Judge Lets RIAA Subpoena Defendant's Employer

NewYorkCountryLawyer writes "A judge has ruled that the RIAA can subpoena the defendant's employer in a case pending in Manhattan federal court, Atlantic v. Shutovsky. The judge's order (pdf) contained eight separate rulings deciding 19 pages of discovery disputes (pdf), resolving virtually all of them in favor of the RIAA. Other decisions made include: 'The plaintiffs were permitted to take depositions of Mr. Shutovsky's wife and his brother. Plaintiffs were required to produce all non-privileged documents or materials relating to any investigation and any sound files on their computer, and to produce a privilege log as to any claimed to be privileged. Defendant was required to provide the name and address of each person who used his computer during the three years prior to commencement of the lawsuit.'"

Comments

Out of control

[SuSEboy]

3 years eh? Good luck with that.

Re:Out of control

[Anonymous McCartneyf]

Let's just hope there weren't any botnets using this computer.
If there were no botnets, then that order should be possible to fill, assuming there were no attempts at plausible deniability. That still leaves everything else awful, I know, inc. how the RIAA got its case in the first place; but still, if there were no botnets, then it should be possible to narrow down who downloaded the RIAA's sting files.
If there was a botnet on the computer, however, someone innocent will get cooked by this order. How's a layperson to know if there is?

Re:Out of control

[Anonymous Coward]

I provide open WIFI for all my neibours to use at will.

Re:Out of control

[Anonymous Freak]

Let's see, three years of my main laptop would include myself, my wife, my kids, my parents, my grandparents, my sister, my father-in-law, my sister-in-law and her family, a dozen or so friends (I can't be certain which ones,) and, oh, about 100 clients whose names I don't remember. (I often demonstrate things to clients on my laptop, and they do sometimes "use" my computer for a minute or two.)

My son's desktop computer would mean 'ratting out' a dozen or so of HIS friends. (10-13 years old at time of use, if you're covering 3 years worth of usage.)

For a corporation, producing a detailed 3 year log of who used a computer may be a feasable asking, but not for a personal computer.

Re:Out of control

[Anonymous Coward]

3 years eh? Good luck with that.

Overreaching fucking sons of bitches!

This judge must have no more than a single-digit IQ.

Too bad we can't get this roaring bastard to allow discovery on our revered commander-in-thief.

Re:Out of control

[cyphercell]

If by feasible you mean "if that company kept a log going back three years."

Re:Out of control

[228e2]

Its really not that hard. If each employee is required to log in, there should be a profile name in C:\Documents and Settings. And if a company doesnt require an employee to log in in some way . . . well thats just irresponsible on the company's part.

Re:Out of control

[TimTucker]

Assuming that said company doesn't happen to have a tendency to reformat whenever a PC has a problem or gets transferred to someone else.

Re:Out of control

[jabuzz]

There is a group policy setting to cause these to be flushed when you logout. Highly useful is lots of people use a computer, say if your company has hot desking. Stops a large amount of disk space being burnt up storing profiles.

Re:Out of control

[Anonymous Coward]

A simple "I can't remember" seems to be all that would be needed; after all, if the attorney general and other members of the Presidents entourage 'can't remember' answers to questions posed them, how on earth can mere mortals like us be expected to have such fantastic memories?

Re:Out of control

[Anonymous Coward]

3 years eh? Good luck with that.

I must have fallen asleep in civics class after the part where they told us that judges were there to "act as reasonable men and prevent abuses from happening."

Was there a followup that I missed where they explained that this concept did not apply when a large corporation was a party to the case?

Re:Out of control

[Anonymous Freak]

Yes, feasable if they back up their log files.

Do your own damned work.

[SanityInAnarchy]

What evidence (if any) does the RIAA have on this person?

(None? Yeah, I thought so. Wouldn't exactly be uncommon.)

But really, it just strikes me as bizarre the amount of work they're requiring the defendant to do -- they are basically asking the defendant to investigate themself.

Ordinarily, of course, I wouldn't be worried. I'd simply turn in a bunch of sound files and say I don't remember where I ripped them from, or where the physical CD went. Because under ordinary US law, it would then be the burden of the plaintiff to prove that those particular files did not belong to me. But this isn't ordinary US law, this is bought-and-paid-for RIAA law.

Re:Do your own damned work.

[Anonymous Coward]

It's not a matter of evidence. The burden is on the defendent, since it is copyright law.

Re:Do your own damned work.

[Kjella]

Last I checked, the RIAA has never ever gone after downloaders, only people sharing songs. For that purpose it doesn't matter much where the songs came from, since you certainly didn't buy the right to distribute them. Since it's a civil case and it means "preponderance of evidence", you need something that'll negate their weak evidence. Options:

a) It's not the song you claim it to be (most P2P networks have hash checks though)
b) It's not the correct IP address (the ISP must have made a mistake)
c) It's not any of my computers (open WiFi, guest using my network)
d) I wasn't in control of the computer, a trojan must have done it
e) I wasn't in control of the computer, my friends/family/guests must have done it
f) I wasn't aware I was sharing copyrighted works (but that only limits the liability)

Their evidence leaks all ways, but they are trying to patch it up in all directions. If you can't string together enough resonable alternative reasons why they may have recorded what they did, you could stlil lose. At which point they'll be pounding you for $750/song, which is around $10k just for an album. I bet many people see it like fire insurance. Pay and save most, or risk losing it all even though the chance is slim. Many teenagers would easily be a few millions in debt, I think.

Re:Do your own damned work.

[cyphercell]

TITLE 17 > CHAPTER 8 > 803 (b) 6 C vi I & II states:

803. Proceedings of Copyright Royalty Judges

(vi)

(I)
Any participant under paragraph (2) in a proceeding under this chapter to determine royalty rates may, by means of written motion or on the record, request of an opposing participant or witness other relevant information and materials if, absent the discovery sought, the Copyright Royalty Judges' resolution of the proceeding would be substantially impaired. In determining whether discovery will be granted under this clause, the Copyright Royalty Judges may consider--

(aa)

whether the burden or expense of producing the requested information or materials outweighs the likely benefit, taking into account the needs and resources of the participants, the importance of the issues at stake, and the probative value of the requested information or materials in resolving such issues;

(bb)

whether the requested information or materials would be unreasonably cumulative or duplicative, or are obtainable from another source that is more convenient, less burdensome, or less expensive; and

(cc)

whether the participant seeking discovery has had ample opportunity by discovery in the proceeding or by other means to obtain the information sought.

(II)
This clause shall not apply to any proceeding scheduled to commence after December 31, 2010.

TITLE 17 > CHAPTER 5 > 507

507. Limitations on actions

(a) Criminal Proceedings.-- Except as expressly provided otherwise in this title, no criminal proceeding shall be maintained under the provisions of this title unless it is commenced within 5 years after the cause of action arose.

(b) Civil Actions.-- No civil action shall be maintained under the provisions of this title unless it is commenced within three years after the claim accrued.

I would argue that while falling within the time limit listed under "Limitations on actions", that procuring evidence for the full time span would be contradictory to both sections aa and bb listed under "Proceedings of Copyright Royalty Judges". For instance I might suggest the RIAA run an ad in the local paper. Of course it looks like this case has passed the "debate with the judge" point, so I think I would run an ad in the paper asking anyone that has used my computer in the past three years to please step forward.

here's my source http://www4.law.cornell.edu/uscode/html/uscode17/u sc_sup_01_17.html.

Re:Do your own damned work.

[cpt kangarooski]

I don't often say this, but LOL.

A statute on how the Copyright Office determines statutory royalty rates (e.g. how much per song internet radio stations have to pay the copyright holders, in order to play them) is as irrelevant to a downloading case as the price of tea in China. Copyright Royalty Judges are just ALJs, not Article III judges. You clearly have no idea whatsoever what you're talking about, and no idea of how to find out. You probably just googled the Copyright Act for anything related to production.

What you actually want to look at for this case, are Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, which set forth the rules for discovery. You can find them here.

I'll give you this, however: that was the stupidest thing I've seen on /. all week.

Re:Do your own damned work.

[NewYorkCountryLawyer]

Last I checked, the RIAA has never ever gone after downloaders, only people sharing songs. For that purpose it doesn't matter much where the songs came from, since you certainly didn't buy the right to distribute them. Since it's a civil case and it means "preponderance of evidence", you need something that'll negate their weak evidence. Options: a) It's not the song you claim it to be (most P2P networks have hash checks though) b) It's not the correct IP address (the ISP must have made a mistake) c) It's not any of my computers (open WiFi, guest using my network) d) I wasn't in control of the computer, a trojan must have done it e) I wasn't in control of the computer, my friends/family/guests must have done it f) I wasn't aware I was sharing copyrighted works (but that only limits the liability) Their evidence leaks all ways, but they are trying to patch it up in all directions. Evidence?

Did you say evidence?

They don't have any evidence.

Re:Do your own damned work.

[NewYorkCountryLawyer]

I'll give you this, however: that was the stupidest thing I've seen on /. all week. Which, the misguided reference to the royalty judges, or the decision in Atlantic v. Shutovsky.

Re:Do your own damned work.

[cpt kangarooski]

The former. While the decision here might have been more favorable to the plaintiff than to the defendant, I don't think it was unreasonable, having looked over the documents linked to above.

Re:Do your own damned work.

[cyphercell]

Ok, since you're the lawyer can you show me a link where it says that the burden of proof rests with the defendant?

It's not a matter of evidence. The burden is on the defendant, since it is copyright law. - Anonymous Coward

That is the comment I was trying to figure out. As a layperson can you explain to me what the hell he is talking about?

You clearly have no idea whatsoever what you're talking about, and no idea of how to find out.

I think the technical term is reading, I mean the law is all written down right? That is the idea behind self representation isn't it?

I'll give you this, however: that was the stupidest thing I've seen on /. all week.

As proud of this comment as I am, I sincerely pray to god, that I NEVER get stuck with a lawyer that dismisses my understanding of the law with such arrogance and contempt. IANAL - I know nothing about the law, except that I can usually learn about it on the Internet rather than going to the law library. Thanks for the clarification and thank god you're not my lawyer.

Re:Do your own damned work.

[cpt kangarooski]

Ok, since you're the lawyer can you show me a link where it says that the burden of proof rests with the defendant?

Well, let's start with that. Laypeople generally don't understand certain procedural aspects of the legal system. A lot of people will say 'burden of proof,' sometimes even lawyers (although then it's a sort of lazy, highly contextual shorthand), but technically there's no such thing.

