned the building down with noone inside it. Having the head honchos inside the building is much better.

RIAA Honeypot

[theelectron]

I still want to know how illegal it would be for me to run a Kazaa client with a bunch of word documents renamed as MP3s to try to get the RIAA to sue me.

Re:RIAA Honeypot

[pete6677]

It wouldn't be illegal at all, but you would get the privilege of paying thousands of dollars to defend yourself. And no you wouldn't be able to sue for attorney fees since you set up the files for the purpose of baiting a lawsuit.

Re:RIAA Honeypot

[grimwell]

Maybe he was just trying to help the RIAA by poluting the P2P network with bogus files? Maybe he is just trying to determine how the RIAA gathers their info? He can't help it if the RIAA didn't believe him when he told them he wasn't "making available" any copyrighted material belonging to their members.

I am curious about the "baiting a lawsuit" bit. Could you point me to some law and/or cases(USA based)? I think a RIAA Honeypot could be an interesting. A network of them passing files around would be even more interesting.

If the copyright on the file the RIAA downloads belongs to another, are they now infriging that copyright and can the copyright owner sue them?

Re:RIAA Honeypot

[pete6677]

All well and good, but try getting a judge and jury to believe any of these arguments. Nobody would feel sorry for this guy, hence no damages for attorney fees. Yes, that's the way it really works. Technicalities and legal hairsplitting don't always hold up.

Re:RIAA Honeypot

[theelectron]

Any lawers want to help us out? Pro bono? Could be kinda fun!

Re:RIAA Honeypot

[grimwell]

Nobody would feel sorry for this guy, hence no damages for attorney fees. Yes, that's the way it really works. Technicalities and legal hairsplitting don't always hold up.

So, you're just talking out of your ass then? No actual law or case examples that you can point me to?

Thanks for the help.

Re:RIAA Honeypot

[grimwell]

All well and good, but try getting a judge and jury to believe any of these arguments.

How about a preemptive strike? Send a letter via registered mail to the attorney of record for the RIAA explaining what you are doing before you actually start doing it. Something along the lines of "I am researching P2P behavior & traffic and I am using bogus files with file titles of popular songs."

Months later if/when the RIAA brings a lawsuit against you, send them an affidavit via registered mail reminding them of your previous letter; maybe even include a copy of it and the fact that you are not sharing material which their members have a copyright on. If they continue you can easily claim the RIAA lawsuit is frivolous and have paperwork to show your intentions were not to bait them into filing a lawsuit.

Re:RIAA Honeypot

[pete6677]

Wow, aren't you a genius. That will fix everything. No need to worry about a lawsuit in that case. God, you crack me up. I'd like to see you inside a courtroom. You would lose the case faster than the judge could say "heresay". Go ahead, amateur lawyer boy, do your little experiment. Come back to Slashdot and let us know how it went. Be sure to include the amount from your attorney bills, or if you act as your own attorney, the amount of the damages the RIAA was awarded against you.

Re:RIAA Honeypot

[grimwell]

Thanks for the continuing help. Do you have anything positive and/or constructive to add?

Maybe you could enlighten me on how letters sent to the RIAA explaining one's actions and intents would be dismissed as "heresay"?

hersay n. 1) second-hand evidence in which the witness is not telling what he/she knows personally, but what others have said to him/her. 2) a common objection made by the opposing lawyer to testimony, when it appears the witness has violated the hearsay rule. 3) scuttlebutt or gossip.

No need to worry about a lawsuit in that case.

That's kinda the point, eh? To know the RIAA doesn't have a case against one if/when they bring you into court. Or do you mean/think the letters will prevent the RIAA from bring a lawsuit? Isn't that dependent upon the evidence the RIAA has and how well "the right hand is talking to the left hand"? Maybe they know about the letters but don't believe them and to make things worst they don't currently have a copy of the files in question. What course of action do you think they'll take at that point?

