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What Questions Would You Ask An RIAA 'Expert'?

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the this-stuff-might-show-up-in-court dept.

NewYorkCountryLawyer asks: "In UMG v. Lindor, the RIAA has submitted an 'expert' report (pdf) and 26-page curriculum vitae (pdf), prepared by Dr. Doug Jacobson of Iowa State University who is the RIAA's expert witness in all of its cases against consumers, relating to alleged copyright infringement by means of a shared files folder on Kazaa, and supposed analysis of the hard drive of a computer in Ms. Lindor's apartment. The RIAA's 'experts' have been shut down in the Netherlands and Canada, having been shown by Prof. Sips and Dr. Pouwelse of Delft University's Parallel and Distributed Systems research group (pdf) to have failed to do their homework, but are still operating in the USA. The materials were submitted in connection with a motion to compel Ms. Lindor's son, who lives 4 miles away from her, to turn over his computer and music listening devices to the RIAA. Both Ms. Lindor's attorney (pdf) and Ms. Lindor's son's attorney (pdf) have objected to the introduction of these materials, but Dr. Jacobson's document production and deposition are scheduled for January and February, and we would love to get the tech community's ideas for questions to ask, and in general your reactions, thoughts, opinions, information, and any other input you can share with us. (In case you haven't guessed, we are the attorneys for Ms. Lindor.)"

3 of 616 comments (clear)

  1. What Questions Would You Ask An RIAA 'Expert'? by Scott+Lockwood · · Score: 1, Flamebait

    #1: How much did you get for your soul from the RIAA/MPAA?

    #2: I've heard Iowa is boring, but you are aware that there are other ways to get out of the state, right?

    #3: Why do you hate America?

    #4: Can you explain how anyone thought Sony's root kit was even remotely legal?

    #5: Exactly how does your client's right to liscense their music trample my right as a consumer to listen to music I've paid for?

    --
    But this is slashdot. A slashdoter who didn't build his own computer is like a Jedi who didn't build his own lightsaber!
  2. Excerpt from our "Experts" by AaronBS · · Score: 0, Flamebait
    I'm not too confident in "our" experts either, Sips and Pouwelse, given the missing word in the first sentence of the following paragraph, and the continued misspelling of pollution.

    This research group focused the polution in Kazaa9. Pollution refers to meaningless files and mismatches between filenames and their actual content. Kazaa was found to be severly poluted. For many recent pop songs, more than 50% of the copies were polluted. Our research group at Delft University has found similar polution levels in Kazaa for all types of content.
    Oh, and "severly".
  3. My question... by SailorSkank · · Score: 0, Flamebait

    Not to the RIAA expert but to Ms. Lindor's attorney: Do you bill your time for these Slashdot posts? What do you call that time? "Research"? I'm curious because I'm betting from all your time spent here that you have "creative billing" down to a science.