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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.'"
3 years eh? Good luck with that.
It's not a matter of evidence. The burden is on the defendent, since it is copyright law.
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...
Poor americans, when you compare what was the German more sensible reaction6 47221 and this one..
http://yro.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/08/02/1
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.
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?
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.
Under the influence of Post-Cyberpunk Gonzo Journalism
Be a shame if anything happ .... oh it did!
First thing that jumped out at me.
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.
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.
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.