Slashdot Mirror
Mediasentry Violates Cease & Desist Order
NewYorkCountryLawyer writes "On January 2, 2008, the Massachusetts State Police ordered MediaSentry, the RIAA's investigator, to cease and desist from conducting investigations in Massachusetts without a license. Based on what appears to be irrefutable proof that MediaSentry has been violating that order, the Boston University students who tentatively won, in London-Sire v. Doe 1, an order tentatively quashing the subpoena for their identities, have brought a new motion to vacate the RIAA's court papers altogether, on the ground that the RIAA's 'evidence' was procured by criminal behavior."
The Parent is, in fact, insightful. If you refute RIAA and their minions' claim that they should be allowed to (and is able to) pick out illegal file sharers based on IP address, you can't turn around and use IP address evidence to prove that MediaSentry defied the court order.
Yeah, it sucks, but what's good for the goose is good for the gander. It must be -- once we allow double standards, we're no better than them.
Ray Beckerman +5 Insightful
I think you have that backwards:
Either
a) IP addresses are not admissable, so the RIAA's "evidence" has no standing and the case should be dropped without prejudice,
or
b) IP addresses are admissable, so the RIAA's "evidence" has no standing and the case should be dropped WITH prejudice.
Not quite. You can't use an IP address to definitively identify an individual. But you can damn sure use one to identify a location. Which is what matters here - do the IP addresses show that MediaSentry acted illegally by doing their thing in a state where they were enjoined from doing their thing?
Eloi are stupid, throw morlocks at them!
No, you can not. It is fully possible, however unlikely, that MediaSentry upon being blocked from doing investigations in Mass., rented out a VPN line to a company that was, in fact, allowed to do so. In which case MediaSentry is just a provider and carrier, much like the University that provides a student with an IP address is just a provider and carrier, and has no responsibility in what the student uses the line for. You simply can't tell from the IP address.
We must be very careful that we don't apply rules to the enemy that we don't want them to turn around and use against us.
I disagree that you can use one to identify a location. I can be anywhere in the world and, according to my IP, it will appear to you I'm in Fairbanks AK, due to this handy little VPN I use. Granted, I have to have been granted access to the VPN, but the fact remains that IP addresses do not NECESSARILY denote location, either. It's the same problem with claiming an IP denotes an individual. An IP address CAN tell you those things, but it does not NECESSARILY tell you those things. A rectangle CAN be a square, but it is not NECESSARILY a square.
-G
Their may be a grammatical error, misspeling, or evn a typo in this post.
Now, I'd say that your opinion should carry some weight around these parts. Clearly you understand that it's not about free vs. expensive music, it's about the bullying criminal tactics of those that don't want anyone to have anything for free, that don't want to change their business model to suit the new markets.
IMO, you are part of the new guard, the wave of artists that gets it. Soon, not just music/movie artists will find it difficult to make mega-bucks from their craft, so will athletes and others who are making way more than they should.
This is not necessarily because of the digital age in some cases, but recession means fewer ticket sales etc. The digital age will in turn cap their market worth as well. The further that the sports industry goes into the digital age, the more it will change the very nature of their business. My guess is that many such industries have reached their peak capital performance values and are stagnating or slowly in decline. Much revenue is based on advertising and THAT has drastically changed. The entertainment industries on the other side of the advertising will have to follow suit, if not now then sometime in the VERY near future.
They adapted to color television, cable tv, advertising changes... they will have to adapt or die. Right now the NFL et al don't seem to be doing much better than the **AA, but I'm hoping they are watching the news and paying VERY close attention to how well it has worked out for the **AA so far.
Support NYCountryLawyer RIAA vs People
The problem is that with your (b), you set another precedent for IP addresses being admissible evidence, which allows that type of evidence to be used by RIAA and MediaSentry in the future. We do not want that.
The onus must never be on the defendant to prove his innocence. That's just like RIAA wants people to prove that it wasn't them that downloaded something.
No, no and NO; we must not allow this to happen. Ever.
Our whole justice system is based on the accuser having to provide evidence against the accused, and that the absence of evidence counts for the defendant, never the accuser.
IP addresses of smalltime users who connect dynamically via big ISPs or are behind NAT routers aren't too reliable.
IP addresses of corporations who buy blocks of addresses or entities who have machines inside server farms can be a very reliable form of identification.
I don't know the exact details of the case so I'm not judging. I'm just saying that reliability depends on circumstance.