There is a burden of persuasion, there are evidentiary burdens, and there is a standard of proof. They're all different things, though significantly interconnected. The burden of persuasion is the burden of a party to prove its claims. For example, when we say that people are considered innocent until proven guilty, it merely means that the prosecution has to convince a jury of guilt, nothing more. Evidentiary burdens are used for proving that specific facts are as a party claims; for example, in a copyright suit, the plaintiff begins with the burden of having to show that he is the copyright holder (or otherwise has a right to sue in the first place). If that burden is satisfied, then the burden may shift to the defendant who can try to rebut it with proof to the contrary; if he succeeds, the burden shifts again, and so on. And the standard of proof is the standard which must be met in order for a burden to be met. In a typical civil case, it'll be a preponderance of the evidence (i.e. more likely than not, even if only by the slightest amount). In a criminal case, it'll be beyond a reasonable doubt, which is a much higher standard.

But in any event, while we are talking about the discovery portion of a case, where the two sides are engaged in gathering the evidence that they need, I really don't see your point. On TV you have things like surprise evidence or witnesses, gathered and presented at the last moment for dramatic tension. This is unrealistic. In fact, by the time a trial actually begins, both sides will routinely know exactly what evidence will be presented, what testimony will be given, and have a pretty good idea of the ultimate outcome. This is part of the reason why most cases don't get to trial; it's more common for one side to know it'll win and the other to know it'll lose, and for them to want to come to some agreement without wasting time and money drawing it out. The discovery rules are meant to facilitate this; in a proper trial, there are no surprises.

So we have things like Rule 26(a), which requires each party to voluntarily give a lot of information to the other side without having to be asked about it, 26(b), which allows any party to get all probative non-privileged evidence, or even non-admissible evidence which will lead to admissible evidence. If the other side has a good reason, they can object to it and the whole thing gets hashed out by the judge, as we see here. But generally the US is extremely plaintiff-friendly and has extremely broad discovery, compared to much of the rest of the world.

I think the technical term is reading, I mean the law is all written down right? That is the idea behind self representation isn't it?

There's a reason why pro se litigants are so heavily discouraged. Yes, it's all written down. But then, you might as well try to learn how to use a spreadsheet program by diligently reading through the source code. It takes about three years of hard work for people to become lawyers, and that's with the benefit of people teaching them. And even then, a smart baby lawyer is going to find someone more experienced to work with so that he can learn the important practical aspects of the law which are generally ignored in school, in favor of the higher level concepts. And one of the first things you get taught is how to do proper research, often using tools which are specialized and not available to everyone. (For example, Google is crap for legal research, really. Westlaw and Lexis have it beat, both in terms of what's in their database, and the power and flexibility of the search queries. Of course, you have to pay to u

Re:Do your own damned work.

[cyphercell]

Yea, this is why I try not to get into too many fist fights.

I remember some quote from somewhere stating that a man needs three things in life.

1. a gifted doctor
2. a brilliant lawyer
3. and a forgiving priest

When dealing with these people I mostly aim to understand what the hell it is that they are talking about, so I can at best be an informed participant in the unfolding of my life. Thank you for the lengthy explanation I appreciate it. FWIW I really didn't know what the term "royalty" meant within a legal context, now of course it makes perfect sense.

Oh, and is it really necessary to tell people "I am not a lawyer"/"this is not legal advice" in public forum?

Re:Do your own damned work.

[SanityInAnarchy]

Last I checked, the RIAA has never ever gone after downloaders, only people sharing songs.

With most P2P networks, you share by default. With BitTorrent, you cannot download without sharing. So that distinction is swiftly becoming irrelevant.

For that purpose it doesn't matter much where the songs came from, since you certainly didn't buy the right to distribute them.

Fair enough, assuming they already know you were distributing. But first, no one's told me what evidence they had prior to this subpoena.

And second, if they're going after someone for merely having files on their hard drive, that's neither downloading nor sharing. The only way they can possibly make a case of this is if they have some other evidence which shows that the person did, in fact, download and/or share that media -- and if they have this evidence, they shouldn't need to subpoena the guy's hard drive, since they should already have enough to win.

you need something that'll negate their weak evidence.

I would have to see that evidence first. Often the "evidence" is a screenshot of a log in some program that may or may not work (but isn't made available to the court), and the digital version of that log has since been deleted, so we're left with one easily-photoshopped screenshot from a program we know nothing about (which might've been wrong).

In light of that:

a) It's not the song you claim it to be (most P2P networks have hash checks though)

In order to prove it's the song they claim it to be, they must have downloaded it themselves, which could be seen as a form of entrapment -- obviously whoever they are downloading it from commits a crime by uploading the file to the RIAA goon doing this, which they might not otherwise have committed.

b) It's not the correct IP address (the ISP must have made a mistake)

Doesn't have to be the ISP. It could be the hired goon who found the IP. Could have been the ISP. Could have been a bug in the software which was used. And the evidence could have been deliberately falsified in probably a dozen ways (photoshop, etc) -- really, it should count as somewhat less substantial than exactly one eyewitness account, and usually one eyewitness account isn't enough -- you want two or three, and some circumstantial evidence...

So, does reasonable doubt exist in civil cases? I think there's some pretty clear doubt here.

c) It's not any of my computers (open WiFi, guest using my network)

That works well enough, although I don't like to keep an open WiFi anyway.

d) I wasn't in control of the computer, a trojan must have done it

I'm not sure whether I want this to work or not. I guess all I really want is a consistant position, or at least a solid legal one.

People have been tried and convicted for crimes (cracking) they didn't commit, but rather, someone committed through their machine (a honeypot). At the same time, blame usually rests with ISPs when it's something like spam -- the whole ISP is added to a blacklist unless they start disconnecting the users who they're getting complaints about. Yet people seem to have no problem with ISPs deliberately intercepting traffic to shut down a botnet, or doing virus scanning on every incoming email, so that users don't have to be responsible to keep their computers clean.

What I would like is for us to decide once and for all whether a user is or is not responsible for what their computer does. If you assume they are responsible, stop holding their hand at the network level. If you assume people can't police their own computers, start believing it when someone tells you they didn't do it, and "some hacker" must have.

e) I wasn't in control of the computer, my friends/family/guests must have done it

Re:Do your own damned work.

[NewYorkCountryLawyer]

The former. While the decision here might have been more favorable to the plaintiff than to the defendant, I don't think it was unreasonable, having looked over the documents linked to above. I'm sorry to hear you say that; I think it was an extremely unfair and unreasonable decision.

Re:Do your own damned work.

[SanityInAnarchy]

But in any event, while we are talking about the discovery portion of a case, where the two sides are engaged in gathering the evidence that they need, I really don't see your point.

Well, my original point was that generally, I had assumed that no matter what portion of a case you're in, you need at least some rationale for demanding evidence.

I flatly reject the idea that anyone who is a copyright holder can drag anyone else into a lawsuit and immediately demand to see all of the audio files on their computer. So what, exactly, is required for the judge to approve a subpoena of this information?

So we have things like Rule 26(a), which requires each party to voluntarily give a lot of information to the other side without having to be asked about it, 26(b), which allows any party to get all probative non-privileged evidence, or even non-admissible evidence which will lead to admissible evidence. If the other side has a good reason, they can object to it and the whole thing gets hashed out by the judge, as we see here.

Again, I want to know if there is anything that has to happen, other than the plaintiff proving that they own the copyright to some work which the defendant may or may not have ever heard of before.

Maybe there's no avoiding it, but at this point, it's still a lot of hassle and expense to deal with a truly absurd case, even if you won at every step during discovery -- meaning you managed to prevent them from rifling through your personal files because they kind of, sort of suspect that you have something.

I'm not a lawyer either, and I admit the possibility (probability?) that I've missed something obvious. Then again, we humans miss obvious things so often, even in our own fields, that I should probably just put it in my sig.

Re:Do your own damned work.

[10bellies]

With BitTorrent, you cannot download without sharing. So that distinction is swiftly becoming irrelevant.

1 - Launch torrent client of choice.

2 - Set upload to 0kbps.

3 - Load .torrent file into torrent client.

4 - Download data while sharing/uploading nothing.

Simple really.

Granted, some private trackers don't allow you to do this, but most (if not all) public trackers do.

And yes, I'm aware that if everyone did this, no one would be able to download anything...most people don't though.

Re:Do your own damned work.

[cpt kangarooski]

FWIW I really didn't know what the term "royalty" meant within a legal context, now of course it makes perfect sense.

That actually explains a lot, then. But it is a common meaning, you know, and not an unusual legal term.

Oh, and is it really necessary to tell people "I am not a lawyer"/"this is not legal advice" in public forum?

If you're not a lawyer, I'd say generally not, though I suppose it has its uses in both advertising to others that the accuracy of the post should be taken with a grain of salt, and in avoiding any claims (unlikely as they probably are) of practicing law without a license.

If you are a lawyer, it can't hurt. We're generally a conservative bunch -- by which I mean cautious, rather than politically. We're bound by certain ethical rules, and some of those rules determine what our duties are to various people, whether someone is considered a client or not, etc. We can't just talk about absolutely anything, to anyone, freely. (For example, legal ads like you see on tv are actually a fairly new thing; it used to be we weren't allowed) So the little disclaimers might help (and are cheap to add on, however minimal their usefulness might be; it's a bit of CYA) in avoiding certain outcomes of those rules that are not desirable to us.

There's actually another thing, but you see it less often, where if a discussion is getting uncomfortably close to being something other than idle chit-chat, a lawyer might have to stop, or change subjects, or avoid specifics. Often this is where you see the suggestion that the other person in the conversation go out and hire a lawyer, rather than just chat with one.

Re:Do your own damned work.

[cpt kangarooski]

Well, my original point was that generally, I had assumed that no matter what portion of a case you're in, you need at least some rationale for demanding evidence.

They have a rationale. I know that no one ever reads the stuff linked to in the article, but read the stuff linked to in the article. The rationales of both sides are pretty nicely laid out here and you can follow along with how the judge actually ruled here. Meanwhile, of course, the defense presented its rationales for not wanting the various requests to go through. This isn't a case of one side having a totally meritless argument, but rather of the judge having to decide between two valid arguments, as guided by the Rules.

I flatly reject the idea that anyone who is a copyright holder can drag anyone else into a lawsuit and immediately demand to see all of the audio files on their computer. So what, exactly, is required for the judge to approve a subpoena of this information?

Yes, you can't start a case with nothing. This is part of the reason why they have to have investigators find infringers, rather than just starting with A. Aaronson and ending with Mr. Zykowski. Rule 11 deals with that: you can't commence a civil action in order to harass people, and any factual allegations you make have to already be supported or have to be likely to be supported. It's not just the client that has to adhere to this, but the lawyer does, independently, including not merely taking the client's word for it. If you fail to live up to this standard, and bring a baseless case, you'll not only wind up with it getting dismissed, but you may be sanctioned as well.

But assuming you do meet that standard, a lot of material is discoverable. Basically, if evidence is relevant to the case and admissible, then it is discoverable; if it is relevant, inadmissible, but likely to lead to relevant, admissible evidence, then it is discoverable. Some things are not discoverable, for various reasons. Privilege is a major one. Sometimes, if the discovery request is burdensome, that can be grounds to deny it as well.

