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Prof. Johan Pouwelse To Take On RIAA Expert

Posted by kdawson on from the knows-whereof-he-speaks dept.

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."

6 of 184 comments (clear)

  1. Jury of peers by packetmon · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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.

    --
    Infiltrated dot Net
    1. Re:Jury of peers by tygerstripes · · Score: 5, Insightful
      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.

      --
      Meta will eat itself
    2. Re:Jury of peers by Atzanteol · · Score: 4, Insightful

      When did defending your rights become so complex and expensive

      When was it ever easy?

      --
      "Ignorance more frequently begets confidence than does knowledge"

      - Charles Darwin
  2. Re:Assumptions by Guillermito2 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    >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.

  3. Tune Out, Turn Off, Drop Out by grapeape · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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.

  4. Oh COME ON! You pull a Javert and get a +5??? by Spy+der+Mann · · Score: 4, Insightful

    (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.