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RIAA's Attack On NewYorkCountryLawyer Fails
NewYorkCountryLawyer writes "p2pnet.net reports that the RIAA has egg on its face. When the Electronic Frontier Foundation requested permission to file an amicus curiae brief on behalf of Boston University students challenging the RIAA's ex parte discovery order, the RIAA lawyers attacked the blog 'Recording Industry vs. The People' for its criticism of the RIAA as seeking to 'abuse the American judicial system, distort copyright law, and frighten ordinary working people and their children' and then falsely claimed that the blog's author is an EFF attorney — this despite the fact that they know that the blog's author (known on Slashdot as NewYorkCountryLawyer) is a partner in a New York law firm and not an EFF attorney. Judge Gertner apparently wasn't impressed, and granted the EFF's motion, rejecting the RIAA's objections, since she felt amici curiae might 'shed light' on the 'copyright law' and 'computer technology' issues before her."
I am glad that NewYorkCountryLawyer posts on Slashdot, because I always learn from his posts.
But my pop-culture saturated brain always translates that username as, "Single Female Lawyer," and I worry about visitors from Omicron Persei 7.
Do what you can, with what you have, where you are.
It takes far more money to buy the entire judicial system than it does to buy a few hundred politicians
this helped me out. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amicus_Curiae_Brief
You have to wonder what they'll do next.
Maybe claim that if you share ear buds with your friend, that you're "stealing" the music? That you should be prosecuted for theft?
Beer is proof that God loves us and wants us to be happy.
is it just me, or are there more and more similarities between the RIAA's public handling of these cases and the SCO ordeal? It seems like ever week or so another judge issues a smackdown to the RIAA's motions or momentum. I hope for the sake of the public that this doesn't drag on as long as the SCO trial did/is, but I can't help but draw the conclusion that the RIAA's path is ultimately doomed. If not doomed by the courts, then doomed by inciting subversion in their user base. It's just a shame that this has to affect so many more people than just SCO vs. Novell/IBM (and Linux users collectively)
I'm not sure this is the correct euphimism to use for the RIAA in this sentence.
Over here in Blighty, the expression "you have egg on your face" is often said to a man who had forgotten to zip up his trouser flies, possibly after visiting a urinal. That's because we British are a quiet and genteel people who consider it quite rude in polite company to shout out "OI, MATE! YOUR F***IN' FLIES ARE OPEN!" and prefer to use this quaint euphemism instead. Of course, the fact that every other British person in hearing range already knows what the euphemism means and immediately starts staring at the target's gusset-region anyway, doesn't enter into it.
However, the fact that this euphemism implies that the target is no doubt displaying a flaccid, tiny, shrivelled willy while everyone else is pointing their fingers and laughing at him can hardly be applied to the RIAA now, can it?
Oh wait...
Gentoo Linux - another day, another USE flag.
i really can't tell, because the could just as easily use this for momentum.
In Soviet Halo, the game kills you (socially anyway)
How many times on how many levels can one reference oneself. He submitted an article that was written by him about a court ruling on his work. I'm not dissing him, I'm just envious. Maybe someday, I'll figure out a way to write a fully recursive story.
Well.. maybe. Or Maybe not. But Definitely not sort of.
Luckily, once I read his posts, I was quite impressed and informed but also saddened by the way he was treated when he was first interviewed on Slashdot. But lucky for us, he keeps contributing massively and acts as a bridge between us and that strange foreign legal world where logic will get you killed.
Furthermore, I hope I get a follow up story where NewYorkCountryLawyer gets mad and pushes back. Of all the people assaulted by the RIAA, he's the most likely to be able to comprehensively do something about that. Hats off to you, Ty & Ray!
Just, please, NYCL, for the love of God whatever you do do not install P2P client software on your computer at this point!
My work here is dung.
Would you like green eggs and ham?
Support NYCountryLawyer RIAA vs People
i live and work in midtown, have an hd camera and an editting set up, and a burning passion in support of a common sense approach to intellectual property
i am not looking for a soap box, i am offering you a soap box. if you ever had dreams of pulling a michael moore or a morgan spurlock on the riaa, let's do it
call it "taking on the riaa", or i am sure you can think of a better title. we can sample some of the more egregious bastard things these guys pull, and document, in real time, as they are taken down in case after case, digesting it into something more palatable for the mainstream public by explaining to them why it should matter (in a cinematic way, not a talky way: interview say that woman from wappingers falls who was attacked). emotionally, it would simply be little guy versus vile conglomerate. all factual, no stagey theatrics. but not boring and dry legalese. done right, it would be cinema gold
i'm 100% serious. if you are game, i am willing to commit serious time to this. lead us on nycl. i am sure there are other slashdotters who would sign on to this too
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
Ray Beckerman +5 Insightful
From Wikipedia
In case anyone else was wondering what amicus curiae meant.