So if you're a defendant in this kind of suit, and the other side wants to see all of your audio files, then they're probably going to get to, on the grounds that if any of those files are to do with works to which they hold the copyright, they're relevant and admissible for showing that you infringed, and that they already have some evidence to support the idea that you have or have had some of those files.

If you like, you can think of it in terms of public policies: there is a strong policy goal of having wrongdoers brought to justice. There are also strong goals of permitting frank, private legal advice, and avoiding unjust abuses of the legal system. But there's not a strong policy of protecting actual copyright infringers from getting caught.

Maybe there's no avoiding it, but at this point, it's still a lot of hassle and expense to deal with a truly absurd case, even if you won at every step during discovery -- meaning you managed to prevent them from rifling through your personal files because they kind of, sort of suspect that you have something.

Meh. Just because something is personal, that doesn't mean it might not get swept up during discovery. Believe me, I've seen some crazy things doing document and privilege reviews. And while I understand that no one likes having strangers intrude into their private lives, do realize that 99.44% of the time, the reviewers aren't going to care about non-relevant files that happen to be of a personal nature. Indeed, a combination of automated and manual searches will often mean that no human looks at them to begin with. In an infringement case dealing with music and sound recordings, why would people look through emails (other than emails that have suspicious atta

Re:Do your own damned work.

[NewYorkCountryLawyer]

Well, my original point was that generally, I had assumed that no matter what portion of a case you're in, you need at least some rationale for demanding evidence. I flatly reject the idea that anyone who is a copyright holder can drag anyone else into a lawsuit and immediately demand to see all of the audio files on their computer. ........ ......... I want to know if there is anything that has to happen, other than the plaintiff proving that they own the copyright to some work which the defendant may or may not have ever heard of before. Maybe there's no avoiding it, but at this point, it's still a lot of hassle and expense to deal with a truly absurd case, even if you won at every step during discovery -- meaning you managed to prevent them from rifling through your personal files because they kind of, sort of suspect that you have something. I'm not a lawyer either, and I admit the possibility (probability?) that I've missed something obvious. Then again, we humans miss obvious things so often, even in our own fields, that I should probably just put it in my sig. You haven't missed anything, Sanity.

Judge Castel made the mistake, not you.

Re:Do your own damned work.

[HiThere]

Yes, you can't start a case with nothing. This is part of the reason why they have to have investigators find infringers, rather than just starting with A. Aaronson and ending with Mr. Zykowski. Rule 11 deals

Tell it to SCO. That case has truely lost my belief in any justice in the court system. SCO after 3 years (more?) still has yet to produce any evidence for their case, whatever it is. When last seen they were again changing the grounds on which they had filed their suit for ???. (Well, for money, but that's not what I meant.)

As near as I can figure out they were suing IBM for not accepting that they could cancel a license that said in it's text that it couldn't be cancelled and was fully paid up FOREVER. The ground shifted between copyright and patent and trade secret, without ever settling on anything specific that I could determine.

This has cost IBM *MILLIONS* of $$ --- and for what? To defend their good name against a bunch of, essentially, slander. But it wasn't slander, because it was based around court filings. That the court filings lacked the detail necessary to refute and that there wasn't any evidence in favor of them didn't mean that they weren't court filings, and thus immune from slander charges.

IANAL...but to me it looks like the court system is not where you look if you want to find justice. You can't even BUY justice. It's not for sale because they're out of stock.

Re:Do your own damned work.

[shark72]

"In order to prove it's the song they claim it to be, they must have downloaded it themselves, which could be seen as a form of entrapment -- obviously whoever they are downloading it from commits a crime by uploading the file to the RIAA goon doing this, which they might not otherwise have committed."

I'd love to see somebody try that in court. "Yes, your honor, my client did make all those files available for sharing, but if nobody had downloaded them, my client might not have shared them in the first place." Sort of a Schroedinger's Cat defense.

"Right -- although that has to be stated more clearly. Everyone knows you're sharing copyrighted works -- it's not public domain. But, you could claim you thought it was Creative Commons or something similar -- that you didn't know you weren't allowed to share it."

Do you mean lie and state that you thought Star Wars Ep. IV was Creative Commons? For most of the stuff shared on BT, this would be tough -- it wouldn't likely pass the laugh test.

Re:Do your own damned work.

[SanityInAnarchy]

It's not just private trackers. Most clients don't like other clients who don't share, meaning you won't get much before you're disconnected.

Especially when you're starting out. From what I remember, when I was on a 2 mbit half-duplex connection, I would always start out downloading at maybe 5k. After awhile, I'd have something to share, but if I restricted my upload rate to, say, 50k up, I'd only get 50k or so down, or less.

However, if I restricted my upload rate to 150k (and downloaded at 50k), then after maybe ten minutes, I could flip it around -- limit upload to 50k, and I could download at 150k. I couldn't quite go to zero, though, without other clients starting to hate me.

Re:Do your own damned work.

[SanityInAnarchy]

"Yes, your honor, my client did make all those files available for sharing, but if nobody had downloaded them, my client might not have shared them in the first place."

So the question is, then, whether merely making the files available is itself a crime.

For example, let's say the guy has a Windows computer, and has given the computer a name of "Johnson", with a username "Johnson" and password "Johnson". Or something almost as stupid, that someone would actually do. They then shared a folder on their hard drive not related to the music, on their open wireless network, so their brother could get some files or something. At which point, someone could drive past, notice a Windows network with a computer named "Johnson", and try that as a username/password, and suddenly gain access to the C$ share.

That's an extreme example, I know. But I think we need something a little more specific than simply making the files available.

And if making the files available isn't itself a crime, then your "Schroedinger's Cat defense" really should hold, because law enforcement isn't really allowed to encourage people to commit a crime and then nail them for it -- that's called "entrapment".

Do you mean lie and state that you thought Star Wars Ep. IV was Creative Commons?

Well, GP was suggesting you claim you didn't know it was copyrighted, which I think is even more ludicrous.

Re:Do your own damned work.

[SanityInAnarchy]

They have a rationale. I know that no one ever reads the stuff linked to in the article, but read the stuff linked to in the article.

Thanks for your links. I'm doing my best to skim, but so far, I'm still getting nothing more than "We think we might get some evidence here, so hand over the files."

What I don't see here is why the RIAA is actually allowed to sue here -- what evidence they actually have pointing to this particular person, or their laptop, or their former employer.

This is part of the reason why they have to have investigators find infringers, rather than just starting with A. Aaronson and ending with Mr. Zykowski.

Judging by past RIAA lawsuits, it wouldn't be out of character for them to do that. They have, in fact, filed suit against people who have never used a computer in their life, people who don't know how to use filesharing, people who are actually dead...

In any case, what's the legal procedure for the judge to be sure that they haven't just flipped through the phone book at random?

But assuming you do meet that standard, a lot of material is discoverable.

I'm just a little skeptical that they've met that standard.

If they have, then of course, I figure they have the right to that material -- although I think you're dismissing this part a bit much:

In an infringement case dealing with music and sound recordings, why would people look through emails (other than emails that have suspicious attachments, like mp3s, or zip files containing mp3s, etc.) as opposed to just searching for the audio files on the drive and taking an inventory of those?

Well, for one, they might be looking for possible stenography, though that's a bit far-fetched.

But you're assuming that no one would have sound files of a personal nature. I'm not sure you can say that, and certainly not if VoIP becomes truly mainstream. Certainly, if they were searching for videos, they're going to hit the defendant's private porn collection, maybe including videos recorded by girlfriends -- hey, it's happened before.

So yes, it's entirely possible they could hit something personal, even if they're just looking at sound recordings. I'm not saying that means it shouldn't be in discovery, but I am saying that I really hope they had some real evidence to even get that far. I think if they just handed the judge a screenshot of an IP address in a spreadsheet, they should be laughed at -- but unfortunately, things like that can and do get taken seriously.

Re:Do your own damned work.

[cyphercell]

There's actually another thing, but you see it less often, where if a discussion is getting uncomfortably close to being something other than idle chit-chat, a lawyer might have to stop, or change subjects, or avoid specifics.

That's why lawyers do well at politics :)

Last night I wrote a pretty good post but had stayed up too late, and forgot to click submit. Of course I don't have the literary skills you have, but it was pretty good for me. Since I took so long to respond, I'll just give you the executive summary.

I have the right to free speech, though limited. The RIAA has a right to protect the copying of their work, shouldn't they have limits too? I mean I can say a lot so long as people don't feel it's a legitimate cause for concern. The RIAA acts without this common inhibition and is not forced in any way to treat people with respect and dignity, is that really the nature of law designed to preserve long term stability?

These lawsuits represent the RIAA's inability to adapt to a changing market, it is not do to the rampant criminality of everyone under the age of 25. I know because I was copying music before Napster came along. These people that get sued are not distributors in any sense of the word, the distributors are websites that operate on a global scale, like Napster used to and Pirate Bay does now. Individuals like this Banker have absolutely no interest whatsoever in the criminal distribution of anything at all. They are simply tasked with using technology that has been made available to them, they just don't know how to use it well enough to avoid what they know is a catastrophic lawsuit. It's like electrocuting down syndrome victims for trying to have sex with strippers, it's extremely close to entrapment simply because the defendants are so ignorant of the issue at hand.

I'm sure I've goofed some legality on this subject, but as a (legal) layperson I feel I've expressed my position as well as I can, and I feel the gist of what I am saying is legally sound.

Now why on earth, when getting sued by these bastards should I ever have to go out of my way to create a three year report concerning all of the people that have ever used my computer. Hell I couldn't legally (by definition) presume to tell you who has used my toilet in the past six months, let alone three years. Not to mention the fact that I'm a professional computer user, this judge is asking way too much, the question itself is absolutely ludicrous.

Step 2

[hardburn]

1) Create a mixture of fart sounds over short clips from your own CD ripps, looping for a full hour.

2) Turn it into the RIAA with the rest of the sound files.

3) Profit!

My plan even gets an ever-elusive step 2.

This just correctly demonstrates...

[tgatliff]

The raping of your legal system, and a complete lack of the political world of caring. In no way would the founding fathers see this for anything other than what is it.... A classic shakedown to get cash for a large company... In this country we have to come to terms that Intellectual Property is not something you can force people to pay you whatever you want. There must be balance...

Re:This just correctly demonstrates...

[PopeRatzo]

Are you authority-loving, pro-corporate, free-market types getting this? Is the depth to which our system has sunk showing up on your shallow radar yet? You think it's OK for this industry organization to use this type of life-ruining intimidation tactic in order to protect their profits?