No sig today...
Or RIAA pays MediaSentry to take a fall, admitting that yes, IP addresses irrefutably shows that they did a wrong thing. And by the way, y'rhonors, now that IP addresses have been shown to be good evidence, there's these 5000 cases that RIAA wants you to look at...
That would be a big win for RIAA, only made possible because the opponents of RIAA tried to apply double standards, and, by doing so, killed their own defense.
If an individual went around pretending to represent the law, then he would get into serious trouble right away.
Why aren't the police taking direct action against the RIAA's illegal operations instead of just sending them a cease-and-desist letter?
I don't think you understand how evidence works. Evidence is a collection of facts that can be used to demonstrate one's guilt in a court of law. It is up to the defense to provide reasonable explanations for that evidence, such that the conclusions no longer point to the crime being tried. If the defense fails to defend against the evidence, then the Judge/Jury may find against the defendant.
Geez, don't they teach you kids anything in school these days?
Javascript + Nintendo DSi = DSiCade
The problem with your analogy is that breaking and entering, growing pot, and kidnapping are all crimes provable through existing forensics.
An IP address may or may not be a person - it's still being decided. Therefore you're breaking into a home and discovering a crime - but somehow nobody knows who's home it is. That's where your analogy breaks down.
Weaselmancer
rediculous.
Well, the 'gets it' part will be something of an afterthought as most retail industries are (or should be) preparing to dig in and wait out the recession (it's official now... nearly) and the wrath it brings to the currently propped up consumerism in Westernized societies.
Energy is taking a huge hit, and the knock on from that will begin happening as current stocks dwindle and must be replaced. In 6 months you will see a lot more online activity though free shipping might become a once useful dream. As adverse as Americans are to exercise, 'let your fingers do the walking' may get repurposed from old ads to new uses on the Internet.
When the retail spaces begin to implode, less traffic in the mall means less traffic to all of the stores. The Internet is going to have a huge role to play in the recovery process of the US if not more countries. While it is too costly to go cruising around in your SUV, cruising the Internet will be acceptable, and during and after the recovery process, it will remain as a way to find what you want from who you want it. Most brick and mortar operations already have Internet presence and it will become more important. Tagging along with that will be the industries that are forced by market forces to follow suit and bolster their Internet presence. This will lead to new business models and expansion of current 'gets it' models.
For artists, this means that Internet exposure becomes the new wave of posting bills on the side of telephone polls. Giving away stuff to get people to attend the concerts will be more prevalent, and you will see this in other industries also as the now highly mobile society in North America becomes a bit more isolated from the hustle and bustle of in your face interactions. Already people are not spending as much as they did last year, they worry about what they are spending on. You will have to give them free stuff to get their attention as many of them will only be looking at free stuff. Just putting your name and logo in their face 40 times a day won't do it.
Remember the last recession? That started an entire marketing ploy industry of get 20% more for free and other tricky things that have morphed into ways of making you think you really get something for free that are still with us today.
As the recession bites harder, selling anything but groceries and gas will become more difficult and those industries that are not willing to, or are unable to bribe customers into their shops or onto their website will be the real losers. Remember that in tough times, people begin to spend only on things they 'need' rather than on things they want. The Internet is thought of as free (fixed cost) so there will be more time spent on it, further entrenching some Internet technologies and industries. That will be where those businesses that want to succeed will go now. To not go there is foolish IMO.
Think of it like this: It costs nothing to come shop online in our Second Life store, or on our website, and if you spend more than $50, we'll give you a 15% discount in any of our stores... good for 45 days from date of purchase.
You as an artist... start something viral: offer to give anyone with more than 20 of your songs on their MP3 player a voucher for a libation at the concert. Yeah, sounds like you're paying them to download your music, but it's at the concert that you make your money on shirts and concessions.
Right now, in the early running, anyone that is tagging up with IBM's efforts is probably going to vault over the recession into the new digital era with grace and style. Google-partners will also.
The current white-knight issue with Yahoo will end up being a very big issue in 6 months. The Internet as a market place is consolidating just as other industries have in the last decade. This is both good and problematic. Google is about to prove that anyone can have a web-based email account but only if you are a gmail user do you have real convenience and power.
Watch for the industries that follow along
Support NYCountryLawyer RIAA vs People
And this surprises who? The RIAA and MediaSentry have repeatedly shown that they don't care about the law. Their gaming of the legal system is proof of that.
