Testimony Wraps In RIAA Trial

Eskimo Joe writes "A federal judge surprised observers in the Captiol v Thomas file-sharing trial yesterday by barring RIAA president Cary Sherman from testifying. 'After a brief recess this afternoon, plaintiffs' counsel Richard Gabriel and defendant's counsel David Toder made their cases before the judge as to the relevance of Sherman's testimony. Toder argued that Sherman's testimony was not relevant to the question at hand, the fact of whether Thomas was liable for copyright infringement. Gabriel said that Sherman would be able to tell the jury why this case was significant, and more importantly, describe the harm the RIAA believes piracy has caused to the music industry. "I don't want to turn this case into a soap box for the recording industry," Toder argued in response.' Testimony wrapped up today [Wednesday] with closing arguments expected Thursday morning." Ars has up a summary, filed a few hours earlier, of other testimony in the trial. The jury could come back with a verdict later today.

Comments

How much harm exactly?

[Cryophallion]

Gabriel said that Sherman would be able to tell the jury why this case was significant, and more importantly, describe the harm the RIAA believes piracy has caused to the music industry.

A. It is important to them because it may mean the end of them using shotgun tactics (hope to hit someone) to try and curb piracy.

B. It is important to him because they pay what I assume is a substantial salary to him, and he will not look good to the media companies backing him if revenue drops even further because they don't have money coming in from lawsuit settlements

C. They "believe" the piracy has caused harm. I've yet to see credible evidence that is has (at least using realistic numbers, instead of their inflated ones, plus I don't even really know if piracy is any worse than the tape swapping days). I believe that their methods have caused the Consumer and Taxpayers harm. Does that mean I can testify?

The lawyer was exactly right, as was the judge. It was not relevant to the question at hand, it would have been emotional rather than factual, and it would make the case an even bigger circus and soapbox. Plus, I want it to be our soapbox where we expose the RIAA for the slimy weasels they are.

Oh, and I don't like the RIAA, in case I hadn't made it clear yet.

Re:ummmm Tasty...

[omeomi]

getting close to making me have faith in our judicial system again... almost.

And they're finally starting to look into the Gitmo Habeas Corpus thing. It's almost like the courts are remembering it's their job to respect the rule of law...

He shouldn't had to try.

[aadvancedGIR]

The RIAA already had anti-pirating laws voted, so why would he have to testify that pirating is bad?
Probable answer: because thet cannot prove the guilt of the defendant so they tried to move the trial away from the determination of the truth.

A (semi) Contrarian View

[R2.0]

While I loathe the recording industry and hope they lose this case, I believe it may have been a tactical error on the part of the defense to object to this particular witness. Once on the stand, and after spouting of about damages to the industry as a whole, etc., it would then be the defense's turn. And since the subject matter of the whole industry had been brought up by the plaintiffs, the defense would be free to ask about the industry as a whole - for instance, what is the industrywide average revenue earned by individual artists on a CD sale? What are the terms of the industry standard contract artists regarding copyrights? Did the industry not collude to fix CD prices, as evidenced by their conviction in Federal court?

Oh yes - I think the jury would love to hear an industry representative answer questions about his industry.

Re:A (semi) Contrarian View

[Zontar_Thing_From_Ve]

And since the subject matter of the whole industry had been brought up by the plaintiffs, the defense would be free to ask about the industry as a whole - for instance, what is the industrywide average revenue earned by individual artists on a CD sale? What are the terms of the industry standard contract artists regarding copyrights? Did the industry not collude to fix CD prices, as evidenced by their conviction in Federal court?

None of which have any relevance to the matter of the trial, which is whether she did or did not install Kazaa and thus share music with others on the internet. All that would have to happen is that the RIAA attorney would argue that the questions are irrelevant and have the judge agree. The plantiff's attorney made the right call in arguing against the testimony of the RIAA guy.

You might remember the Menedez brothers trial of some years ago where they were originally acquitted of murdering their parents at their first trial, but then re-tried and convicted. At the first trial their lawyer had them testify that they were supposedly sexually abused by the father, which is why they killed him, and the jury bought it. In the second trial, the judge ruled that whether or not they had been abused was irrelevant to the case at hand and denied them the ability to testify about it, so without a "justification" for the crime, they were convicted.