At what point do you decide that people are more important than quarterly stock prices? And before you pull out that old chestnut about what's good for GM being good for America, remember that not one of these corporations any longer has the least bit of allegiance to the USA. And before you tell me that all Americans now have a stake in the stock market the way Larry Kudlow does every week, bear in mind that the percentage of Americans who have retirement benefits from their jobs is shrinking and the number of people who once had employer-funded retirement accounts and who no longer have them because their employers have canceled them is growing. Oh, yeah, don't lose sight of the fact that the labor unions who got us those retirement benefits in the first place have been systematically destroyed by those grinning goons in nicely-pressed suits that are currently running our economy.

Throw in the millions (yes, that's millions) of people who have purchased or refinanced homes in the past 6 years who are now in danger of losing those homes to foreclosure and you get a picture of an economy that is a lot less robust than our peerless leaders are claiming.

The behavior of the RIAA and their lackeys in government is just one of the sickening signs of system that's become deeply threatening to anyone who's not rich or connected.

And trust me, those of you who think you're invulnerable because you're making $42k per year doing network support with health and 401K on top!!1! -- Starbucks is littered with technically skilled 30-somethings that once thought like you. And they don't show up in the unemployment statistics because, after all, they have a job.

Re:This just correctly demonstrates...

[vertinox]

Are you authority-loving, pro-corporate, free-market types getting this? Is the depth to which our system has sunk showing up on your shallow radar yet? You think it's OK for this industry organization to use this type of life-ruining intimidation tactic in order to protect their profits?

You can be anti-authority, anti-corporate, but free-market at the same time.

Its not hard. You simply have to commit to policies that disable the ability for corporations to use the federal government to enforce its power. Of course this might entail crippling the power of the federal government a bit or at least make congress look less attractive to buy.

Secondly, corporations are charted and granted by the US government as forms of protection for the shareholders against liability and hence are actually not truly free market in the sense of no government regulation.

Of course neither the any members of the federal government nor the corporations are going to be willing to give up said power.

But the point of the matter is that when someone is pro-big business and claims they are pro-free market, chances are they are free market in name only ignore this when it comes to using government in order to help them acheive profit for their shareholders.

I've said this before in previous posts... The whole reasoning behind copyright laws has been high jacked in order to get a government controlled monopoly on intellectual property to basically get handouts on a failing business model.

These lawsuits show this plainly.

Re:This just correctly demonstrates...

[Jah-Wren Ryel]

Are you authority-loving, pro-corporate, free-market types getting this? There is nothing even remotely "free-market" about this situation - copyright is a government granted monopoly and this court ruling is, by virtue of being a court ruling, government interference.

Re:This just correctly demonstrates...

[cyphercell]

You can be anti-authority, anti-corporate, but free-market at the same time.

Yep, you'd then be a capitalist, possibly fiscally conservative, probably flat out appalled with what is labeled as capitalism in the U.S. today.

Re:This just correctly demonstrates...

[Anonymous Coward]

This has nothing to do with free market vs. socialism. This is just plain corruption, allowing laws like the DMCA to get on the books or the SCOTUS free use ruling from the '80s to be ignored. The situation would be the same with a socialist economy, with the possible exception being that the technology to share files might not have been invented.

The next time you go off on an anti-freedom rant, try to remember that any economic/government system will be run by people and thus inherantly flawed.

          -Bri

Re:This just correctly demonstrates...

[MadUndergrad]

I think it's pretty obvious that the definition of "free market" in this country now is "market where the only regulation the government does is to help entrenched wealth". He probably should have used parentheses when he said free market though, to make it clear.

Re:This just correctly demonstrates...

[NewYorkCountryLawyer]

The raping of your legal system, and a complete lack of the political world of caring. In no way would the founding fathers see this for anything other than what is it.... A classic shakedown to get cash for a large company... In this country we have to come to terms that Intellectual Property is not something you can force people to pay you whatever you want. There must be balance... Thank you tgatliff. I share your sense of outrage at this decision.

Re:This just correctly demonstrates...

[NewYorkCountryLawyer]

Are you authority-loving, pro-corporate, free-market types getting this? Is the depth to which our system has sunk showing up on your shallow radar yet? You think it's OK for this industry organization to use this type of life-ruining intimidation tactic in order to protect their profits? At what point do you decide that people are more important than quarterly stock prices? And before you pull out that old chestnut about what's good for GM being good for America, remember that not one of these corporations any longer has the least bit of allegiance to the USA. Thank you, PopeRatzo.

Re:This just correctly demonstrates...

[NewYorkCountryLawyer]

I think it's pretty obvious that the definition of "free market" in this country now is "market where the only regulation the government does is to help entrenched wealth". He probably should have used parentheses when he said free market though, to make it clear. Agreed.

He didn't mean "free market", he meant "so called free market".

Bush/Reagan "market" economics is to free markets as Naziism is to democratic socialism.

Re:This just correctly demonstrates...

[PopeRatzo]

There is nothing even remotely "free-market" about this situation

No kidding, you caught that, huh? That's my point. There's virtually nothing about the economic/political system in the US that is a "free market", and I'm not sure I'd like it if it was.

Re:This just correctly demonstrates...

[maztuhblastah]

pro-corporate, free-market types

That's me, so I'll respond.

1) This is not a free market. Despite all the politicians' fancy rhetoric, America is not a free market economy. Nowhere close.

2) The RIAA is known to more or less bribe politicians and other authority figures.

Please don't conflate a corporate-owned, government controlled economy with a minimalistic, free market-based economy. They're two entirely different animals. In a free market in which government does NOT accept bribes from corporate interests, the RIAA would claim "ZOMG HE STOLEZ OUR FILES", to which the court would respond "Prove it." In America, the court responds "Mr. Defendant, prove you didn't." In a truely free market, copyright infringement is treated as a misdemeanor, punishable by a fine no more than the cost of the goods copied. In America, copyright infringement is a serious crime, punished by fines severe enough to financially cripple a citizen for life.

America is rotten. It claims to have a free market, yet government is bought and paid for by corporate interests. This reflects poorly, not on the concept of a free market, but on the leaders in power.

Re:This just correctly demonstrates...

[Jah-Wren Ryel]

Are you authority-loving, pro-corporate, free-market types getting this? That's my point. There's virtually nothing about the economic/political system in the US that is a "free market", and I'm not sure I'd like it if it was. I really don't get it. If you meant "not free-market" when you wrote "free-market," did you also mean "not authority-loving" and "not pro-corporate" too?

Re:This just correctly demonstrates...

[Anonymous Coward]

it gives me a hard-on to see america fuck herself this way, just like i get when i watch pr0n where a beautiful blonde does it to herself with a huge dildo.

Re:This just correctly demonstrates...

[PopeRatzo]

If you meant "not free-market" when you wrote "free-market," did you also mean "not authority-loving" and "not pro-corporate" too?

Let me see if I can clarify.

By "authority-loving, pro-corporate, free-market types" I was referring to anyone who reads National Review or watches Fox News.

I did not mean "not free market" when I said "free market". I meant anyone who believes that a "free market" is the answer to all of life's ills. There are quite a few of those out there, but they reproduce at a lower rate than the rest of us, so I expect them to be extinct after the next few cycles.

Re:This just correctly demonstrates...

[PopeRatzo]

I used to think like you. I used to read Reason mag and think that if government just got out of the way we'd be fine. But after I passed age 50 I started to see that I was mistaken. The "free market" does not exist. There is only wealth and power and people who get either try to get more of both. I believe I can take you on a 4 mile walking tour of my fair city (Chicago, USA) and convince you of the same.

I'm sorry, but old uncle Milton Friedman was wrong about almost everything. Nothing people do can ever be "laissez-faire".

Re:This just correctly demonstrates...

[NewYorkCountryLawyer]

I meant anyone who believes that a "free market" is the answer to all of life's ills. There are quite a few of those out there, but they reproduce at a lower rate than the rest of us, so I expect them to be extinct after the next few cycles. Now you've gone and given me some hope for a better future.

Thank you PopeRatzo.

Re:This just correctly demonstrates...

[Koftu]

So what now? You just give up on free markets altogether and turn _____? I'm honestly curious here, what's the ideal economic role for governments in your opinion if not laissez-faire?

Re:This just correctly demonstrates...

[Tacvek]

My feeling is the government should almost always support smaller businesses over larger businesses. This helps new or small companies remain around long enough to actually stand a chance of truly competing with the larger companies. My other feelings are that the Government favor individuals over large business. Personally I would prefer if large businesses had to *really* struggle to remain profitable. In most cases, many smaller companies competing is better for the people and economy than one or two large companies. As far as fiscal issues go, The government should ideally be required to maintain a balanced budget.

There must be some government regulation. The Government must be able to bring anti-trust suits. Otherwise you get monopolies like the old Standard Oil monopoly. (Ma Bell is not a great example because of other government regulations.) You need right-of-way laws (Some industries definitely require this, most notably the Electrical industries). Safety regulations should stay too, as the market is all too likely to choose cheap but highly dangerous products over slightly more expensive but far safer products.

For industries where for practical reasons there needs to be some regulation, I see no problem with that. I would see nothing wrong with a government department owning all the telephone lines, and allowing any company to use them for a fee, where the fees are calculated as to cover the costs of maintaining the lines/installing new lines as needed, but without generating a profit. The idea is that the company that owns the lines does not have an unfair advantage (Which is the current situation). (The laws do not let a cometing company put up a competing set of lines, as having 2 or more compete networks of phone lines in an area is absurd and not practical).

The key to capitalism truly working is always to have many small companies competing as equals. So the law should generally work to minimize one company having an advantage over another.

Re:RIAA

[nacturation]

They only are having success in the police states of america that means that they will soon parish. Are you sure you don't mean a church state? Perish the thought!

Sigh, so different from Germany

[renoX]

Poor americans, when you compare what was the German more sensible reaction
http://yro.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/08/02/16 47221 and this one..

Re:Sigh, so different from Germany

[henni16]

While I was happy about that, the sad thing is that this is ammunition for another law that's currently in the making:
remove judicial oversight and give copyright holders direct access to the usage data ISPs will have to collect and store for months to comply with the EU "OMG TERRAR!"-data retention directive.

That's the reason why legislators in Germany have done/plan
a) to broaden the scope of the original directive to allow usage of the surveillance data not only for the intended, usual suspects (terrorism, child porn, "serious felonies" like murder, organized crime etc) to include "oh, and all bad stuff that somehow involves computers"
b) during the IP law reform removed the planned "Bagatellklausel" that would have excluded small-style, private/non-commercial copyright infringement from being prosecuted as felonies (idea was "we don't want to criminalize the schoolyards")

Re:Sigh, so different from Germany

[ScrewMaster]

Don't get cocky, world. You're not far behind. If you think the lethal mix of corporate influence and institutionalized corruption doesn't exist in your country, you're sadly mistaken.

Re:Sigh, so different from Germany

[cyphercell]

You're right, come to think of it the US has actually stopped enforcing it's borders, so by default the rest of the world is in the US' domain.

