Slashdot Mirror
RIAA Backtracks After Embarrassing P2P Defendant
Harmony writes "When the RIAA sued Sgt. Nicholas Paternoster, it included a screenshot of a shared folder with over 4,600 files — some of which were pornographic images unrelated to the case. Last week, the RIAA got permission from a judge to, as a 'professional courtesy,' swap out the original exhibit for one with only the 350+ songs the defendant is accused of sharing on Kazaa. The RIAA's carelessness may come back to haunt it, however: 'After the suit was filed — and the exhibit made public — Sgt. Paternoster decided to fight back, filing a counterclaim accusing the RIAA of violating his privacy and seeking to "shame Counter-Plaintiff... into giving in to their unreasonable demands regarding their copyrighted materials."'"
I hope Paternoster's lawyers force the judge and the RIAA to go on record as violating evidence rules, and show damages for those porno files that are not evidence of any crime.
The RIAA, and any other complainant (like you or me, if we file a complaint) has to identify the "stolen" property in specific detail, and the police must seize only that property under a specific court order.
The police state tyranny of extorting suspects by confiscating all their property they need to live and work was already in violation of our rights protected by the Fourth Amendment. Corporations using the police as a mercenary army is fascism: government by, for, but not of, corporations. Using coercion and intimidation as the fear to enforce corporate government "discipline".
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make install -not war
You have to understand that they're crapping their pants at the potential loss of the bulk of their revenue generation. Digital distribution is the end of the gravy train for them; no more surge of customers buying the same content every time they change the format.
So what do they do? They try to kill it, whether it's trying to shut down web radio through massive fee increases, trying to stifle online music sales through use of restrictive DRM schemes, trying to prevent CD copying through hugely invasive software installs, or trying to stifle "free" file sharing by intimidation through massive lawsuits.
Their goal isn't to protect their content, their goal is to protect their revenue stream, which means intimidate the bulk of the sheep to the point where they'll go out and buy the content...preferably more than once so they can listen to it on multiple devices.
ad logicam Claiming a proposition is false because it was presented as the conclusion of a fallacious argument.
RIAA just proved how easy it is to manipulate the screenshots. It doesn't matter if they blurred or cropped the image, it should now be crystal clear even to most tech illiterate judge how easy it is to tamper the screenshots they are proposing to use as evidence.
-- Reality checks don't bounce.
I'll play.
On one hand, we have a guy who downloaded some songs on the Internet, which he presumably then listened to.
On the other hand, we have a guy who ran an illegal operation on his property, called "Bad Newz Kennels" where fighting dogs were bred and then tortured and killed if they lost a fight.
One of these things is not like the other...
Now if Vick had been forcing RIAA lawyers to get into a pit and fight to the death, and then hang or drown the loser, we'd really have something to work with.
You are welcome on my lawn.
Huh! Not a good analogy. Your analogy implies that they presented completely wrong evidence. They did not. But they did include along with the valid evidence, other stuff that may damage the defendant. And RIAA may further argue that the folder was presumably willingly made public by the user (who they they at that time did not know was different from the defendant) and therefore could not assume that the constituted private information.