The problem is that our stupid courts don't put a stop to this illegal behavior right away and then, they continue to abuse the system. After a while, it becomes allowable behavior.
If our legal system would put a stop to this, it would stop. Since they continue to allow it, this behavior will also continue.
Banjo - The more I know about Windoze, the more I love *nix
I applaud the people and universities who are pushing back against the MAFIAA, er.... uh, I mean the RIAA. They are winning tactical victories only, however, on the state level. What's not being won are strategic victories. Those would come in the form of big chunks of the population starting to realize that copyright abuse by the big money players is harmful. They would come in the form of Congress actually passing reasonable copyright reform, not the outright bribery they engage in today. Let's face it, when the RIAA starts losing enough in the courts they will shift tactics, and those will almost certainly involve paying off congress to pass draconian new criminal penalties and to lower the burden of proof.
I'm happy when I read stories like this but it's important to remember cases where people push back are wins in little battles. In the long run, most of the public doesn't care about their rights, and the war will be lost. There's already a conspiracy underway to de-legitimize the whole concept of Fair Use. Not a theory, either. A fact.
IANAL.
There are 2 problems with this entire line of thinking:
1) This is not a double-standard.
In the first scenario, MediaSentry is submitting a dynamic IP address that cannot be linked to an individual. In this scenario, they are presenting what is probably a static IP address tied to MediaSentry's offices. That is much stronger evidence. Also, it sounds like the second scenario is being used as pre-trial evidence that MediaSentry violated the restraining order -- not as evidence to be admitted in a trial.
2) IP addresses should always be admissible evidence.
The value of an IP addresses varies. Sometimes it is a dynamic IP. Other times it is static, but not assigned to an individual port or desk. Other times it is tied to a specific computer that only a few people have access to. IP addresses should always be admissible - but the judge and jury must understand the difference. Making a blanket rule like "IP addresses are never admissible in court" is too limiting.
It would be like saying that scratch marks are never admissible as evidence because you cannot specifically tie that to an individual. The scratch marks still indicate that a struggle happened, and where it happened, and who might have been in that location when they were made. etc.
Actually, it sets up a far more interesting logical problem for RIAA and MediaSentry.
IP addresses are never personally identifying, but do indicate that someone on that network (authorized or not) was responsable.
For the typical home user, that means a freeloader on their WiFi, someone making unauthorized use of their PC, or someone on the same subnet at the less than secure ISP.
Home networks often have less than stellar security. That's neither crime nor tort. Since the typical use of a home network is unimpeded by such security issues, it's not even a real problem for the most part.
However, a would-be investigative agency (legal or not) has a real problem if THEIR network is insecure. If their computers and network are insecure, their 'evidence' is questionable at best.
Furthermore, the IP address being one of Mediasentry's means that either the information came from MediaSentry (and so is the result of an illegal act by Mediasentry) OR it came from some other agency that was making unauthorized use of Mediasentry's network (and so is also as the result of an illegal act). In the second (unlikely) case, the 'evidence' is in any event untrustworthy.
So, if Mediasentry would like to deny violating the C&D alleging someone hopped onto their network without permission, they may do so. Without further evidence to the contrary, we'll just have to accept their explaination and let it go. However, THEY will have to live with the implications of their claims. Their alternative is to maintain that their network remains uncompromised and own up to violating the C&D.
As you can see, there is no double standard. Consistantly applied reasoning with a single standard is all that is necessary to show that the Mediasentry IP showing up in the 'evidence' is damning to Mediasentry's position either way but is not adequate to find against a defendant in any of the RIAA's many lawsuits.
Since you're not American, it might surprise you to hear that in the US, business entities are protected by the same rights as individuals (but they don't always have the same obligations).
And, they don't have to argue that "anybody" could have used their network. What's to prevent them to argue "Our network was used by Schyster, Schyster, Iqbal and Schyster, a law firm that is entitled to do investigations in Mass? And, by the way, thanks for so clearly pointing out that IP addresses are valid identifiers -- now apply the same logic to these 5,000 RIAA cases too please."
Unfortunately, I see this as someone with good intent shooting themselves (and a bunch of others) in the foot. Only by offering even MediaSentry or other "enemies" the same protection as you want individuals to have, can you guarantee that individuals will be protected.
I see the glass as full with a FoS of 2.