RIAA Can't Have Defendant's Son's Desktop

NewYorkCountryLawyer writes "The RIAA's attempt to get Ms. Lindor's son's desktop computer in UMG v. Lindor has been rejected by the Magistrate Judge. The judge said that the RIAA 'offered little more than speculation to support their request for an inspection of Mr. Raymond's desktop computer, based on ... his family relationship to the defendant, the proximity of his house to the defendant's house, and his determined defense of his mother in this case. That is not enough. On the record before me, plaintiffs have provided scant basis to authorize an inspection of Mr. Raymond's desktop computer.' Decision by Magistrate Judge Robert M. Levy. (pdf)"

Comments

not supporting the RIAA

[Turn-X Alphonse]

I'm not supporting the RIAA but this seems wrong to me. If the person they are sueing has access and may have used the PC for copyright infringement should the PC not be investigated?

It's like going "you can only have 2 of the 3 knives I may of used for that murder".

Re:not supporting the RIAA

[i_wanna_be_a_scienti]

I agree with you on this point. If a crime has been done, then all of the evidence should be investigated, and not just parts of it. You don't get a good picture, and it ends up being that you come to the wrong conclution.

Which actually could be bad for RIAA.

But we want it to be bad for them through the full picture.

Right?

Re:not supporting the RIAA

[zappepcs]

IANAL, but just because an armed robber lives in the same town as a relative, and they both have cars, and are close, doesn't mean there is need, or cause to search the relatives car for evidence of the crimes committed by the armed robber. Yes, I know that might not be the best analogy, but where is the judge to stop? Can the RIAA look at her neighbor's pc? Can the RIAA request that all her friends computers be searched? If there is no evidence of infringement, well, then there is no evidence. Going fishing in the computers that she might have had access to is just that, fishing.

Re:not supporting the RIAA

[cyphercell]

On the record before me, plaintiffs have provided scant basis to authorize an inspection of Mr. Raymond's desktop computer.

Except it seems like nobody has been killed, therefore there is no murder weapon that will go to court.

Re:not supporting the RIAA

[Anonymous Coward]

Mr. Turn-X Alphonse, I think you may have infringed on my copyright. Please have your PC ready for inspection. Oh, and I want your son's PC as well just in case.

Re:not supporting the RIAA

[Lord Kano]

I'm not supporting the RIAA but this seems wrong to me. If the person they are sueing has access and may have used the PC for copyright infringement should the PC not be investigated?

She "may have" had access to your computer. That doesn't mean that she did. Even if she did, that doesn't mean that she used it to commit the alleged offense.

It sounds to me like you just don't get it.

If your mother is accused of a crime, why in the hell should they be able to search your property, at a different house, without probable cause?

If the police can't do it for a murder case, why should the RIAA be able to do it for a civil suit?

LK

Re:not supporting the RIAA

[Anonymous Coward]

You completely missed the point. If a crime has been committed by the son, then a new case with evidence must be brought against him. Since when do we, as Americans, allow witch hunts in order to save failing court cases? The only reason the RIAA is going after the son is because he is vigorously defending his mother and they want to put him back on his heels.

Re:not supporting the RIAA

[Nom du Keyboard]

If the person they are sueing has access and may have used the PC for copyright infringement should the PC not be investigated?

You're not making sense here. First off, you have to mean if the person they're suing has access and may have used his PC for copyright infringement, should his PC not be investigated? That's the first correction. They've already checked the PC in the house itself, and come up dry. It does not contain the hard drive with any of the infringing files or programs on it.

Secondly, they're not suing the son. So he is not the person they're suing, and they should have no right to anything on his PC just because he's a son who lives 4 miles away and, like any good son should, visits his mother.

Thirdly, if you have your own computer at home, it doesn't make much sense that you'd pack up your computer, drive miles to your Mother's house, and commit copyright infringement there, before packing up your computer once more and driving back home again to use your computer for everything else you normally use it for. Even if you have a notebook computer, do you drive somewhere else to do all your filesharing? That's too much of a reach for even this judge to accept, hence they're not allowed to just look at a non-party's computer hard drive because of a casual relationship between a mother and her son. There is no evidence that the son's computer has ever been in his Mother's house.

It would be like the RIAA saying that, we tracked filesharing to the IP address of your best friend who lives a few miles from you. But because we couldn't find the evidence on his computer, and we know you're friends who often got together at his house, and because you have a computer too, we want to give your computer a digital anal examination as well, hoping we'll find something to incriminate you with. And it's not even like said best friend told the RIAA to get his own butt out of the sling that, "Hey, my best friend always came over with his computer and we downloaded music on it." He would have told them nothing of the sort.

Now do you get it?

Re:not supporting the RIAA

[Anonymous Coward]

If someone in your family downloaded something illegally off BitTorrent, should they seize your computer and search through all the files on it?

It all sounds kind of reasonable until you're the victim.

Re:not supporting the RIAA

[Adelle]

> Since when do we, as Americans, allow witch hunts in order to save failing court cases?

For as long as you have had "grand juries".

Adelle.

Re:not supporting the RIAA

[cyphercell]

Okay, but the witch hunt doesn't start from the get-go.

Re:not supporting the RIAA

[aussie_a]

More like "We want everyone's steak knives that happen to know you."

Re:not supporting the RIAA

[UnknowingFool]

I'm not supporting the RIAA but this seems wrong to me. If the person they are sueing has access and may have used the PC for copyright infringement should the PC not be investigated?

It's like going "you can only have 2 of the 3 knives I may of used for that murder".

A brief history of the case was that the plaintiff (RIAA) demanded that the defendant turn over her computer to their experts for analysis. The defendant objected and would only agree to a third party copying the hard drive and handing the copy over to the plaintiff. The judge ruled in the defendant's favor and the HD was copied. However upon further analysis, it appears that HD had no traces of any filesharing software or the copyrighted songs that the plaintiff claimed were being shared. So the plaintiff went back to the judge saying, "Well, the defendant's son had access to her house, maybe it was his personal computer that the culprit." I suspect that the MediaSentry methods of identifying infringers are error prone and that is the most likely cause of the discrepancy. What the judge has ruled is that besides just speculation, the plaintiffs have offered no compelling evidence to search the computer of the defendant's son who has his own machine in his house and does not live with his mother. Although the decision doesn't mention it, the defendant's son claimed that his files are protected by attorney client privilege (as he is a lawyer and uses his computer for work). There has to be very compelling reasons for the plaintiff to over come that objection.

Re:not supporting the RIAA

[iabervon]

Viacom is being sued for copyright infringement, too (by people whose copyrighted works were the subject of misguided DMCA removal demands to YouTube). I like the idea that these plaintiffs could get, not only all of Viacom's computers, but also all of Viacom's employees' computers.

Unfortunately for that, you need to convince the judge that there's a good reason to think that you'll turn up evidence for the crime you already have a good reason to think has been committed.

Re:not supporting the RIAA

[MLease]

I'm not supporting the RIAA but this seems wrong to me. If the person they are sueing has access and may have used the PC for copyright infringement should the PC not be investigated?

It's like going "you can only have 2 of the 3 knives I may of used for that murder".

It's more like, "You can only have the knives that you have a plausible reason to believe may have been used for that murder." Why should they get the defendant's son's knife, just because he lives 4 miles away from the defendant and vigorously asserts the defendant's innocence? They need a reason to search other people's property; they can't just conjure up a hypothesis out of thin air that the property was used to commit the crime, and use that as justification to examine it.

This is all about intimidation. The RIAA doesn't like the son for defending his mother so vigorously, so they're spitefully trying to fish for evidence on his computer, on the off-chance they might be able to drag him into a lawsuit. They have no probable cause to accuse the son of any wrongdoing, or to assert that the mother is committing infringement using his computer rather than her own, and the judge is perfectly correct in denying their motion.

-Mike

Re:not supporting the RIAA

[bhima]

Just playing the devil's advocate... My Mum has an unlimited home DSL account... which she uses to send about 6 mails a month with. It would be perfect to add a router and Mac Mini with a bit torrent client running on it to her existing setup. She would never notice and I could occasionally FTP in and download the files obtained. Then if she ever got into one of these lawsuits I could remove the whole setup and she could honestly deny having anything to do with it.

Re:not supporting the RIAA

[bmo]

"For as long as you have had "grand juries"."

But this isn't about a crime. It's about a tort. No grand jury involved.

Please learn the difference.

One of the reasons why the RIAA isn't asking for criminal charges is that the evidence they have is so slim that even thinking about filing criminal charges, which require a _much_ higher burden of proof, is idiotic.

The RIAA is on pretty thin ice. Their "expert" claims to be a "software engineer" yet when asked if he's got a PE stamp, he says...well...no. Yet another wannabe expert.

--
BMO

Re:not supporting the RIAA

[Anonymous Coward]

Except the livelihood of the poor starving artists!

Re:not supporting the RIAA

[cyphercell]

Glad you're not my kid, ya little brat.

Re:not supporting the RIAA

[Mydron]

I'm not supporting the inquisition but this seems wrong to me. If the person being investigated is a woman and has a cat, then shouldn't we see if she floats?

Re:not supporting the RIAA

[mpe]

A brief history of the case was that the plaintiff (RIAA) demanded that the defendant turn over her computer to their experts for analysis. The defendant objected and would only agree to a third party copying the hard drive and handing the copy over to the plaintiff. The judge ruled in the defendant's favor and the HD was copied.

Sounds like a reasonable judge. Taking the defendant's computer would deprive them of it for a long period of time, whereas taking a copy of it's data only deprives them of it for a short time.

However upon further analysis, it appears that HD had no traces of any filesharing software or the copyrighted songs that the plaintiff claimed were being shared. So the plaintiff went back to the judge saying, "Well, the defendant's son had access to her house, maybe it was his personal computer that the culprit." I suspect that the MediaSentry methods of identifying infringers are error prone and that is the most likely cause of the discrepancy.

Or something as simple as a typo on the part of the plaintiff.

What the judge has ruled is that besides just speculation, the plaintiffs have offered no compelling evidence to search the computer of the defendant's son who has his own machine in his house and does not live with his mother.

To the judge it may look as though the plaintiff is on a "fishing trip".

Although the decision doesn't mention it, the defendant's son claimed that his files are protected by attorney client privilege (as he is a lawyer and uses his computer for work).

Plenty of people may have confidential material on their computers. A lawyer has the advantage that he or she can phrase this in language a judge is likely to understand.

Re:not supporting the RIAA

[mpe]

Viacom is being sued for copyright infringement, too (by people whose copyrighted works were the subject of misguided DMCA removal demands to YouTube). I like the idea that these plaintiffs could get, not only all of Viacom's computers, but also all of Viacom's employees' computers.

If you applied the RIAA's "logic" that would probably include computers belonging to any relatives of Viacom employees. "Hand over your PC your third cousin, who you never knew existed, married the second cousin of someone who once did some agency work for Viacom!"

Re:not supporting the RIAA

[Anonymous Coward]

... but the third knife is in another house.

By your reasoning, the RIAA should be allowed to inspect all computers of all family members living nearby, and why not all friends, guests at the house, and neighbors. Talking about wide net fishing...

Re:not supporting the RIAA

[empaler]

Even simpler. Bittorent-capable router. With web interface.

Re:not supporting the RIAA

[rtb61]

By the same token, just have two computers a cheapy pirate machine, no real speed power or display quality is required for P2P, a typical $200 odd worth of 2nd hand notebook would be quite sufficient, when they ask for your machine give them them a ghost of your regular machine and drop your pirate machine off at a buddies place for the duration. If your gonna make up stories at least make them realistic ;).

I know it is pointless, because the RIAA does not target technophiles that can afford multiple computers and a lawyer, the target those who can not afford neither and who lack technical expertise (at least not any more ;)). It saves the embarrassment of continually losing cases and likely hood of some rather severe legal ramifications, for what is becoming pretty clear is nothing more than legalised extortion.

Re:not supporting the RIAA

[ArsenneLupin]

we want to give your computer a digital anal examination as well Easy solution:
iptables -I INPUT -p tcp --dport 79 -j REJECT
So there, RIAA!

Re:not supporting the RIAA

[bmo]

And ya know what?

That's a defense that your mom's lawyer can use. Indeed, having an insecure POS computer infected with malware, a wide open wireless router, IP addresses being spoofed, etc, yadda yadda yadda, were all used to pull Dr. Jacobson's deposition into a million little pieces in this case.

In other words, there is _no way_, using the RIAA's methods, to definitively trace music files to the specific computer, not after reading Dr. Jacobson's testimony. Read it. The URL is in one of my earlier postings.

--
BMO

Re:not supporting the RIAA

[Anonymous Coward]

"Have you or any members of your family ever been a member of a file sharing service?" Question sound a bit familiar?

Re:not supporting the RIAA

[Anonymous Coward]

You'd buy a mac mini ($679.00 CDN currently at apple store for the basic model), and a router (around 50$ for something half-decent like a WRT54GL) -- around 850$CDN with tax and shipping (that's ~750$USD) just so your P2P traffic comes from another IP? Nevermind you'd have to drive a few miles routinely to transfer the files off the mini to something else to burn it afterwards (no DVD burner built in)? (FTP would be kind of stupid, download over P2P to redownload several GB it over a slow home DSL link?) That's a bit extreme.

Nevermind your mom could end up having legal issues because of you? Even if the RIAA/MPAA doesn't win, it's still stressful, annoying and expensive. Either ways, you'd have to hide your setup if it happens. It would be just as easy to hide your PCs at her place if you ever got caught, and hand them a generic 2nd hand cheapo XP box (with basically nothing on it) to analyze instead and save yourself hundreds of dollars if it doesn't happen (and the driving/FTP part too).

Using P2P on her internet might also go over some caps (lots of ISPs set caps, especially on the cheaper plans which she likely has if she only uses it for 6 emails a month), and going over that is all too easy and often expensive.