IANAL-BIPOOS
I'm not a Lawyer but I play one on Slashdot
Sorry about the writing. Robot fingers, you know? Cliff Steele in DOOM PATROL #23
Re: Arguments
If you didn't enjoy it, you would have picked the wrong field.....
Layne
What's next?
The courts are going to be fair?
What ever shall become of the RIAA?
MSBPodcast.com The opinions expressed here are my own. If you don't like 'em... Think up your own stuff.
[url=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unfrozen_Caveman_Lawyer]Phil Hartman on SNL in the late 80's / early 90's[/url] for originating the win.
"When I see a solar eclipse, like the one I went to last year in Hawaii, I think 'Oh no! Is the moon eating the sun?' I don't know. Because I'm a caveman -- that's the way I think."
Who pee'd in your wheaties this morning?
Beer is proof that God loves us and wants us to be happy.
So, when are you, cpt kangarooski and Compulawyer going to form up like Voltron and deliver an unholy (but fully legal) beating to RIAA? Also, how much will tickets be to attend said event?
The World's Worst Webcomic!
Sexless or soulless? Or worse than both: a tourist?
Well, RIAA lawyers, the answer is simple. Show the world you believe what you say. Sue NYCL for libel! Take on Harvard too, while you're at it. The aggrieved tone of that statement tries to make the accusation sound ridiculous. So why don't you RIAA guys put your money where your mouth is, and sue? You have full confidence you will win, don't you, because he's wrong? Or could it be he's right, and you're nothing but a bunch of sulky bullies spouting trash talk from a safe distance? Guess you haven't got guts enough to take him on, and that says it all right there. This attempt to quash a brief is the equivalent of wishing you could have someone arrested and jailed, but in absence of any reason to do so settling for walking your dog over to fertilize his yard. Weak.
Intellectual Property is a monopolistic, selfish, and defective concept. It is "tyranny over the mind of man"
Ray Beckerman +5 Insightful
A lawyer will have many dates while a geek or nerd will have none.
As an ex-sysadmin turned lawyer I can assure you, to my great chagrin, that is not true.
i will sue you into oblivion ;-)
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
One thing that wasn't made clear by the articles, that I was hoping Mr. Beckerman could clear up. It appeared that the EFF was awarded their motion in spite of the RIAA's attempt to falsely associate you and your blog to them, but there's no indication, that I saw, that the court has been made aware that you and your blog are not at all associated.
Was the false association that the RIAA made between you and the RIAA ever set straight to the court? I know that if anyone tried to falsely associate me to an organization in such a manner, even to an upstanding organization such as EFF, I would be writing all kinds of letters attempting to set the record straight.
The
I'd also like to know if RIAA might face any penalties for lying in their statements to the court. Does this count as perjury?
Kythe
Would you be interested in running for president? That's one of the most encouraging sentiments I've heard in a long time.
Don't laugh. In Scotland just a few months ago, a car repair facility was fined for public performance without a license because the mechanics doing the repairs were playing their radios loud enough for customers in the waiting area to hear. Remember that radios are licensed in Britain, and that they can be really stupid at times. Especially since the customers could have listened to exactly the same station on their own radios without a problem.
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
New York Country Lawyer, you are an asset to Slashdot. I hope you continue to live long and prosper; you've certainly educated me, and I suspect the same is true for a lot of regular Slashdot readers.
"Here's what's happening. You're starting to drive like your Dad..." - Red Green
Have you ever been in the situation where you meet with a client's developers, and they have no idea what they're doing? You say "TCP", they hear "Let's go for coffee"? And at that point, you know that the project is doomed.
I wonder if that's what the RIAA has. They've got the business guys and the lobbyists to put weight on the lawmakers, but when it comes to applying the law itself, they've hired a bunch of guys who are the equivalent of an MCSE with a mail-order diploma?
Last post!
-nB
whois gawk date unzip strip find touch finger mount join nice man top fsck grep eject more yes exit umount sleep dump
This whole scene now is speaking loud volumes of;
spreading the feces around their own neighborhood and wallowing in it.
Let the show go on. I'm well overdue for some good entertainment value, and I am getting that value out of the lawyers involved with the RIAA.
