University of San Francisco Law Clinic Joins Fight Against RIAA

NewYorkCountryLawyer writes "The RIAA's litigation campaign has met resistance from the academic community before, but now it's been taken to a whole new level: the defense of RIAA victims who are not part of the college community. First the University of Oregon lashed out on behalf of its students, then it was the University of Maine's Cumberland Legal Aid Clinic on behalf of its undergrads. Now, the University of San Francisco School of Law has taken the fight a giant step further. Its Intellectual Property Law Clinic's attorneys-in-training, working under the supervision of law professors, are going to bat against the RIAA by helping outside lawyers to defend their clients, pro bono. They reached out 3000 miles to get involved in Elektra v. Torres and Maverick v. Chowdhury, two cases going on in Brooklyn, NY, against non-college defendants. Two of the law students in the USF's legal program assisted in the research and preparation of briefs in these cases, opposing the RIAA's motion to dismiss the defendants' counterclaims. Thousands of honor students throughout United States law schools, most of them digital natives who actually understand the legal fallacies and technological missteps the RIAA is taking, and who can't wait to expose them, make a pretty good resource for the poor and middle class people trying to defend these cases."

Comments

good for the proto-lawyers!

[rastoboy29]

I think the legal profession in this country has a lot to answer for, and this is a step in the right direction.

After all, lawyers in Pakistan are braving tear gas and risking their lives in defense of the rule of law.  Where are our lawyers, on the whole*, when our own country's government violates sacred human rights?  Raking it in on behalf of their corporate masters, that's what.

We have the greatest proportion of our population behind bars than any other country in the world.  The law is completely unintelligable to ordinary citizens, unless they happen to know latin and also be well connected.  And the powerful can bludgeon the poor for years on end with impunity, as normal people can't afford justice any more than they can afford health care.

Maybe Barack Obama will save us all, or maybe John McCain will, but all I know is we are powerless in the flow of potent greed, and we seem to have no recourse.

*EFF and ACLU excepted :-)

A couple of things I would like to say

[kurt555gs]

1: Fuck the RIAA
2: Fuck the MPAA

and while I am at it,

3: Fuck Microsoft.

There, I feel better now.