Bad idea in general. Nobody's stupid enough to really do this.

Re:not supporting the RIAA

[init100]

It all sounds kind of reasonable until you're the victim.

Lots of people don't think that far.

Re:not supporting the RIAA

[Dunbal]

If the person they are sueing has access and may have used the PC for copyright infringement should the PC not be investigated?

      I think you are infringing on the RIAA's copyright. Expect them to take your PC soon.

      Get it? It takes more than someone's "say so" to go into someone's private property and rummage through their things. The RIAA has to actually show some sort of proof that you've wronged them, not just "oh, we say you did it". Unfortunately (for them) they don't have enough proof to convince the judge. So why should they get the hard drive? First things first - establish that copyright infringement happened by some other means.

Re:not supporting the RIAA

[Dunbal]

shouldn't we see if she floats?

      She turned me into a newt!

      What? Well, I got better!

Re:not supporting the RIAA

[Dunbal]

evidence for the crime

IANAL, but this is a civil case. There is no "crime".

Re:not supporting the RIAA

[baileydau]

It's even better than that ...
Didn't their "experts" "prove" that it _must_ be Mrs Lindor's PC that was used and that it was connected directly to the Internet and that there was no internal network involved.

Or are they now saying, they don't have a clue and that it could have been anyone and they aren't actually sure what (if anything) they did.

Re:not supporting the RIAA

[Anonymous Coward]

But this isn't about a crime. It's about a tort. No grand jury involved.

And that's why I prefer crumble!!1

Re:not supporting the RIAA

[Dan541]

In Australia they tried doing that for theft the idea was that if One family member is a crook they all are. The idea didn't get much support Could not even find someone stupid enuth to take it to parliament.

Re:not supporting the RIAA

[geminidomino]

s/that far//

That oughta do it.

Re:not supporting the RIAA

[Dragonslicer]

I don't know how many steak knives know me, but I hope I haven't pissed them off.

Re:not supporting the RIAA

[Anonymous Coward]

Professional Engineer is the term for registered or licensed engineers in some countries, including the United States and Canada who are permitted to offer their professional services directly to the public. I need a PE to be an engineer? Since when? I would venture a guess that less than 5% of people holding engineering degrees hold a PE. You know how unimportant a PE is to a software engineer, an electrical engineer (doing real engineering and not laying out some wiring in a building), or the plethora of other engineerings really is? The group that require it the most are Civil Engineers (often joked at as the "reject" or "worst" engineers), or the Engineers that are actually selling services. How many Hardware Engineers (computer hardware, in case you are dense) have PEs? Very few I would venture. Most of them wouldn't pass a dynamics portion of the test, because we don't USE IT. We also have no services to sell. A hardware engineer is almost always going to be directly employeed by a company and won't have to be selling his "engineering service".

As a final note, I think most companies would take an MS or PhD over a PE "stamp". The PE is about as useless as most of those IT certs.

Re:not supporting the RIAA

[Vulva R. Thompson, P]

Why the hostility? Attaining a PE in any discipline requires documented proof of real world experience. Whether it gets rubber stamped by "some incompetent civil servant" doesn't matter.

For one, it shows a level of accountability when an engineer stamps a drawing. This is important when dealing with real world structures and systems that the general public's welfare depends on (i.e. life safety). Would you want it less stringent?

Whether it's worth much or not, much less exists right now in the world of software "engineering".

Re:not supporting the RIAA

[Hognoxious]

In Australia they tried doing that for theft the idea was that if One family member is a crook they all are.

Why stop at family members? Aren't all Australians crooks?

Re:not supporting the RIAA

[Shakrai]

iptables -I INPUT -p tcp --dport 79 -j REJECT

Doesn't TCP imply that they need your permission (i.e: completed handshake) to shove something up your anus? This seems more like a UDP flood to me. Without lube.

Re:not supporting the RIAA

[Anonymous Coward]

Tell ya what dillhole. Next time your driving over a bridge in your POS Pinto, just remember it is cause of a civil engineer you can get to your welfare office.

Re:not supporting the RIAA

[Nefarious Wheel]

iirc they were trying to prove that her computer was the one used because they'd traced it to a NAT box and started making fairly gross assumptions about the target host and calling it incontrovertable proof. Intervention of the Groklaw audience pulled some very astute questions to throw at the "expert" in a deposition. Find it and read it if you're interested in the details. Deposition was a real snow-blower (as in "snow removal tool").

Golly, here it is -- I finally found the culprit! See -- 192.168.1.1, just like the ISP log said...

Re:not supporting the RIAA

[Anonymous Coward]

Just playing the devil's advocate... My Mum has an unlimited home DSL account... which she uses to send about 6 mails a month with. It would be perfect to add a router and Mac Mini with a bit torrent client running on it to her existing setup. She would never notice and I could occasionally FTP in and download the files obtained. Then if she ever got into one of these lawsuits I could remove the whole setup and she could honestly deny having anything to do with it.

While your example is very plausible one of the facts of this specific case was that the RIAA's expert identified that, in his "expert" opinion, the infringing computer they detected was connected directly to the internet, not behind a router. This wouldn't preclude a separate computer doing the actual connecting and then infringing but still leads to the same issue of why bother lugging a computer to Mum's house, connecting to the internet through her ISP, downloading, and then taking the computer back home. I believe that the infringement was very few songs if not just one. Seems like a lot of work to do unless you think there's a significant chance of being caught in the first place, in which case it would most likely be easier to just purchase the songs directly.

Re:not supporting the RIAA

[NewYorkCountryLawyer]

Incorrect. In this case the defendant turned over her complete hard drive. When the RIAA could find nothing on it to support their case, then they started pursuing her relatives. That's the way they operate.

Re:not supporting the RIAA

[ArsenneLupin]

Doesn't TCP imply that they need your permission (i.e: completed handshake) to shove something up your anus? Hmm, maybe it's a croatian handshake?

This seems more like a UDP flood to me. Nope. The finger protocol does use TCP. See RFC 1288

Without lube. If you use a finger, you don't need lube. But please, only one finger, not the whole hand!

Re:not supporting the RIAA

[NewYorkCountryLawyer]

The latter.

Their "investigation" proved only that it could not have been Ms. Lindor's computer.

Re:not supporting the RIAA

[thrawn_aj]

Besides, once it is even mentioned that your computer may be this close to getting poked around by strangers (think of all the pr0n =D), surely anyone can purge the HDD of anything they want to in a matter of hours? Failing that, a quick replacement and a strong magnet should do the trick

Re:not supporting the RIAA

[bhima]

No Doubt!

But in all fairness... I'd rather face the M.A.F.I.A.A's lawyers than get my Mum entangled into anything like this and have her find out.... even living on a different continent is not far enough away to insure my own safety!

Re:not supporting the RIAA

[Anonymous Coward]

Don't bother -- all you'll find on it is the goatse guy. Oh, and Mr Hands too.

Re:not supporting the RIAA

[MCraigW]

Their "expert" claims to be a "software engineer" yet when asked if he's got a PE stamp, he says...well...no. Yet another wannabe expert.

I think I'm a software engineer, and I don't even know what a PE stamp is.

I have a degree in Computer Science, and I have been a systems programmer designing and writing networking software for over 25 years, can I claim that I'm a software engineer?

So... what is a "PE stamp"?

Re:not supporting the RIAA

[QMO]

And iocane comes from Australia, as everyone knows, and Australia is entirely peopled with criminals, and criminals are used to having people not trust them ...

Re:not supporting the RIAA

[Alchemar]

Very few people can clean files off a computer in such a way that there is not a detectable trail that something was erased. Most people can't even delete files without leaving a backup copy in a hidden folder, cache, media player library, or word document edit header. There was also a case with the RIAA where someone did have traces that the harddrive was cleaned, and the judge ruled in favor of the RIAA. By destroying the evidence, the defendent ruined any chance of showing that the RIAA's case was possible exagerated and got nailed for everything that was claimed.

If the RIAA is willing to pay a 3rd party to copy and examine the drive, then they are willing to pay for the procedures that can recover lost data. Some of them get expensive, but the RIAA can wright it off as PR funding.

Re:not supporting the RIAA

[Anonymous Coward]

f you have your own computer at home, it doesn't make much sense that you'd pack up your computer, drive miles to your Mother's house, and commit copyright infringement there, before packing up your computer once more and driving back home again to use your computer for everything else you normally use it for.

I don't know about you, but when I visit my parents for the holidays, I do bring my laptop.

Even if you have a notebook computer, do you drive somewhere else to do all your filesharing?

Many people with P2P apps have them running all the time. So when you plug into the internet at your parents' home, the P2P app starts sharing.

Of course, I have no idea if this is what happened in this case.

Re:not supporting the RIAA

[bhima]

Oh I know that... I've also read the testimony. At this point there is an answer for all of their tactics... I'm amazed someone hasn't come up with a comprehensive defense strategy that reads somewhat like a troubleshooting manual or an old kid's play by reading adventure book.

Re:not supporting the RIAA

[UnknowingFool]

Thanks for the correction. So many of these cases are so alike. :) But it is indicative of the RIAA to keep pursuing the case when there appears to be no case.

Re:not supporting the RIAA

[UnknowingFool]

I'm sure that the HD expert has already looked at his scenario. IIRC, I think their expert has already said that they was not any trace that the HD ever had the files that the plaintiff was looking for. You would think that the RIAA would be crying foul to the judge if they had thought the defendant erased her HD.

Re:not supporting the RIAA

[jhsiao]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Professional_engineer #United_States

When I was graduating with my computer engineering degree, I considered getting the EIT certification. But the lack of focus on software in the exam suggested to me that it didn't mean anything for companies looking for computer or software engineers. And I was correct.

This was awhile ago, so the EIT exam may have added some software/digital focus since then.

Re:not supporting the RIAA

[mdwh2]

It's like going "you can only have 2 of the 3 knives I may of used for that murder".

Murder is a criminal case, and evidence would be investigated by the police. It wouldn't be an excuse for the victim's family to search through the suspect's belongings in the hope of turning up evidence.

Copyright infringement is a civil issue, and a 3rd party suing should not give them the right to have access to someone's PC, especially with all the invasion of privacy that that entails.

Re:not supporting the RIAA

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, civil and mechanical engineers don't have the luxury of just reinstalling software, or touching up code. People and their safety rely upon the work that professional engineers do. We do not have room for error or bugs, peoples lives depend on it.

Re:not supporting the RIAA

[Anonymous Coward]

Plenty of people may have confidential material on their computers. A lawyer has the advantage that he or she can phrase this in language a judge is likely to understand.

That's not relevant. Most people have confidential material on their computers, but a judge can still make you hand it over. If you don't, they will toss you in jail and seize it anyway.

Things that are subject to attorney-client privilege (in the USA) are generally inviolable. A judge can not force you to hand it over.

Re:not supporting the RIAA

[thrawn_aj]

There was also a case with the RIAA where someone did have traces that the harddrive was cleaned, and the judge ruled in favor of the RIAA. I hear what you're saying, but isn't that rather presumptuous of the judge? Perhaps the cleaning was to cover up another crime, or even simply to prevent embarassment ("But your Honour, I was merely trying to erase all the nu*** p*** before my wife saw them" :P), in which case this judge wouldn't really have authority. Also, you don't really need intimate knowledge of HDD cleaning techniques to physically destroy it ("Your Honour, my pet elephant sat on it when I took it out for dusting") and get a new one. And I mean this the moment they hear about the mere possibility. Of course it would be illegal after you're served with a subpeona.

I wonder if judges should have a required computer literacy course in law school before they are allowed to preside over these cases (since so many of them are ex-lawyers, not always of course :P and the rest are probably qwango appointments =D *oink*). It is getting rather ludicrous the way people can get away with the most outrageous claims because of judicial ignorance. One is reminded of the short story "Galley Slave" by Isaac Asimov where a robot leased by U.S. Robots is sued by some noob and the judge (of course *roll*) discounts all technical evidence simply because he doesn't understand it. Would this same level of ignorance be tolerated in tort law or banking fraud? ("Objection sustained! The question is irrelevant because I really don't understand what embezzlement means. Rephrase your question please :P").

Some of them get expensive, but the RIAA can wright it off as PR funding. I LOL'D!!

Re:not supporting the RIAA

[Anonymous Coward]

"Just playing the devil's advocate..."
[scheme]

*mind boggles*

And???

"Then if she ever got into one of these lawsuits I could remove the whole setup and she could honestly deny having anything to do with it."

*head explodes*

That's the FREAKING POINT HERE. She's being sued. She had nothing to do with it. If the son steals bandwidth or uses a connection with permission illegally, it's hardly the mother's fault.

What you just argued is a defense, and not only that, an explanation that they are suing the wrong person.

What next? Neighbor comes over to borrow a shovel, you allow him, he then konks someone over the head with it, and you are being held liable for enabling a crime?

Think of this. It's bad enough we're in a pro-prosecution lock 'em up society with shitty laws, now you're saying you have to assume everything someone else is going to do is to break the law? Kid in home-ec class stabs the kid next to him, it's the schools fault? Home improvement store sells bricks, which allows them to be sued because someone used one to break into a car or building, or used in an assault?

I cannot begin to fathom where people get these ideas from. Maybe certain geeks should spend less time coming up with elaborate technical schemes and understand the basics of human responsibility and get a minimum of legal understanding.

Re:not supporting the RIAA

[Anonymous Coward]

The RIAA is on pretty thin ice. Their "expert" claims to be a "software engineer" yet when asked if he's got a PE stamp, he says...well...no. Yet another wannabe expert.

Your snobbishness is ridiculous.

There are plenty of legitimate experts in all sorts of fields who do not happen to be engineers.

Vint Cerf is not an engineer. Richard Stallman is not an engineer. Eric S. Raymond is not an engineer.

I have a PhD in chemistry and many years of experience doing research. I think I'm an expert in my field, but I'm not an engineer.