Re:RIAA Honeypot

[Hotawa Hawk-eye]

Make it interesting. Put a copyright notice prohibiting the RIAA, MPAA, and their agents from reading these documents at the beginning of the document. Make the documents themselves critiques of the song whose title is the title of the document. If the RIAA sues you, you reveal the contents of the documents. Either the RIAA sued you without even opening the documents, which would be extremely bad publicity for them; or they read the documents and violated your copyright and you can countersue.

Re:RIAA Honeypot

[grimwell]

In case you missed it... You might want to read this Amicus Brief filed by the EFF, ACLU, American Association of Law Libraries, Public Citizen, ACLU of Oklahoma in support of awarding attorney fees to a wrongly accused person of copyright infrigment by the RIAA.

From the brief "Where, as here, one of these innocent defendants prevails in clearing her name and the plaintiff knew or should have known that she was innocent but continued to harass the defendant, the court should award attorney's fees to compensate the victim, to deter the legal assailant, to encourage future innocent defendants to fight back, and to maintain the proper administration and balance of copyright law."

Rumsfeld vs. Sagan

[shani]

In TFA: As Rumsfeld put it, "absence of proof is not proof of absence."

Sad that Rumsfeld is getting credit for it, when the idea actually comes from the original BHA, Carl Sagan:

http://www.fatemag.com/wordpress/?p=103

Re:Rumsfeld vs. Sagan

[Anonymous Coward]

My guess is that it is a joke.

That'll be why Rumsfeld is crossed out and Carl Sagan is written afterwards. Well, that or he noticed and changed it.

Dissemination!

[scottsk]

There's a LOT of misinformation about what the RIAA is suing people for. I wish the article had said it more forcefully, but it did make the point that the RIAA is suing people who disseminated their members' songs illegally. (I.e. "to scatter far and wide; spread abroad, as if sowing; promulgate widely".) They're not suing you for downloading songs, they're suing you for sharing their songs illegally by being a distributor of copyrighted material. They know which IP address shared the songs on the P2P network at what time (do you know what your IP address was a year ago? last month? right now?) because that's public information on most P2P networks. Note that the RIAA can't bait you, by disseminating their own songs on P2P networks and letting you download them, because they'd be giving away their own songs and it wouldn't be a crime then. If you're sued, about all you can do is prove it wasn't you who committed the crime. The IP address wasn't yours at the time (most ISPs don't keep logs as I understand), or that your IP address was pirated by a hijacker who used it. I do not think anyone has ever successfully proved it wasn't them -- most of these cases are thrown out on technicalities and not on the actual issues. Is what the RIAA is doing -- asking ISPs to turn over who had which IP addresses at what time -- legal? I don't think this has ever been decided (in the USA). Hard to say this should happen, because it's just a civil suit by an entity that isn't in law enforcement. If it was a law enforcement agency getting this data for an actual criminal case, that would be different... The burden of proof is on the RIAA, but if they have the ISP say an IP address allocated to John Doe who is paying the bill for Internet access did the P2P disseminating, it's hard to see how that could be proven any more solidly. Great lesson for civics teachers to bring to class!

Re:Dissemination!

[Anonymous Coward]

> The burden of proof is on the RIAA, but if they have the ISP say an IP address allocated to John Doe who is paying the bill for Internet access did the P2P disseminating, it's hard to see how that could be proven any more solidly. Great lesson for civics teachers to bring to class!

Well, that's why I'd likely attack the evidence they had that such-and-such an IP was actually sharing files in the first place. After all, if they merely got a list of sharers from some random hub out on the internet, they have no way to prove that said hub wasn't lying. It seems like it ought to be something like digital hearsay, and if they say it's reliable, subpoena them for the exact software used on the computer that allegedly gave them the info :) That may not work as well if they actually connected and downloaded something from said IP, but you should still make sure that they properly identified the file, too... There was a case where they mistook Prof. Usher's lecture notes in mp3 format for music by a musician of the same name. You might very well catch them being sloppy.

