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NYCL Responds to RIAA Accusations
NewYorkCountryLawyer writes "You may recall that when the RIAA decided to run away with its tail between its legs in the long running Brooklyn case against a home health aide who has never used a computer, UMG v. Lindor, it decided to take some parting shots at the defendant and NewYorkCountryLawyer, asking for 'discovery sanctions,' and blaming them for its inability to prove its case. Today NYCL gave them his response, accusing the RIAA lawyers of persistent misstatements of fact (PDF) throughout their motion papers, and of flouting the rules and misstating the law (PDF). Although the RIAA's motion papers took a number of shots at NYCL's copyright law blog, 'Recording Industry vs. The People,' NYCL confined his response on that subject to a single footnote."
I'd say more than that, NYCL is a bona-fide Freedom Fighter. Thanks, NYCL -- you're my kind of hero!
Caveat Utilitor
I decline to enter into a point-by-point rejoinder in defense of my modest foray into "blogging". Suffice it to say that (a) my law blog is irrelevant to the motion, (b) plaintiffs' counsel themselves rely upon the blog in the course of their legal work....(c) many in-house university counsels and student legal services offices refer their students to it ....... (d) many law schools and colleges use it in their curricula ..... (e) many
reputable organizations have found the views expressed in it to be worthy of further in-depth
consideration...... (f) it has been cited in law review articles.....(g) plaintiffs' counsel are not candid
about their real problem with the blog, which is that its existence interferes with their tactic of
attempting to conceal the litigation events and prior inconsistent statements they don't want
others to know about, from judges, litigants, and law enforcement authorities
Emphasis mine. He then goes on to give a specific example of why the RIAA hates his blog, basically because it exposes the stupid things they do to the world.
Must be a fun job to use the law to destroy evil. Kind of like that old movie The Rainmaker. If I were Ray Beckerman, I would feel like I were in a movie.
Qxe4
Here's a guy who has single handedly changed my opinion of lawyers. Certianly he has friends here, I'd give him a dollar. But at the same time his existence speaks badly of other lawyers. The question is: Why are there not more like him? We all recognise the RIAA are effectively an extorion racket. Why do more not speak up and take on these criminals? Leading by example may not be enough. If I were NYCL my focus would be converting more of my peers, raising an army against the RIAA. A one man battle is heroic and all, but sooner or later we all need help. It's time other lawyers saw which way the wind is blowing and get behind this leader.
We salute you, sir.
Mr. Hu is not a ninja.
"You may recall that when the RIAA decided to run away with its tail between its legs in the long running Brooklyn case against a home health aide who has never used a computer"
Maybe I'm thinking of a different case, but I thought Lindor decided to settle?
I am the maverick of Slashdot
Being stressed, bashed, scarred, and abused is part of life.
True, and people should have some amount of thick skin. But...
When people stress others without caring for their well-being and (more importantly) without a valid reason and do so repeatedly, that's where it becomes chicanery and where I think it's reasonable to step in.
Whether we're talking about schoolyard bullies or corporate dragnet litigation, there should be some way of stopping chicanery. Lawsuits are not like an abusive spouse: you can't just divorce it.
Looked at the Skinnerian way, when people harass you, we need you to have some way of punishing them. Otherwise, as symes said (http://news.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=1022819&cid=25690283), you become stressed out with bad effects to your health.
Shame me for using anecdotal evidence all you want; I know what ten years of near-constant bullying can do to you. When you feel universally hated and persecuted, you don't have the most fertile ground for developing social skills; what you do have is fertile grounds for developing social anxiety.
When on top of the endless bullying your cries for help go unanswered, you learn that you can't rely on anyone when you're in need, that no one cares about your well-being, and that people in practice have the right to mistreat you however they want.
I do not want to be expected to tell my children that "this is a part of life".
How would NYCL react to his being cast as Jack Nicholson?
I don't really care who they cast as me, as long as they give me a nice fee -- like maybe 5% of what Jack Nicholson gets for a movie.
Ray Beckerman +5 Insightful
if you don't know where your junk is by now....
Dude...check the username.
"Make it ten--I am only a poor corrupt official."
--Captain Louis Renault (Claude Rains), Casablanca
I very much appreciate your "pipe dream" footnote.
Aside from the deterioration of the US military through reorganization whose design goals seem to focus on saving money, military service just isn't rewarding any more. Veteran's benefits have been wantonly slashed, despite the hard evidence that the WWII G.I. Bill produced a renaissance by providing a free college education to everyone who served. The pessimistic focus seems to mirror the canard of welfare cheats. I leave the irony of military recruiters targeting the poor as an exercise for the reader.
That being said, I found my own service experience useful in that it forced me to grow up and to recognize that I had been squandering my potential. If nothing else, the US military will teach you just how badly it sucks to take orders from someone less intelligent that you are. I count myself fortunate to have realized this before the age of twenty, and to have taken action by the time I reached twenty-two.
Not only did I get a college education on my own dime, I found that there were more than a few loopholes in the educational assistance program. I tired of fighting the bureaucracy and just did it on my own. In fairness, I did use the VA loan benefit ten years later.
I think that the problem is the mistaken belief that the common work-avoidance mentality of service{men,women} persists into the post-service, civilian experience. Some minority will game every system. That doesn't make it wise to turn it off.
"Press to test."
(click)
"Release to detonate."