Now, this "expert" might be a fraud, but the fact that they aren't an engineer doesn't mean they are a fraud. Depending on where you live, calling yourself an "engineer" when you're not is illegal. Calling yourself a "software engineer" might not be. In some places, only calling yourself a "professional engineer" when you're not is illegal.

Re:not supporting the RIAA

[Gr8Apes]

PE's used to be very important. It was the only way engineers could make serious money instead of merely working for a PE in a position very much like a journeyman.

This all started changing when the majority of jobs available to engineers started being for large corporations, where PEs became all but irrelevant. We're not talking about CEs here, as they by and large still carry PEs if they're working in the construction industry.

Perhaps the animosity against PEs is because the GP has worked for one of the anointed gifted morons with a PE? I have rarely seen someone as arrogant as the PE a couple of my friends worked under. That guy convinced me to go look elsewhere after a mere 5 minutes of "discussion" (him basically stating how great he was and the great things he did). There were also the pedantic spewings of a couple of professors I had, one of which I believe lost his professional practice due to the Hyatt walkway collapse in Chicago. At least the level of intense animosity he displayed when discussing the particulars of that event and why there'd be no partial credit ever in his class certainly led me to believe that's why he returned to academia. He certainly didn't seem to enjoy teaching or talking with students.

Re:not supporting the RIAA

[Gr8Apes]

Yep, those Romans and their PEs. I sure am glad they had them. 2000 years and still serviceable!

Re:not supporting the RIAA

[The_Wilschon]

Nobody seems to have read the summary very closely (surprise!). The judge didn't say "You absolutely cannot ever examine the third knife."; he said "On the basis of what you've presented and argued so far, I see no reason that you should want or need to examine the third knife, if there even is a third knife.".

Re:not supporting the RIAA

[syntaxglitch]

It stands for Professional Engineer, a kind of licensing process demonstrating knowledge and competence to practice one's profession. They're mostly relevant for civil engineering (i.e., people whose screw-ups end up on the news as "major bridge collapses, 300 dead or missing"). PE also exists for mechanical and electrical engineers, but isn't uniformly required, as far as I know. I've never even heard of PE for anything software related, though some people have argued in favor of such a requirement.

In some locales, you can't legally call yourself an "engineer" unless you have a PE to your name, much like you can't start working as a doctor or lawyer without appropriate paperwork.

Re:not supporting the RIAA

[Anonymous Coward]

I would love to see romans accomplish some of the feats of engineering that modern engineers have reached.

Romans over designed there structures and provided the basis of modern engineering principals. However, no one can argue that modern engineering has surpassed anything the Romans could ever imagine.

To be tested on the ability of an individual to recall and apply engineering principals during an examination is a good measure of the persons ability to apply the knowledge learned over years of education and experience.

How many Roman jumbo jets do you see flying around today?

Re:not supporting the RIAA

[thc69]

It's like going "you can only have 2 of the 3 knives I may of used for that murder".

Can you rephrase that in english, or at least make it possible to parse in some language?

Re:not supporting the RIAA

[TerranFury]

>one of which I believe lost his professional practice due to the Hyatt walkway collapse in Chicago

IIRC, the Hyatt walkway collapse happened because of modifications made by the contractor to the original architect's design: A rod was split into two parts in such a way that a nut was required to take twice the force it would have otherwise. But that was the contractor's doing -- I thought.

Re:not supporting the RIAA

[Anonymous Coward]

Better yet, everytime I am in a traffic jam at a bridge or any major highway, why don't I THANK my civil engineer. I can find you plenty more Civ-E screw ups then I can successes. I will admit other engineerings have their screw ups, but they just aren't as visible as some of theirs.

Re:not supporting the RIAA

[Gr8Apes]

You are correct. The original Architect's drawing was almost impossible to build. (Architects don't get much respect from engineers either, at least where I went to school. They're viewed more as artists than engineers, with all the negatives that entails. Architects frequently support those views by proposing impossible to build designs that merely look pretty).

The rod was supposed to thread through 2 walkways in one piece, so each walkway's brackets would only support 1 walkway's weight. The contractor split the rod, causing the upper walkway's bracket to take on the full load of both walkways. Even so, it might have held due to factors of safety usually being quite conservative in construction, but with the opening ceremony, the walkways were heavily crowded with viewers watching the ceremony below, and the brackets on the upper walkway gave way dropping both walkways to the ground.

And therein lies another reason to not get a PE. They're your drawings, and you're liable, even if someone changes them to be realistically able to build them. (A junior engineer I believe approved the change btw, or did the change, it's been way too long ago) Either way, this incident finished more than one career.

Re:not supporting the RIAA

[Gr8Apes]

You missed my point entirely. Yes, we can accomplish feats of engineering the Romans could only dream about (lack of materials and computer models are merely two reasons) But will our feats last 2000 years and be serviceable? I doubt it.

The ability of an individual to recall and apply engineering principals on an examination only proves that an individual can take an examination. Even 8 hours is no where near enough time to do anything in depth. I regularly had single problems for homework that took more than 8 hours each to solve, and that would only prove I knew how to solve a single problem. Covering multiple topics on an 8 hour exam is proving nothing more than literate knowledge of the topic. That's why PEs require 5 years of experience and a sponsor.

Re:not supporting the RIAA

[FellowConspirator]

The RIAA is NOT claiming a crime was committed. They are claiming that a contract violation was committed. Big difference.

They realize that the burden of proof for criminal infringement claims is way to high -- they could never possibly prove it. Instead, they are suing for simple copyright infringement which is a tort -- basically a contract violation. That is to say, they are claiming that the defendant violated the implied contract that stipulates that in return for the work eventually becoming part of the public domain people will not copy or distribute it without permission.

Of course, since it's unlikely that the defendant would see the work go into the public domain during their lifetime, it might be hard to show that the copyright contract is strictly legal. Generally speaking, those terms would preclude its enforcement if challenged (not that anyone has challenged it on those terms).

Re:not supporting the RIAA

[mstahl]

Well, that's what happens when you live in a former penal colony....

Re:not supporting the RIAA

[Anonymous Coward]

The world trade center collapse? Are you a fucking moron? Hey I got an idea, why don't you write some software for a PC but design it so it will survive if the PC is dunked in fucking water. Same difference.

Re:not supporting the RIAA

[Deadstick]

I've never even heard of PE for anything software related

My former employer, a California aerospace outfit, ran into something like that around 1970 when it opened a good-sized operation in Denver. There was some bit of paperwork with the city and county that involved listing the number of engineers on the payroll, and the local PE association cried foul: local ordinances forbade representing someone as an "engineer" who didn't have a PE license.

We replied that we would be delighted to come into compliance, and would they please send over eight hundred license applications, a copy of the sample test, eight hundred PE Assn membership applications, and when would their next officer election be?

Last we ever heard from them.

rj

Re:not supporting the RIAA

[operagost]

Inconceivable!

Re:not supporting the RIAA

[Headcase88]

So if a criminal matter isn't important enough for the police to invade a person's privacy and search through their house and take their property, then a civil "contract violation" is?

Re:not supporting the RIAA

[non-Euclidean]

I don't think that work means what you think it means.

Re:not supporting the RIAA

[Anonymous Coward]

"So... what is a "PE stamp"?"

It's what happened to most Slashdot readers in gym class.

Re:not supporting the RIAA

[Ungrounded Lightning]

In some locales, you can't legally call yourself an "engineer" unless you have a PE to your name, much like you can't start working as a doctor or lawyer without appropriate paperwork.

In most states calling yourself a software or computer engineer is an explicit exception to such requirements. It's a job title, not a ceritification. (I understand one state does require some certification to use the E-word even for computer-related stuff.)

This is largely because the industry has a track record of rejecting such regulatory attempts as stifiling of progress and monopolistic. There was one serious attempt to create such a cert, and if it had succeeded you'd have to be a Cobol expert and understand JCL to work in the field now. Instead, certifications are now industrial internal matters, issued by profit-making corporations and worth the paper their printed plus the reputation of the company's certification operation.

Given that some of the best and brightest - including many of the pioneers - didn't even get a degree, it's not surprising. During the early days the experts were the ones who became so obsessed with working/"playing" with the machines that their other schoolwork often suffered, and many of the best ended up dropping out short of a degree. Meanwhile the early coursework in the field tended to be a sidetrack from what was really needed by industry, and for at least the first ten years of computer science education a 4-year "computer science" degree was actually a hinderance to employment in industry. (You'd think the professors thought everybody was going to write his own compiler, just for starters.) The graduate had to "unlearn" a lot of stuff before he could really pick up on what the employer wanted done.

Minsky divided the first thirty years or so of computer science education into three periods:
  1) 4-year degree was counter-productive, as above. Faculty didn't really understand what was needed.
  2) 4-year degree was actually useful. Faculty had rented a clue about what was needed.
  3) 4-year degree was counterproductive again. Faculty was teaching excessive formalisms and software fads.

(It's been long enough for maybe two more "periods" now but I haven't heard whether Marvin has characterized them. B-) )

Re:not supporting the RIAA

[stuboogie]

Actually, the water would have no effect on the software.

The HARDWARE on the other hand would be toast.

This may have the same effect, but not the same causation.
Sorry, I couldn't help it considering how pointless this thread has gotten.

Re:not supporting the RIAA

[stuboogie]

That may be true, but there is software that is used in critical applications everday.
The same people riding that airplane that was designed by a "professional engineer" are relying on software as well.
The safety and security of a structure or a piece of code is not contingent upon the credentials of an individual,
but how well the individual did his job in formulating his work and testing the results.

Software Engineers may not have an equivalent PE exam at this time, but there are organizations (ACM is one) trying to establish the
accountability among the community that the PE exam is supposed to provide.

Do not judge others based on a set of standards that do not even apply to them. I'm quite certain that civil and mechanical engineers do not send out their first set of blueprints as the finished product. I would gather that they test their design to ensure it meets the required standards. This is also the case for software engineers.
In addition, everything that is designed by civil and mechanical engineers do not require the same measures of safety. The same holds true with software. Some applications are more critical than others.

Just remember, there are morons in every profession.

Re:not supporting the RIAA

[slazzy]

Even just a second hard drive would do the trick - just make sure it's already formatted and you use it once in awhile for webbrowsing etc.

Re:not supporting the RIAA

[Anonymous Coward]

s;s/that far//;s/ that far//;

;-)

Re:not supporting the RIAA

[AJWM]

Romans and their PEs. ... 2000 years and still serviceable!

Well, we only have the examples that lasted 2000 years to go on. The stuff that fell apart after a mere couple hundred years is so long gone as to be forgotten.

Re:not supporting the RIAA

[Anonymous Coward]

"Since when do we, as Americans, allow witch hunts in order to save failing court cases?"

Salem, Mass, 1692.

Re:not supporting the RIAA

[Anonymous Coward]

You cannot tell me the WTC collapse was not a Civil Engineering failure. For YEARS, it was thought that they would not go down like that. In fact, the thought was more like the top would fall but bottom remain. Read the linked to article and its sources and then tell me there is not a high level of civil engineering failure in that. Should they have expected a plain to come crashing down? No, but maybe they could figure out why the bottom structure didn't hold. BTW, your software analogy sucks.

Re:not supporting the RIAA

[fleck_99_99]

So... what is a "PE stamp"?

PE refers to a "Professional Engineer," which would be a person who has achieved their professionally-accredited engineering license through their state board. It's a rigorous process involving years of work and multiple (extremely challenging) exams. In the state where I began this process, the allowed disciplines were Electrical, Civil, Chemical, Mechanical, and Industrial engineering. I believe many places have added an Environmental Engineering discipline, as well as expanded Electrical Engineering into Electrical and Computer Engineering.

In general, for those who don't have the enthusiasm to click through, becoming a PE requires achieving a degree from an ABET-accredited university. After this, the Fundamentals of Engineering exam must be taken and passed; this is an 8-hour exam with 4 hours on all the sciences, math, economics, and ethics that this exam usually covers. The second 4 hours is focused in your area of specialty. After passing this exam, you become an EIT (Engineer-in-Training). After working for an amount of time (this can vary, based on what level of degree you hold -- BS, MS, PhD, etc -- and on the state) and being "signed off" by a PE, you are eligible to take the PE (Principles and Practices of Engineering) exam. Upon completing this (and, of course, paying the appropriate fees to your state board), you hold a Professional Engineer license in your area of specialty.

And now that I've said all that, to the best of my knowledge, there is no licensing requirement to name yourself a "Software Engineer," "Network Engineer," "Systems Engineer," or most other strictly computer-related "Engineer" titles.

Re:not supporting the RIAA

[Anonymous Coward]

Ok fucktard, you want to know why the bottom structure didn't hold? Because the weakened support of 20 some odd floors at the top of the structure led to a gravity induced collapse. All the static weight of the top floors became dynamic. Buildings are not designed to handle that kind of dynamic vertical loads.

BTW, your understanding of structural engineering sucks.

Re:not supporting the RIAA

[Anonymous Coward]

The RIAA will step on anyone at the will of the major labels money. Please help stop the RIAA and the band of Corp. thieves.

HELP SAVE NET RADIO IN THE US..

http://www.loc.gov/crb/proceedings/2005-1/rates-te rms2005-1.pdf

SaveNetRadio.org

Help Keep Internet Radio Online

Whats Happening

On Friday March 2nd 2007, the Copyright Royalty Board announced new royalty rates for Internet Radio stations. The rates are retroactive to January of 2006.

The new rates are far higher than any industry experts expected. In fact, if they remain unchanged, bankruptcy looms for many online radio stations.

The new rates essentially levy a tax of $0.0011 per performance. Now, that doesn't sound bad does it. But consider this. Each hour, the average radio station plays 16 songs. So that's about 1.76c per hour, per listener. A station with 500 listener average would be hit with fees of $211 per day, $6,336 a month or $76,000 a year.

