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RIAA Doesn't Like Independent Experts
Krishna Dagli writes to tell us Ars Technica is looking at the latest in the comedy of errors that is the RIAA's crusade against supposed pirates. From the article: "As one might expect, Arellanes isn't too keen on the idea of sending her hard drive (PDF) to an RIAA star chamber for examination. Citing the RIAA's numerous missteps in its ill-conceived crusade against music fans, she requests that the court require a "neutral computer forensics expert and a protocol protective of non-relevant and privileged information" be used to conduct the examination."
It seems that every other week I am reading about another flaw in the RIAA's legal cases. Now it seems that anybody who wants to fight and starts getting close to winning has the RIAA cancel the case. Will there come a time when enough people (or their lawyers) get educated as to the ways to win/stop the cases that the RIAA will start using different means of oppression? Am I right in thinking that in the US, the RIAA does not have to pay the court costs for the loser if they withdraw the charges?
Warhammer forums
Following your logic, the best tactic would be to set up an open WiFi access point "by mistake". If you then get an inquiry, it's easy to show that anyone in a 250m radius could have accessed a P2P network through your IP address...
To Terminate, or not to Terminate, that's the question - SCSIROB
You know, I had a post written up on this kind of thing some time back, but it's too old for me to find a link and I don't really feel like writing another "Welcome to how the US legal system works guide." So I'll summarize:
/. please stop forming opinions. This is not a balanced source.
1) If you get your news on the situation from
2) Please take the time to enlighten yourself about the US legal system (difference between criminal and civil) before spouting off about it.
3) Get off your fucking high horse. Are there disturbing things happening in the US? Yes. Are there in your part of the world too? You betcha. I don't know what country you are from and really, it doesn't matter. Wherever it is, I guarantee there's some scary big brother stuff that some people are pushing. Hell, some of it you may already have and are just used to it, you might even think it's normal whereas it'd scare me. Either way this "I'm scared to go to the US," is an attitude that screams ignorance.
Seriously it is really tiresome seeing Europeans with this high and mighty "We are so free over here and the US has become a horrible dictatorship," attitude. It's as bad as Americans that see the French as weak, cheese eating surrender monkeys.
I know it's trendy to hate on the US. It's even trendy for many over here. But if you are going to do it, at least be intelligent about it.
In general, when people say England is a police state, it's preparatory to a diatribe against either a) speed cameras or b) immigration.
Holding people without charge for years, shooting unarmed civilians or searching people for having beards or being Asian is fine, of course, and a necessary response to terrorism.
I'd like to say that such people can be safely ignored as the sad lunatics that they are. But, sadly, they are becoming more of a political force now than they have been for years.
Phil
According to wikipedia:
Coercion is the practice of compelling a person to involuntarily behave in a certain way (whether through action or inaction) by use of threats, intimidation or some other form of pressure or force.
So when the RIAA comes to you and say: Sign this paper or I'll sue you (ie, I'll drown you under legal fees you can't afford), why is this not coercion? How is all this legal?
Write boring code, not shiny code!
Step 2. Leverage my ability to never die and to farm the responsibilities for my actions out to replaceable 'employees'
Step 3. Become the dominant cultural organisation to such an overwhelming extent that the majority of humans don't even consider the idea that my powers are illegitimate.
Step 4. profit!!! (no, really)
You are of course refering to the Daily Mail?
They have more money than you.
Next time, stay awake in Civics class.
I would like to be as optimistic about Europe. But I'm not...
In most EU countries the EUCD (=local DMCA) has just been voted. Despite the bad example DMCA set, the powerful media industry managed to make the law voted nearly everywhere (ah yeah.. Denmark is a bit of an exception). It's just been voted, so it will take a while before you have the first cases... but there will be.
And regarding the involvement of the NSA. I'm sure similar practices are used by security services in Europe. You just don't know it. A story similar to the watergate failed to impeach the President in France. And the press simply does not have the power here than it has in the US. Odds are that newspapers would be pressured one way or another not to publish such information. Remember. We're 25, with different languages. Newspapers belong to press groups, which are divided among nations... and some of them belong to Universal in the end. Got the picture?
And how about those automated cameras in London and UK which take pictures of license plates/people in the streets? Don't you think Bush is jealous and dreams about it at night?
"From my observations, the continued abuses on our Freedoms comes from the bottom up in society in a lot of situations. I mean, a lot of things ingrained in our basic groupthink (as a country) about things allows this sort of thing to happen."
How are gutting judicial oversight, running up the national deficit, invading countries without just cause and removing civil liberties like privacy and free speech coming from the bottom-up?
I see plenty of people apologising for Bush after he announces each new violation of civil liberties or due process, but very few people campaigning to have cameras in every house and strip-searches every time you enter a building before he announces the ideas.
"Many of the defiencies in the legal system (mostly that it seems Justice is bought, and that courts seem to care more about protocol than right or wrong anymore) stem from English Common Law and works it's way up from there - sort of like how Microsoft's security problems continually stem from the same sources. Until we address more than the symptoms, the problem continue to happen."
Hmmm. Our democracy has problems, true, but it's lasted for several hundred years longer than yours so far. You've now got fewer civil liberties than us, your country's younger, and you're already vastly more institutionally corrupt than we are.
