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RIAA Mischaracterizes Letter Received From AOL
NewYorkCountryLawyer writes "In Elektra v. Schwartz, an RIAA case against a Queens woman with Multiple Sclerosis who indicates that she had never even heard of file sharing until the RIAA came knocking on her door, the judge held that Ms. Schwartz's summary judgment request for dismissal was premature because the RIAA said it had a letter from AOL 'confirm[ing] that defendant owned an internet access account through which copyrighted sound recordings were downloaded and distributed.' When her lawyers got a copy of the actual AOL letter they saw that it had no such statement in it, and asked the judge to reconsider."
While we all in fact know that the MS is a defence play for pity and is honestly underhanded as it really has no bearing on the case, what the RIAA did is perjury. They lied about the letter flat out. Not only should the case be tossed, but the lawyer that lied should be dis-barred &&|| the non-lawyer that lied should be fined & jailed for 20 days.
Sadly, this will not happen.
-nB
whois gawk date unzip strip find touch finger mount join nice man top fsck grep eject more yes exit umount sleep dump
I believe it is relevant and I'll explain why. The RIAA's interest in this case is not the rewarding of compensation for any damages they have suffered - their interest is in representing to the public (not the courts) that 1) copyright infringement is the same as theft 2) if you steal from them they will come after you and 3) when they come after you you'll not like it at all. The RIAA hopes that after enough of these lawsuits no one will bother with downloading their material because of fear of personally devastating law suits. If this is the case (and I've got to say that I have made AT LEAST one error before in my life) then the RIAA is clearly involved in a public relations campaign - the outcome of individual cases themselves is of little concern. Considering all this, if you find yourself opposed to the RIAA tactics and current IP law in general it would behoove you to make the RIAA out to be a bunch of heartless villains who prey on the disabled. The more terrible they seem the more ground they loose in the PR realm and the more likely they are to protect their IP in a manner more condusive to everyone's long term benefit (e.g. a new business model not so hampered by DRM).
Don't worry about the mule, just load the wagon.
Is anyone else fed up with this phrase? Nearly everything on the Internet is copyrighted. Everything on my website is copyrighted. The Xen kernel I just download is copyrighted. The ISOs of FC6 I just downloaded consist of thousands of copyrighted programs.
My webhost, for example, displays a warning every time I ssh in that says it's a violation of the terms of service to store "copyrighted materials" on the server. Like a smartass I emailed them a few times and asked if that meant I would have to release my songs in the public domain and why they violate that by storing/using copyrighted tools (the Linux system, Apache, etc), but didn't get any replies.
This almost pisses me off as much as calling copyright infringement "piracy".
</rant>
"It ain't a war against drugs.it's a war against personal freedom" --Bill Hicks
The RIAA is claiming this lady is putting musicians out of work and wrecking the entire economy (which is irrelevant), so the lady brings up equally irrelevant stuff (I have MS).
I'm not sure why the RIAA gets a pass on their outrageous claims of looking out for musicians...that's a complete fabrication since the RIAA does not work for recording artists, they work for recording distribution companies. But a lady with MS is pounded on?
But I do expect that corporations and officers of the court to tell the truth in a statement to the judge. The lady didn't lie when she had MS, but the RIAA lied when it said it had a special letter from AOL. And your concern is for the fact that the lady brings up MS? Maybe you want to tear into Michael J Fox, too?
I mean, separate the BS from the facts. Here they are as I read them:
RIAA: Hey lady, you committed copyright infringment
Lady: No I didn't, I don't even hook up to the internet the way you claim. Your honor, please throw this out
RIAA: Your honor, we have the actual proof from AOL
Judge: In that case, no.
Lady: Let me see the letter.
RIAA: Uh... here?
Lady: It doesn't say anything about me. In fact, it keeps mentioning something about a Wookie on Endor. What does that mean?
Ignore the MS part. This is what we have. If the judge threw the lawyer in jail for a week and sanctioned him, along with a few RIAA execs every time they lied, I suspect this kind of behavior would stop in about 20 seconds.
"sort of calls their morals into question, eh?"
No. There was never any question as to the state of the RIAA's morals.
We are all just people.
Don't get me wrong, this I'm not making a claim to a legal fact, just that the status of the defendant is taken into account by the judge. It's perfectly reasonable to address that fact in the cour memos, since it draws sympathy, and it highlights the degree to which the practice of randomly selecting defendants with little or no concern to physical evidence of guilt is an injustice. That's a very important word to a court. Judges don't like injustice, and the constitutions of the various states (and of course the U.S. constitution) grant judges a wide array of abilities to limit, curtail, and disbar injustice.
On a more practical level, the fact that this woman has MS is a public interest factor. You should pay attention because this poor woman has a crippling disease.. sympathy and empathy sell papers.
-GiH
Not a Lawyer (yet).