Slashdot Mirror
Judge Tells RIAA To Stop 'Bankrupting' Litigants
NewYorkCountryLawyer writes "The Boston judge who has consolidated all of the RIAA's Massachusetts cases into a single case over which she has been presiding for the past 5 years delivered something of a rebuke to the RIAA's lawyers, we have learned. At a conference this past June, the transcript of which (PDF) has just been released, Judge Nancy Gertner said to them that they 'have an ethical obligation to fully understand that they are fighting people without lawyers ... to understand that the formalities of this are basically bankrupting people, and it's terribly critical that you stop it ...' She also acknowledged that 'there is a huge imbalance in these cases. The record companies are represented by large law firms with substantial resources,' while it is futile for self-represented defendants to resist. The judge did not seem to acknowledge any responsibility on her part, however, for having created the 'imbalance,' and also stated that the law is 'overwhelmingly on the side of the record companies,' even though she seems to recognize that for the past 5 years she has been hearing only one side of the legal story."
Too bad that our legislators aren't as honest and bright as this judge. Too bad that the mainstream media always sides with the MAFIAA; but it's not surprising, considering the same people who own the newspapers, TV stations, and radio stations also own the major record labels and movie studios.
The way American campaigns are financed it's a wonder we have any freedom at all. I'm thinking of the movie Brazil and the old TV show Dinasaurs with its "WeSaySo Corporation".
I'm still trying to figure out how to tell if a file I want to download is one its creator wants me to have, or one that may get me sued and bankrupted. Ray, maybe you could use this angle in a court case?
Free Martian Whores!
The judge did not seem to acknowledge any responsibility on her part, however, for having created the 'imbalance,'
Come on, now. Let's not be greedy or ungrateful. Sometimes change must happen gradually and we shouldn't bite the hand for feeding us so long as it is doing the Right Thing(tm).
What about the falsely accused?
The judge is part of the Judiciary, that slowly made litigation a very expensive option
The legal system is the mafiaa here.
The ABA refuses to accredit schools which do not spend enough money (hence charge students a lot of money) on professors and libraries - even though more students of these schools pass the bar exam in the first sitting that even Harvard (I forget the name of the school - it was out of Utah or Colarado).
It is a crime for someone with enough knowledge to help you by giving legal advice - can't allow competition you know. Basically, the lawyers write the laws to make themselves richer. And you are going to elect another one to the highest office now.
Why should someone accused of copyright infringement have it any easier (cheaper), than someone accused of running a red light, or breaking a contract, or committing a felony (tort, civil, and criminal examples mixed here deliberately)?
You mixed them deliberately to imply that they are all the same, which they are not.
Defending one's self against running a red light is often much cheaper than defending one's self against a breach-of-contract, for example. When defending against a minor traffic violation, one does not face a mega-rich corporation with an army of lawyers with years of legal experience who capriciously litigate to drag the case out and make it cost more...but one very well may face such a situation if breaking a contract with such a corporation.
So perhaps we should ask, why should someone accused of a minor traffic violation have it easier that someone accused of downloading copyrighted data?
The answer seems pretty obvious to me: the impact of the crime is different, and as such the potential scope of damages (including the implicit damages of legal defense costs) should be different.
In the case of copyright infringement, the "impact of the crime" is still a hotly debated topic. In my opinion, this impact has been ludicrously exaggerated to the benefit of a very small (but wealthy) few, and to the detriment of the rest of humanity. Deliberate misrepresentation of who gets harmed and in what way has confused people into thinking the crime is a bigger deal than it is. IMO, the crime is petty at best, and there should be checks in place that prevent the damages from being amounts that could wipe out the average person's life savings, hence preventing them from needing to spend those same life savings trying to defend themselves.
And, of course, one's ability to receive justice in the courts should not be dependent upon how wealthy one is. Otherwise, the courts become nothing more than one more means by which the rich oppress the poor.
Summary author doesn't understand the role that judges in her position play. One of their jobs is to enforce the law, as it stands. She cannot reinterpret the law or rule along the notion of "what's fair" and expect to keep her job. Especially with the entertainment conglomerates so capable of funding another, more entertainment friendly replacement in the next judicial appointment cycle.
This kind of summary just burns bridges where they are needed most, as in, deep inside the legal system.
Please rewrite the summary praising the judge for committing, to paper, sound social and legal commentary that will make her next election/appointment cycle very, very tough.
http://www.maxineudall.com/2010/02/should-economists-be-sued-for-malpractice.html
Honestly, I don't 3x damages really make the risk/reward ratio enough to buy legitimately for anyone. The current 30,000x or so are way out of whack on the other end of things, but if you plan to deter piracy through lawsuits, you have to make people believe that they'll come out ahead financially by purchasing. There's no way to have a one in three chance of getting sued.