This amount of money is beyond the resources of all but the very wealthiest of corporations. Many of the internet radio stations are run by enthusiasts and hobbyists. These small stations are the ones bringing new music, and old favorites to you every day. Music you can't hear on corporate-owned terrestrial stations.

Could this be the day the music died?

What can you do?

If you enjoy internet radio, HEARING YOUR BAND ON INTERNET RADIO, you need to make your feelings known right now to your representatives in the Congress and Senate. Write to them and ask them to help repeal the decision of March 2nd by the Copyright Royalty Board. It only takes a couple of minutes.

SaveNetRadio.org

Congress: House.gov/writerep

Senate: Senate.gov

More background on this decision

SaveNetRadio.org

DigiMedia.org

DigiMedia.org FAQ

KurtHanson.com

Broadcastlawblog

Thank you & please help.

http://myspace.com/scottandpam

Re:not supporting the RIAA

[Anonymous Coward]

"I would gather that they test their design to ensure it meets the required standards."

As an mechanical engineer in the construction industry, I can tell you that there is no real-world way of testing the design of a one of a kind building, other than building it. Which is probably why the construction industry is so conservative and averse to trying out new design concepts.

Re:not supporting the RIAA

[Anonymous Coward]

Structural, Mechanical, and Electrical PEs stamps are routinely (but not universally) required by building code officials on blueprints in order to get a building permit. In many engineering fields, even if not required legally, insurance will usually require the design be done, or at least supervised, by a PE.

In most locales, even if you don't have a PE yourself, you are able to call yourself an engineer within the capacity of working for an engineering firm that is properly licensed.

Re:not supporting the RIAA

[TerranFury]

> And therein lies another reason to not get a PE. They're your drawings, and you're liable, even if someone changes them to be realistically able to build them. (A junior engineer I believe approved the change btw, or did the change, it's been way too long ago) Either way, this incident finished more than one career.

Interesting... I'd heard the PE described as useless (for E.E.s, and for those intending to get PhDs), but I'd never heard anyone say it could be a bad thing to have one...

Re:not supporting the RIAA

[Anonymous Coward]

No, this doesn't make you a "software engineer". There isn't such a license in the field of software, however there are distinct paths of degrees: Computer Science and Computer Engineering. At the graduate level you will find the Master's degrees in Software Engineering.

The Computer/Software Engineering field requires courses in math, physics and electrical engineering along with the usual computer science courses. This field is thus harder to get a degree in.

I have a B.S. in Computer Engineering degree and a M.S. in Software Engineering. If there was a PE test in the software field, you would have to have the engineering degree (the math/engineering background) to even qualify to take the test. Yes, I would take the test if it were available.

Re:not supporting the RIAA

[orgelspieler]

Each state is different, but Texas has rules about when you can call yourself an engineer. There's a $1,500 to $3,000 fine for calling yourself a PE when you're not, and a $1,000 fine (after the first occurrence) for just using the word "engineer" when you're not allowed to. According to the Texas Engineering Practice Act, most employees of private non-engineering companies are exempt, though. Only the person with the final approval of publicly available goods would need a license.

So in your example, the hardware engineer would be exempt, so long as his wares were not released to the public without the approval of some PE somewhere. Several companies implement this by having a group of chief engineers that handle the big-picture design activity, leaving the tedious details to junior engineers or EITs. The Board can require some goods to actually be designed by a PE as well, but I am not sure if that rule (actually and exception to an exemption) has ever been enforced.

Re:not supporting the RIAA

[Seismologist]

It stands for Professional Engineer, a kind of licensing process demonstrating knowledge and competence to practice one's profession. They're mostly relevant for civil engineering (i.e., people whose screw-ups end up on the news as "major bridge collapses, 300 dead or missing"). PE also exists for mechanical and electrical engineers, but isn't uniformly required, as far as I know. I've never even heard of PE for anything software related, though some people have argued in favor of such a requirement.

A PE license is actually a trademark, and if you claim to be a PE when you in fact have not been granted the said license you can be fined for trademark infringement as well charged for other civil and criminal offenses (just like being a fake doctor).

I work for a large multidisciplinary engineering firm and when we do any programming related to say traffic lights, the whole "engineering" design gets stamped by an Professional Engineer(s) that may be an civil engineer or an electrical engineer depending on the situation.

It appears that the rigor of liability associated with the more "conventional" engineering practices have not caught up to the computer sciences\engineering field, yet. But this will change in the future. For the time being, the title "software engineer", unlike "Structural Engineer (SE)" is as relevant as the title "car wash attendant".

Re:not supporting the RIAA

[Anonymous Coward]

Thank you Capitan Obvious! Good to know people can identify apple to orange comparisons in analogies.

Re:not supporting the RIAA

[TheMadcapZ]

Well stated, Mod parent up

Re:not supporting the RIAA

[Gr8Apes]

PE's are next to useless for many industries. Where they aren't, they bestow legal liability and responsibility for things you sign. Because you can sign construction drawings, for instance, you become legally liable should it fail due to design issues. Because of this liability, however, you also increase your pay, and your insurance.

Re:not supporting the RIAA

[stuboogie]

OOOhhhh...I got a promotion!!! I used to be Lieutenant Conspicuous!!!

Thank you, my job is done here!

Re:not supporting the RIAA

[glwtta]

"And who else do you sue?"

"More customers!!!"

Re:not supporting the RIAA

[Anonymous Coward]

The analogy would go something like..... all these files were down loaded at this internet cafe..... thus we should be able to look at every customers laptop since they could have potenialy been the offender.

Thats not gonna work...... if they can establish resonable suspicion and articualte it they cab get a subpoena for the computer.... otherwise it is a fishing expedition

Re:not supporting the RIAA

[Workaphobia]

I don't know if I would classify copyright infringement under contract violation. I think technically speaking, contract violation is less severe. I remember a story where someone violated the GPL and tried to get the charges knocked down because he tried to get it interpretted not as unauthorized redistribution, but authorized redistribution without living up to contractual obligations.

IANAL, but there are two of them in the house right now, and they say there is definitely a distinction. You may have been speaking figuratively.

The legality of the Mickey Mouse Protection Act was challenged in Eldred v. Ashcroft, in which the majority of the justices decided it's okay to allow copyright terms to grow indefinitely and at a faster pace than the passage of time.

Re:not supporting the RIAA

[ratzmilk]

Correct!

In a capitalist society, crimes against said capital must be punished more than any other type of crime. For instance, and employee that steals from his company will get more jail time then a mugger that steals from little old ladies.

Re:not supporting the RIAA

[Anonymous Coward]

Hey, it's been done.

My Mom has an ISP with a decent Usenet server included, which I can't get in my area. Her DSL download speed is also faster than mine. Though I'm not spendy enough to dedicate a Mac Mini to the purpose, I just run Bnr2 on her computer (which she leaves on almost 24/7 anyway).

Re:not supporting the RIAA

[rtb61]

Still easier with a second computer on a wireless network, dagnabbit, blasted pirates hacked my wireless WPA network and were naughty, well, at least they were polite enough not to exceed my download quota ;).

Re:not supporting the RIAA

[Ian Alanai]

I have a degree in Computer Science. I've been developing software applications in the education and telecoms sectors for 13 years. And I *know* I'm not an Engineer, software or otherwise.

Once software development becomes a quantifiable, rigorous and reliable process, in other words once it becomes an actual engineering discipline, then software developers might be able to call themselves engineers with a straight face.

Disclaimer: Some IT folk, in some fields, may already be building software and systems to an engineering standard. They are very much the exception rather than the rule.

Re:not supporting the RIAA

[aebrain]

Yes, but the fact that you realise you're not doing good Engineering puts you streets ahead of most in the business.

I speak as one who has at any one time got several hundred people's lives depending on systems I've been responsible for. I'd rather have someone like you on my team - who realises just how slipshod commercial practices usually are - than the usual Hackers.

The difficulty is convincing management that better and cheaper is possible using good Engineering principles, and with Aspect-Oriented Development we're working on quicker too.

Re:not supporting the RIAA

[Lectrik]

Sounds like a reasonable judge. Taking the defendant's computer would deprive them of it for a long period of time, whereas taking a copy of it's data only deprives them of it for a short time.

It also forces the person making the copy into pirating the Operating system and every bit of software on the computer.
I'd say the RIAA can copy my hard drive all it wants, but I'd be informing Microsoft that there's a juicy target out there making copies of it's warez. :)

Re:not supporting the RIAA

[Ian Alanai]

Yeah, but given that the average IT project manager won't even spend budget on getting the doco finished properly, what hope have we got of getting them to apply good Engineering principles. Never mind *their* managers.

I'll have to investigate this "Aspect-Oriented Development" you speak of.

Re:not supporting the RIAA

[Dan541]

Former?!? Oh thats right we don't lock them up anymore!

Who cares?

[koreaman]

This isn't some sort of ideological blow that cuts to the core of the RIAAs actions. It's a mundane legal decision in one of their many cases. Why, exactly, is this newsworthy?

Re:Who cares?

[cyphercell]

It's frustration for an organization I despise and I enjoy that. Think of it as a feel good story on the nightly news.

Re:Who cares?

[DrJimbo]

The RIAA has been breaking new ground with the legal branch of their customer service division. A large portion of the law is not in the laws that have been passed by legislatures, it is in previous decisions by the judicial system and is called case law.

Since the RIAA's new approach to customer service is, shall we say, innovative decisions in earlier cases can have a great effect on later cases. For example, in a previous RIAA story on Slashdot it was reported that when the RIAA draws a blank in discovery against a particular custo^H^H defendant, then they are liable for the defendants legal fees. This could be a serious blow to the RIAA's current shotgun approach.

Likewise, if this current ruling stands it could help establish limits on how far the RIAA can go poking their nose into other people's business. IMO, the RIAA (like SCO) has greatly abused the legal system to pursue their own selfish and greedy ends. It's great news that the legal system is responding and is putting in limits on how far the RIAA can go.

Re:Who cares?

[dfoulger]

> This isn't some sort of ideological blow that cuts to the core of the RIAAs actions.

I don't know how ideology applies to this unless you believe that unrestricted fishing expeditions without any real probably cause make good law. If you believe that, then is is a major blow to your ideology, because the judge just said no, I'm not going to allow you to examine computer unless you can directly link that computer to the alleged violation of intellectual property law.

> It's a mundane legal decision in one of their many cases. Why, exactly, is this newsworthy?

Its not mundane at all. Its a major blow to the RIAA's current policies and it sets up a much larger blow that I suspect we'll see ordered shortly. The RIAA had it easy when they were bullying college students into handing them their savings in order to avoid a costly litigation. All too often these students hadn't done anything wrong. Now that people are fighting back, decisions like this will start to cost the RIAA something, and that may cause them to rethink their strategy.

Re:Who cares?

[Anonymous Coward]

Why, exactly, is this newsworthy?

Where the **AA is involved, schadenfreude is a perfectly good reason.

Re:Who cares?

[NewYorkCountryLawyer]

I agree.

Their policy is to sue people who have paid for an internet access account that they think is linked to a p2p shared files folder.

They know, and don't care, that this will result in many innocent people being sued.

Then if they figure out the defendant didn't do it, they try to use their pending lawsuit against an innocent person as an investigative platform with which to look for others, all the while terrorizing the innocent defendant.

That is exactly what happened here. (The defendant here, in fact, has never even used a computer, believe it or not.).

A ruling like this is important.

The case should have been thrown out a long time ago, but every little bit helps.

Re:Who cares?

[Anonymous Coward]

... a particular custo^H^H defendant ...

What's a "cus defendant"?

Re:Who cares?

[Ixitar]

I agree with the way that you are handling the case. The RIAA should not be able to go on a fishing expedition. They should have solid evidence before even sending out those annoying letters.

I do have one question about this case. Why is she paying for an internet access account if she has never used a computer? That does not make sense to me.

Bad Week for the RIAA

[Nom du Keyboard]

This has been a bad week for the RIAA, with more going against them than ever before. If you'll allow me a moment...

Yeah!!!

Now back to our normal post. The RIAA is like a bacteria that has multiplied to infect many hosts. However, like a simple bacteria that replicates perfect copies of itself, the RIAA lawsuits are all exact clones. What this means is that, if you can kill one of them, you can kill all of them. Reading the postings just this week on Ray's blog will tell you that the many enemies (a.k.a. innocent defendants who are fighting back) of the RIAA are coordinating and refining their tactics in search of the magic bullet that will kill this plague once and for all. And from the looks of things, they're getting mighty close.

Not really, because...

[Ieshan]

Not really, because the RIAA tactic has been to call everyone a murderer and then ask to search their premises for knives. We have laws against that sort of thing when the police want to do it, and we should have laws against that sort of thing when corporations want to do it.

Not allowing baseless evidence gathering is the same as not allowing baseless search. But casting a very wide net and calling everyone a thief, and then when asked to produce evidence, claiming that you'd have it if you could go searching for it - this is just simply not the way the American justice system works, for better or worse.

Re:Not really, because...

[Anonymous Coward]

Watchers of the news from outside you country have a slightly different opinion about the American justice system.
Is looks more like there is a basic system in place that pretends to be fair, but exceptions are so easily made that groups of people a treated in an unfair way.

Re:Not really, because...

[init100]

But casting a very wide net and calling everyone a thief, and then when asked to produce evidence, claiming that you'd have it if you could go searching for it

Sounds exactly like SCO. :)

Re:Not really, because...

[magarity]

Watchers of the news from outside you country have a slightly different opinion ... exceptions are so easily made that groups of people a treated in an unfair way
 
Because the rare exception makes for more exciting news than the countless boring reasonably fair cases. It's the same reason why Americans think the rest of the world is constantly having some horrific natural disaster, fighting internal wars, or attending lavish film festivals.

Re:Not really, because...

[Finn61]

How naive!

Answered from my Blackberry at a lavish film festival.

Re:Not really, because...