Re:Sigh, so different from Germany

[Anonymous Coward]

You mean you're going to invade us next?

OOOOhhh, I am sooooo scared!!!

Re:Sigh, so different from Germany

[ScrewMaster]

You're right, come to think of it the US has actually stopped enforcing it's borders, so by default the rest of the world is in the US' domain.

Uninformed Remark #0001.

Re:Sigh, so different from Germany

[ScrewMaster]

You mean you're going to invade us next?

OOOOhhh, I am sooooo scared!!!

Uninformed Remark #0002.

Next!

Re:Sigh, so different from Germany

[cyphercell]

Hah, how long have you been counting? It inflammatory rhetoric, not quite uninformed though.

Re:Sigh, so different from Germany

[houghi]

In Belgium court told basicaly that they won't go after individuals, unless they were making money from it. Instead they go now after the ISPs.

Bad news for IT techs

[Anonymous Coward]

Well that's just fucking great. You do some work on a customer's/friend's/relative's pc within a 3 year period prior to RIAA lawsuit against them for copyright infringement, and you can expect to be subpoenaed. Idiot judge.

Re:Bad news for IT techs

[pfleming]

What's even worse is that they are asking for "By September 4, 2007, defendant is directed to produce all hard drives or data storage units, whether removable or not, which are in his possession and control, including but not limited to all hard drives or data storage units of any computer that through which he had internet access on or about August 17,2005."
So how many hard drives is that? I know that sometimes in a given day I may access the internet from two or three different computer systems/networks. I also have boxes full of hard drives sitting on the shelf. How the hell can they ask for so much that they might shut down entire businesses? There didn't even seem to be a time limit. I say stop buying stuff (and downloading/using it) from companies/groups/vampires that treat their customers like criminals.

Re:Bad news for IT techs

[vuffi_raa]

I rip these HD's for a living- not RIAA related mostly b2b and class action- I have to tell you it is EXPENSIVE- I don't understand how prosecution can justify the millions that it costs- esp. since the defendant needs to produce the data but litigant needs to pay for anything that it is going to analyze and submit- if say for some reason I was submitted a subpeona like this just the labor cost of declaring the privileged data from employer's hard drives that are accessed via the internet- this would be the entire company network - we are talking something in the realm of a 200-500 million dollar cost for the prosecution to produce the data- that is from my company (which is the lowest cost vendor as we have a great deal of internally developed automation) from another place you would probably have the costs shoot up to upwards of a billion dollars for the litigation cost- not to mention that when I access the internet through public access servers via wi-fi you would need to subpeopna those servers as well correct? it gets bigger and bigger- how could you possibly justify this economically?

Re:Bad news for IT techs

[hax0r_this]

Er, is it just me, or does that include ever CD or DVD that they own? TrueCrypt here I come.

Re:Bad news for IT techs

[Kjella]

I say stop buying stuff (and downloading/using it) from companies/groups/vampires that treat their customers like criminals.

Not going to happen... you have this:

Artist (which you really like, despite having signed a deal with the devil) ---> Label (which signs plenty artists) ---> RIAA (which consists of plenty labels)
Now lets say you don't want to buy the artist's latest album. Well, it hurts the one you really like quite a lot, and someone you don't like very little. Not going to happen.

It would be something like "Yes, I love your store and thinks it's great for the local community, but you're part of this big chain, and this big chain is owned by a parent company which does some bad stuff I don't like, so I'm going to the company next door anyway." Does that even remotely make sense to you?

People aren't going to hurt those they like to oh-so-barely prick those that they don't. Doesn't work that way.

Re:Bad news for IT techs

[louisadkins]

It can, actually. It just requires a large enough group of people. If one person does not buy from an RIAA label, the effect will be virtually nil. If no person buys from an RIAA label, the labels end up filing bankrupt. (probably after a last ditch set of lawsuits)

The main problem, there, is that you would have to get a lot of people who don't really care (yet) to participate. A large part of our country here, in the US, suffers from NIMBY syndrome. If it's not them in the courtroom, why should they care?

Re:Bad news for IT techs

[macdaddy]

I commonly access the Internet from production servers as well. They aren't even my own property but that of my employers and our clients. Would I be expected to steal the property of those entities for submission to the court?

Re:Bad news for IT techs

[macdaddy]

The only way it will ever change is after a revolt of the artists. The artists have much more control over the labels and thus the RIAA than any one individual or any 1,000 consumers can ever hope to achieve. If the artists revolt en masse then we can effect greater changes within the labels and thus the RIAA.

Re:Bad news for IT techs

[Hydian]

Oh geez...I can't be expected to remember where I was two years ago. On that particular day, I could have been on as many as 4 different companies' networks from several different possible locations. There's absolutely no way to tell which particular computers I would have touched or even if they are still in service. You'd have to supeona every drive those companies own and that is no small order. You'd also have to supeona every machine that my company physically had in town on that day. Again, half of those machines are no longer in service.

Likewise, I could have visited any number of friends on that day. Even at home, I probably have a dozen or two drives either in use or in a bin someplace. All but one or two of them has probably been wiped in the past two years.

And names of everyone who might have used my computers in the past three years??? Impossible. I'd even go the step further and point out that since I have a wireless access point with WEP encryption running, I have no control over who accesses the net over my connection, nor any real way to identify those people.

Re:Bad news for IT techs

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, there are two interesting things here: If he just happened into a large quantity of obsolete PCs or HDDs (say many tech's "boxes full of hard drives") , before Sept, he would be obligated to turn all of those over. Presumably the RIAA would also be obligated to return every one in working condition or be able to prove that each broken one was that way when they got it.

Similarly, a hard drive that is no longer in his possession or control need not be submitted (unless that is covered elsewhere).

Re:Bad news for IT techs

[HiThere]

I have totally stopped buying pre-recorded CDs several years ago. Any new CDs contain only data (or, possibly, programs, generally Linux distributions).

I also no longer go to movies, and don't even rent tapes (or dvds). Granted the payment that the *AA get from DVD rentals is minor to non-existent, I don't want to have the habit.

I've chosen this for my own benefit, not theirs. I grant that they won't even notice that I'm no longer their customer. But *I* will. And I won't think badly of myself.

If quitting cold turkey is too much for you...what I did as an intermediate step was whenever I went to see a movie I paid the EFF twice the ticket price. (If you want to support your local theater...patronize their snack bar. My understanding is that that's where they make most of their profits on any movie. That the MPAA gets almost all the profits from the showing of the movie itself.)

Re:Bad news for IT techs

[iainl]

If I'm reading that right, that's every CD or DVD in his house and every one he's rented from Blockbuster in the last couple of years. Then every drive from his employer, employer's ISP and his home ISP.

There is just about no possible way to comply with this order.

Re:Bad news for IT techs

[NewYorkCountryLawyer]

If I'm reading that right, that's every CD or DVD in his house and every one he's rented from Blockbuster in the last couple of years. Then every drive from his employer, employer's ISP and his home ISP. There is just about no possible way to comply with this order. I agree. It's way too invasive.

Re:RIAA

[WoollyMittens]

Seeing how much profit is made from religion, I'd say the church is a corporation just like the record companies and even Microsoft. All of them buy lawmakers. I'd call it the Corporate States of America and be done with it.

There goes my backup system

[CustomDesigned]

Defendant was required to produce all hard drives in his possession and control.

I suppose that includes all removable hard drives used for backup. The RIAA gets to completely destroy all computer resources of an individual or small business because someone/something used their internet account. I wish all the non-techies in my acquaintance could understand how this makes computer security even more important. I also wish I could afford a 200G tape drive...

Re:There goes my backup system

[kimvette]

Solution?

Stop purchasing RIAA member-produced products. They'll publicly blame piracy but will admit internally to their organization that their attempt to brainwash the public into believing Fair Use does not exist is resulting in their slow but sure demise unless they adjust to the market forces.

Re:There goes my backup system

[Anonymous Coward]

The RIAA gets to completely destroy all computer resources of an individual or small business because someone/something used their internet account.

Same shakedown as seen weekly on the cop shows -- "Are you going to let us have what we're not legally entitled to without a warrant? No, then we'll be back with a warrant. We will then seize every piece of computer related equipment in your office, including cellphones, PDAs, answering machines, etc. We will hold all of this as "evidence" until the court case is over. You and your legal counsel will have zero access to these materials. If we find anything we could have used to progress the case faster and you have told us it's not there, we have you for lying to investigators (good for seven years) and obstruction of justice (good for another seven years). That's for openers. Do you have a Plan B for continuing in business during this time? Did we mention we want all backup tapes which would allow you to reconstruct your business files?"

If this is not normal practice by cops, why is there no outcry from cops about how they are portrayed? Is it possibly bullshit and they just want everyone to think they can really pull this shit?

I have a friend who, when I bring this up, always tells me it can't happen -- it's just a scriptwriter's imagination run wild.

Why then can I not find any public rebuttal asserting that these tactics are not possible and/or used?

Your guess?

Or are we just living in a motherfucking police state?

Re:There goes my backup system

[Maestro4k]

Stop purchasing RIAA member-produced products.

Seeing as they've sued at least one person who didn't even own a computer that's not necessarily going to help. In the long run it might (put them out of business), but short term no one is safe from their litigation campaign.

parish

[baomike]

How could you miss the line "Parish the thought!
vis a vis a church state..

Interrogatory #7 sounds intentionally misleading

[henni16]

Nice response of the plaintiff in the "joined letter" on page 10 where they are asked to provide details of the investigative methods used to obtain the IP address and screenshots.
They talk about lots of things in detail that aren't really relevant and than basically skip over what was really asked:

They provide lots of details on how to use Kazaa (go to a website, download the program, click this button, then that button, select entry from list X, yadda yadda) to "connect with like-minded infringers" and lots of whining about how "them be exponentially stealing perfect copies of teh precioussss".

Followed by:
"We logged on to Kazaa and then did stuff like making screenshots like everybody could do.
  And we saw him do bad things, oh yes we did.
  Or go and ask Media Sentry to get additional non-answers because that's all top secret business stuff you wouldn't understand anyway."

dear germans on slashdot:

[circletimessquare]

american music connoisseur here, looking for a good proxy server... let the obvious solution to this retarded american legal bullshit commence

dear riaa: the internet was originally designed to route around damage in the event of a nuclear war.
you may consider your legal efforts to be nothing more than damage, to be routed around

feel free to sue somebody about this. because that's obviously the solution to your problems. fucking retards

Re:dear germans on slashdot:

[henni16]

Funny, I was thinking about finding a proxy outside of Germany. You might want to reconsider: Data_retention_in_the_European_Union:

"Germany, for example, has indicated that it seeks to make retained data admissible in certain civil copyright cases" Oh, and then there currently is a VERY big buzz about making it legal for law enforcement to secretly break into suspects' computers and install a special "federal trojan horse". There are reports of people being contacted with job offers regarding the modification of network traffic to poison downloads on-the-fly. Political argument is: "There's a security gap! All will die if the government isn't allowed to search through HDs without anyone knowing about it and if it isn't able to capture passwords. Terrorists might be using encryption!!1! "

Re:dear germans on slashdot:

[fedxone-v86]

I'd mod you flamebait but I'd rather bite.

