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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."
Probably with the judge ruling in favor of RIAA since they most likely have the government in their pocket anyways. =(
Fighting over religion is like seeing whose imaginary friend is best.
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
Is there a reason they don't hold lawyers accountable for stuff like this under penalties similar to perjury? If not, why the hell not?
The theory of relativity doesn't work right in Arkansas.
Definitely. The only problem is that the RIAA and MPAA have been using the "think of the artists" line as their reason for prosecuting. When people think about millions of songs being downloaded without compensation to the artists, a lot of people feel sorry for the artists. When those same people think about a woman with MS being sued by an organization with an almost endless supply of money and lawyers, they start to feel bad for the woman. If the RIAA/MPAA had started this campaign as "downloading songs is illegal and we will sue anyone who does so, regardless of age, sex, or race" then this wouldn't be an issue. (And it's not like this argument is my idea, I've read it in dozens of other slashdots posts about this subject, and agree.)
I don't know about you, but it really scares me to depend on the technical expertise of AOL (or any ISP, but especially AOL) to keep straight which customer had which IP at which time. You don't have any opportunity to review how carefully they record who was using which IP or how accurate their clock is set on their logging system.
NewYorkCountryLawyer:
I'm not anywhere near knowing the law well (let alone U.S. law), but isn't there anything bad that can happen to RIAA for what they're doing? I'm speaking about something more than just losing a case. There were dozens of stories describing they're practices... I know that sueing someone every other Tuesday is your national tradition, but there have got to be some ways of scareing those bastards away.
Exact wording from November 1st letter to the judge:
... sound recordings were downloaded" ... sound recordings were ... distributed"
...k tra_schwartz_061028anscounterclaim)
"Defendant's Internet Service Provider, America Online Inc., has confirmed that Defendant was the owner of the internet access account through which hundreds of Plaintiffs' sound recordings were downloaded and distributed to the public without Plaintiff's consent. Defendant does not dispute this fact."
Lawyers love to use long sentences that can be interpreted in multiple ways. The above actually contains several "facts" lumped together.
1) "Defendant's Internet Service Provider, America Online Inc., has confirmed that Defendant was the owner of the internet access account "
2) "the internet access account through which hundreds of
3) "the internet access account through which hundreds of
Number 1) is substantiated by the AOL letter, assuming that one accepts that having an IP assigned for a set time period (i.e. a few hours) to an account holder is equivalent to owning the internet access account in question. I doubt that number 2 can be proved, unless the screenshot giving the IP address actually showed the files being downloaded. The defendent could just as easily have uploaded them to her computer from CDs. Number 3 is a pretty straight-forward claim; however, it is not substantiated by AOL's letter.
Of course, the way the sentence is structured, all three claims are lumped together so that the sentence can be construed to mean that either the AOL letter confirms just the account ownership or that it confirms ownership AND downloading AND distributing. Such a sentence structure lets them give the wrong impression to the judge without saying anything that can be proven to be false (at worst, it can shown to be ambiguous). This gives an easy win if the Judge misunderstands and still allows them to claim that they didn't lie if they are caught-only that the sentence was misunderstood.
To top it off, the second sentence quoted above is a claim by the RIAA which basically says the defendant hasn't already said something contradicting the claim in the previous sentence (notice they say claim, not claims). This is bogus because they could claim that the lady committed murder and hasn't disputed it (which would technically be true until the defense hears the claim and can say how absurd it is!) Of course the lady's attorney disputed the misunderstood claim pretty much as soon as they got a hold of the AOL letter (that is what the article is about).
I suppose if the judge gets pissed, he can chew out the plaintiffs for sloppy writing and maybe even censure them for making misrepresentations, but not perjury.
Kinda funny though, how the article doesn't mention that the lady has a teenage daughter with friends who used the computer
(see counterclaim 27 at http://www.ilrweb.com/viewILRPDF.asp?filename=ele
science is a religion
Actually I love it. I'm an egalitarian kind of guy, who comes from a family where there was nothing we enjoyed more than a good argument. So I find it amusing when a Slashdotter tries to tell me I'm wrong when I've been in this field for more than 32 years, and the person telling me has never even opened a law book. And the funny thing is, I wouldn't mind it in the least if he or she were actually right, and could prove me wrong, or teach me something, or could actually back up his or her opinion with authority or information....
But I'll go back to what I said after my September Slashdot interview, and the rough-and-tumble "Q&A" that ensued, where I was viciously excoriated for (a) telling people that there was not yet a definitive answer to their question, (b) telling them that the law was contrary to what they thought it was, and (c) being 'short' with user ID's I suspected of use by RIAA trolls:
Ray Beckerman +5 Insightful