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RIAA Gets Nervous, Brings In Big Gun
NewYorkCountryLawyer writes "I guess the RIAA is getting nervous about the ability of its 'national law firm' (in charge of bringing 'ex parte' motions, securing default judgments, and beating up grandmothers and children) to handle the oral argument scheduled to be heard on Monday, August 4th in Duluth, in Capitol v. Thomas. So, at the eleventh hour, it has brought in one of its 'Big Guns' from Washington, D.C., a lawyer who argues United States Supreme Court cases like MGM v. Grokster to handle the argument. This is the case where a $222,000 verdict was awarded for downloading 24 songs, but the judge ultimately realized that he had been misled by the RIAA in issuing his jury instructions, and indicated he's probably going to order a new trial. But, not to worry. A group of 10 copyright law professors from 10 different law schools and several other amici curiae (friends of the court) have filed briefs now, so it is highly unlikely the judge will allow himself to be misled again, no matter who the RIAA brings in as cannon fodder on Monday."
Apparently industries are a bit like stars, in that the larger they are, the more they take with them when they collapse.
And if this was about people actually selling pirated DVDs, it'd be a different story.
This is closer to suing one person for over $10k per cup of coffee they stole.
I'm going to stick with that for the moment, as it's equally unfair to both sides -- stealing a cup of coffee actually deprives someone of potential revenue, whereas stealing a song is just a copy. But stealing a cup of coffee only feeds you (or your caffeine addiction) for a day -- you'll be back later, either to steal or to buy -- whereas stealing a song means you can listen to that same song again, as many times as you like.
But no matter how you want to spin it, stealing a cup of coffee does not carry a $10k fine. Stealing a song shouldn't, either.
Don't thank God, thank a doctor!
Having good lawyers on both sides can really cut through a lot of the fluff and the misery in a case like this. Of course, if the lawyers deliberately want to exacerbate the problem and the judge isn't on the ball, they can make things worse. But otherwise, why would the RIAA not want the best lawyer it can get?
They've already had their expert "ambushed" with Daubert in the previous UMG vs. Lindor deposition that Ray Beckerman posted. This is 100% a rookie mistake. A competent firm would have briefed the expert and all related parties extensively on Daubert to ensure this doesn't happen. The downside for the opposition is that a better lawyer has a better chance of avoiding these rookie mistakes, so you have to actually argue facts rather than procedure.
Do all of you who rail against the RIAA really want them defeated because they hired crappy lawyers, or do you want them defeated on the merits? I fear that the answer from the Slashdot crowd at large is "either way, doesn't matter" but I think that's a little intellectually dishonest.
In P2P file sharing, copyright infringement is taking place. It is almost certainly NOT fair use. If you don't like it, you really need to be writing your members of Congress to change Copyright law. An issue like Capitol v. Thomas, where the issue seems to have shifted toward the magnitude of damages, is something that can be fought in the courts. And if it is to be fought in the courts, let it be fought on the essence of the issues and not on accidental factors such as the quality of the attorneys involved.
...and here is his unique game plan.
1) Ban reporters from courtroom
2) Turn off the lights
3) Win!!!
Well, I didn't know the phrase amicus curiae before, so I looked it up in Wikipedia and... I can't help it, it sounds a tad bit like "lobbying for courtrooms". How do courts keep this from happening? Or do they, actually?
For the most part, amicus curiae briefs are encouraged, much like pro bono work. Anyone with enough money can hire lawyers to exhaustively research legally grey areas looking for precedents. Friend of the court briefs are generally used to help even the odds for people without those kind of resources. In this case, for example, an important precedent being discussed and high priced lawyers funded by a huge cartel (convicted of criminal actions) is suing an individual with no real resources. When concerned experts volunteer their time to help the court have all the information from the other side, well I think that is a good thing.
Technically, it's closer to getting fined $14,000 for drinking coffee you found in the McDonald's dumpster. The company wasn't going to get any money from you anyway, but you still managed a caffeine buzz and a thirst quenchings. Meanwhile, dumpster diving means that you won't have to be asked "Do you want fries with that?" but it's questionable as to the quality of food you'll get, or whether you'll end up with a virus once you've finished getting what you're looking for.
I am the richest astronaut ever to win the superbowl.
Oh please. I challenge you to come up with a string of 1000 bits that has 3 different (meaningful!) meanings, let alone a string of 4 million bits, which is much more representative of mp3 compressed audio. If you manage to accomplish that, I challenge you to find 9 more.
(Note that there are [301 digit number starting with 1 that the lameness filter will not accept] different 1000 bit numbers...)
Copyright terms and so forth do not fit current technology, but the digital/analog divergence that you are arguing is the worst kind of logical contortion (the kind where you simply ignore inconvenient facts and information).
Nerd rage is the funniest rage.
Don't be an idiot. Copyright holds the concept of a derived work, and you cannot distribute a work that is derived from a copyrighted work without permission from the copyright holder. An encoded version of a music track is clearly derived from the original music track, and as such distributing it without permission is against the law.
Programmers tend to think that any law which can't be expressed in Perl (or Python or whatever) is too ambiguous to be useful. This is, however, not how things actually work.
If you mod me Overrated, you are admitting that you have no penis.
"That crazy amendment brought material that was in the public domain back into copyright!"
Now that is what I call stealing.
Anyway, if people think the pace of progress is getting faster and faster (or want it to be so), and that marketing and distribution is better than years ago, then it makes no sense that copyright terms should be getting longer and longer.
Logically they should be getting shorter and shorter.
"That crazy amendment brought material that was in the public domain back into copyright!"
Now that is what I call stealing.
Hell, just extending the term of copyright is blatant theft from the public domain. The works were created under the terms of the social contract that existed at the time. The creators agreed to the terms, the public agreed to the terms when it paid the creators and their distributors. Then the lawyers yanked the rug out from underneath us, kept the money and kept the creations.
When information is power, privacy is freedom.