All content in this message is copyright (c) 2008. All rights reserved. RIAA is prohibited here.
Circumcision is child abuse.
> So I asked my youngest son, who is an astrophysicist and techie, and he set me straight.
> And my life hasn't been the same since.
I know exactly how you feel.
My youngest son (who is 3 and has an opinion on everything) also loves setting me straight.
UN-altered REPRODUCTION and DISSEMINATION of this IMPORTANT Information is ENCOURAGED.
-- baylink
"Amicus curiae" non "amicus RIAAie" est!
NYCL for President. Go get 'em, sir! 8-)
Paleotechnologist and connoisseur of pretty shiny things.
RIAA sues someone based on scant evidence, without even knowing their identity. EFF offers some advice on the subject. RIAA flips out because EFF knows the issues pretty well, and moreover, is respected by many in the legal system. Judge accepts offer of testimony from the EFF.
"RIAA = RICO?" is the question that we really need answered.
I sure wish someone would finally get out in the open how much the recording companies rip us off when we buy a cd. Look at the cost of a blank cd versus what we pay for a recorded one. Remember when cd's came out?? Last forever, and cost less than albums. How much do they actually pay the artists?? Ask anyone how much the groups started by Maurice Starr actually got paid. The BS about paying the artists is just that BS. If mom and pop actually knew how much they're paying that goes to the conglomerates.
It is Omicron Persei 8!
If you have a sentence that spans six lines on a widescreen monitor, chances are that you've completely lost track of the original idea of your sentence; if you're not going to use proper conjunctions to break things up, then keep the fricking sentences short -- short enough that someone can grasp the concept without reading them over three times to see what you were trying to say in the first place -- otherwise, people lose their train of thought; this is despite the fact that most of the readership here is intelligent, it's just that it is a courtesy to not make people's heads explode when all they're trying to do is RTFA.
Sincerely,
GN.
This is Seti Alpha 5!
Weaselmancer
rediculous.
however, this my online hobby. my real life is nothing like my online identity. if you met me offline, you would find me quite pleasant and agreeable
while online, i am more like a slobbering retarded pit bull. this bifurcation suits me well. it allows me to explore a side of personality online that i cannot in real life
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
Ask not what you can do for your country. Ask what your country did to you
I have always appreciated NYCL's opinions and commentary, and it's not hard to see why the RIAA was so keen on discrediting him. After all, he is their worst nightmare: a lawyer who (a)is not on their side, (b)actually understands computer technology and software, and (c)also understands the dubious legal nature of many of the RIAA's actions. Moreover, he can explain (b) and (c) in ways that even the most clueless judge (not to mention the most non-techie /. reader, like me) can understand. He's showing that the emperor has no clothes (or, at the very least, is in a state of minimal dress) and they take umbrage at that. Keep fighting the good fight, sir -- we salute you.
"Every great cause begins as a movement, becomes a business, and eventually degenerates into a racket." -- Eric Hoffer
I am avowedly disgusted by the RIAA and hate them just as much as any card-carrying slashdotter, but I have to wonder if this is really a significant defeat. To my knowledge, courts pretty much always accept amicus briefs from any semi-credible source. It sounds like this was just a throwaway motion from the RIAA, which was (as was expected) easily defeated. It certainly isn't bad news, but it's hard for me to get excited about it either.
Dear Ray - let me adapt your post:
One day you found a post on your blog about RIAA litigation, getting clobbered by visitors from a place called "slashdot.org" where an typically amazing Talmudic debate spiced with trolls was under way, in which various participants were citing to various segments of various litigation documents and transcripts, mixed with impassioned semi-correct theories.
Every time such a story appears, we say to ourselves:
"Who the heck are we? We're clearly an internet discussion board, but the signal-to-noise ratio is far higher than the run-of-the-mill boards, and that makes us much more dangerous. We wish we could be lawyers for an hour so we could save the 8 years of our lives but still get the correct answer. Except - we're trained in technology instead of law, so we dive head first into Technology-Law cases about judges and other lawyers trained in law instead of technology, while desperately posting disclaimers to beware of the treacherous law content of our posts.
So when a couple of Gosh-Wow Real Lawyers appear, who can triumphantly declare "I *AM* A Lawer, No N in that IAAL abbreviation here!", we begged y'all to set us straight. And so you did, and our life hasn't been the same since.
My first Journal Entry ever, in 8 years! http://slashdot.org/journal/365947/aphelion-scifi-fantasy-horror-poetry-webzine
and my clients never lose their cases because they die before the trial can even begin. (i stole this post from someone else)
Put me down for four front-row tickets please.
