Entire Transcript of RIAA's Only Trial Now Online

NewYorkCountryLawyer writes "The entire transcript of the RIAA's 'perfect storm,' its first and only trial, which resulted in a $222,000 verdict in a case involving 24 MP3's having a retail value of $23.76, is now available online. After over a year of trying, we have finally obtained the transcript of the Duluth, Minnesota, jury trial which took place October 2, 2007, to October 4, 2007, in Capitol Records v. Thomas. Its 643 pages represent a treasure trove for (a) lawyers representing defendants in other RIAA cases, (b) technologists anxious to see how a MediaSentry investigator and the RIAA's expert witness combined to convince the jurors that the RIAA had proved its case, and (c) anybody interested in finding out about such things as the early-morning October 4th argument in which the RIAA lawyer convinced the judge to make the mistake which forced him to eventually vacate the jury's verdict, and the testimony of SONY BMG's Jennifer Pariser in which she 'misspoke' according to the RIAA's Cary Sherman when she testified under oath that making a copy from one's CD to one's computer is 'stealing.' The transcript was a gift from the 'Joel Fights Back Against RIAA' team defending SONY BMG Music Entertainment v. Tenenbaum, in Boston, Massachusetts. I have the transcript in 3 segments: October 2nd (278 pages(PDF), October 3rd (263 pages)(PDF), and October 4th (100 pages)(PDF)."

Comments

the "copyright infringement is stealing" argument

[crazybit]

is being widely used in my country (Peru), not only referring music "piracy" but also movie "piracy".

This includes commercials which are screened just before your favorite movie and printed ads in mainstream newspapers (which says "Piracy is stealing").

I have explained my son that this is a lie, because "piracy" and stealing are two different concepts, but many thousands of peruvians don't know this difference.

did I mention that the "Piracy is stealing" commercial showed before movies had the MPAA logo at the end?

Re:That's really awesome

[Kjella]

Just think... The computer that you're using might be worth a million dollars, maybe 20 millions dollars if you download a lot of music.

Don't be modest, at "a lot of music" like say 1000 CDs * 15 songs and $10000/song as in this case you're ranked 178th on countries by GDP ahead of "Kiribati" and "São Tomé and Príncipe". Is it really any wonder this sort of thing threatens the world economy?

Re:That's really awesome

[Majik Sheff]

You have a flaw in your math. You stated that you would have 3.5 trucks made of solid gold. You failed to account for the difference in density between steel/aluminum/plastic and solid gold. Just for the sake of simplicity we'll say that the density of the materials in a Ford F150 average out to a little less than the density of steel. Conveniently this works out to right around 1 cubic meter of solid material. A cubic meter of solid gold weighs 19,300Kg, so you would be looking at only about 1/3 of a truck.

Re:Because they say it is.

[mcgrew]

The USian public doesn't really believe in freedom. It believes in White, Christian, Male, wealthy domination.

Racism and sexism are smokescreens for the US's blatant classism. And it's far from Christian; the national religion is the worship of money. You won't find Bibles in any public school I know of, and students have been disciplined for even talking about religion. The Constitution itself states that the government cannot institute a national religion. We were founded as a secular nation.

Our national god is the god of mammon. We worship green pieces of paper. Hell, the mammon-worshipers are so afraid of Jesus they no longer even use the word "Christmas" in advertising. "Holoday tree?" What other holiday (outside Druidism) has a tree? Do they call it a "Holiday Menorah?"

We're heading into a depression because the high priests of finance are greedy morons.

As to racism, nobody would object to Bill Cosby or Oprah Winfrey moving in next door to them. It's the crack smoking gang bangers that they don't want moving in. Their color has nothing to do with it; what it has to do with is the fact that they're poor violent thieves. Most anybody would object to blue eyed Billy Bob Meth guy just as vehemently. It isn't a matter of race, it's a matter of class.