You obviously have never served on a jury if you think that a jury would necessarily find it relevant whether or not the RIAA has engaged in all the things you mention. A jury might hear such testimony and decide that while all those things are bad and believe that the RIAA did them all, they have nothing to do with whether or not the plantiff broke the law. Juries are rarely made up of well educated people with a grasp of technology and technological issues.

It's irrelevant.

[SatanicPuppy]

The question is not, "Should file sharing be ethical or legal" but "Did the defendant systematically violate the copyrights owned by the plaintiff?"

The law states that file sharing is copyright infringement. If they can prove she did it, or very probably did it, she's liable. That's all there is to it. The RIAA has a bunch of IP address data, and some username stuff, but they habeus no corpus because of a conveniently dead hard drive. The defendant is claiming that their data collection methods are shoddy, that the IP data is inconclusive, and that there is, in effect, no proof of infringement.

The whole trial (it being a civil trial) will come down to who the jury likes more.

Arguing the constitutionality of copyrights applied to music, etc, would have to go to the Supremes, which would involve a case where someone actually admits to doing the filesharing, and argues that it's a constitutional right, and that the laws against it should be ruled unconstitutional. Since admitting to doing the sharing is silly since you're far more likely to get off by denying it, no one (to my knowledge) has yet tried this method.

Suing your customers

[Xebikr]

From a related article: http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20071003-defendants-counsel-hammers-away-at-piracy-picture-painted-by-riaa.html

During his cross-examination of Geek Squad member Ryan Maki, Toder was able to use Best Buy's sales history of Toder to show that she was an avid music fan that bought a lot of music from the store, both before and after February 2005. "Best Buy's records show that she bought hundreds of CDs before February 2005, did she not?" asked Toder.

"There are quite a few CDs and DVDs purchased," replied Maki. "She's a good customer."

Way to drop the legal hammer on one of your best customers.

Re:Don't get your hopes up

[MindStalker]

Actually no it appears she owns most of the music she was sharing. So she was ripping, and possibly sharing those rips on Kazaa. Of course the RIAA has always been more concerned with the sharers than the downloaders anyways. Just wanted to correct you on that point.

Re:Uncertain either way

[cpt kangarooski]

Ordinarily I just get annoyed with people who fail to read the definitions of words in the law, instead substituting their own fantasy definitions to make themselves feel unjustifiably good about themselves.

You, I'm going to go a bit further and call you an idiot.

You actually quoted this: a public broadcasting entity (as defined in subsection (g) of section 118) But you failed to actually look to see what the definition was. I can't let that pass.

But let's now do the work you should have done before posting like an idiot.

The definition of a public broadcasting entity is to be found at 17 USC 118(g). It says:

the term "public broadcasting entity" means a noncommercial educational broadcast station as defined in section 397 of title 47 and any nonprofit institution or organization engaged in the activities described in paragraph (2) of subsection (c).

So there are two things that can qualify. Noncommercial educational broadcast stations as defined at 47 US 397, and nonprofit institutions or organizations doing the things described at 17 USC 118(c)(2).

47 USC 397 says, at subsection (6):

The terms "noncommercial educational broadcast station" and "public broadcast station" mean a television or radio broadcast station which--
(A) under the rules and regulations of the Commission in effect on November 2, 1978, is eligible to be licensed by the Commission as a noncommercial educational radio or television broadcast station and which is owned and operated by a public agency or nonprofit private foundation, corporation, or association; or
(B) is owned and operated by a municipality and which transmits only noncommercial programs for education purposes.

17 USC 118(c)(2) is the subsection where she has to be a nonprofit institution or organization doing:

production of a transmission program, reproduction of copies or phonorecords of such a transmission program, and distribution of such copies or phonorecords, where such production, reproduction, or distribution is made by a nonprofit institution or organization solely for the purpose of transmissions specified in paragraph (1)

Which humorously brings us to:

performance or display of a work by or in the course of a transmission made by a noncommercial educational broadcast station referred to in subsection (g)

And thus full circle.

But in any event, it is clear enough that this woman does not apply for a part of the law that is intended to protect PBS stations and the like. For someone posting on a geek board, you don't seem very good at it.