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

Finally we get _real_ entertainment from the **IAA

[Podcaster]

As someone who found the original deposition to be a very enjoyable page-turner, I'm hoping that the sequel will be even better than the first one.

-P

You cannot pass!

[Dancindan84]

I am a servant of knowledge, wielder of common sense. Go back to the shadow. The strong arm tactics will not avail you, face of the recording industry! You shall not pass!

Re:You cannot pass!

[Himring]

It is an attorney -- a lawyer of the RIAA. This foe is beyond any of you. Logout!

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

[UnknowingFool]

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.

They way I read the motion, I would say it was heavily in favor of the defendant. In the deposition of Dr. Jacobson, he admitted that the methods he used were:

1. of his own design
2. never published
3. thus, never peer-reviewed
4. never accepted by a standards body (NIST, IEEE, etc.)

In response, the RIAA says that "this methodology amounts to no more than applying settled principles to the undisputed data . . . used by reasonable experts in Dr. Jacobson's field . . . is the only way to do [the analysis] . . . and there is nothing that could be peer-reviewed." In essence, the RIAA says it is such a common (and only) methodoloy, it doesn't need to be tested. The RIAA misses the point.

What they RIAA doesn't tell you that these cases are new and no one has actually challenged the methodology yet. For the first part of the 20th century, phrenology was accepted as a way to tell a person's character based on measurements of their head. It was used in court cases to help prove guilt. Later, it was debunked as a pseudoscience. Also Dr. Jacobson's methods have been successfully challenged in the Netherlands.

The second part of the defendant's motion was with the data from Media Sentry itself. In his deposition, Dr. Jacobson admitted:

1. he did not know how Media Sentry gathered the data
2. he did not know the accuracy of the data

Basically, the defendant is asking where the data comes from and how accurate is it? The RIAA's own expert does not know.

To this the RIAA responds that the "plaintiffs have authenticated the MediaSentry data . . . and the defendant has not offered one shred of evidence to contest the accuracy or reliability of the data." The RIAA tries to sidestep the accuracy question by vouching for the data themselves and asserts the defendant has no offered any proof the data is bad. That misses the point completely. The point was that the data is a such a mystery that even their expert does not know much about it. Also the RIAA hints that the defendant has not sought discovery from MediaSentry yet. What the RIAA doesn't mention is that in many court cases, it has sought to shield MediaSentry from discovery.

Finally, the RIAA challenges that all these technical arguments were made by defendant's lawyers and that the defendant has not offered any expert testimony to counter their expert. This point is moot as the defendant now has an expert.

The RIAA will be getting all the help it needs,

[Adult film producer]

As soon as congress passes the magical and majestic Intellectual Property Protection Act of 2007.

1. Criminalize "attempting" to infringe copyright.
2. Create a new crime of life imprisonment for using pirated software.
3. Permit more wiretaps for piracy investigations.
4. Increase penalties for violating the Digital Millennium Copyright Act's anti-circumvention regulations.
5. Add penalties for "intended" copyright crimes.

and my favorite,

6. Require Homeland Security to alert the Recording Industry Association of America.

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

Let's stop deluding oureslves, shall we?

[bconway]

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. While everyone can agree that it's wrong for the RIAA to prosecute people who do not have the means to commit copyright infringement, let's not forget that it's still against the law when it does happen. Slashdot is, in general, a technical and smart crowd, let's not pull the wool over our own eyes. It just makes us look foolish.

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

[tinkerghost]

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. While everyone can agree that it's wrong for the RIAA to prosecute people who do not have the means to commit copyright infringement, let's not forget that it's still against the law when it does happen. Slashdot is, in general, a technical and smart crowd, let's not pull the wool over our own eyes. It just makes us look foolish.

It's a perfectly valid statement to be making, the RIAA is pushing through all of the laws based on beeelionnns of $ stolen, stolen I tell you. They base the damages they are seeking on it. And yet, every peer reviewed study says it increases sales for the independent musicians - the members of the RIAA won't share detailed sales information so it's not possible to determine specifics. However, IIRC - one study found that sales jumped after every college break during which file sharing jumped.

Also check out Eric Flint's comments @ Baen books free library from back in 2002 reguarding his sales figures when he releases a book on the free elibrary. From the same collection of essays, I suggest you read the one reguarding copyright as presented in 1841 in England - pay special attention to the last paragraphs, the man is just frighteningly accurate.

Now, yes, it's illegal - not sure if it should be as the current scope of copyright law does not appear to strike a balance between the rights of society & the rights of the content producers. In that sense it needs some serious revamping. The DMCA is just bad - any law that garantees your right to fair use, but denies you access to the tools to exercise that right is bad.

So perhaps you should go back & read the whole artical & educate yourself about the whole argument not just 'stealing is wrong' - in a very real & moral sense, copyright steals from society, which is why Benjamin Franklin objected to it. The laws reguarding copyright are supposed to balance the need to compensate creative people with the rights of society at large to make use of what has been created. They do not currently balance anything.

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.

The Netherlands sez: America has no privacy.

[KutuluWare]

One of the links in the summary goes to the judgement on appeal from a case in the Netherlands of the RIAA (or whatever their equivalent is... there's like 35 plaintiffs) vs. some ISPs. The court ruled, twice, that the ISPs didn't have to turn over names & addresses based on the list of IPs the music companies gave them. The main reason was because the court didn't believe that MediaSentry was a proper means of obtaining them.

One of the reasons they didn't like MediaSentry was this:

The Preliminary Injunction Court also considered the fact that MediaSentry is an American company and that the United States of America could not be considered to be a country that has an appropriate protection level for personal data

At least the rest of the world has figured out what most of us Americans haven't: America's right to privacy is a rapidly disappearing illusion.

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.

A couple of monts later....

[kwark]

"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."

And a couple of months later Brein (the dutch ..AA equiv.) won a case against UPC (an ISP), forcing them to hand over the subscribers information: http://zoeken.rechtspraak.nl/resultpage.aspx?snelz oeken=true&searchtype=ljn&ljn=AY6903&u_ljn=AY6903
(in dutch btw).