Prof. Johan Pouwelse To Take On RIAA Expert

NewYorkCountryLawyer writes "Marie Lindor has retained an expert witness of her own to fight the RIAA, and to debunk the testimony and reports of the RIAA's 'expert' Dr. Doug Jacobson, whose reliability has been challenged by Ms. Lindor in her Brooklyn federal court case, UMG v. Lindor. Ms. Lindor's expert is none other than Prof. Johan Pouwelse, Chairman of the Parallel and Distributed Systems Group of Delft University of Technology. It was Prof. Pouwelse's scathing analysis of the RIAA's MediaSentry 'investigations' (PDF) in a case in the Netherlands that caused the courts in that country to direct the ISPs there not to turn over their subscribers' information (PDF), thus nipping in the bud the RIAA's intended litigation juggernaut in that country."

Comments

Jury of peers

[packetmon]

Well as having been someone who's gone through a complete trial against the Department of Justice I can tell you what will happen in layman's terms regardless of what expert(s) is/are called. One no one will want to serve as a juror so you will get frustrated persons as jurors. Secondly she won't get a technically competent jury so their attitude will be more or less: "Is this damned thing over with". Thirdly because her jury won't be technical no matter what someone here thinks, the jury will likely be lost in technological talk that will seem foreign to them. Outcome... No one will truly care. Bottom line reality. It may be nice for /.'ers and people across the technology world to think that something big will come out of this case, and it will, because either way both sides win and lose so the write up will be favorable to whomever in either circumstance. That's the reality of it all. Consider this posting a trollish one if you care to, but facts are facts, no one on the jury will care to be there, they will be stuck like deers in headlights no matter how its explained to them, and the outcome won't make much of a difference to the world at the end of it all.

Re:Jury of peers

[tygerstripes]

While I understand your withering commentary on the outcome from the perspective of the jury, you're forgetting the impact on law.

Case law is about precedent, and if Marie Lindor can have this case thrown out of court on grounds of technological fact, it will snap a big string in the bow of th **AA. They won't be able to use this particular ruse - one of their biggest - any longer in the courts, as anyone who takes a case defending someone against such a suit will simply be able to throw this case in.

Suddenly, fighting the **AA becomes a lot easier and cheaper, and it's Game Over as far as strong-arm, expensive litigation goes - the "Industry's" biggest weapon.

I think your comments regarding the jury are valid, but your conclusions are not.

Re:Jury of peers

[packetmon]

You didn't read the fact that I said it could go either way for both parties and in the end it will only matter to them. Say what you will about precedence but the fact is, caselaw changes often. The problem with this case will be keeping the jury from falling asleep because they will (repeat WILL) be bored by a case which can be pretty long, too technological for them to comprehend. My case lasted one week and a juror slept (not kidding) and was given a warning. Do you think that juror had any idea or cared what went on? I was 27 when I was in court. My peers? Oh those guys/gals... They were 50ish computer phobes... And so the questioning began for prospective jurors "What's your favorite tv show? ... Law and Order" (good juror said the prosecutor...) "What's your profession? ... I'm a copyright lawyer for a dotcom" ... (you are the weakest link... said the prosecutor). If you've never been to a trial or sat on jury duty you shouldn't comment because you won't know the TRUE mechanisms of how it really works regardless of the outcome. The outcome means nothing to the jurors at the end of the day, most will want to get out of jury duty and just get back to normal life duties.

Re:Jury of peers

[Atzanteol]

When did defending your rights become so complex and expensive

When was it ever easy?

Re:Jury of peers

[NeutronCowboy]

But should it be so expensive as to be beyond your reach?

Re:Jury of peers

[orgelspieler]

It's also not about "a decision based on the law" as you state, but how the jury interprets the law, which is a gigantic distinction. Judges cannot under any circumstances tell juries what the law means. They can read the applicable law statues to the jury but it's up to the jury to decide what they think it means.

That's absolutely incorrect. Juries interpret the facts. The judge interprets the law (except for jury nullification, but that's a different story). And it's up to the DA and defense attorney to explain what the law means in relation to the case. It is then up to the jury to decide whether the facts in the case are enough to warrant conviction.

I served on a needlessly long jury trial for assault with a deadly weapon. Both the DA and the defense attorney set about explaining what the law meant in their opening statements. We heard the evidence, during which the judge interpreted the law by ruling on objections. After the closing arguments, the judge gave us our charge, which is another interpretation of the law, boiled down to explain what we were required to find for a guilty verdict. It was also an interpretation of the law in the sense that the judge had ruled out the possibility of finding the defendant guilty of any lesser offenses. We decided the facts, nothing else. It was a pretty simple "not guilty" in this case.

What a jury thinks a law means and what judges and lawyers think a law means are 2 different things.

More like 15 different things each juror, two attorneys, and one judge.

As for the main point of the GP, even the most jaded juror must realize that it could just as easily be them sitting in the defendants chair. To say that all juries are just interested in getting back to work is baseless. I for one enjoyed the time off, and I liked serving my community. I would be surprised if it's even a substantial fraction of juries that are of the "screw justice let's get out of here" mindset.

