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

Cue - no, Clue...

[capnkr]

Cue the DMCA takedown notice in 5, 4, 3... ;)

Thanks, NYCL. I hope that making this transcript available does something to help make the **AA strategists have to adjust to this "new" internet technology in a way more beneficent to all, instead of just trying to sue the pants off anyone who they think might have crossed their rather arbitrary lines...

Re:Cue - no, Clue...

[nomadic]

Court transcripts can't be copyrighted.

Re:Cue - no, Clue...

[pha7boy]

the transcript is public domain. as such, it should be easily available from any law clerk at the courthouse unless the judge orders the court case closed. now the RIAA could file a motion to close the court proceedings - but they would have to have a decent argument as to why that is necessary.

I wonder if this came out now because the RIAA decided to stop suing individuals and work via the ISPs.

Re:Cue - no, Clue...

[QuantumG]

Yeah. The RIAA is like:

* We need new laws to make this illegal, hey Congress, can you hook us up? DENIED.
* Ahh, the problem is public perception.. we need to vilify file sharing. Marketing moguls, can you hook us up? DENIED.
* Ok, well maybe we can just scare people into our way of thinking. Lawyers, can you hook us up? DENIED.
* Maybe we can use impossible technology to force everyone into forgetting how to copy. Cryptographers, can you hook us up? DENIED.
* Ok, how about just crazy ass rootkit technology? That's doable. Hey Sony scumbags, can you hook us up? DENIED.
* Boy oh boy, this is harder than making water not wet, we need an international conspiracy of ISPs to give us unaccounted power over all their customers. PENDING.

What other crazy schemes will they come up with?

* Maybe they'll start putting poison in cases of blank media (cause they obviously have this stupid idea that people still burn the music they download - look at the tax on blank media in Canada).
* What ever happened to that lawsuit against Apple? Are they making so much money from the iTunes store that they've forgotten their water tight argument that an 80 gig iPod would take $79,200 to fill? I guess math never was their strong suite.
* Direct hacking attacks on file sharers? They have your IP, I wouldn't put it past them.
* What about voodoo? That shit works right? We just need everyone in the world to submit some of their hair or skin so the witch doctor can make a voodoo doll, then we can jab em whenever they share files.. how will we know when they share files? EVERYONE shares files, we just have to jab everyone equally, that's easy!

Ok, now I'm just being silly.

That's really awesome

[Adult film producer]

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. How does it feel to have a million dollars worth of product sitting next to you? Probably not as nice as if a solid gold bar were sitting there, but still, it's the same.. You are a millionaire. Go tell your friends that you're computer is worth 7 figures... cherish it, stroke it... oil it down and rub it for comfort.. until it glistens and shimmers like diamonds.

Re:That's really awesome

[Kandenshi]

If one assumes that all the music on my computer is stuff that the RIAA can sue over(some isn't, not sure the %), and ignores that some of the stuff that I have comes from legal purchases and my own rips(some, but not all that much to be honest), and if one uses the $9,250 per song figure from the summary:

My computer has a value of approximately $207,900,000.

For perspective, the current price of gold is $871.20 USD per troy oz. Alternatively, about $28,000 per kilogram of gold.
$207,900,000 / $28,000/kg = 7425 kg of gold
A Ford F150 truck comes in with a weight of 2,197kg.

My computer is worth almost as much as three and a half Ford F150 trucks made of solid gold

You're right Adult film producer... I feel rich, powerful! Excuse me, I'm going to go buy a bigger basement and a new family now.

Re:That's really awesome

[mrsteveman1]

If you hadn't compared that to a car of some kind, i would have been totally lost.

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

[koalapeck]

I would have preferred how much money it's worth in regards to Libraries of Congress but I suppose beggars can't be choosers.

Re:That's really awesome

[rakuen]

Can I get that measured out in Dodge Intrepids? I need a car I can actively apply it to.

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:That's really awesome

[_Sprocket_]

I would have preferred how much money it's worth in regards to Libraries of Congress but I suppose beggars can't be choosers.

Libraries of Congress is something the Slashdot crowd is familiar with as we tend to deal with data storage. However, this measurement isn't appropriate when dealing with volumes of gold. Those who deal with financial issues on a more frequent basis know that the correct U.S. Government equivalency metric for gold is Fort Knoxes.

Honestly...