[nospam007]

Watchers of the news from outside you country have a slightly different opinion about the American justice system.
Is looks more like there is a basic system in place that pretends to be fair, but exceptions are so easily made that groups of people a treated in an unfair way.
--
One thing f. ex. we don't get is that the JS is the cause that US doctors have to pay malpractice insurance that's a multiple of the yearly income of other industrialized nations doctors.

Re:Not really, because...

[Jerry Beasters]

And any other country is different why exactly?

Re:Not really, because...

[Anonymous Coward]

It's the same reason why Americans think the rest of the world is constantly having some horrific natural disaster, fighting internal wars, or attending lavish film festivals.

Or running from bulls while being pelted with tomatos.

Re:Not really, because...

[Anonymous Coward]

There goes some European thinking they're better than everyone else. And they call Americans arrogant and stupid. Give me a break.

Re:Not really, because...

[Anonymous Coward]

Ah, yes. "Execute them all." Sounds fair to me, especially in cases where the defendant has repeatedly disrespected the rights of the individual and claimed that the state can do whatever it wants to the individual to promote "social harmony." Or is a foreigner visiting or wanting to study here in the US. No exceptions, right? Since that would be "unfair."

Or would you like the bill of rights, then?

What the in hell is with the rest of the world? God, can we give you all the business end of the bomb and colonize your lands, yet?

Re:Not really, because...

[Riptide1884]

Actually, they sued IBM (who can afford lots of lawyers) and you can see how well that turned out for them! RIAA shakedown only works against people who can't afford justice.

Re:Not really, because...

[Captain Nitpick]

How naive!

Answered from my Blackberry at a lavish film festival.

Watch out for that flaming tornado riding a tsunami!

Re:Not really, because...

[kilodelta]

The key difference between criminal and civil litigation is that in the criminal a reasonable doubt is all that is required for acquittal. In civil cases a preponderance of evidence is necessary for judgement to be rendered against plaintiff and the RIAA seems to be able to manufacture tons of preponderable evidence.

I'm happy to see judges standing up to the RIAA strong-arm tactics.

Re:Not really, because...

[nagora]

It's the same reason why Americans think the rest of the world is constantly having some horrific natural disaster, fighting internal wars, or attending lavish film festivals.

But, we are!

TWW

Re:Not really, because...

[nospam007]

And any other country is different why exactly?
--
Well, first, lawyers get paid only fractions of the US lawyers get, because if you don't have any feelings in the left little finger you can expect about 500$ and not millions. Shit happens, get an insurance yourself for that and don't rely on other people's money.

Thankfully

[johansalk]

I stopped downloading music when audiogalaxy effectively died (ie, when they removed all copyrighted content). Ah, good days those were when it was active, what a wonderful site that was. Check out the section in this story about why it was better than other p2p networks http://www.kuro5hin.org/story/2002/6/21/171321/675

Forgive my ignorance...

[asninn]

Forgive my ignorance, but... can someone who's actually from the USA explain why the RIAA would get *anyone's* computer at all? Even if there is a reason why it should be inspected at all, shouldn't that be done by a (hopefully) neutral third party, like the police? It seems like a bad idea to me to give someone who's got a vested interest in finding evidence against you an opportunity to plant it.

Re:Forgive my ignorance...

[cyphercell]

HARD DRIVE
*Plaintiffs may not have access to the defendant's hard drive; the hard drive must be turned over to a mutually acceptable neutral computer forensics expert; and his report must be done at the RIAA's expense. (SONY v. Arellanes)

they can't

Re:Forgive my ignorance...

[sgent]

No problem.

The RIAA action is a civil tort case -- not a criminal case. In civil cases in the US both sides are essentially required to turn over all relevant evidence to each other, and then they argue in court which one has the better evidence for their side (preponderance). This is the same type of case that IBM vs SCO is undergoing, and is two private parties.

In criminal cases, the state is the prosecutor (not plaintiff), and jail time may attach. You need a unanimous jury rather than a majority decision. RIAA cannot initiate a criminal case other than to make a complaint to the local police.

Re:Forgive my ignorance...

[Dragonslicer]

Just to be a bit pedantic, a jury isn't required for criminal trials. The court is required to bring in a jury if the defendant requests one, but the defendant is also allowed to give up their right to a trial by jury and have the case decided by just the judge instead. In some cases, it's easier for the defendant to convince a judge than it is to convince even a single juror. It's also pretty common in misdemeanor cases where it simply isn't worth the time and money to bring in a jury.

Re:Forgive my ignorance...

[Shakrai]

In civil cases in the US both sides are essentially required to turn over all relevant evidence to each other

What happens if that evidence may prove that I'm guilty of a crime? I.e: They want my computer to inspect for copyright infringement (civil matter), but it's loaded with kiddie porn * (criminal matter)? If I willingly turn it over to them I might as well walk down to the local police station and confess. Seems to violate the spirit of the 5th amendment, if not the actual text.

Likewise, what happens if they are deposing me and ask a question that would force me to incriminate myself? Do I still have the right to decline to answer even though it's a civil proceeding and not a criminal one? Or is my choice between perjury or self-incrimination?

* Before the PC police jump on this one, I'm not advocating kiddie porn. Just asking the question about self-incrimination and that's the easiest example to make.

Re:Forgive my ignorance...

[NewYorkCountryLawyer]

You are exactly right about that. At least one judge has held that they cannot have access even to the defendant's hard drive, that it must be done by a neutral third party. SONY v. Arellanes.

Re:Forgive my ignorance...

[Anonymous Coward]

The problem with US law in this respect is that the actions taken are not automatically those which are the most prudent or the ones most likely to reveal the truth. It is essentially a game where two people (lawyers) try to outmaneuver each other when starting with a basic framework (the judicial system, case law, etc).

If the accuser, the RIAA in this case, asks to see the drive they will get to see the drive, assuming the drive is relevant to the case, UNLESS the defendant, Ms Lindor's Lawyer, objects and requests that a neutral 3rd party have the drive. At this point it is up to the Judge, based on the judicial system, case law, etc, to determine whether the 3rd party is allowed to be involved.

If things were just a simple matter of "we want to just know the truth" there wouldn't be that big of a question, a neutral 3rd party would be involved. But since the US judical system is not based the laws and upon the desire for truth it has become a big game where the only ones who actually win in the end are both the plantiff's and the defendant's lawyers. The plantiff may win but in almost all cases the defendant loses regardless (due to time, costs, name dragged through the mud, etc).

Despite the adage "presumed innocent" the US judical system really is a "guilty until proven otherwise" system.

Re:Forgive my ignorance...

[ari_j]

To be further pedantic of the GP comment, unanimous juries are still required in civil cases in most states (of course, only when the parties request a jury trial). The difference is the standard of proof: in criminal cases, guilt must be proven beyond a reasonable doubt, whereas in civil cases, the standard is the preponderance of the evidence (although some issues have an intermediate standard, clear and convincing evidence). Some jurisdictions may allow a jury decision in a civil case to be less than unanimous, but at least some of them still require unanimity. When the members of the jury cannot agree on a verdict, you have a hung jury in those jurisdictions. And the losing side usually has the right to poll the jury, meaning ask each juror "Is this your verdict?" and if one of them says "no" you get a new trial.

Re:Forgive my ignorance...

[Anonymous Coward]

IANAL, but last I checked, perjury was lying under oath. You don't answer a question, no lie can be possible.

Re:Forgive my ignorance...

[Shakrai]

IANAL, but last I checked, perjury was lying under oath. You don't answer a question, no lie can be possible.

And that's what I'm wondering. Because AWAIK (and IANAL) if you refuse to answer a question during a civil proceeding you can be held in contempt. Can you invoke your right against self-incrimination in a civil proceeding? That was my original question. If you can't then your choice is between contempt or perjury.

Re:Forgive my ignorance...

[cyphercell]

Leaving a neutral third party investigation as optional will save money for both sides of the case. Especially, relevent here is that it seems to be at the defendants discretion. If the defendant has something to hide they request a third party (incurring costs as the trial goes on, regardless of who pays the third party). The basis of our legal system is the pursuit of truth, the basis of law is to maintain order. Unfortunately, in most cases it is easier to maintain order than it is to attain truth or administer justice, this doesn't mean that these goals are not present, simply that they are often not viable solutions. You're right that an innocent defendant is always a victim, but in all honesty we don't have many options, order takes precedence, because a loss of order is far more costly than a loss of honesty, or justice. A world without order would have the RIAA simply shooting people on public television for piracy, at that point honesty hardly matters and justice can be weighed only in gallons of blood spilled.

Re:Forgive my ignorance...

[gonzo67]

Not neccesarily if the accused has something to hide will they request a third party to examine the evidence. Usually it is becuase they DISTRUST the accusing party that they request a neutral third party to do the inspection. The accuser tells the 3rd party exactly what they are looking for. The accused hands over the equipment. The 3rd party confirms or not the existance of what the accuser was looking for. Both parties are happy (more or less) that the "truth" one out.

Re:Forgive my ignorance...

[prelelat]

I don't know if you can be forced to take the stand against yourself in a civil proceeding I would assume no. But what your talking about is taking the stand and testifying against yourself. This is not the same as someone confiscating your computer. To use your annalogy it wouldn't be any different than someone comming and taking your photograph collection because they figured you had kiddie porn. This doesn't violate the 5th as far as I can tell as I think you have to be on the stand.

I don't know though I'm Canadian, we do things different.

Re:Forgive my ignorance...

[Gyga]

IANAL but, http://www.answers.com/topic/amendment-v-to-the-u- s-constitution

Self-Incrimination Clause The Fifth Amendment's right against self-incrimination permits an individual to refuse to disclose information that could be used against her or him in a criminal prosecution. The purpose of this right is to inhibit the government from compelling a confession through force, coercion, or deception. The Self-Incrimination Clause applies to any state or federal legal proceeding, whether it is civil, criminal, administrative, or judicial in nature. This privilege is frequently invoked during the trial phase of legal proceedings, where individuals are placed under oath and asked questions on the witness stand. The privilege is also asserted with some frequency during the pretrial phase of legal proceedings. In the pretrial phase of criminal cases, it is usually asserted in response to pointed questions asked by law enforcement agents, prosecutors, and other government officials who are seeking to determine the persons responsible for a particular crime. During the pretrial phase of civil cases, parties may assert the right against self-incrimination when potentially damaging questions are posed in depositions and interrogatories.

Now, what am I supposed to believe?

[Maradine]

The problem with OMGPonies-day at /. is that I begin to doubt even pleasant, plausible news by proximity . . .

Re:Now, what am I supposed to believe?

[Loonacy]

That's the whole point of April Fool's day. To remind you to be skeptical.

Re:Now, what am I supposed to believe?

[ichigo 2.0]

The slashdottit boxes were meant for the april fools-impaired. There is no such box next to this story.

Re:Now, what am I supposed to believe?

[Ungrounded Lightning]

That's the whole point of April Fool's day. To remind you to be skeptical.

I thought it was to confine the pranksters to a single day, to keep them from pulling such junk intermittently all year.

Part of the tradition is a little rhyme used on anyone who pulls such a prank on April 2:

"April Fool's come and passed.
You're the bigges fool at last!"

Artists funding this action

[Builder]

Please note that the following artist's revenue is helping to fund this action by UMG and the RIAA:

Amy Winehouse
Bon Jovi
Charlatans
Counting Crows
Limp Bizkit
Live
Ocean Color Scene
Puddle of Mudd
Sonic Youth
Texas
The Who

By buying anything from these or any other UMG artist, you are helping to fund these lawsuits. Please stop!

Re:Artists funding this action

[cyphercell]

Personally I like mp3.com and archive.org

Re:Artists funding this action

[Corpuscavernosa]

Good Lord. Anyone purchasing these artists should have a lawsuit brought against them. Slightly ironic that the artists helping to fund this haven't had a hit in years. I'm sure Fred Durst needs all the cash he can get at this point...

Re:Artists funding this action

[grasshoppa]

It's sad and telling, isn't it? When I haven't heard half those names on that list, and the ones I do know I wouldn't listen to even if they were offered freely.

I must be getting old.

Re:Artists funding this action

[Anonymous Coward]

That's why I download all my music. Don't want to fund lawsuits against... myself.

Re:Artists funding this action

[Ash-Fox]

I've only heard of "Limp Bizkit" from that list, the only reason why I know them is because my sister was playing their music a lot and it annoyed the hell out of me.

Re:Artists funding this action

[Anonymous Coward]

Charlatans? Is that a group made up of the RIAA's lawyers?

Re:Artists funding this action

[Alterion]

Please note that the following artists revnue is helping to fund their production of music : Counting Crows Limp Bizkit Live Ocean Color Scene Puddle of Mudd Texas By buying anything from these, you are helping to fund people with no talent in their assault upon our eardrums. Please stop!

Re:Artists funding this action

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't know how it works in the States but Ocean Colour Scene have their own label now. Maybe they need a contract to expire or something over in the USA.

Re:Artists funding this action

[D-Cypell]

You have never heard of Bon Jovi? Where have you been living for the past 25 years?

Re:Artists funding this action

[Anonymous Coward]

At least one of those is misleading.

Thurston Moore (a Sonic Youth cofounder) speaks in favor of file-sharing. The fact that a label he is on is one of the ones helping to fund lawsuits is unfortunate. However, to stop supporting their music is like not shopping at a store that pays "protection" money. Once you start hitting the major charts, it is difficult to release solely on independent labels.

Re:Artists funding this action

[ankarbass]

It's much simpler. Simply stop purchasing music. That's what I've done.

Re:Artists funding this action

[Ash-Fox]

You have never heard of Bon Jovi? Where have you been living for the past 25 years?

I've only been alive for the last twentytwo =).

I don't own a TV (the high pitch noises they make annoy me -- sensitive ears, never mind the adverts) or even a radio (I don't know many people my age who even listen to the radio outside of a car).