Re:Assumptions

[Guillermito2]

>The 'submitter' seems to have made a lot of 'assumptions' about how closely
>we have been following this 'case'.

Maybe there is a reason why Slashdot editors post news of this case quite often. Maybe you should follow it a bit more closely. It is very important, in my humble opinion. It is The Normal People vs the MAFIAA, their scare tactics and their scandalous racketing scheme.

NewYorkCountryLawyer has huge balls for fighting them face to face, and as average geeks, we should thank him for his work.

And I will start right now : NewYorkCountryLawyer, thank you.

OT re: your sig

[Junior J. Junior III]

The happiness of society is the end of government. -- John Adams

I wonder if John Adams is using the word "end" in a way that is synonymous with "goal", rather than to suggest that he's some sort of radical anarchist. Do you have the context for the quote?

Tune Out, Turn Off, Drop Out

[grapeape]

The RIAA only has power because we enable it. With the exception of the random but rare story about some grandma in Peoria who didnt have p2p, the vast majority find themselved bullied by the RIAA because they coveted some drivel being peddled by an RIAA member. Stop buying it, stop borrowing it, stop stealing it, stop listening to it and the RIAA has no power at all. Those that continue to support the RIAA's causes either legally or illegally are entitled to do nothing other than stop bitching about it.

Re:Tune Out, Turn Off, Drop Out

[witte]

Just like deleting spam from my mailbox will stop spammers and scammers from flooding everyones mailbox ? Yeah, right...
It only takes a minority of paying idiots to give these people the funds to keep on bugging the rest of us.
And in the case of RIAA, I'm sure they have plenty of dough in their coffers to go to war with and outlast most grassroots attempts at heightening consumer awareness.

<sarcasm>Voting with our wallet probably hurts them less than copyright infringement</sarcasm>

Re:Let's stop deluding oureslves, shall we?

[bwbadger]

>let's not forget that it's still against the law when it does happen

Sure, but it's a stupid law as it stands and it should be changed. Clearly laws like these can be changed *because they are being changed right now*, though the changes seem to be making things worse.

Oh COME ON! You pull a Javert and get a +5???

[Spy der Mann]

(In case you don't know who Javert is, search the wikipedia)

The 'files shared = sales lost' formula has never been proven by the RIAA, Warner Music, EMI, Vivendi Universal and Sony BMG, or anyone else.

I stopped reading there.

WHY? Just because something is illegal (this means, that some guys voted a law against it - not more, not less, period) doesn't mean that it will automatically hurt the sales of the record companies. Yes, downloading songs is illegal. But so is protesting against president Chavez if you live in Venezuela. The moral and ethics of music piracy are NOT at discussion at this point. What is at discussion is: a) Whether Marie Lindor actually infringed copyright, and b) whether she made the RIAA lose thousands of dollars in music sales.

Prof. Pouwelse did an empyrical analysis, and this means SCIENTIFIC RESEARCH, proving that just because people downloaded a song from the internet, doesn't make the RIAA lose sales from it. This can have a tremendous impact on RIAA's fines, because if you only made them lose 1 cent by downloading a song from the internet, the stratospheric fines they're asking you to pay might only become a small fine of ten bucks.

Re:The RIAA will be getting all the help it needs,

[radtea]

The IPPA would insert a new prohibition: actions that were "intended to consist of" distribution.

(from http://news.com.com/8301-10784_3-9719339-7.html)

In other news, the Attorney General announced that "suspicion of resisting arrest" will be added to America's criminal law under the Interstate Commerce clause of the Constitution.

"We feel," he said, "that police should have the power to act to detain an individual based on their well-founded suspicions that the individual might resist the lawful actions of police in detaining them."

When asked about the use of the Interstate Commerce clause, he replied, "Obviously, if an individual is going to resist arrest they may do so by crossing state lines. The Constitution is very clear on this. In fact, the President has the power acting in his capacity as Commander in Chief to use the National Guard to detain such individuals. Furthermore, anyone who attempts to avoid arrest on suspicion is obviously guilty of resisting arrest, so we don't feel that it will be necessary, or indeed possible, for this to be tested in the courts. And if anyone attempts to do so, we will simply change the charges against them to something else, like filling out a form."

Re:Assumptions

[Em Adespoton]

I'm sorry, but your reply might be considered copyright infringement in some countries. Are you prepared to be deported to one of these countries for a criminal theft trial?

Saying that you live in the US and other laws don't apply to you won't hold up. After all, if an Australian can be estradited to the US for breaking US copyright law (but not Australian copyright law), why can't you be extradited to, say, Cuba for writing something readable in their country that looks awfully similar to something one of their citizens wrote?

Copyright is not theft. The theft (if there is one... there likely wasn't in the case we're discussing) would be under "theft of sale" doctrine, which is a separate matter from copyright infringement, and NOT criminal (yes, theft is a crime).

Re:It'll be interesting to see..

[NewYorkCountryLawyer]

Wouldn't you love to see the RIAA found to be a vexatious litigant, though? I predict you will start seeing rulings like that. Capitol v. Foster comes pretty close. And it ain't over yet.