Finally, exactly how did your ISP identify you as the one being at that IP? How solid is that evidence? I wouldn't necessarily give up on that point for two reasons: supposedly, the RIAA has been dropping cases where folks raised that defense (I wonder what they know?) and secondly because you might well find out that the ISP's records weren't that exact. Actually, there may be one more reason: if you share the computer with your family, how do you prove *which* person was the infringer? Now that could be a bit of a legal quagmire...

Anyhow, obviously you *need* a lawyer in going up against them. Sure, settling might be easier, but in the long run, we'll all lose if people go that route.

Re:Dissemination!

[NewYorkCountryLawyer]

We recently served some followup interrogatories in UMG v. Lindor, in Brooklyn federal court, trying to get to the bottom of the RIAA's evasiveness.

Re:Dissemination!

[scottsk]

The link says -- "...the 'evidentiary basis' for their allegation of copyright infringement, she received only a vague response." It is extremely important to clarify this! Just what are people being charged with by the RIAA? The mass media has consistently ignored this issue and said, in essence, people are being charged with downloading copyrighted material.

Can't be right -- for several reasons.

I'm not sure downloading copyrighted music is actually a crime. Is it?

The RIAA has to be charging people with disseminating their proprietary material. But they don't want anyone to know that, because this is a fear and chill campaign to stop downloading. There's no way the RIAA can sue people in China or Romania for disseminating their songs.

What bothers me is the potential for mistakes. The information provided by ISPs isn't necessarily right, and there's no due dilligence -- in fact, this isn't a criminal case. It's a civil case where the "evidence" is highly unreliable. How does grandma who never owned a computer prove she is not the person who had an IP address at the time the alleged crime was committed? That seems insane.

On the other hand, if people actually did disseminate music, ignorance (not knowing what your 11 year old was doing with the Internet connection you paid for) couldn't be an excuse, could it?

Maybe some day there will be clarification of these issues.

Re:Dissemination!

[NewYorkCountryLawyer]

1. The complaint charges them with "downloading, distributing, and/or making available for distribution". In fact the RIAA has no evidence at all of downloading or distributing when they commence the case.

2. I am not aware of any criminal cases. The cases I am aware of are all civil cases, for money damages and an injunction.

3. There is huge potential for mistakes. Their investigation is bogus, and they have no idea when they sue someone if that person has committed any act of copyright infringement whatsoever.

4. Defendants don't need an "excuse" for why someone else might have used their internet access account to commit a copyright infringement, although the RIAA would like you to think otherwise. Take a look at the papers being filed during the next few days in Capitol v. Foster, in Oklahoma, for a discussion of the RIAA's tactics in trying to make people think that parents are liable for their childrens' copyright infringement.

Would Anonymizer help protect you?

[Anonymous Coward]

I've heard about Anonymizer and how it hides your IP. Is that good enough to keep the RIAA off your back or can they see through that to your real IP/ISP?

I'm surprised nobody's cashed in on this

[cgreuter]

The best way to stop an RIAA lawsuit in its tracks is to get a lawyer in the ISP's home state to file a motion to dismiss the suit, right? So it'd be really useful if there were a directory online of lawyers who can do that for each state.

It strikes me as easy money all around. The lawyers would make a couple of hundred bucks a pop for basically filling out some paperwork, whoever runs the web directory would get part of that from the lawyers and the poor schmuck who's being sued would end up paying a couple of hundred in legal fees instead of the thousands it costs to settle an RIAA lawsuit.

I'm just surprised nobody's done it yet.

Re:I'm surprised nobody's cashed in on this

[NewYorkCountryLawyer]

I've been trying to build such a directory of lawyers who are fighting the RIAA:

http://info.riaalawsuits.us/directory.htm

My list tries to include only lawyers who will definitely fight, rather than try to steer you to settling.

And the EFF has a broader list of lawyers who have expressed an interest in helping the defendants:

http://subpoenadefense.org/legal.htm

I think the original sources are the best reading

[NewYorkCountryLawyer]

Personally, I think (a) the people at Slashdot are a pretty intelligent lot, and (b) the best things for them to read are not what a commentator has to say, but the actual court records.

