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RIAA's 'Misspeaking' May Have Affected Verdict

Posted by Zonk on from the slip-of-the-tongue-i-swear dept.

NewYorkCountryLawyer writes "David Kravetz of Wired.com covered last year's Capitol v. Thomas trial gavel-to-gavel. It's worth noting, then, his article saying that the RIAA's recent statement — that Sony's top litigation lawyer 'misspoke' during the trial. She said that making a copy from one's own cd is 'stealing', which (in his words) may have caused a major miscarriage of justice. Wired further points out that later on in the trial, during the RIAA's examination of Ms. Thomas, 'On the hard drive she [turned] over were thousands of songs Thomas said she ripped from her CDs. The RIAA's Gabriel suggested to jurors that copying one's purchased music was a violation of the Copyright Act. Gabriel, for example, asked Thomas whether she had ever burned CDs, either for herself, or to give away to friends.' Gabriel, the RIAA's lead attorney, apparently misspoke too — prejudicing jurors along the way."

2 of 270 comments (clear)

  1. perjury ? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    can a lawyer be disbarred in the US for "mispeaking" under oath and saying something untrue about the legality of a defendant's conduct, while being questioned as a witness for the side that pays her salary?

    why the hell not?

  2. I make an illegal copy of my CD when I play it... by speculatrix · · Score: 5, Insightful

    .. because copies exists not only on the CD but also (1) in the digital bitstream being processed by the digital processing in my home cinema amp, (2) another in the sound pressure waves in the air, and (3) a further one in my brain as it listens.

    Sometimes I even violate copyright by singing along to a song without having bought a performance license! Even worse, I might sing the song at a different time, thus time-shifting/reproducing it! If I hum it in a public place, that compounds the crime because then it's a public performance.

    Since I want to avoid becoming a career copyright-violating criminal, I am moving to Antigua, land of the free, land of RIAA-copyright-free.

    Sadly, I wish everything I wrote above was bollocks, but far fetched and silly as it might be, it seems the Recording Ass of America don't see it as such.