What you don't mention is that Europeans still have a say in political decisions. In the case of the german data retention law proposal, here is a page full of possibilities for Germans to stand up against the new trend of privacy restriction.

And about the "trojan buzz", enjoy your old news! German politicians still seem quite impressed by big brother, saviour and winner of wars USA and would really really really like to copy all of its political and economical success. And so they cry their fads.
But did you notice that constitutions in Europe actually mean something?

Politicians can come up with the wackiest of ideas. That way they give me a chance to be an active citizen. Maybe you should stop moaning and make use of your bloody rights!

Re:dear germans on slashdot:

[henni16]

What's flamebait about pointing out that there are real dangers for privacy at the moment?
Yes, there are people opposed to it and yes, I hope the courts will kick out as much of it as possible for being unconstitutional.

But that doesn't change the fact that the people currently in power think that all that crap is a good idea and are pursue it.
Which is why Germany might not be the heaven for communication privacy that the poster I replied to assumes or hopes it is.

[quote]And about the "trojan buzz", enjoy your old news![quote]
What old news?

[quote]But did you notice that constitutions in Europe actually mean something?[quote]

I did also notice that the constitution in Germany can be changed by the parliament and that the current government actually has the necessary majority to do so if they agree on the issue.

If the implementation of the data retention directive is declared unconstitutional in Germany but not in Europe, what's the most likely action of politicians:

a) getting the directive nixed across the EU against all their previous claims how everybody will be killed by terrorists without it
b) breaking with the EU about that, again against all their..
c) finding a way to weasel around the issue by rewording laws and trying again

Re:dear germans on slashdot:

[Weedlekin]

"If the implementation of the data retention directive is declared unconstitutional in Germany but not in Europe"

There is no European constitution, so it isn't possible for an act or law to be unconstitutional in the context of the EC itself.

Re:dear germans on slashdot:

[hr raattgift]

The (proposed) Treaty Establishing a Constitution for Europe really only consolidates a number of other key treaties and directives into a single document. Very little in TCE is actually new, and the new stuff is mostly a formalization of what the European Union cannot do because of subsidiarity, proportionality and conferral [although this is simply derived from the Maastricht Treaty on European Union (1992)], the Charter of Fundamental Human Rights [already accepted by all member-states], transgression of the broad aims of the EU (democracy, respect for human rights, the rule of law, and so forth), or the scope of the Union.

TCE is mainly of legal interest in establishing the EU as a distinct legal entity with standing in the International community, and most especially in international agreements on behalf of itself. It will still be "run" by the member-states and won't be able to enter into treaties or diplomatic arrangements without the member-states' prior agreement, but once that agreement is achieved, only one signing authority will be needed (that of the Union), instead of the 27 today.

Most of the rest of TCE has already been proposed as secondary treaties likely to be agreed by the member-states over the next two years, even in those that will require plebiscites.

"There is no European constitution, so it isn't possible for an act or law to be unconstitutional in the context of the EC itself"

That TCE has not been fully ratified does not undermine in any way the Treaty of the European Union (Maastricht 1992), The Treaty of Amsterdam amending the Treaty of the European Union and the Treaties establishing the European Communities and certain related acts (Amsterdam 1997), The Treaty of Nice (Nice 2001), or the Draft Treaty amending the Treaty on European Union and the Treaty establishing the European Community (aka Reform Treaty, IGC mandate 2007, member-state vote Lisbon 2007). These represent the constitutional underpinnings of the European Union much as the English Bill of Rights (1689), the Act of Settlement (1701) and the Act of Union (1707) and subsequent acts form the constitutional underpinnings of the United Kingdom.

In the UK, things are "unconstitutional" that are incompatible with these key statutes. In the European Union, things are "unconstitutional" that are incompatible with these key treaties. The similarity is not accidental. Much of EU jurisprudence stems from the initial work in the ECJ by Alexander Mackenzie Stuart (appointed by Edward Heath to the ECJ and the inter-governmental treaty negotiation team) and every UK government representative since, despite the incongruous P.R. activity against "creeping Brussels" by the very same governments.

All parties tend to think that codification and consolidation is useful for making the law more predictable and more accessible to everyone, and this is one of the reasons behind the TCE and the proposed Lisbon Treaty to enact some of it. It's also -- again not accidentally -- behind several Acts of the Parliament of the United Kingdom in recent years to consolidate common law rulings, treaty obligations, clauses of various statutes and regulation and modern practice with respect to certain Great Officers of State (like the Prime Minister and Lord Chancellor) into single Acts such as the Constitutional Reform Act (2005), and the Human Rights Act (1998).

The parallels between the more consensual aspects of the United Kingdom as a sort of federal state and the European Union as a sort of federal state and several actual federal states created by statutes passed by the Westminster parliament (including three which are presently EU member-states) are pretty obvious to anyone with a background in constitutional law, many of whom tend to be optimistic europhiles as a result. Some familiarity with the UK government's 1950s political positions with respect to post-empire Britain's place in Europe also tends to make EEC/UK parallels obvious, since the forme

Re:dear germans on slashdot:

[Weedlekin]

"That TCE has not been fully ratified does not undermine in any way the Treaty of the European Union (Maastricht 1992)..."

Treaties are not however a European constitution. Contravening the terms of a treaty is therefore illegal, but not unconstitutional.

"In the European Union, things are "unconstitutional" that are incompatible with these key treaties."

They are not, because the treaties are not a constitution, and aren't treated as a constitution.

"Finally, "EC" (if you mean European Community by this) is a distinct legal entity that is part of the EU (European Union), per the Treaty of Rome and Maastricht. "

I know, but I was referring specifically to the EC, not the EU, of which the EC is first (prime) pillar. It is the only pillar where a citizen can use European law to enforce their rights, and where EU law takes precedence over national law -- the other two pillars of the EU (common foreign and security policy, and police and judicial cooperation respectively) are concerned with inter-govenrmental and foreign policy, and have no direct effect on the people who live in EU countries.

"The EC is, however, just a subset of the practical entity that is the EU and the term is generally avoided except when required for legal or technical precision."

Which is precisely the way I used it. The only currently obsolete term is EEC, which is what it used to be called until the Matricht Treaty changed that to EC.

"TCE would abolish the legal and current technical meaning of "EC", although it will probably still get some colloquial use by old people who remember pre-Maastricht days."

It was called the EEC in pre-Mastricht days -- EC is post-Mastricht. Mastricht established the EU, and it also redefined the EC as a political and legal entity rather than an economic one like the older EEC.

Re:dear germans on slashdot:

[henni16]

There is no European constitution, so it isn't possible for an act or law to be unconstitutional in the context of the EC itself.
Yeah that was a somewhat sloppy choice of words by me.
What I hand in mind on the EU level was that Ireland "claims that the [European]Court[ of Justice] should annul Directive 2006/24/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 15 March 2006 on the retention of data generated or processed in connection with the provision of publicly available electronic communications services ...on the grounds that it was not adopted on an appropriate legal basis," link

Re:dear germans on slashdot:

[Weedlekin]

Ireland IMO stands a pretty good chance of getting the current directive annulled, because it should have been decided according to the relevant EU rules, not EC procedures, which have no jurisdiction over matters of security or foreign policy (the other two pillars of the EU), and therefore cannot legally be used to decide such matters. Any EU legislation that falls outside the jurisdiction of the EC (the EC is the first pillar of the EU) cannot become law without all members agreeing to it, which means that one dissenting member has an effective veto.

The Irish have two other attack routes that they could also use in the European Court of Justice:

Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights states that a person has a right of privacy in "family life, his home and his correspondence". The ECJ has a history of applying this article with a very broad brush, so they'd stand a pretty good chance of getting the directive overturned on the grounds that it violates a citizen's right to private correspondence.

Finally, there's the Data Protection Act. The European Data Protection Supervisor (EDPS) has opined that the directive contravenes the Act because private companies are required to retain the data, not governments or law enforcement bodies (who have certain exemptions that do not apply to anyone or anything else).

Past ECJ rulings indicate that, unlike "Eurocrats" and politicians, they interpret the spirit of laws rather than strictly adhering to the way they're written, so those who attempt to wiggle through perceived holes in the written rules tend to come badly unstuck.

An outrage

[cyphercell]

This is a horrific application of legal theory, in fact it flies in the face of US court proceedings. It's called "burden of proof" and without it you are guilty until proven innocent, literally you are tasked with proving yourself innocent.

It's a sad day indeed when a privately owned entity can practice McCarthyism and nobody notices. Welcome to the United Corporations of America, an experimental perversion of capitalism, totalitarianism, and military dictatorship.

Free speech is all we have left.

Re:An outrage

[Anonymous Coward]

"What? We missed free speech? We'll be around for that next week..."

Re:An outrage

[timon]

Free speech is all we have left.

Only as long as it only occurs in designated free speech zones.

Re:An outrage

[ScrewMaster]

The question that should be on all our minds whether Slashdot qualifies as one of those.

Re:An outrage

[cyphercell]

It's in the domain of monitored free speech, as is everything on the Internet, thank you department of homeland security.

Hold on, it looks like there's a swat team in my back yarrrr......

Re:An outrage

[jollyreaper]

This has nothing to do with the article at hand, just consider it a public PM to screwmaster.

That quote of yours is weird enough that I googled up where it came from. Ended up reading the whole damn novella. Gotta learn to stop doing that sort of thing!

Re:An outrage

[NewYorkCountryLawyer]

This is a horrific application of legal theory, in fact it flies in the face of US court proceedings. It's called "burden of proof [wikipedia.org]" and without it you are guilty until proven innocent, literally you are tasked with proving yourself innocent. It's a sad day indeed when a privately owned entity can practice McCarthyism [wikipedia.org] and nobody notices. Welcome to the United Corporations of America, an experimental perversion of capitalism, totalitarianism, and military dictatorship. Free speech is all we have left. It is truly a sad day indeed.

Re:An outrage

[NewYorkCountryLawyer]

It's in the domain of monitored free speech, as is everything on the Internet, thank you department of homeland security. Hold on, it looks like there's a swat team in my back yarrrr...... It's probably just the uniformed RIAA "investigators".

Re:An outrage

[Lunarsight]

Thomas Jefferson said we should have a revolution every 20 years. Looking where all this is going, perhaps it's about time we took him up on his offer. I'm not really the firearms-carrying type, myself. But can we at least do old-fashioned "angry, torch-bearing mob" thing? (I promise I would be more careful with the torch this time, and try not to light myself on fire like last time.) We could burn some straw-filled figurines of the RIAA agents in effigy. It would be fun. (Do you need a fire permit to do that?) Not only would we be making a statement, but it would give the news agencies something to report. I'm sure they're all tired of the Paris Hilton thing by now.

