Slashdot Mirror
RIAA's 'Expert' Witness Testimony Now Online
NewYorkCountryLawyer writes "The online community now has an opportunity to see the fruits of its labor. Back in December, the Slashdot ('What Questions Would You Ask an RIAA Expert?') and Groklaw ('Another Lawyer Would Like to Pick Your Brain, Please') communities were asked for their input on possible questions to pose to the RIAA's 'expert'. Dr. Doug Jacobson of Iowa State University, was scheduled to be deposed in February in UMG v. Lindor, for the first time in any RIAA case. Ms. Lindor's lawyers were flooded with about 1400 responses. The deposition of Dr. Jacobson went forward on February 23, 2007, and the transcript is now available online (pdf) (ascii). Ray Beckerman, one of Ms. Lindor's attorneys, had this comment: 'We are deeply grateful to the community for reviewing our request, for giving us thoughts and ideas, and for reviewing other readers' responses. Now I ask the tech community to review this all-important transcript, and bear witness to the shoddy investigation and junk science upon which the RIAA has based its litigation war against the people. The computer scientists among you will be astounded that the RIAA has been permitted to burden our court system with cases based upon such arrant and careless nonsense.'"
Oh man, even Chappelle is going over to The Dark Side. That is *not* funny, Dave.
[/humour][17] Leary, T., White, C., Wood, P. R., Bhabha, W. D., and Wirth, N. Lambda calculus considered harmful. In Proceedings
(You don't mind if I call you by your first name, do you?)
Ray Beckerman +5 Insightful
Maybe someone kan point out the juicy tid-bits. I'm up to page 20, and I'm falling asleep.
If you want news from today, you have to come back tomorrow.
From p. 88:
Q. But you don't know whose computer it actually was, do you?
A. No.
Q. But your report said it was defendant's computer, so I think you will agree that that's an imprecision in your report.
I stopped stealing music when I found out you could just copy it!
Software patents delenda est.
Embarassingly far down in the document, there's a funny "hear-o"
A. A search on KaZaA can "prop you will gate" from one supernode to another.
I'm guessing he said "propogate"..
I'd had the same impression until a client of mine took his insurance company to court. Y'see, his office had a flood over Christmas vacation, and he had to replace most of his equipment. The insurance company called foul, and asked to see the fried PCs, including the server. They then called in an expert, who maintained they WERE able to get data from it, even though they could never prove this in court. The scariest part? Their expert was asked if he was, in fact, an expert in the field of medical imaging. He stated he was. They asked him how he came to be an expert. "Oh, I browsed the web for four hours" was his reply.
Seriously, that was his answer. Even worse, the court BOUGHT that answer.
My question: Where do I sign up to become an expert witness on web porn? I'm darn near sure I've got at LEAST 4 hours total in....
Don't tell me to get a life. I'm a gamer; I have LOTS of lives!