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Lindor Attacks Record Company Copyright-Pooling
NewYorkCountryLawyer writes "Back in March, 2006, Marie Lindor called the record companies suing her a collusive cartel, and their joint agreement to pool their copyrights "copyright misuse" (pdf). A year and a half later, the RIAA apparently got nervous about that allegation and made a motion to strike the allegations. Ms. Lindor has struck back, pointing out to the Judge not only that the RIAA's arguments had no legal basis, but also that its brief was completely silent as to any justification for the record companies' copyright-pooling agreement. Such a justification would be necessary for it to pass muster under 'rule of reason' analysis mandated by the US Supreme Court. Ms. Lindor, a home health worker who has never even used a computer, let alone infringed anyone's copyrights with a p2p file sharing program, is the same defendant who exposed, with a little help from her friends, some of the weaknesses in the RIAA's expert testimony. She also obtained a ruling that the RIAA's $750-per-song file damages theory might be a wee bit unconstitutional."
I really want to buy this woman (and her lawyers) a drink. They are probably doing more for our digital rights than any single group of people right now. I don't mean to discount the contributions of organizations such as the EFF (I have, in fact, contributed money in the past), but it's hard to root for a nameless, faceless group like that. This woman is fast becoming an icon for fighting the good fight against the frivilous lawsuits that the RIAA continues to file.
It may be a tad melodramatic to say this (especially now), but I certainly hope that she finds her place in the history books.
If Murphy's Law can go wrong, it will.
The RIAA bought and paid for elected representatives. Those representatives created laws which allow the RIAA to metaphorically rape anybody who has stepped out of line causing them the loss of any amount of potential revenue. The courts need to respect the laws that our corrupt politicians have put on the books.
If you can't hire corrupt politicians to make a mockery of the constitution at the expense of normal citizens then what can you do?
It should be as easy to buy judges as it is to buy congressmen.
I can't think of a single song that is "worth" a 10th, nay a 100th of that value.
I'd pay that to hear a funural march at the RIAA's funeral
-mcgrew
The playground bully getting their ass kicked by a girl. lol.
That's our life, the big wheel of shit. - The Fat Man, Blue Tango Salvage
Which is why most restaurants that used to have their employees sing Happy Birthday to patrons celebrating their birthday now have to sing some contrived crapola instead. Another example of how copyrights can seem to live forever and dorks (oh, excuse me "greedy corporations" but dorks works too) try to grab money for something they never should have really owned and certainly didn't come up with.
I say! She's challenging the bedrock of modern law! It's all written and owned by the cartels, corporations, rich and poweful and they've earned it! They have worked very hard and at no little expsense to get those laws, buying representatives, influencing judge selections and so forth. How dare the little ordinary person challenge this status! This almost made the monocle pop right out of my eye! I shall have to see what I can do to prevent these common rabble from believing they were hah! created equal.
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
We can also always count on the random A.C. who doesn't have even a smidgen of understanding to carry on about STEALING. There's this thing called "the Big Picture" which you are apparently failing to see. You had best understand that both sides in this conflict have rights under the law, but only one side is interested in removing the other side's rights ... permanently.
The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.
a home health worker who has never even used a computer
Uhh... WHAT??
Let's donate some money to her defense fund ... Too bad she doesn't have a website for that.
The Raven
Ray Beckerman +5 Insightful
Man, I'm sure steamed about that. Restaurant employees can't sing the actual Happy Birthday to customers.
Man, is there any limit to the harm copyrights bring to society?
Meanwhile, back in reality, the most of us would like to see a law passed making it illegal for restaurant employees to burst into any song at all while we are trying to enjoy a meal.
Not yet. It's still copyrighted until 2030.
I figure that another reason restaurant chains don't use "Happy Birthday" is so that they can create a custom song that contains nothing but two notes separated by a single semitone. It's their attempt to make it a tiny bit less excruciating to listen to the bellowing of a group of waitstaff with a sum total of zero singing talent.
Hope she wins and gets a couple of million from the RIAA (as well as setting a precedent)
I hope she wins and the RIAA members effectively lose the copyrights to every song involved in these suits.
That's the point of the "copyright misuse" claim: Part of the penalty for misuse of a copyright is the loss of the ability to enforce it at all.
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
"Happy Happy Birthday,
I really hate this song!
But if I do not sing it,
I won't work here for long... Hey!"