Re:Artists funding this action

[Sinbios]

However do you deal with your monitor, various computer components, and fans in said computer?

Re:Artists funding this action

[Ash-Fox]

However do you deal with your monitor

I don't hear high pitch noises on modern computer CRTs -- I use LCD screens at home.

various computer components, and fans in said computer?

Fans don't bother me, some fluorescent lighting on the other hand...

In particular, the only computer hardware I've ever had a issue with is Apple's. More than once I've encountered Apple hardware that was emitting high pitch noises (that others couldn't hear).

Re:Artists funding this action

[Sinbios]

Maybe it's just me, but both my motherboard and PSU emit barely noticeable whines that drive me nuts.

Re:Artists funding this action

[Anonymous Coward]

A charlatan is a person practicing quackery or some similar confidence trick in order to obtain money or advantage by false pretenses.

Re:Artists funding this action

[init100]

I don't own a TV (the high pitch noises they make annoy me -- sensitive ears

The high-pitched noise is generated by the scan line oscillator. This noise only exist on CRTs, so flat-screen LCDs and plasma screens do not emit these noises. In addition, the noise level varies significantly with the quality of the television set. Some sets emit such a loud noise that even I can hear, and some more expensive sets are so silent that not even my brother (who has sensitive ears) can hear it.

Also note that this noise can only be heard from 50-60 Hz televisions, because higher frequency television sets, such as those utilizing a 100Hz update frequency, is too high to be heard by humans. The frequency can be computed by multiplying the number of scan lines with the update frequency. My 50 Hz PAL set has 576 lines, but only half of them are updated on each picture refresh (PAL = Phase Alternating Line, also known as interlaced). So for my set, the frequency is 50*576/2 Hz = 14400 Hz. A 100Hz set with the same number of scan lines would emit a noise with a 28800 Hz noise, which is too high to be heard even by sensitive (human) ears.

Re:Artists funding this action

[RotateLeftByte]

Texas is a great band from Scotland.
Amy Winehouse is a singer from the UK
So yeah to many people from the USA, they suck because of NIH syndrome.

The Who!
They probably are overrated now (since Keith Moon popped his clogs) but when I first saw them in 1967 at the London Roundhouse WOW.
Their stage show was brilliant.

Take a listen to "Live at Leeds" recorded 30 years ago last month and you might get some idea about how good they were on stage.

Re:Artists funding this action

[dunkelfalke]

can't say, whether amy winehouse sucks or not, her songs though suck very much.

Re:Artists funding this action

[geminidomino]

Texas is a great band from Scotland.
Amy Winehouse is a singer from the UK
So yeah to many people from the USA, they suck because of NIH syndrome. No, they suck because they suck.

I'll forgive a good USA bash (especially in light of recent polls about evolution...) but are you even trying? Have you forgotten how we fawned over and worshipped a quartet of stoned-out brits with goofy haircuts and too-short guitar neckstraps?

Re:Artists funding this action

[cpt kangarooski]

Well, your cheaper flatscreen power supplies are known to make high pitched noises too, even when the TV is on standby. My sister has just such a one.

Re:Artists funding this action

[geminidomino]

Not me. I got my Emusic account, and just got the new Manowar Album off of it for $3.00 (on Magic Circle, thier own label.) Also got just about everything Fugazi ever wrote too...

There's enough good music for me to keep paying Emusic for DRM-free MP3s.

Re:Artists funding this action

[CmdrGravy]

Its an apt name alright but in fact I think the Charlatans are from Manchester and had some hits in the late 80's early 90's.

Re:Artists funding this action

[Builder]

They may have their own label now, but their back catalogue will still most likely be owned by UMG, so UMG will continue to profit from their works.

Re:Artists funding this action

[Builder]

Unfortunate?

That's a sad understatement.

Does that mean it's ok for me to grind babies to make dog food, as long as my employer demands it ? Even if I make a public statement saying that I don't agree with grinding babies into dog food, I'm still making it happen.

Re:Artists funding this action

[CmdrGravy]

I did some work for OCS once handling their fan mail, they are a dreadful band and the more sychophantic mails they recieved went straight in the bin and not on their mailing list at all.

I haven't heard anything from their record label but I would imagine its devoted to searching out yet more deadly dull paul weller alikes.

Re:Artists funding this action

[Dragonslicer]

You have never heard of Bon Jovi? Where have you been living for the past 25 years?

s/Bon Jovi/The Who/

s/25/40/

Re:Artists funding this action

[NewYorkCountryLawyer]

Good point. But UMG (Vivendi Universal) is just one of plaintiffs. SONY, Warner Bros., EMI are also involved.

Re:Artists funding this action

[houghi]

It is good to see Metallica is still one of the bands not named.

Perhaps it is better to sum up the one you DO can buy. Or look at ZAPP and be happy not all are the same. Pitty he is no more, because he would certainly be shouting to copy his music now and would be a lout voice against **AA.

Re:Artists funding this action

[spickus]

American babies?

Re:Artists funding this action

[psymastr]

Thank for the listing! I like some of those artists and next time I'm in a record store I'll get some more!

There are some people who don't mind paying to get something, you know. And when we break the law, we face the consequences, we don't say shit like "information wants to be free."

Re:Artists funding this action

[AK Marc]

And when we break the law, we face the consequences, we don't say shit like "information wants to be free."

I hope you are sued because someone shared music on a DHCP address you ended up with too. Then you'll realize that just bringing a suit doesn't equate with guilt, as you are claiming.

Re:Artists funding this action

[Lord Flipper]

Pity he is no more, because he would certainly be shouting to copy his music now and would be a lout voice against **AA.

Man, you can say that again. I know a ton of people miss Frank, dearly. Thanks for the reminder that a few saw this stuff coming from a million miles away.

And, not to forget the hypocrites out there: I remember when Bruce Springsteen was forcing Columbia to renegotiate his contract. He didn't produce any product for a seriously-extended period of time, but in his live shows (caught, 'live', on loads of bootleg vinyl) he was always coming back from intermissions with admonishments to the crowd, to "roll them tapes." But as soon as Napster came around, he was, "Poor me, they're stealin'."

And who wants to bet where John ("Music should be free") Lennon would have stood on these issues today? I'm 'almost' glad he didn't see what the country of his 'adopted' residence turned into... well, not really. Shit, I miss both of those guys a ton.

Re:Artists funding this action

[$pace6host]

Thank for the listing! I like some of those artists and next time I'm in a record store I'll get some more! There are some people who don't mind paying to get something, you know. And when we break the law, we face the consequences, we don't say shit like "information wants to be free."

I don't think you understand -- the point isn't that people should get music for free, that's a completely different issue. The point here is that people who aren't infringing copyrights shouldn't have to fear baseless lawsuits. Bravo for you, you don't pirate. I salute your honesty and integrity. Lawyers representing the RIAA (in turn representing UMG, in turn representing Bon Jovi and Counting Crows, et al) may still put you through a legal nightmare. Look at the facts in this case for an example. I don't, and you shouldn't, support a legal witchhunt. They should actually have real evidence before they make threats, demand to invade your privacy, or intimidate your children. The artists should be writing songs to protest the injustice their own representatives are perpetrating on innocent people. Convince your favorite artists that to speak out and insist that their representatives act morally and ethically when representing them. You can be against copyright infringement and still be against harassing innocent people.

Re:Artists funding this action

[psymastr]

Why? It's dead easy to find people who infringe. Just open bittorrent and look at the IP's in the swarm. Some clients will helpfully let you know which country each IP is coming for, too!

And that's all you need to do!

Re:Artists funding this action

[$pace6host]

Why? It's dead easy to find people who infringe. Just open bittorrent and look at the IP's in the swarm. Some clients will helpfully let you know which country each IP is coming for, too! And that's all you need to do!

Considering how easy it seems, you'd think they couldn't screw it up, but apparently that's not the case. It is actually a little more complicated. There are a lot of links in the chain -- you need to tie the IP address to a subscriber, when the IP address may be leased for only a short period of time. Also, since they're suing a person for copyright infringement, they should be reasonably sure that the person actually violated a copyright. Some sort of evidence other than "well, the filename seemed to have our artist's name in it" would be nice. Universities have already been contacted with threatening letters for distributing content that was licensed appropriately, because the agents of the RIAA didn't actually check to see what the content really was -- and it turned out to be perfectly legal. On a shared network connection, you need to actually sue the right person. Also, hackers have been known to turn their victims' computers into file distribution sites. You may feel those people are responsible for the acts of others on their hardware, but I don't think the law agrees with you (at least, not yet). So, making sure you have the right person to sue may take a little bit of investigation. They should at least make an attempt before sending threats.

If you read some of the recent case documents, you find that defendants willingly provided access to their computers and neither filesharing software nor unlicensed content was found. As easy as it seemed to find the right person, the agents hired by the RIAA screwed it up. You too could find a letter from the some RIAA lawyer in your mailbox someday, and I'm sure you'd be surprised.

You don't feel it's unreasonable for them to have some actual evidence before threatening lawsuits, do you? I'm not saying that people ought to have the right to indiscriminately distribute copyrighted content, just that if you're going to threaten people, force them to interrupt their lives by hiring lawyers and appearing in court, make them disclose their private documents and information to third parties, and generally make their lives miserable, you oughta have some evidence that they actually did something wrong.

The artists should stand up and say that when the RIAA goes on these witchhunts, they're acting AGAINST the artists' wishes. Otherwise, since the artists are signed to the labels, and the labels are suing innocent people, we can draw the conclusion that the artists support the intimidation and persecution of innocent people. I don't support that kind of behavior. They have a right to make a living, and suing those that have infringed their rights is defensible. It could even be forgivable to make a mistake from time to time. However, it's not OK to terrorize innocent people. If one owns attack dogs, one is responsible for making sure they don't attack innocent people.

Why does the RIAA do police work anyway?

[GroeFaZ]

Where I live, evidence that can be easily manipulated is worthless before court unless collected by an party that's considered impartial, like the police. And even they have been shown to screw up when it comes to examining computers, changing files on the hard drive and rendering the evidence basically useless, therefore casting doubt on the police's general ability to handle computer evidence. Someone care to explain to me how disk content can count as evidence if the prosecutor had write access to it?

Re:Why does the RIAA do police work anyway?

[cyphercell]

The problem with this in the US is that the defendant has to understand that and bring it up in court. A green lawyer might easily be intimidated by some of the RIAA's paper work and anyone representing themselves is usually SOL on properly discrediting bad evidence, we tend to understand the theory, but not the procedure.

Re:Why does the RIAA do police work anyway?

[dfoulger]

Actually, the big thing that emerged in discovery is that they hadn't done any real police work.

All they had was one expert witness who wrote three statements, all of them questionable on a number of grounds, based on a ten minute examination of a hard drive and additional examination of IP records generated by software that has dubious reliability and a statement from Verizon about an IP address that could easily have been wrong in several different ways.

That's one of the big reasons this case is crumbling and, from all appearances, taking a lot of RIAA cases with it.

The truth is that this was never about good "police" work. It was about intimidation; about identifying people who could be easily intimidated and railroading them with a blizzard of impressive looking paperwork; about using their settlements to intimidate others into not accessing online audio files, even when it was perfectly legal to do so. The intimidation worked (and continues to work to some extent) because the legal costs of fighting this RIAA paperwork were much higher than the price of a settlement.

Re:Why does the RIAA do police work anyway?

[swillden]

The intimidation worked (and continues to work to some extent) because the legal costs of fighting this RIAA paperwork were much higher than the price of a settlement.

Except that it didn't, really. Filesharing has increased, not decreased. Perhaps it would have increased even more without the effect of the intimidation?

baadweek

[FMota91]

Maybe, like bacteria, the RIAA will evolve their strategy after failing enough times. Hopefully that doesn't mean rewriting copyright law. Oh, and a suggested tag: baadweek

Congratulations

[dfoulger]

This is a big decision, because it finally sets some limits on the scope of RIAA's fishing expeditions. Its not a surprising decision, given the outcomes of your discovery process with RIAA's witness, and one can only presume that the other shoe, dismissal with prejudice and a court ordered payment of Ms Lindor's legal expenses by the RIAA will soon follow. It will, unfortunately, take a lot more than this to deter the RIAA from this scorched audience policy, but its a step in the right direction. Well done.

RIAA doesn't trust the police to do it right?

[Joseph_Daniel_Zukige]

No, that's not the reason. The primary reason the police are not involved is that the RIAA is not pursuing these as crimes, but as civil offenses (or something like that).

I'm having trouble right at the moment trying to define the difference in a way that makes sense in these cases.

Grafitti

[Anonymous Coward]

Just the word "The Who"...

Please be real

[Anonymous Coward]

I hope this isn't a late April Fools submission

Re:Please be real

[Anonymous Coward]

To go completely off-topic for a moment. Is it possible to block a story based on its Slashdot tag. I really would like to be able to block all April Fools articles next year. The alternative up until now is NOT read Slashdot for two days around April 1st. Thanks

Re:Please be real

[cyphercell]

I just continued a flamewar from yesterday, around five o'clock today I thanked the witless bastard.

Soo...some ideas

[Anonymous Coward]

Posting anonymously....

In discussions with a real lawyer about all this, my lawyer friend and I came upon the solution...

Should you get The Letter, which has no legal value whatsoever, put a bullet through the drive, do a Jeff Merkey and bash it against a rock, melt it in a Sentry heat treating oven at 2250F (FUN!!). "We're sorry, but the drive no longer exists"

Should you get The Subpoena, it's too late and you're hosed. Bend over and take it or mount a real defense, because if you destroy the drive, it's spoilation of evidence and the court really frowns on that. That's what hosed Jeff Merkey when Novell subpoenaed him.

Timing is everything.

Re:Soo...some ideas

[Anonymous Coward]

So "lose" the drive, and tell them you use Knoppix, and a USB key to store your data. Supposedly, there never was any evidence, as the filesystem is read-only.