Re:An outrage

[davper]

That'll be 2 cents for that free speech tirade.

Re:An outrage

[ScrewMaster]

Yeah ... The Great Time Machine Hoax. I read that a long, long time ago and for some unaccountable reason that line stuck in my head.

Real mafia tactics?

[Anonymous Coward]

I keep waiting for the recipient of one of these lawsuits to go apeshit and torch the RIAA offices some night. Then a couple of drive bys on law offices... leave Lars Ulrich's severed bleeding head in Mitch Bainwol's bed etc... Lets see how they really like mob tactics.

Botnets?

[infonography]

So how does one prove that the computer in question had been/was infected? Unless they kept detailed logs at the ISP then only an analysis of the traffic would be proof.

I would guess the ISP would balk at that due to;

1. The unlikelihood they had these on file. (if they did they would see a mass exodus of customers on GP)

2. The in-house costs of doing this analysis likely outside of the skill sets of the usual NOC staffers. Meaning Who is going to pay for said work? (See reason 1)

3. The Lawyers for the ISP refusing and standing on the grounds that they as a Common Carrier are not required to keep/give this sort of info without a search warrant in a CRIMINAL case. (by the way who are they we should shine some light on them)

But other claims could be made, like claiming that the wireless Linksys router the had didn't have any security or was provably crackable. [read as walk in the park]

Re:Botnets?

[Anonymous McCartneyf]

I can't read "insecure router" as "walk in the park." The kind of judge who would accept "it could've been anyone with Wi-Fi" as an answer that would clear the defendant would likely be the kind of judge who wouldn't require this request by the RIAA to be forcibly enforced.

Re:Botnets?

[infonography]

"walk in the park "

meaning as simple as.

Nice Country You Have There

[PenGun]

Be a shame if anything happ .... oh it did!

this is legalised highway robbery...

[advocate_one]

"Stand and deliver, your money or your life..." They could drag just about anybody into "court" for this and get them to account for every media file on their computer... nobody who's had a computer for any period of time would be innocent here... everybody does it... anyone who says they don't is a liar... what we need are switched on jurors to do their duty and return not guilty verdicts...

Re:this is legalised highway robbery...

[db32]

In a strange way, the fact that they are attempting to make this criminal may actually work out for the better. This kind of crap frequently doesn't get a jury. Criminal trials get juries. As long as juries can be educated that they can agree that they can declare laws unjust and kill the mess.

Re:this is legalised highway robbery...

[BlueStrat]

In a strange way, the fact that they are attempting to make this criminal may actually work out for the better. This kind of crap frequently doesn't get a jury. Criminal trials get juries. As long as juries can be educated that they can agree that they can declare laws unjust and kill the mess.

Actually, you're correct, but I think for a few additional, possibly more important reasons. I think making it a criminal matter would help in one of the stickiest areas..guilt beyond a reasonable doubt as opposed to more likely guilty than not, and also rules of discovery, to a lesser extent. One other thing that might make a difference also, is the standard for evidence in a criminal trial as opposed to a civil action, as well as the defendant being made aware of legal action immediately, as opposed to the filing of "John Doe" Ex-Partum actions.

Cheers!

Strat

Re:this is legalised highway robbery...

[Original Replica]

"As long as juries can be educated that they can agree that they can declare laws unjust and kill the mess. "

If you can get a someone on the jury that actually knows about jury nullifaction/veto, past the RIAA lawyers. And for that matter past the Judge. Have you noticed how Judges tell the jury how they should view the evidence or how part of testimony should be disregarded? In my own recent experience as a juror, the judge did everything short of directly instructing us on how to find the case.

Re:this is legalised highway robbery...

[NewYorkCountryLawyer]

"Stand and deliver, your money or your life..." They could drag just about anybody into "court" for this and get them to account for every media file on their computer... nobody who's had a computer for any period of time would be innocent here... everybody does it... anyone who says they don't is a liar... what we need are switched on jurors to do their duty and return not guilty verdicts... Only one problem with that. These cowards always back down just before the jury trial. There aren't any jury trials. They run up the legal bills as much as they can, and then run away with their tail between their legs.

Re:this is legalised highway robbery...

[Weedlekin]

Something equally important is the fact that they'd need to convince the DA's office that there's enough evidence to warrant bringing a case to court, and if they get past that hurdle, they then have to rely on prosecution lawyers that aren't their own ones to argue it. The defendant on the other hand gets to select his or her legal team, and it's likely that organisations such as the EFF would find some notably able people to represent them "pro bono". A decent team of defence lawyers would have little trouble getting a good proportion of the sort of evidence that are allowed in civil cases ruled inadmissible, and could choose from many expert witnesses who would testify free of charge to establish reasonable doubt about the rest of it. It's likely that they'd also have a notably difficult job finding juries who would consistently and unanimously condemn people to custodial sentences and a life-long criminal record for a first offence of sharing songs or movies over the Internet.

Those members of the *AAs who are pushing for strong criminal sanctions against "casual pirates" should therefore, to paraphrase the old saw, be careful about what they wish for, because they could well get it, after which they will have ample opportunity to lament the fact that unlike civil courts, criminal justice systems that are worthy of the name tend to favour the accused rather than the accuser.

Re:this is legalised highway robbery...

[db32]

You know I guess I didn't think that deep into it, but there is another one that is going to be a HUGE FUCKING NAIL in their coffin. Chain of Custody is going to fucking murder them. So...when their hired goons steal crap off your computer and it over and then rush to court... I don't think a lawyer with half a braincell would let that be entered in, by the end of the day if they can even get a trial going, it will boil down to "we are pretty sure that the people we paid to catch him doing this caught him doing this". The police will actually have to start getting involved, real warrants for things, and they will have to actually declare exactly what it is they are looking for instead of trolling around for anything they can find.

Re:RIAA

[Anonymous Coward]

Wow that is so insightful. Let me guess, you are 16 yo and just read something by Jack Kerouac ?

possible court contempt?

[harvey the nerd]

"..the name and address of each person who used his computer during the three (3) years prior to commencement of the lawsuit" - if one has a teenager that has friends or parties, sounds like possible exposure to contempt if he can't figure out who was on the machine. Also, one wonders if 15-16 yr old computer repairers count (it is not so rare). Is this contempt of court or contemptible court?

Re:possible court contempt?

[Anonymous Coward]

You could just submit a phone book, that would keep them busy for a while :)

Re:possible court contempt?

[Faylone]

Considering what happens when you try something like paying a fine in all pennies("Okay, now count them.")I'm guessing bringing a phone book would make your life far more miserable.

Free speech?

[Twiceblessedman]

Please take your free speech to one of the free speech zones.

Take advantage of this bizarre phenomenon!

[Anonymous Coward]

1. If you work for AT&T, and you feel uneasy about the NSA folks in the network room, just start sharing music files like crazy!

2. The RIAA will demand all of the hard drives.

3. PROFIT!!11!!ONE!!

This business plan also works for potential whistle-blowers in the DoJ or the White House.

I wonder if...

[Anonymous Coward]

I wonder if these judges and politicians would continue to gently fondle the 'nads of the RIAA and MPAA is some of their kids were the targets of these ludicrous attacks? As a firewall admin for a very large healthcare orginization, I routinely see (and block) P2P traffic from users who manage to get the software loaded, or vendors who bring in lappy's with P2P stuff running. Not too long ago I noticed not one, not two, but three remote hosts connected to such a vendor's lappy from the 22.0.0.0/8 network.

[root@whoppix ~]# whois 22.0.0.0
[Querying whois.arin.net]
[whois.arin.net]
OrgName: DoD Network Information Center
OrgID: DNIC
Address: 3990 E. Broad Street
City: Columbus
StateProv: OH
PostalCode: 43218
Country: US
NetRange: 22.0.0.0 - 22.255.255.255
CIDR: 22.0.0.0/8

Perhaps the music mongers should try to get all the hard drives from these guys??

Re:I wonder if...

[Drgnkght]

That address is for the Defense Supply Center Columbus, or DSCC for short. Google Map Link

Re:I wonder if...

[Tacvek]

That address is for the Defense Supply Center Columbus, or DSCC for short. Google Map Link My guess is that the DOD has its NIC located there. The simple fact is that the subnet referenced is a DOD subnet, which is merely managed from that location. The users of the address could be anybody in the DOD anywhere on Earth.

Tell judge he didnt own a computer, not his....

[cheekyboy]

If its not HIS computer per se, then its the companies and they can give them a blank page.

They can also say, "we upgrade often and cycle computers constantly.... he personaly may have used 100 computers, none of the desktops are 'personal' but remote profile logins.

The server is not his, but the companies. Contains trade secrets, FOFF.

Give them an old 286 from storage, "yeah it was HIS computer!!!"

Re:Tell judge he didnt own a computer, not his....

[Anonymous McCartneyf]

The defendant's employer will be supeona'd! Anything they tell the court, they'll have to say under oath, and I've a feeling this judge will go down harder on defense perjury than on RIAA perjury.
If the employer says he used 100 computers, the RIAA will simply demand all 100 of them. They're already demanding every computer and hard drive the defendant used in the last three years, and they already have judicial force behind that demand. And it doesn't matter who owns the computers--if the defendant used them, they're fair game.
The RIAA likely won't accept that he only used a computer which doesn't even have enough memory to run Kazaa, especially if it still has dust on it.
I'm sure the RIAA will use the same conservative methods on all the remote log-ins as they did on their original sting....
So, the trade secrets are the only chance--and I don't know if it'll be enough.

Re:Tell judge he didnt own a computer, not his....

[Soruk]

A 386SX16 with 4-8MB RAM running WinNT4. Kazaa should run on that. Just.

(Run? Well, not the right word, but the code should execute.)

Number 3 is incorrect

[sirwired]

The Lawyers for the ISP refusing and standing on the grounds that they as a Common Carrier are not required to keep/give this sort of info without a search warrant in a CRIMINAL case. (by the way who are they we should shine some light on them)

While ISP's are not required to keep this data, if they have it, a subpoena is the correct legal document to collect evidence or compel testimony from a third party in a civil court proceeding. If the ISP has it, and the subpoena is not quashed for other reasons (too broad, violates some other statute, whatever) then a refusing ISP would be held in contempt.

Warrants are only used or necessary in criminal cases.

SirWired

"i was broken into"

[nurb432]

And turned it into a bot/ftpserver.

You go find everyone that accessed my pc and did things without my permission.

Oh, they also must have got my wifi too, as its not encrypted.

GM made russian trucks during cold war.

[cheekyboy]

GM was never for USA.