Copyright (C) 2007 quantum bit Productions
Redistribution permitted under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike license.
It was only a matter of time before someone managed to use Slashdot for it's ability to harness ideas and viewpoints. Usually it's just spitting into the wind with no one making any effort to record the good ideas that do pop up.
Our friend, the NewYorkCountryLawyer, has not only made Slashdot his personal soap box, what the Russians would call the 'Father of all soapboxes', but he has managed to harness all the good ideas generated from several Slashdot stories and put them to good use. Not only has he put these ideas to his own personal good use, he's doing good for society as a whole, and sticking it to the RIAA in the process.
Sir, I tip my hat to you. Keep up the good work.
Aero
Please stop hurting America -- Jon Stewart
You aren't paying for the single.
You are paying for your unlicensed and unlimited redistribution of the single through the P2P nets.
Meanwhile, about that drink......
Ray Beckerman +5 Insightful
It was not legal, but technical, input we were looking for.
As for Slashdotters being lawyers, as I said when I was interviewed in September, 2006, on Slashdot, I learned a valuable lesson then. One needs to look beyond the statutes and the cases for the law; one also needs to look at Slashdot. If something is modded +5 on Slashdot, it must be the law as well, even if neither Congress nor the Courts have recognized it yet.
:)
Ray Beckerman +5 Insightful
Yeah, just as long as you aren't looking for the +5 Funny. Sure as hell wouldn't want those considered as law :-)
You're probably thinking of ASCAP and BMI, which are copyright clearinghouses for songwriters and publishers. Even so, they aren't a musician's union, either.
My blog
ELOI, ELOI, LAMA SABACHTHANI!?
OK folks, I am pleased to announce that the PayPal account for Ms. Lindor's legal defense has been set up.
The email address is:
wraymond@hotmail.com
Ray Beckerman +5 Insightful
I read through most of the transcript of the Q/A with the RIAA expert. He pretty much agreed with the defendant's stance. I don't know if you can do this in a trial but I would try to make sure those answers are summarized on a 1-2 page document to make sure the judge sees the answers. No he did not see any filesharing SW on the pc, could not verify the MAC address, Could not verify how many PC's were behind the router, whether wireless was used...and most damaging that there are COUNTLESS ways to spoof an IP address. that alone BY THEIR EXPERT!!!...should get this lawsuit thrown out with the RIAA forced to pay lawyer fees and laughed out of court.
Don't forget the fortunately unsuccessful attempt by the MPAA to have the Video Cassette Recorder ruled a contraband technology, and the legal battles both they and the RIAA have fought all down the line as new technologies are brought to market. They have the gall to talk about theft, when they've stolen far, far more from us and are trying to take more. There needs to be a certain balance, a balance that the Founders struck so well that it stood up for two hundred years. These people have to know what they're doing, the damage they're causing: the fact that the persist anyway indicates that they are the ones who are unbalanced.
Of course, realistically it's too much to expect attack lawyers funded by non-U.S. corporations to have any respect for the U.S. legal system or its citizens. Personally, the behavior of the RIAA member companies in this regard should have resulted in an international incident. I mean, if an American corporation went overseas somewhere, and funded a bunch of lawyers to begin suing the pants of the locals, you can bet there'd be an uproar.
The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.
Such a justification would be necessary for it to pass muster under 'rule of reason' analysis mandated by the US Supreme Court.
The RIAA has goofed big time on this one. What they were doing was marginal at best. Now with the litigation campaign and the examination of the law as a result is starting to bring down the house of cards. I think they goofed on the litigation campaign in hopes everyone would roll over and play dead. I don't think they expected a fight with intelligent people who could see the flaws in their assertions.
They played the lottery trying to get shady practices cemented as standard operating practices. They played the gamble that the defendants would fold as the cheap option. They gambled and stand a good chance of getting copyright law handed to them on a platter with shady practices exposed as a big RICO problem.
The truth shall set you free!
Ever heard of The Pirate Bay?
Unfortunately, there IS an uproar in many countries about the goings-on of American-funded entities in the rest of the world. It just doesn't make US (or other national) headlines for some reason.
Isn't this exactly the same as the copyright pooling Lunix organizations are doing in an effort to browbeat companies into supporting FOSS?
I don't see how it's different: the RIAA is trying to get money, and teh FOSSies are trying to gain control over commerical software developers. Different goals, but the exact same method: pooling copyrights in a quid pro quo extortion scheme.