Don't get me wrong, I don't support maintaining a dead business model through litigation, but knowing that the most you could be fined for downloading an album is $29.97 tells people to go out and DDOS TPB because the amount they'd likely have litigated out of them is far less than the retail value of the product. It's like why you can't steal a TV, and then offer retail as payment if you get caught.
How are sites slashdotted when nobody reads TFAs?
Why should someone accused of copyright infringement have it any easier (cheaper), than someone accused of running a red light
How many injuries and deaths are caused by downloading music? The Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS), in Virginia, has noted that there were more than 200,000 crashes caused by red light runners, resulting in 176,000 injuries and 934 deaths in 2003.
Wow, you're dense. The judge was clearly being sarcastic in this comment. If you read the rest of the text, it seems awfully like the judge was trying to help Mr. Atkinson by implying that his son should tell the plaintiffs he has no money, having just graduated from school, rather than Mr. Atkinson giving his son money to pay the settlement.
This judge clearly feels that while the RIAA is legally correct, their heavy-handed approach to dealing with people who don't really cause all that much damage, cannot afford a lawyer, and have no clue about the legal system, is a despicable way to attempt to solve their problems.
Bankrupt people can not pay their fees to the record companies, and neither can they (or will, probably) buy new music. It has been said before, but it seems like the record companies are shooting themselves in both their feet.
/ The Arrow
"How lovely you are. So lovely in my straightjacket..." - Nny
There is a damage component and a punishment component. Its reasonable for damages to scale up as actual damages go up... there is no reason to do the same for punishment.
The problem with the penalties for copyright is that they are punitively applied 'per infringement'. Getting nailed for $500 for violating copyright is actually a reasonable punishment, call it $2 damages, and $498 for punishment; that's a relatively fair outcome.
The problem is that sharing 22 songs SHOULDN'T be counted as 22 separate acts of infringement; the damages might be at most $2 x 22 = $44, plus the SAME $498 for punishment. So the final award for 22 songs ought to be around $542, not $11,000, and certainly not $222,000.
It is a crime for someone with enough knowledge to help you by giving legal advice - can't allow competition you know.
No, it isn't, unless you claim you are a lawyer.
Basically, the lawyers write the laws to make themselves richer. And you are going to elect another one to the highest office now.
A lawyer who has 1) grown up on welfare, 2) has shown at least some interest in returning balance to income inequality which threatens our entire culture, and 3) will replace the Bush Administration with a cabinet full of something besides the Bush Administration.
If the ABA were under government oversight, you could pressure your congressperson to change the way it runs, or cut their funding. Since it has no governmental oversight, all you can do is bitch. That's the "freedom" of unregulated but necessary industry - they're free to extort money, you're free to waste your breath complaining about it.
There is only justification for grouping the cases together if the allegation is made that all these same people were involved in the same event(s) at the same time otherwise it would be like grouping together several different speeding tickets given to several different people all at different locations and times. (Ignoring the civil vs. criminal justice differences.) In short for all these defendants to be linked to a single case there must be the allegation they acted together, else it should be grounds for successful appeal in the event they lose the decision. Being as they are all Pro Se cases indicates they may not be able to properly file the appeal or even afford the fee for doing so. It almost appears as if the judge was trying to influence the defendants to settle rather then fight the case in which case the judge might be opening herself to reprimand but can't say without more information on the case and codes related to her decision as well as IANAL.
It sounds like someone needs to take this transcript, build a very coherent response countering any points she screwed up on while congratulating the things she got right, and give her a counter to remind her that she has contributed to this problem by paying attention too much to the MafiAA side so far.
if you're repurposing the gp's post you need to also replace "truth" with "profit" for it to even make sense. you missed the point the gp was making completely
TIAEAE!
Until you rip the RIAA's financial guts through sanctions out you aren't going to stop them. A stern talking to just isn't the same thing.
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
Um, lolwut? Corporations did not exist? Or large corporations did not exist?
Like, say, the Hudson's Bay Company, who at the time the Constitution was written, as with the British East India Company, probably had a greater ability to project force than most countries, and at various times in the past had actually exercised governmental functions?
Does Microsoft operate a fleet of warships and control its own country now?
"It is possible to commit no errors and still lose. That is not a weakness. That is life." -Peak Performance
These cases CRY OUT for the legislature to act. "Amnesty for File Sharers" should be the rallying cry. Hell, we granted amnesty to conscientious objectors who relocated to Canada during the Vietnam war. Why can't we do it for these poor folks? Are you listening, Ms. Pelosi? How about the File Sharers Amnesty Act of 2008? This travesty has gone beyond black comedy into the world of Kafka and nightmare.
