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U. Maine Law Students Trying To Shut RIAA Down
NewYorkCountryLawyer writes "Remember those pesky student attorneys from the University of Maine School of Law's Cumberland Legal Aid Clinic, who inspired the Magistrate Judge to suggest monetary fines against the RIAA lawyers? Well they're in the RIAA's face once again, and this time they're trying to shut down the RIAA's whole 'discovery' machine: the lawsuits it files against 'John Does' in order to find out their names and addresses. They've gone and filed a Rule 11 motion for sanctions (PDF), seeking — among other things — an injunction against all such 'John Doe' cases, arguing that the cases seek to circumvent the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act which protects student privacy rights, are brought for improper purposes of obtaining discovery, getting publicity, and intimidation, and are in flagrant violation of the joinder rules and numerous court orders. If the injunction is granted, the RIAA will have to go back to the drawing board to find another way of finding out the identities of college students, and the ruling — depending on its reasoning — might even be applicable to the non-college cases involving commercial ISPs."
When I was studying Engineering, the most interesting case studies were the real life cases - actual original research and current theories.
Similarly here, these students seem to have a deparment which values them enough to give them something interesting AND useful to work on.
Good on them all.
Is crushing a suspect's child's testicles illegal?
John Yoo: "No, [if] the President thinks he needs to do that."
The RIAA is creating a whole generation of enemies by going after College students. Their demise can't happen soon enough.
I don't know which is more disturbing: the fact that I would fully expect the record companies to stoop that low or the fact that such a ploy might actually work.
The only reason why we pay for art is to support the artist. If we see that the artist is either high on the hog or that the artist isn't making very much from the recorded music, then there is less incentive to buy. Artists will always make money from concerts and various things like t-shirts and such, so they people we're really supporting are the ones who are popularizing their music globally. Basically, it is the businessmen who we aren't supporting through downloads.
The problem businessmen have is that they can't figure out the solution to this problem. Perhaps by exposing a band to a wide market, they could collect x amount of dollars from the concerts they performed, as they're supposedly responsible for popularzing the band to begin with. So the contract would spell that out for as long as the band is signed up with a particular record label. Recording music would simply be to advertise for the band rather than a major means of profit. You simply can't reproduce live performances--it's a different experience. Start making shit that can't be downloaded! Add extra shit to those hard copy of albums to make them worthwhile to buy: extra art, neat case, raffle tickets to win apparel, dogtags with band member names on it, et cetera. It's time to be creative. The artist at this point seems to be supported, so now I want my art for free and I'll worry about the artist when necessary. After all, isn't art's main purpose to be enjoyed by both the creator and his of her fans? As long as the artist isn't broke, I'm not going to feel guilty for not supporting the business of uncreative suits.
You'd think the judge could put a stop to that -- or better yet a new Federal Rule -- mandating that any identities discovered could only be utilized in the current case. That way, if the plaintiffs lost, or never went to trial in the first place, that information couldn't be misused otherwise.
There was a non-RIAA non-Copyright case a couple years ago where a company sued to obtain the identity of a blogger, critical to that company, and believed to be an employee. While that company had no possibility of winning their case under the First Amendment, once they forced the internet site to cough up sufficient identifying information, they dropped their case and simply fired the employee. That should have never been allowed, and side-steps the whole intent that anonymous persons can be forced to be identified by the courts in virtually any case, no matter how lame, because it's necessary for the administration of justice to identify these defendants.
The whole idea that this will all come out in the wash so to speak, meaning at the actual trial exonerating innocent defendants and punishing overreaching plaintiffs totally misses the point of the damage already being done by the time identities have been revealed under the most flimsy of pretenses.
There should be an argument made that because the RIAA cannot win at trial with the illegally gathered evidence they already have, then identities shouldn't be revealed in the first place. Of course the RIAA will throw back the Jamie Thomas case were stupid juries, a less than bright defendant, and outright wrong jury instructions show that anything is possible if you throw enough b.s. at it.
Of course, my idea will only work if the penalties for actually misusing identity information outside of the trial itself are very VERY severe!
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
I don't know about that anymore. You are starting to talk huge political downside if you start directly publicly advocating for the RIAA now (except perhaps in a few Hollywood districts). You have tons of pissed off students and tons of pissed off academic administrators who have let it be known they are very unhappy with the heavy handed RIAA techniques and threats to academic freedom. I'd say in at least 80% of political districts advocating for the RIAA would be akin to advocating for Big Tobacco. Judges don't like to be hoodwinked and humiliated either.
More and more this whole issue is threatening to blow up, and no doubt there will be massive political collateral damage if it does. Just ask the Republican Party how the Ron Paul supporters did with barely any organization and time in the political primary process. It will be a hell of a lot more targeted, organized, and effective the next time four years from now.
But let them buy all the unconstitutional laws they want. Those exact same laws can be confiscated and used against them (1 million or 10 million people can be copyright trolls for very little expense, and it could pay, just like it pays for patent trolls), and when the tide of public opinion turns, it will turn hard (they are a cast full of sleazy and greedy lawyers, executives, and overpaid artists with almost no redeeming sympathetic propaganda figures). Their propaganda campaigns arouse contempt. And an Anti-Copyright Abuse Political Action Committee might be able to raise Ron Paul amounts of money to run targeted negative ads against a list of the 20 worst bought Congressmen, and possibly defeat 50-75% of them. I could see such targeting swinging election results a good 5-10% in those districts, well enough to cause effective change. And it's an issue that can slice without regard to political party affiliation. You have a huge untapped younger voter base that is mobilizing, that would certainly go out and vote to defeat pro-RIAA candidates. And Senators up for re-election would be even easier State-wide targets.
The game is up, and everyone knows it. The RIAA is going to start sustaining a more and more egregious reputation even in sell out DC city, especially as legal abuse losses start mounting. Congressmen aren't politically stupid. Don't think they haven't noticed the rising up of student legal groups and independent academic institution mobilization. Don't think they didn't notice Comcast bend over just now on targeted throttling (even under an alleged anti-"piracy" justification).
And keep not buying or buying less music. Why should you care about any artists? Did any of those artists give the slightest damn when bribes stole away from you the contemporary limited bargain return of the advancement of arts into the public domain, even as you gave up your First Amendment free speech rights to copy and were forced to welfare subsidize their campaign of artificial monopoly scarcity greed and abuse through the resources of your government? They are all greedy fucks, wanting to milk you continuously for stuff that is 30 and 40 years old. Starve the bastards.
"From DNA to P2P, we are all Copycats now. Go Go Copycat Power! Copycat Powers activate! Form of, a Copycat." --monxrtr