During cold war, GM had massive plants in russia, they made most of their cars, or at least told them how to do it, just slap on a russkie label on it and no one knows.

NOTE to people with 401s, move them to 30% Euros, and 30% GOLD/SILVER certs. 30% OIL STOCKS.

Park your car where those backup tapes got stolen

[cheekyboy]

"Oh judge, so sorry, I parked at costco for some toilet paper, and when I returned to my car it was broken into and my box with harddrives was STOLEN!!!"

boo hooo!

Or put the HD in the back seat, next to that 20inch subwoofer speaker during your 200mile drive ;)

Your honour

[future assassin]

I put my computer equipment into my car to deliver it to the RIAA. I went back into the house to get the rest of my cdr's but when I came out of the house the car was gone (aka stolen) along with my computer which was in it. I had left the keys in the cars ignition.

Re:RIAA

[Anonymous Coward]

Hi:

I'm a technical writer. Guys like you mean I will always have work.

Plausible deniability

[mdmkolbe]

I have to wonder what sort of plausibly deniable setups you could have to destroy any such hard-drive evidence without being cited for contempt of court or destruction of evidence.

1) "Here's my hard drives ... Yes, your honor, they are encrypted, but the key was destroyed 2 years ago in a *ahem* fire and I'm still working on trying to get that data back. I expect to have cracked the encryption around 2025." (In truth I burned the key after memorizing the key.)

2) "Here's my hard drive ... Yes, your honor, they are just randomly generated data. But don't destroy the data I need it as a key to decrypt something else completely unrelated to the present matter that isn't on any of these hard drives." (In truth the hard-drives are encrypted but using one of those encryptions that are impossible to distinguish from random data.)

Would these work legally? Other ideas that might work?

Re:Plausible deniability

[Aetuneo]

That's one of the things that Truecrypt is supposed to do (find your own link!). It allows you to have an unencrypted partition, and then two other encrypted partitions, which are indistinguishable from random data. Thus, they are unlikely to realize that you are using encryption, since you have some data on the first drive - everything that you don't mind being seen - and if they do realize you are using encryption you can give them the key to the less incriminating encrypted partition (although it might be a good idea to give them this key at the beginning, for legal reasons). If they accuse you of having a second encrypted partition, well, how do they know? If you deny it, they'll have to spend a lot of time and money trying to find out if one is there. Of course, if you do this, you'll have to doctor the hard drive labels to make the size match that of the first (two) partition(s), so that they don't realize that the sizes don't match, and use that as proof of a second/third partition.

You have to be kidding me.

[papabear1134]

Ok, so I looked into some of what was written in the discovery document. Couldn't get past the first few pages.

First thing that jumped out at me.

Page 2, para 1 (defendant)
"He has offered to provide copies of his passport to demonstrate conclusively his absence fromt he U.S. during the times when song files were allegedly downloaded, but that is apparently not sufficient for the plantiffs."
--
Page 3, para 2 (plantiff)
"Defendant has produced certain pages of his passport to Plantiffs, but those pages are inconclusive as to the Defendant's travel abroad."

Ok, so since when is a copy of your passport (with dated stamps of countries you entered) NOT conclusive you traveled there at that time?

Next.

Page 2, para 2 (defendant)
"...I delivered his computer to Mr. Guida on June 7th for creation of a mirror drive. The computer has been returned, and I am informed that the mirror drive has been done. I have just received their expert's forensic report."

So... guessing Nothing was found, otherwise the plantiff wouldn't keep pushing so hard to get some evidence.

Last thing that caught my attention before I gave up reading it.

Page 3, para 3
"Specifically, the computer produced by Defendant does not contain any evidence of Verizon software necessary to connect to the internet via the Verizon network..."

Are these people serious? I mean, they believe you HAVE to install your ISP's bloated crapware to connect to the internet... Never once in my life have I ever installed the ISP's software, you DON'T have to, and better you don't. When I read that I gave up on reading more. Half of the lawyers, judges, and people in government (more along the lines of 90% of them..) need to be shot. They are way behind the times, pushing through judgements and laws without understanding what it is they are dealing with.

This is the number one problem with this country currently, Outdated laws, and law makers.

Re:You have to be kidding me.

[stonertom]

Ok, so since when is a copy of your passport (with dated stamps of countries you entered) NOT conclusive you traveled there at that time? Next. Well if the Road to Guantanamo is anything to go by, being on police bail (and reporting daily) isn't a reason you can't be in another country. I guess the same logic applies here.

Re:Park your car where those backup tapes got stol

[Mathinker]

> Or put the HD in the back seat, next to that 20inch subwoofer speaker during your 200mile drive ;)

The magnetic fields necessary to erase modern magnetic media are far higher than can be generated by an consumer-buyable electromagnet. Trying to heat it above the Curie point "by mistake" would also be difficult, since the temperature required is almost certainly above the melting point of aluminum.

By far the easiest way to destroy the hard drive is to shatter it with a large hammer (being very, very thorough). Kind of hard to make up a story how that happened ("One of my sons threw a party and some guy on PCP got anti-technological." Good luck!)

Welcome to Discovery

[saihung]

This is par for the course for the discovery process in the United States. You can force your opponent to produce ANYTHING other than articles covered by attorney-client privilege as long as there's a plausible way that it could lead to evidence admissible at trial.

And this is why almost the entire rest of the world thinks our discovery process is barbaric.

Re:Welcome to Discovery

[NewYorkCountryLawyer]

This is par for the course for the discovery process in the United States. You can force your opponent to produce ANYTHING other than articles covered by attorney-client privilege as long as there's a plausible way that it could lead to evidence admissible at trial. And this is why almost the entire rest of the world thinks our discovery process is barbaric. Except that the judge applied that rule only in one direction. He made the defendant bare his whole life. He required NOTHING of the plaintiffs.

What does this have to do with the RIAA ?

[Builder]

Near as I can tell, this has very little to do with the RIAA.

If we're going to spend so much discussion and effort demonising someone, shouldn't we go after the ACTUAL plaintiff ?

How about a headline that mentions the evil bastards once in a while instead of allowing them to hide behind their PR flacks.

If you want to hate someone here, hate Atlantic records - they are the bad guys here!

Re:What does this have to do with the RIAA ?

[HiThere]

I prefer to hate all of the record companies impartially. Except for a few very small companies that can be presumed either to not be members of the RIAA, or to have no significant input into their policies.

That Atlantic Records was the heavy here doesn't mean that I shouldn't equally despise Columbia. They hire the same goons.

Now, THAT's how to pressure someone!

[karlandtanya]

Harass their employer and point the finger at the employee.
About 5 minutes after the first phone call, the boss says to the employee:
"I don't know what you did and I really don't give a sh*t. We're running a business here and you're keeping us from getting things done. This is an at-will employment state. Got me?"
(In Montana, they'll just call you into the office 3 times, document it, and THEN fire you)

Geez, even the scum of the earth, collection agencies, figured that one out!
It's incredibly effective, there's NO recourse, and it hurts everyone.
That's why it's explicitly illegal to do (for collection agencies).

Hizzonner needs to pull his head out.

Re:Now, THAT's how to pressure someone!

[NewYorkCountryLawyer]

Harass their employer and point the finger at the employee. About 5 minutes after the first phone call, the boss says to the employee: "I don't know what you did and I really don't give a sh*t. We're running a business here and you're keeping us from getting things done. This is an at-will employment state. Got me?" (In Montana, they'll just call you into the office 3 times, document it, and THEN fire you) Geez, even the scum of the earth, collection agencies, figured that one out! It's incredibly effective, there's NO recourse, and it hurts everyone. That's why it's explicitly illegal to do (for collection agencies). Hizzonner needs to pull his head out. Yes it was really wrong of the judge to allow them to play that game.

Hmm.

[Anonymous Coward]

> Defendant was required to provide the name and address of each person who used his computer during the three years prior to commencement of the lawsuit.

You know, with all this wiretapping thing and judges like these, I certainly feel relieved I don't live in the "land of liberty".

If only you USians stopped beating others in order to get slaves, erm, I mean, in order ro liberate them.

Flood them with names

[Corydon76]

Defendant was required to provide the name and address of each person who used his computer during the three years prior to commencement of the lawsuit.

See Appendix A, a Manhattan phone directory. There, it contains a list of every person who has accessed the computer in the past 3 years, plus a few others. That's within the letter of the decision, and is actually somewhat common in defense. The defense literally floods the plaintiff with thousands of files, of which it is unlikely the plaintiff will be able to sort through to obtain the necessary data in time for trial.

Interesting Fact About Double Edge Swords

[LifesABeach]

Maybe it is time for the masters of the RIAA to be invited to testify, at every hearing, that the RIAA brings to trial? And their major share holders also?

Re:Park your car where those backup tapes got stol

[Soruk]

Put all your hard discs in a box on the roofrack of your car, and it just happens that the rope holding it in place comes adrift while doing 70mph on the motorway scattering your discs over a wide area and being driven over by everything behind you.

I'd be surprised if the discs survive that, especially if any get run over by trucks.

Friends Too?

[nurb432]

How about everyone he has ever had contact wtih in the last 3 years. They must all be guilty from association with this evil 'pirate' and we have to take them all down!

Ancient computers--can they work for this?

[Anonymous McCartneyf]

386, yes. 286? I recognize belatedly that P2P software suitable for copyright-infringing can run on them, yes, though whether the RIAA would recognize it is another matter.
Judging from what you say, likely it would not have Kazaa.
We will note that (if what I hear from others is correct) one of the things that brought this round of corporate evidence-snatching on was that the defendant's home computer lacks standard Verizon internet software. Hopelessly obsolete computers will fall in the same category as "internet-free" computers--and so the RIAA will keep digging.

Re:Park your car where those backup tapes got stol

[Mathinker]

I wouldn't really rely on that destroying the media itself, but I agree that it might have a good chance of damaging the mechanical parts enough that RIAA would need to go to an expensive data recovery shop to read the disks afterwards. Don't know if discovery costs can also be passed on to the loser of the court proceedings, probably so, so RIAA might just bite the bullet and do it. Maybe not, though, since they always just run with their tail between their legs when they're about to lose.

I wouldn't recommend doing that *after* the court has asked for the disks, although you could alway try to lie about the exact timing.

FYI, the cell phone of a friend of mine got run over by 2 cars after falling while he crossed the street, and still worked partially afterwards, the only thing which totally died was the display.

"walk in the park"

[Anonymous McCartneyf]

Yes, I know what the phrase itself means. I was silly enough, however, to think that you meant that it would be a walk in the park to get off the RIAA charges with claims of an open or easily-cracked router. If you only meant "an incredibly easily-cracked router," I apologize for misunderstanding--though, alas, I'm still cynical.

You forgot a mandatory step..

[freaker_TuC]

.. Add some brown noise so they'll shit themselves to heaven

4) World profits