I have seen some spirited, high-level debates in these pages where people cite to different parts of different litigation documents.

That is why my site is the way it is; it is information, not entertainment. The key elements are (a) the index of litigation documents; (b) the directory of lawyers who are fighting the RIAA; and (c) the posts highlighting significant level events. The post, How the RIAA Litigation Process Works, which Grant Robertson describes as being as 'dry as a bread sandwich', is merely intended to be an accurate summary of what is going on out there, not a substitute for informing onesself and forming one's own opinions. (I hope punkr0x is right, that it is not quite as poorly written as Grant makes it out to be.).

My site is intended to serve the following readers: (a) people who are being targeted by the RIAA; (b) lawyers who are representing or would like to represent these folks; (c) journalists looking for primary rather than secondary sources; and (d) other intelligent people, lawyers and nonlawyers alike, who want to understand what is happening here, and who don't need to be told what to think.

I think the 'laymen' at Slashdot are pretty good readers.

They can sue and they can win

[westlake]

Under no interpetation of copyright law can they bring a lawsuit against you for illegal downloading. None at all.

August 8th. This AP story just in: Family owes $4,080 for music download-- Oregonians say they didn't know practice was illegal

KLAMATH FALLS, Ore. -- Leslie Maxfield has got a case of the downloading blues.834 rock and country songs. With a Saturday deadline approaching, Maxfield has yet to pay the settlement, and he's not sure if he can. "I've got about a week and they'll be wanting their money, and I don't know what to do," said Maxfield, a 51-year-old cabinet maker. "They're trying to get blood out of a turnip. "I feel like I'm in a nightmare."... "They act like I went out intentionally to rob them," Maxfield said. "Now, they're using the court system to rob us." Maxfield agreed to pay a $4,080 settlement as well as $420 court costs and processing fees, a copy of the settlement states. He also agreed to destroy all the files... The suits accuse them of "songlifting," the process of sending or receiving copyrighted music over the Internet through peer-to-peer services not authorized by recording companies. Songlifting violates federal copyright laws, and the U.S. Supreme Court ruled unanimously last year that those who use the unauthorized services can be liable for copyright infringement...Since starting its campaign in September 2003, the RIAA has filed more than 18,200 copyright infringement cases across the country on behalf of record company giants such as Capitol Records, Warner Bros. and Sony.Engebretsen declined to discuss specific cases. But the association has settled more than 4,900 cases, with the remaining "in various stages of litigation." No case to date has made it to trial.

Re:They can sue and they can win

[DavidTC]

No case to date has made it to trial.

I think that says it all.

I know it may sound ridiculous, but I'm serious

[starakurva]

What if you were to just wag your ass at the extortion demand of the RIAA, allow yourself to get sued, and do the jail time? How much jail time might be given to someone who fully refused to cooperate with both the "justice" system, and the RIAA?

A question for the uber-cool and helpful NY Country Lawyer: Would you think you might get Allenwood or some other minimum security prison? Or would I be doin the Tango with some crosseyed murderer in a supermax (living one cell over from the Deadhead who got caught with 5 hits of acid, of course)?

Re:I know it may sound ridiculous, but I'm serious

[NewYorkCountryLawyer]

I'm not aware of any criminal cases. These are all civil cases, for money damages.

Re:I know it may sound ridiculous, but I'm serious

[starakurva]

Sorry if I wasn't clear, since, well, I'm not exactly clear....

What I meat to ask was, what would happen if one were to just thumb their nose at the whole demand for money, lawsuit, etc...

I feel pretty Thoreau about the whole thing.....

Re:I know it may sound ridiculous, but I'm serious

[NewYorkCountryLawyer]

Usually if one ignores the suit, one winds up with a default judgment against onesself.

For much the same reason...

[Atario]

...that we have programmers. Writing and interpreting the confusing babble -- except it's babble makes the computers useful, instead of the law useful.

I've often thought programmers and lawyers have similar jobs.