Re:Soo...some ideas

[Anonymous Coward]

Ummm..ok, so you get the subpeona and what do you know?...by sheer fluke you'd replaced your hard drive just the other day! What a remarkable coincidence! The old one?..geez..in the trash....bottom of the landfill now most likely.
Hey, not your fault, hardware crashes happen all the time!, every "PC Expert" knows that ! It's a real shame your old drive happened to do that..oh...2-3 weeks before you got the subpeona....maybe more ?

Or maybe, like the other guy said, you're using Knoppix?...

Re:Soo...some ideas

[Anonymous Coward]

Depends if a judge believes you or not. If the judge does then all is fine, if the judge thinks you're lying he will fuck you over (I believe that's the legal term) for destroying evidence, and hand victory to the RIAA. So it comes down to, are you feeling lucky.

Re:Soo...some ideas

[ceeam]

Bend over and take it or mount

Dude?!

Re:Soo...some ideas

[Anonymous Coward]

Why not just run a disk destroyer app on it a couple of times?

Re:Soo...some ideas

[Wylfing]

What if you have three HDs, where HD #1 is your main drive, HD #2 is a decoy with, say, some old photos on it, and HD #3 is the P2P drive. (I run Linux, so keep up here.) You don't have anything listed in /etc/fstab about the partitions on the P2P drive, you mount that manually when you want to do some filesharing. It includes all the applications and data, so that nothing about filesharing appears on HD #1.

Now if you are asked to provide your HD, you make an image of HD #1. No evidence of filesharing there, assuming they figure out what ext3 is. That might be the end of it. But wait, they bring in an expert who actually understands the filesystem and says whoah! the logs say you were mounting some other partitions that don't appear in fstab. Oh, that's right, I sometimes mount HD #2 to fetch old pictures off it, here's an image of that.

It seems to me you'd really have to have your forensics hat on tight to figure out there was actually a third HD in the mix. Even if you did figure it out, think about how the legal proceedings would have gone: (1) We demand to see your HD, judge okays it, no evidence. (2) We "cracked" your scheme and demand to see HD #2, judge reluctantly okays it, no evidence. (3) This time we really cracked it and demand HD #3, judge says this is getting stupid, go screw yourself.

Re:Soo...some ideas

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, it's not like they can extract that much information from you anyway. They have an ip address, and as long as you have a hard drive with some kind of OS install from before the infringement date, I don't see how they could tell the difference.

Re:Soo...some ideas

[Deagol]

Should you get The Letter, which has no legal value whatsoever, put a bullet through the drive...

Speaking from personal experience, the lead ball that comes from a .54 caliber muzzle-loader rifle makes easy work of destroying a HD. Sorry, wasn't my gun, and I didn't take pics. All I have these days are a .22LR, a .17HMR, and a 12-guage. Not sure which one would do the best for a HD. More research is clearly needed. :)

Re:Soo...some ideas

[XSforMe]

"put a bullet through the drive, do a Jeff Merkey and bash it against a rock, melt it in a Sentry heat treating oven at 2250F (FUN!!)."

Yea, disposing of the drive in that way is definetly fun, but it will make you look very suspicious in the eyes of the judge. I would alternatively suggest DBaning the drive (with the heavy duty erase algorithm), zeroing it, and then reinstalling the OS.

Re:Soo...some ideas

[Speare]

Yeah, and you missed the part where they show up with the sheriff, and they have matching blue windbreakers which say RIAA in big letters, just like BATF or FBI's jackets, and their "expert" cart off the following items in a truckful of cardboard boxes.

• HD #1
• HD #2
• HD #3
• The CPU
• Your roommate's CPU and HDs
• Your wireless router
• Your wireless keyboard
• Your programmable television remote control
• Your non-programmable television remote control
• Your USB thumbdrive
• Your mother's keychain which unlocks her car but looks like a USB thumbdrive
• Your electric can opener used only for moist catfood
• ... and so on.

Re:Soo...some ideas

[flonker]

Depends if a judge believes you or not. If the judge does then all is fine, if the judge thinks you're lying he will fuck you over (I believe that's the legal term) for destroying evidence, and hand victory to the RIAA. So it comes down to, are you feeling lucky.

Seems the solution to that is to hire someone (Geeksquad or whatever professional computer handyman) to install a new HDD on your PC, and install windows or whatever. You then have a paper record (receipt) dating the process.

Re:Soo...some ideas

[Anonymous Coward]

What if you have three HDs...

See, here you're thinking too hard.
The RIAA will, after failing to figure out how to read the ext3 filesystem, just load
Windows 98 onto it, along with a few music files, and submit THAT to the court as their
"evidence". Judge won't know the difference, too bad for you.

The Mob works much the same way.

So do the police, in some areas.

Re:Soo...some ideas

[Senzei]

Or, even simpler: Store everything on a USB drive and boot from a liveCD. If you get "the letter" destroy both. If you alternate this behavior between two computers (say a desktop and a laptop) it provides the added confusion of having at least one of the computers you supposedly infringed with being "off" as far as any review of the system logs is concerned.

To follow up even further...

[bmo]

Watch, in fascination, as the RIAA "expert" in the Lindor case is eviscerated....

http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=200703020 73736822

This is why the RIAA wants to go on a fishing expedition. They have no case, and what they have is ...less than unassailable.

--
BMO

Re:To follow up even further...

[mandelbr0t]

Definitely an interesting read. I'm glad there was a considerable technical discussion -- it laid some good groundwork for discussing very technical details among computer illerati. Curiously, the expert witness is very adamant about the fact that matching the IP address in the source header to the IP address received by the MediaSentry server was proof positive that there was no router being used. My understanding of NAT is a little different than his. I'm certain that my network traffic does not contain any evidence of what the internal IP is, and I'm pretty certain that most SOHO routers also eliminate any evidence of the private network (otherwise it wouldn't be private!). It is the source address part of the payload that is rewritten both when the packet is sent, and when the reply is received.

Sort of directed at Mr. Beckerman: I think these details are the clearest indication of the expert's limitations. You've already limited the scope of his 'expertise', and the complete lack of any documentation of the MediaSentry process, coupled with this expert's inability to prove that the wireless router in question didn't actually exist should force the MediaSentry process out into the open, or hopefully to be proven inadequate as an evidence-gathering tool.

That being said, there is a danger here that was brought up earlier: the idea that an account holder is not actually liable for their own account. That's a bad idea. I know the Internet is filled with anonymity and uncertainty, but making an Internet connection an ability to blame-shift your illicit online activities to 'some cracker' is a bad trend. Best is to start making ISPs more responsible for the security of their network. Funnily enough, despite the rampant abuse my server receives on a daily basis, none of it comes from Canadian or European networks; only American and Asian ones. Food for thought.

Re:To follow up even further...

[NewYorkCountryLawyer]

Thanks for the input.

Re:Completely Offtopic

[ArsenneLupin]

[X] You're an idiot.

While many people agree with you that April Fool's day on Slashdot is indeed way over the top, it's still no reason for insulting random strangers that did you no harm.

Re:Completely Offtopic

[joss]

I'll leave the hypocrisy detection as an excerise for the reader

Avoiding RIAA

[picketech]

There is one Internet Provider out there that will help you keep your IP adress as an unknown. I stumbled accross it in one of my many searches. http://www.relakks.com/

Your money are used to sue you or your friends.

[viking80]

Every time you buy an album or a movie through these big companies, your money will be used to sue you or your friends.

If you stop paying them they will fold with less collateral damage, and music will be free sooner.

Re:Your money are used to sue you or your friends.

[houghi]

Yeah, the moment they stop recieving money, they will stop sueing peopl to recieve even more money. Just look at SCO. The moment their revenue dropped, they dropped their lawsuits.

The one exists without any relation to the other.

Re:Completely Offtopic

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't know - there doesn't appear to be any evidence that the people who composed the april 1st stories for /. are either disabled or homosexual.

You may also not be mentally deficient, but you do seem to be quite ignorant. Luckily, that is a flaw that can be corrected by some effort. Good luck on that.

Screenshot

[Anonymous Coward]

I dont understand how the RIAA get a screenshot of your computer.

Re:Screenshot

[bmo]

"I dont understand how the RIAA get a screenshot of your computer"

Here's an idea....

They violate the law and upload spyware that you think is merely a "song that doesn't play"

That's how.

If they truely are getting screenshots, that's how you do it. There isn't any other way than getting trojaned.

Unfortunately, for them, that's quite illegal in all of the 50 states (unauthorized use of a computer, RI General Laws 11-52-1 through 8 and similar in other states) and in the eyes of the court "unclean hands."

--
BMO

Re:Screenshot

[codegen]

I dont understand how the RIAA get a screenshot of your computer.

They don't. The screenshots that that are referring to are screenshots of Media Sentry's computers. They search the various P2P networks and when they "find" a PC that is sharing what they "believe" to be music, they take a screenshot of the P2P search page on their computer. The screenshot gives the name of the file and the ip address of the hosting computer. It may also give a hash for the file, but I am unsure about that. From what I've read, it doesn't seem like they actually download the file to verify that it really is the music file in question.

Re:Screenshot

[NewYorkCountryLawyer]

Neither do they.

(PS They don't. They get a screenshot of shared files, which could be on one computer or spread out over a whole group of computers called nodes and super nodes.).

Re:Screenshot

[Anonymous Coward]

If they truely are getting screenshots, that's how you do it. There isn't any other way than getting trojaned. You can see a screenshot from this case at http://www.ilrweb.com/viewILRPDFfull.asp?filename= umg_lindor_070223JacobsonEx12

Note that it is of a Kazaa search page. Basically, it shows someone using the handle jlindor was sharing music on Kazaa (although the screenshot has no more legal impact than jotting down the info on a sheet of paper). The screenshot was taken on the plaintiff's computer, not the defendant's.

If the RIAA really was installing spyware on computers as part of their enforcement efforts, they would probably be doing a better job of finding evidence.

Re:Please mod parent as trool...

[Dunbal]

Please cite just one case of an artist that is starving because people swapped his songs using peer-to-peer technology.

      Yeah, I'm still waiting to meet one of the "thousands of people" the MPAA claim are put out of work each year by piracy.

Re:Completely Offtopic

[joss]

For those who havent noticed, gay doesnt necessarily mean homosexual anymore, it often just means crap. I can understand that some Gays might be upset about this but that doesnt change the fact. Gay is just one of those words that changes meaning from time to time: once upon a time it meant happy, then it meant homosexual, now it means crap and at some stage in the future it will probably mean quiche or something.

Re:Please mod parent as trool...

[Splab]

Well according to South Park swapping music means Lars Ulrik can't get his gold plated shark tank and Britney Spears has to fly around in a Gulfstream IV - it means they get to live in slightly less luxury.

Encryption anyone?

[Dan541]

Why not use a program like http://www.truecrypt.org/ to hide your data if your going to download illegally. Secondly what ever happened to privacy? Surly thats more important than a few stupid songs is worth.

Re:Encryption anyone?

[Don_dumb]

what ever happened to privacy? Surly thats more important than a few stupid songs is worth.

Call me troll but that's because it would seem to me that America has ranked what it considers important: (greater is more important)

the flag > corporation > the one true religion > porn > Terrorism > Communism > piracy > drugs > crime > sports > education > science > false religions > consitutional rights > human rights
Unfortunately the UK seems to be harmonising

And dont call me Surly

Re:Encryption anyone?

[Ungrounded Lightning]

Why not use a program like http://www.truecrypt.org/ to hide your data if your going to download illegally.

Because once you're subpoenaed and served a search warrant you'll have to cough up the keys or you'll be in contempt of court.

Forgot or lost the key? Go to jail. Stay there until you remember it.

Re:Encryption anyone?

[Visual Echo]

I do this... I have a very unhidden Truecrypt drive on my machine. Although I don't actually trade music (cause it's all cr@p and I still listen to Detroit punk rock), I'm hoping that one day somebody will spend a few zillion teraflops on decrypting it only to find it filled with... pictures of Britney Spears. And the Hilton sisters.

If you haven't tried Truecrypt, it rocks. Except for the linux version, or have they fixed the 2.6.19 compilation bugs yet?

Re:Encryption anyone?

[Dan541]

I recommend Truecrypt to anyone. I especially like its hidden partition ability's.

I immediately thought...

[Centurix]

No, you cannot have a pony. [inset picture of pony] - not yours.

Re:Litigious risk

[Anonymous Coward]

Even if you have a notebook computer, do you drive somewhere else to do all your filesharing?

Too risky. Only the paranoid survive. Laptop.. Check.. Wireless card.. Check.. Live CD with P-P software and NDIS wrapper.. Check.. Free wireless hotspot.. Check. External hard drive.. Check..

Laptop free of traces.. Check..

Re:Completely Offtopic

[Anonymous Coward]

Ueh, quiche is totally gay.

Re:Completely Offtopic

[Maxo-Texas]

I got the impression that it meant "stupid, inane" in the current teen slang.

privacy

[dheera]

I feel like personal computers with a single user are somewhat of an storage extension to the brain, and a sort of co-processor for the certain computational tasks the brain is inefficient at. I find the thought of someone searching my personal computer as invasive as searching my brain, if that were possible.

That said, there should be no reason to search someone's personal computer, unless they are a threat to humanity.

Re:privacy

[Churla]

I think it's more that a computer is like a very fancy notebook in which can you keep a wide variety of information. As such, it's very legal and very viable for it to be searched/read if you're facing charges in court pertaining to information you might have on it.

You're argument would be viable if it were something attached to the body that augmented natural brain processes, but we're still a few years away from that.

Re:Please mod parent as trool...

[notwrong]

Kid Rock.

For a complete list...

[Builder]

For a complete list of the bands financing this terrorism, please see the following URLs:

http://new.umusic.com/Artists.aspx?Index=1
http://new.umusic.com/Artists.aspx?Index=2
http://new.umusic.com/Artists.aspx?Index=3
http://new.umusic.com/Artists.aspx?Index=4
http://new.umusic.com/Artists.aspx?Index=5

Who knows - there might actually be someone you lot actually like in there :D

you understand sarcasm?

