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."

Comments

For the non lawyers

[ZanySpyDude]

this helped me out. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amicus_Curiae_Brief

Definition of Amicus Curiae

[sorak]

From Wikipedia

Amicus curiae (plural amici curiae) is a legal Latin phrase, literally translated as "friend of the court", that refers to someone, not a party to a case, who volunteers to offer information on a point of law or some other aspect of the case to assist the court in deciding a matter before it. The information may be a legal opinion in the form of a brief - testimony that has not been solicited by any of the parties - or a learned treatise on a matter that bears on the case. The decision whether to admit the information lies with the discretion of the court.

In case anyone else was wondering what amicus curiae meant.

been both places

[nomadic]

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.

Re:Is this really significant?

[NewYorkCountryLawyer]

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. You're absolutely right that it's not unusual for a judge to grant a motion for leave to file an amicus curiae brief.

What is unusual -- in fact in 34 1/2 years of experience in litigation I don't think I've ever seen it happen -- is for some lawyer to be moronic enough to oppose. The RIAA lawyers are the only lawyers I have ever seen do such a thing. They've done it at least twice now, and lost both times.

And what is also unusual is for a member of the Bar to deliberately lie to a federal judge, because the consequences which can flow from that to the lawyer's career are huge. These lawyers deliberately lied to the Judge when they represented that I am an Electronic Frontier Foundation. They also lied to the Judge when they implied that the quote they'd extracted was from February 5, 2008, when in fact it was from months earlier.