Those are my principles, and if you don't like them... well, I have others.
In this case it is note even about presenting a better case, it is all about a complete abuse of the system, why a company has basically set up a business to specifically target people who can not afford to defend themselves against the civil action and extorting money from them, Every time the RIAA has accidentally picked a litigant who can afford a legal defence they have lost, settled it out of court and buried it under non-disclosure agreements, except for one very notable case, that seeks to fully expose their pernicious behaviour.
It has to be the grossest and most public exploitation of the civil legal system, which emphatically displays the inequalities of a legal system, where one side simply needs to stretch out the case to the point where the other side cab not longer afford to defend themselves completely regardless of the merits of the case, in the case the defendants can not even afford the start of their defence let alone the tens of thousands of dollars to successfully conclude the case and win.
That the legal system and government have stood by and said nothing, whilst a legal firm has basically set up an extortion racket targeting tens of thousands of victims, makes them complicit accessories to a very public crime that makes a mockery of principles of equal justice for all.
Chaos - everything, everywhere, everywhen
Coding isn't an essential aspect of everybody's life. Being out of prision and defending against some extorcionist that wants all your money is.
Rethinking email
The judge did not seem to acknowledge any responsibility on her part, however, for having created the 'imbalance,' and also stated that the law is 'overwhelmingly on the side of the record companies,' even though she seems to recognize that for the past 5 years she has been hearing only one side of the legal story."
This has gotten completely out of hand. The law is not "overwhelmingly" on the side of the RIAA/MPAA, from my perspective. In some cases, probably, and in other cases, definitely not.
What "loss of revenue"? Document the loss of revenue, or throw out the cases. Granted, copyright is violated with not-for-profit file sharing, but without proven [the standard of guilt according to the supreme laws of the land, remember] loss of revenue, the only equitable punishment, meaning fitting the crime, is to confiscate the copies, and nothing more. Because, in cases that the copies are shared without payment, no loss of revenue is apparent, and can only be ascertained by speculation -- of various levels of sophistication, but ultimately it can be no more than speculation -- and that is traditionally not admissible as evidence. Is it admissible as argument? Reasonable suspicion? If so, then also and equally, as reasonable doubt.
Disclaimer: I'm not very interested in this subject and thus not especially well-read in it, but occasionally I feel motivated to donate my $0.02 to a discussion, for basically the same reason people watch Jerry Springer I guess, just the absurd, "real" spectacle of it.
I most often see [notice] the question of lost revenue in file sharing cases discussed as mitigating the criminals' intent, as in something for the judge to consider in assigning a lighter sentence, but not factored into the determination of guilt or innocence. But I think the absence of exchange of money absolves the mischief-makers of any financially quantifiable crime, not because of their inferred "good intentions" or absence of malice, but simply and amorally, because the assumption of lost revenue is totally invalid.
No, a downloaded file is not as good as the original. Some mp3s are "as good" -- for purposes of background noise, but not hi-fi or audiophile intense enjoyment of a real work of art -- as the original, but even when sound quality is not important enough for the downloader to purchase the original copyrighted work, the suitability of an mp3 is not reliably comparable to a CD. The unwanted insertion or removal of 2-second pauses between tracks on an album comes to mind, a much more noticeable defect to the casual listener than "quality" differences in mp3s or compressed video. Also, dedicated fans, defined as willing to pay retail CD mark-ups, generally want the liner notes, the high-quality photos and/or artwork, etc., available only on the original. Downloaders are not, generally, the same people as purchasers of the same work. So, no, it is not reasonable to assume that each file downloaded represents a lost sale, of either an album or single or anything, nor even that a consistent ratio of downloads represents one lost sale. Any such ratio would differ according to the nature of the work and the average quality standards of the audience.
For the reason of the differences I described above, I purchase any music or video I expect to be worthy of my time, basically because I value the one or more hours that I might otherwise spend learning something, too valuable to waste on the chance of copying errors. I've seen software being written. 'Nuff said. Despite having no files in my personal collection subject to the DMCA, music and software copyright litigation is a blatant waste of the judicial system for which I'm taxed. The cost/benefit analysis is a matter of public record, and does not support the business case for the corporations to initiate litigation, IIRC. Only the lawyers are gaining from this. So, as they're already running the businesses [into the ground, btw] let ^H^H^H make them write the code and the lyrics, too, for Pete's sake. Right now, they are looting economic value, meaning acquiring loot without providing anything of value, to anybody.
"I can't imagine how things could get any worse!" (some guy) "That could just be failure of imaginatioÂn on your p