I assume they come with complimentary bar service?
Knowing Google's lust for data collection, the Soviet Union is still alive and well inside the psyche of Sergey Brin....
Amazing, NewYorkCountryLawyer is actually getting under the skin of the RIAA. I love it.
I guess the RIAA hate it when you lift up the rock from under which they dwell, and expose their churning, writhing selves to the bright sunlight of truth.
SEO Copywriter. Just Say ON
Oblig. Millhouse quote: "Not only am I not learning, I'm forgetting stuff I used to know"
The word you're looking for is "throes"...
No sig today...
I'm shocked, shocked to find that the RIAA is lying to the courts here.
apologies to Casablanca
Banjo - The more I know about Windoze, the more I love *nix
Similar experience here - although I've not decided to become a lawyer. Massive arguments with relatives...but the problem is - they've "spoiled" me. I'm used to being forced to concede points to people who make very good points, and reconsider my position because of them. The problem is, most people aren't anything like my relatives - they'll argue with me, but what they say doesn't make any sense, they don't even want to defend their points, they just assert them without any kind of reasonable justification.
So most of the time when I get into arguments with people, I'm simply discouraged by the fact that they are incapable of making any kind of justified arguments...
Good work! Parallels SCO's apparent attack on Pamela Jones, creator of Groklaw. I've been lurking on both sites for a very long time, and greatly appreciate getting the facts and the sources. Reading source docs are important in calibrating the BS filters.
Pavlov wouldn't be so famous if he'd used a can opener instead of a bell.
The RIAA's lawyers never concede anything unless the judge calls them on it. (See, e.g. Transcript of January 26, 2007, oral argument in Elektra v. Barker.). Even then, the next time they're in court with a different judge, they'll say the same stupid thing anyway, hoping the second judge won't find out about the first one.
Ray Beckerman +5 Insightful
But eldavojohn has a point about "logic". When I went to law school I thought the law would involve a lot of logic. And perhaps it does. But some of the most illogical things I have seen in the entire universe have been laws. And in the next tier of illogic, have been some entirely inexplicable judicial rulings (See, e.g., pattern of rulings in UMG v. Lindor and other cases in Brooklyn, including holding that an "expert witness" who meets NONE of the Daubert reliability factors can testify as an expert anyway, or that defendant is not entitled to discovery of the contracts under which plaintiffs' witness was hired to gather "evidence" and testify, or that the rule requiring random assignment of cases can be avoided because the Magistrate has presided over 350 settlements which the judge -- who didn't have to pay them and knows nothing about the facts or circumstances of any of them -- thinks are "equitable", even though NOT ONE of the defendants would agree with that appraisal.)
Ray Beckerman +5 Insightful
Ray Beckerman +5 Insightful
I'll believe it when I see it. The magistrate is sniffing near it, but didn't bite them yet. But then again, I'm jaded by the Second Circuit. The First Circuit got rid of Shadowlaw all by themselves, maybe they will reinstate ethics too. It is promising that the Magistrate delved into the "limiting filing fees" analysis. Shadowlaw is the foul practice of Summary Opinions that the Supreme Court mildly discouraged last year.
oh, I absolutely agree with you- there are some pretty major flukes- I have worked on a number of cases where I was like- WTF was the judge thinking (but I guess that is what appeals are for, right?), but I find that more often than not, as you mentioned, a lot of this goes to state and federal legislatures passing laws that either conflict with standing laws that need to be untangled or creating laws that are over vague or over defining which leaves far too much room for judges to rule how they want- or in some cases rule a way because they themselves don't understand the case or the laws surrounding it.
Also when it comes to discovery, that has been getting locked down as of late- as you probably know, last year there were some major changes regarding electronic discovery specifically that finally started to define what must and must not be retained and how this discovery is delivered to both sides (we had representatives from our company in washington for that one), which is good, not just because it lays out a more strict definition of what can be admitted into court, but also keeps lawyers from pulling dirty tricks (as I have had to deal with so many times) of excluding things like indexes for admitted data or pushing data to paper to inflate the case for opposing counsel or even in one case I had a lawyer ask me to include virus infected files that they had found in their discovery to sabotage the opposing counsel (I didn't do it I came up with a bullshit tech speech to make his head spin until he dropped it).
You mean you should've been a politician? :P
The RIAA should sue Google. Aren't they assisting piracy by linking to ThePirateBay.org, Mininova.org, and so on?