<FLAMEBAIT>
I'd say your problems stem fro mthe things you did differently, not the things you did the same... >:-)
</FLAMEBAIT>
Reversing the 1886 decision to give corporations most of the same rights as people would be a good start.
"But you should specify where in the EU you are from. I recently hosted an Englishman at my place, and he says that while England is a police state"
Hyperbole, although it's slowly tending in the same direction as the USA. It's common knowledge in the UK that whatever the US does, five years later the UK is at least seriously debating.
"and none of the younger generation want to live there any longer,"
Hyperbole. If the younger generation wanted to leave we all could. People grumble and worry about the government, but not nearly as much as in the USA. TBH, polls indicate we worry more about the US government than our own, as they're much more of a threat to world peace.
"he's for more draconian reforms since "if you have nothing to hide, what do you have to worry about?" Funny that, since he's moving out of England soon."
Where's he moving to? Highly amusing if it's the USA.
Referring you to a quote by Robert Anton Wilson (IIRC): "It only takes 30 years for a liberal to turn into a conservative, without changing a single idea".
Also, remember the usual caveats about generalising from a single data-point.
Everything in moderation, including moderation itself
< Outside of the court system they have no direct power.
When the corporations in question can quite brazenly buy politicians and get laws rushed through Congress specifically to make these charges possible, that's quite enough INDIRECT power to give me the shits.
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PGP Key ID 0xCB8FF658
Yes, copyright violations are explicitly forbidden; but not every MP3 represents a copyright violation. The idea of "innocent until proven guilty" (we used to have that in the UK once) should still hold: any copy should be presumed to be permitted under the doctrine of "fair use" unless it can be proved otherwise. And the scope of fair use in the USA is quite broad.
If the US courts still work anything like the UK courts on which they were modelled, decisions in one court can set precedents. If enough people claim "fair use" and win, the scope of fair use will be widened. I guess the RIAA would sooner drop a case than continue prosecuting it and risk further expanding fair use. In the best case, a jury could even decide that P2P filesharing constitutes fair use!
Also, there are two things very wrong with the US legal system. One is that lawyers are allowed to demand payment before a verdict is agreed upon by all parties. And two is that even if you win a case, you have to pay your own costs. These two make it possible to bankrupt someone in the courts before a verdict is delivered. In a truly fair legal system, the lawyers would only be paid after all appeals were exhausted and both sides' costs would be borne by the losing party.
Je fume. Tu fumes. Nous fûmes!
A lot of nonsence is, indeed, talked about a) speed cameras or b) immigration. However, as far as I have noticed, only the former gets cited as an example of police state behaviour and then rarely. Normally it is seen as a cynical revenue raising tactic. I don't have a problem with either a) or b). I do have a problem with the proposed ID cards bill, the attempt to limit access to trial by jury and similar initiatives. Your mixing of several points suggests but does not make explicit, that these are a set of views expressed by a reactionary right wing cabal. Such people do exist but I think placing the blame for the latter, more important points, avoids placing the blame where it belongs: the police and the current government.
I know that you meant this as a joke, but basically: yes! If it is not done by the submitter, this should at least be done by the editor. That's what editors are for, after all.
And now I expect dozens of comments saying: "this is Slashdot, blah blah..." or "the editors never do their job anyway". Sigh!
I don't agree, they are not prefering safety over liberty, they are prefering their fortune to your safety or liberty and using the illusion of safety to get their hand on public money.
The reason why it goes on and on is because lawyers do not consider the RIAA as rogues like the rest of the world does.
If the RIAA were a rogue legal outfit in the way that SCO is a rogue computing outfit, then they'd get criticized, disowned and marginalized by their own legal community.
That's not happening though --- lawyers throughout the US (and beyond) are almost 100% quiet about the antics of these "brothers" of theirs. That's tacit approval.
My only problem with speed cameras is that on a dual carriageway near my home, the morons in other cars see the speed camera signs and immediately drop their speed to less than 50 mi/h (80 km/h) - ignoring totally that they are still allowed to go at the statutory dual carriageway speed of 70 mi/h (110 km/h). Though I suppose this is more of a problem with people not knowing the highway code than the cameras themselves.
"Citing the RIAA's numerous missteps in its ill-conceived crusade against music fans..."
...and apparently not Ars News item either.
Setting aside my personal opinions about the RIAA's actions (and yours), I find this one line to show an incredible amount of bias. But wait; there's more!
"That case aside, the RIAA's history doesn't inspire much confidence in its ability to objectively examine what could be a piece of crucial evidence."
"Neither plaintiffs or defendants are objective parties in a legal dispute."
"When one of the parties has a history of bullying witnesses into perjury and is seemingly incapable of admitting they were wrong and clearing the names of those they wrongfully accused, it becomes even more crucial." Wow, that is an incredible accusation; bullying witnesses into perjury! How many times has this happened? What did they say to perjure themselves? Were they bullied into lying in the RIAA's favour or in their own favour? If they lied in their own favour, why would the RIAA bully them into doing this? If they lied to protect themselves, then why was telling the truth a less attractive option?
Much more insight from Ars into this accusation would be very interesting.
RTFM; please, I beg you.
Actually, they've decided they prefer power to either.
The Mongrel Dogs Who Teach