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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."
Most likely, the only papers that they will be able to vacate are those based on investigations taking place after being served with the C&D order. Whether that costs them enough evidence to prevent them from winning a judgment remains to be seen, however...
Will they have to pay a fine? Maybe, but ten bucks says* it won't be the hundred thousand dollars the RIAA can collect for a single copyright violation. Will anybody go to jail? Maybe, but again ten bucks says* no way in hell.
Did someone say "rule of law"?
-mcgrew
*offer void where prohibited. I live in Illinois, and gambling is illegal here. Except in the casinos. And the state lottery. And horseracing tracks. And in the bars that have bribed the cops to look the other way.
Me? Cynical? Whatever gave you that idea?
mcgrew's razor: Never attribute to stupidity that which can be explained by greedy self-interest
If things get too hot, the RIAA will just pull some Congressmen out of their pocket and have them change whatever law they violated (with enough bribery maybe they can even get a retroactive change).
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
is that it appears that MediaSentry has been telling the State that it IS in compliance. Hmmmm.... could that be yet another crime?
Ray Beckerman +5 Insightful
The reality is that stealing music is, in fact, wrong. It is a crime. However... Suits that attempt to claim vast amounts of damages are beyond idiotic, reaching to the realms of sophomoric, and don't prove anything other than the lack of initiative (or common sense) from the folks running the music industry.
Disclaimer: As an artist, starving artist really, I can say that I'd be grateful for people taking my music for free but I speak only for myself though the other artists have contractually agreed with the labels and thus with RIAA and are probably not in a position to change much.
"So long and thanks for all the fish."
I'm a bit confused on the Irrefutable proof as well. Somebody correct me if this guess is wrong, but:
a. The exhibit document lists a number of reports generated by Mediasentry
b. The documents identify IP addresses of supposed infringers
c. These IP addresses on a quick traceroute identify these investigations to be located in Massachusetts (at leastone IP is at Boston University)
d. These documents have been submitted to courts as evidence (each document has a case #)
e. Because the IP address is in Massachusetts, the investigation has crossed into these borders. Because they have been submitted to courts, it is proof of investigation.
Otherwise, I think the proof needs some notes along with it.
But it's brilliant - force Mediasentry to argue, in court, that IP addresses can't be used to identify and they'll effectively be arguing against themselves. Sure, it's a different case, but if they're successful, it sets a precedent that can be used in the RIAA cases. If they fail, then they've been found guilty (presumably) of ignoring a court-ordered C&D and thus all their evidence that's being used in RIAA cases is thrown out. Either way, it's a win-win. They weren't smart. They painted themselves into a corner and it's becoming less and less likely that they'll find a way out.
Wake up, RIAA. You might be a big bad fish, but unless you have a freakin' military to back yourself up, you are still subject to the laws of the even bigger, badder fish, which is the state government. Go fuck yourself.
AFAICT, this flies in the face of all established US law interpretation. It's quite common for companies to, if prevented by law from doing something, allow their resources to be used by someone who do have a permit to do so. This is perhaps most commonly with liquor and restaurant licenses -- if a restaurant loses its licenses, for whatever reason, the premises are leased to someone who do have the necessary permits.
Do you have any references that corroborate your claim?
An IP address may not conclusively identify the ultimate location from which communications are originating, but it does identify a logical location though which the communication has passed. To identify a physical locaton might require subpoena over the ISP and/or telco providing the link.
In any case, showing two way communicatons to a particular IP is sufficient to show an association of some sort. In the case at hand, Mediasentry, owner of the IP block, can't deny they have something to do with the packets. As someone has pointed out, they _could_ be providing VPN access to a licensed MA PI. If that's the case, I'm sure they'll tell the court exactly that.
Unlike the copyright infringement cases at hand, where an individual and not an IP address must be identified to sue (a family or set of roommates is not a legal entity), Mediasentry, as a company, _can_ be associated with a range of IP addresses.
To paraphrase Ricky Ricardo: "Mediasentry, you got some 'splainin' to do."
"National Security is the chief cause of national insecurity." - Celine's First Law
As far as I can tell, that "proof" doesn't exist. Ray's summary appears to be exaggerating quite a bit.
But not to fear - this *is* still quite useful. The challenge clearly shows that
a. MediaSentry *did* conduct investigations in Massachusetts.
b. The police, upon becoming aware of this, sent them a C&D letter.
So, as of Jan 2008, as far as the police could tell MediaSentry was not licensed to investigate in the state of Massachusetts. Which means that it is very probable that any evidence gathered in May of 2007 was not gathered by a licensed private investigator, and as such qualifies as illegally gathered. Which may or may not be enough to get this case tossed.
Now what will *really* be interesting is if the RIAA file any cases in Mass. that has "evidence" dated *after* Jan 2008. But given the long delay lag between detection and case filing, it'll be a while before that's likely to happen.
Don't tell me to get a life. I had one once. It sucked.
When I was a kid, I used to go to a "schul" (an Orthodox Jewish synagogue). The Rabbi was this famous, legendary, very revered person, who carried himself very humbly. It was a small congregation, mostly a few old men who practically worshipped the ground the Rabbi walked on. When he was reciting from the Torah (scroll containing Old Testament), which is hard because when you're reading directly from the Torah scroll no vowels are supplied, he would sometimes make a slight mistake. I was shocked when the congregants -- who revered this man -- shouted out the correct pronunciation. At first it seemed so rude to me, until I realized this was what he WANTED them to do. What it meant was the word was more important than any one of us. He wanted us to just be sure to get it straight what was in the Torah. It didn't matter if the correct word came from the most educated and scholarly among us, or if it came from the least of us... what mattered was getting the word.
If I'm in a room, and everyone in the room agrees with me, I don't smile and say "ah how nice to have consensus"; if everyone agrees with me, I worry.
In fact what happened here today is a textbook illustration. My initial story had a whopping mistake -- I believe it was the first such mistake I've made since I've been posting here on Slashdot. Some astute readers caught it -- realizing that the order was dated January 2, 2008, and the documents which I was calling "irrefutable proof" that MediaSentry had violated the order represented screen captures from 2007. I'm glad they caught the mistake. (I'm also glad I was able to come up with the other documents showing that it has in fact been violating the order.).
So we're cool.
Ray Beckerman +5 Insightful