[graigchq]

this is the sole reason why i read slashdot - cos seeing yanks fialing to understand basic humour is funny as hell. is it not clearly obvious that theres a joke intended by the previous post? is sarcasm really that difficult to grasp?

Re:you understand sarcasm?

[cyphercell]

It would be plenty obvious if people around here didn't actually take that view.

Double Standard?

[Anonymous Coward]

How come that nothing more then speculation is not enough in this case but that's all it takes for a Democrat to accuss the Attorney General of the United States of wrong doing?

Please do not apply to Global Warming Religion

[Anonymous Coward]

If you display skepticism about the Great Global Warming Religion, obedient /tards will follow the tenets of their faith-based religion and mod you "flamebait" or "troll".

Those acolytes are more fanatical than the pushiest Bible-thumping Creationist... :-P

PE == Professional Engineer

[sczimme]

The RIAA is on pretty thin ice. Their "expert" claims to be a "software engineer" yet when asked if he's got a PE stamp, he says...well...no. Yet another wannabe expert.

PE == Professional Engineer. This is a rating earned by actual engineers - e.g. mechanical, manufacturing, electrical - that have met certain criteria. AFAIK the PE designator is not offered to software types*, so of course the 'expert' wouldn't have one.

* A number of organizations have tried to establish such a thing, but - again AFAIK - have not yet been successful.

Re:PE == Professional Engineer

[alva_edison]

Most PE's are done on a state-by-state basis. I know several states have PE for Computer Engineering, and last I heard Wisconsin and Texas were the only ones to offer it for Software Engineering.

Re:Completely Offtopic

[DriveDog]

You forgot one... between being happy and being homosexual it meant being a drunk.

I can understand

[Slashdot Parent]

I can understand why they would think that way. In their minds, somebody was filesharing at that IP address. It turns out the filesharing wasn't done on the primary computer, so their reaction was, "Well, we believe sharing took place at that IP, so who else might have access to that broadband link?" It makes sense from their point of view.

Of course, as you rightly point out, it really doesn't effing matter who else might have had access to that DSL line. They don't get to search the hard drive of everyone that defendant knows or might have known at the time the alleged infringing took place.

Of course the judge denied the motion. It was a stupid request to begin with. If somebody spraypaints my fence, I don't get to search every house on the block for cans of spraypaint "because I think a neighbor might have done it."

A different perspective

[zibix]

Along the same lines... If the RIAA accused someone of piracy and that person had a wireless network, would they be allowed to search all their neighbor's PCs in order to see if someone else took those files using the wireless connection?

Even proof of a crime doesn't automatically authorize a broad net of searches like this.

RIAA: you can have MY desktop

[tmh - The Mad Hacker]

I use both KDE and GNOME. I'm more than happy to share either one with you.

Re:not supporting the RIAA - Dear Auld Mum

[Nom du Keyboard]

Just playing the devil's advocate... It would be perfect to add a router and Mac Mini with a bit torrent client running on it.

Then back at you. Your Mother is left to explain, under oath, why she had the expense of a router for a home with only one computer system. And the ISP might be able to testify to multi-gigabytes of traffic on this "unlimited" DSL line monthly. Dear Auld Mum must be sending awful long e-mails to account for that.

Add up the bill for the Mac, router, extra hard drive space/blank DVD's, your extra time yada yada, and you're way ahead to just buy the stuff.

Re:Who cares? Don't Forget Direct TV

[Nom du Keyboard]

the RIAA (like SCO) has greatly abused the legal system to pursue their own selfish and greedy ends.

Don't forget Direct TV in this hall of shame. Boilerplate settlement agreements against anyone they could discover who'd bought a SmartCard Writer, despite that fact that SmartCards are used in many places. Guilty till proven innocent, and IIRC the settlement was around $9,000. They weren't stopped, and certainly the RIAA took a page from that playbook.

This will continue until...

[Ungrounded Lightning]

The problem with OMGPonies-day at /. is that I begin to doubt even pleasant, plausible news by proximity ...

Back in the days of the Cold War I occasionally thought that the ideal (for them) time for the Soviet Union to launch a nuclear attack on the US would be early morning on April 1. Response would be slowed (except, perhaps, in the military itself) by the concern that somebody was pranking. Now that it's "War on Terror" time, ditto for the terrorists.

Once such an attack, with a large body count, is (successfully) made, pulling an April Fool prank MAY become sufficiently taboo to put the brakes on the madness. Unfortunately, I can't imagine anything short of that which might slow it down.

Meanwhile, I've stopped even bothering to read Slashdot on (or near) April 1. When the fools are having the fun the site is utterly useless to me.

Re:not supporting the RIAA - Dear Auld Mum

[sconeu]

BZZZZT!!!! And thank you for playing. I had a 4 port router when I had exactly one computer in my house.

I didn't like the EnterNet 300 software that I needed for my DSL PPPoE connection. I bought a 4-port for future expansion.

Re:Completely Offtopic

[Anonymous Coward]

When I was a prepubescent boy, gay mean "stupid", "lame", or "that really sucks". We used it all the time and had only the barest clue about there even being such a thing as a homosexual. That was more than 25 years ago. If it's in use now I think it qualifies as just PLAIN teenage slang, not "current".

Re:Completely Offtopic

[petrus4]

While many people agree with you that April Fool's day on Slashdot is indeed way over the top

Nearly all of the stereotypical "humour" associated with this site isn't in any way funny at all, but is so utterly peurile and moronic that I am at a lost to understand how anyone could find it remotely amusing. The April Fool's Day garbage is merely one element.

The thing about it that is truly aggravating is that I suspect that it is produced by probably around half a dozen people, tops. It's the usual story; a tiny number of living arguments for involuntary euthanasia making life less happy for a far larger group of people than themselves.

To each one of those people, I have this request to make. Make the world a better place, guys; stick your mouth over the exhaust pipe of your car, and then get a friend to start the ignition.

should have never got this far

[safenet]

The RIAA/MPAA madmen should not be allowed to get your IP address more or less your computer. They have no proof that anyone infringed anything related to your ip that can be tracked back to the owner of that ip, NONE!! They purger themselves each and every time the claim such things and need to be stopped in their tracks. The jane doe lawsuits are rididulous and frivolous, even once you get that information it is useless in court, at that point they need to go through a discovery process. This is where they feel they can manipulate the court system and instill fear in the people. The court system is way to expensive for an average user to afford and very time consuming for an average person to be able to take time off of work to attend. I leave you with this to think about, If they asked for my hdd, "now, I have 10 computers with over 30 hdd's, I could send any one of those hdd's to them and they could find nothing" I would not incriminate myself in any way and send them a hdd that I knew had nothing on maybe a linux hdd that was only used to surf the net, how would they know any difference? Like I said above, they have no evidence and are still in the discovery fase and are just fishing for something to incriminate you. People have rights in the United States, regardless to what the RIAA/MPAA and some government contracted companies may think, they have no right to gain access to my personal information I have on a computer, even if it is just my browsing habbits. As you may know may companies thrive on gaining this information and use it to target people for sales, it is not beyond the scope of the RIAA/MPAA and the government to do this and collect it in an illegal database to be used against you at any time. Just recently the IRS is trying to get access to peoples credit card records behind peoples backs, as they have no right to do so without due process of law and aquiring a search warrant. well, anyhow, the whole process that the RIAA/MPAA are using to get these court cases out is unconstitutional in the united States of America and the judges are letting them go ahead and this is the thing that needs to be stopped. Internet Service Providers are holders of your papers and even once these jondoe case has said the isp has to give the name of the IP over to the RIAA/MPAA in that illegal court, the ISP should send that information to the individual and that individual should have the right to fight that at that time, they are skipping a part of due process of law. At that time the isp should get the information that was used against you and provide it to the individual so that legal action can be taken against it between you and your isp in local courts to determine if the information given by the MPAA/RIAA is in fact credible enough for them to hand over your personal information to the MPAA/RIAA. In this court case you could determine that there was no proof that you personaly did violate any laws, meaning it could have been anyone tapped into or sitting in front of your computer. Then, when this was found out, you could file for damages against the person who filed suit against you in the jondoe case. you have a right to defend yourself Period, and that is take out of the equation with these lawsuits. ISP do not have constitutional powers to hand this information over unprotected by law. Courts cannot give these ISP's constitutional powers to do so. It is time people wake up to this.

Gamers are funding this action

[harl]

Playing WoW supports the RIAA.

UMG is also Blizzard (both owned by Vivendi) so you have to stop playing WoW.

Fundamental problem

[cdrguru]

The issue is whom exactly is the RIAA going after and what level of responsibility do they have? Somehow, some fairly bright guys seem to have messed this up. Unbelieveable!

So the mother is the holder of the Internet account and denies any knowledge. Some folks come along and pretty much say that there is no evidence on that computer. If the holder of the Internet account has no further responsibility, then there is clearly no point to trying any legal action whatsoever - anyone could have used the "account resources" and provide a quite adequate defense.

Obviously what the RIAA would like to have is what any sane individual would want - the account holder is responsible for activity using the account. This is especially true since the true user of the account is invisible.

If only the "end user" (anonymous and unknowable) is liable, then there is no point to any prosecution involving the Internet. I can always claim that it was a son or daughter or a neighbor and they cannot prove otherwise.

Now, this business of going after other potential user's computers to prove that the activity took place on the account would seem pointless. They (obviously) have proof that the account was used. That should be all that is needed to prove - the account holder is responsible. This would seem to be going down the road of the account holder not being responsible. Then it is clearly just a fishing expedition and there is no legal basis for holding anyone at all accountable.

Re:Fundamental problem

[NewYorkCountryLawyer]

The real issue for me is whether they should be able to conduct their investigation through a pending lawsuit against an innocent person.

Lawsuits cost time and money and deep emotional anguish, and are not to be used as investigations. They are supposed to have investigated BEFORE they sued. It is now clear that they have not.

Re:Fundamental problem

[PaulMorel]

"If only the "end user" (anonymous and unknowable) is liable, then there is no point to any prosecution involving the Internet. I can always claim that it was a son or daughter or a neighbor and they cannot prove otherwise"

By your logic, gun owners should be held responsible if their gun is stolen, used for a crime, and then returned? That's silly.

It is as possible to show that you were the one using a computer at a certain time as it is to show that you were the one using a gun at a certain time. You will need witness testimony or strong evidence. For instance, if you say that it was someone else, but only your fingerprints are on the PC, that's pretty compelling. Or, if you say it was someone else, but the sharing occurred at 2am, when your kids were asleep and there was no signs of a break in, that's also pretty compelling.

Of course, this assumes that some sort of investigation takes place. The RIAA doesn't seem to investigate, they just miraculously come up with a screenshot and try to confuse judges with technical jargon.

Anyway, yes, the end user is the person who should be responsible.

Re:Completely Offtopic

[Anonymous Coward]

To each one of those people, I have this request to make. Make the world a better place, guys; stick your mouth over the exhaust pipe of your car, and then get a friend to start the ignition. Well, I'd rather prefer that friend's hard cock in my mouth. And he may even start the ignition!

Who the Bad Guys Are

[NewYorkCountryLawyer]

The record labels persecuting Ms. Lindor are:
-SONY BMG
-Motown
-Interscope
-Arista
-Warner Bros
-UMG

"Californicating" The Denver PEs

[cmholm]

My former employer, a California aerospace outfit, ran into something like that around 1970 when it opened a good-sized operation in Denver.

Sounds like something Hughes Aircraft would have done, since Martin was there since '56. I loved that place.

Be careful.

[SanityInAnarchy]

If they actually understand Linux, they'll understand how much information Linux logs. For instance, ~/.bash_history contains the last 500 commands you typed. This can easily be overridden, of course, but it's not convenient to manually set things like HISTFILE and HISTIGNORE every time, meaning you'll have to have a script somewhere which sets them for you. If you put the files under another user, you have login events in your syslog...

It's certainly possible to at least get it to where they won't be able to tell what you hid, only that you were hiding something.

I would simply encrypt the hard drive, and not give them the keys. Or put anything incriminating on a separate, encrypted hard drive, and degauss the whole thing before they get to it. Cryptonomicon had this great idea of a gigantic electromagnet embedded in the door frame... But then, the machines nuked by that in Cryptonomicon probably had stuff on it that would have much more severe consequences than "destruction of evidence".

Re:Be careful.

[toddestan]

Along the same lines, couldn't you go out and buy two identical USB drives, and make one the decoy (put a bunch of pictures on it), and then have the other drive your P2P drive? Even if they noticed that you had been accessing another harddrive, would they be able to tell that you actually access two different ones once you hand over the decoy?

Probably the best solution would be to have a decoy computer. Set up another computer with a single harddrive. Put whatever you want on the harddrive, just make sure it boots into something so it looks legit (either that, or a dead/crashed harddrive - "Oh that thing? I've been meaning to look into it. No time."). Then use that computer with a live CD and your P2P harddrive to do all the actual file sharing. Even better - make the USB harddrive bootable and use that with the computer.

asdf

[pak9rabid]

take that u mafiaa fuckers..

not really...

[pak9rabid]

This is no longer an issue of whether or not these people are guilty of copyright infringement or not, it's a matter of the RIAA finally getting what's been coming to them for a long time...the shaft from the legal system that they've been abusing for far too long. I could care less if every once in awhile the court system does something against the RIAA that a few logical people might consider wrong. If you were the weigh the mistakes made by the RIAA vs the courts, you'd find that the former has made far more mistakes. To me, this is just natures way of evening thing out.

this is why you aren't a lawyer...

[lpq]

She also had access to the town library computers most likely -- she might have visited any of her friends houses as well.

How much of your downloading do you do at someone else's house on their private computer?