[G0rAk]

PJ takes one week off, and everybody moves back to Slashdot.

Re:Honestly...

[digitalchinky]

Pamela Jones. A woman. She runs a website: groklaw.net

Re:Honestly...

[Ecuador]

What is this "woman" thing you speak of?

Oh, come on, you know them. They look nice, they are generally flat and sometimes folded in the middle.

Anyone RTFA?

[Timesprout]

Its way too long for me. Can someone sumarize please using the medium of dance.

Re:Anyone RTFA?

[Spy der Mann]

Its way too long for me. Can someone sumarize please using the medium of dance.

Sure!

Basically, the RIAA said: You are a pirate!

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?

file share

[binaryseraph]

Wonder what they would have to say if I started seeding this on a bit torrent client.

Re:the "copyright infringement is stealing" argume

[QuantumG]

It's not just you, the rest of the world is also subjected to this bullshit.

"Disingenuous" is what some people call it. I think that's too polite.

Let me guess on the whole jury convincing...

[plasmacutter]

Given the technical knowledge of your average joe...

media sentry guy and expert witness come in and bandy about as much technical jargon as possible while connecting it with vicious invective to nefarious terms like "theft".

defense asks them questions, which they answer in the same language, which may as well be fluent korean to the jurors.

In the end, jurors make decision based on the repeated misinformation from the media of the past 10 years equating downloading to theft, which was repeated amongst the foreign language the "witnesses" happened to be speaking.

The end.

This just says it all:

[Soulshift]

FTFA:

Capitol Records, Inc., a Delaware corporation; Sony BMG Music Entertainment, a Delaware general partnership; Arista Records, LLC, a Delaware limited liability company; Interscope Records, a California general partnership; Warner Bros. Records, Inc., a Delaware corporation; and UMG Recordings, Inc., a Delaware corporation,
Plaintiffs,

vs.

Jammie Thomas,
Defendant.

I rest my case.

Re:the "copyright infringement is stealing" argume

[mixmatch]

I always cheer loudly when these commercials are played at the movie theatres. I think it provides some comic relief and lets everybody know that not everybody believes the bullshit.

Re:To Mr Beckerman

[NewYorkCountryLawyer]

To what extent do you think that the RIAA's representatives believe the case that they advance?

I don't know.

To what extent do you think that matters?

I think it matters.

Do you think that they are bad people

Yes.

or poor counsel for advancing that case?

Yes that too. I think they are a disgrace to my profession.

And then on a different tack, when one is dealing with litigants in person in a case that might have national repercussions, how can one deal effectively with those defendants if you have no confidence in their willingness to abide by confidentiality agreements and every fear that they will post the details on the internet?

I have no idea what you are referring to.

Re:Like anybody on /.

[armanox]

Bit torrent is not an illegal application.

Re:Why did this take a year?

[NewYorkCountryLawyer]

I thought court proceedings were public records -- why did it take a year for the transcript to be available?

1. The transcripts aren't free. I think this one cost around $2500.

2. For awhile the court reporter was on maternity leave. I don't know about other delays.

3. This was a gift from the Joel Fights Back" legal team. If they hadn't gotten me one, I don't know if I'd ever have seen it, because the RIAA lawyers do not have the courtesy to share transcripts with their adversaries.

Re:She is a dumbass

[Anonymous Coward]

Legitimate channels like Jury nullification.

Posting anonymously so that I don't get booted off any jury I get picked for. If they find out you know about jury nullification, they don't want you on the jury! If I'm ever on a file-sharing jury, I will refuse to convict, and do everything in my power to convince my fellow jurors of the same.

Re:"when she testified under oath...

[NewYorkCountryLawyer]

"when she testified under oath that making a copy from one's CD to one's computer is 'stealing'."

That one baffled me. I am neither a lawyer nor an American. However, I would assume that a witness' opinion of the legality of a given action is completely irrelevant. Establishing the legality of a given action is a task for the court, not a task for the witness.

Agreed.

So why was a witness asked about the legality of copying a CD?

Beats me.

And why was she breaking her oath (as NYCL is somehow implying) when she did not know the correct answer?

She knew the correct answer. She was deliberately misstating the law in order to improperly inflame the jury against Ms. Thomas, convincing the jurors that even had Ms. Thomas done nothing but copy some CD's onto her hard drive, that in and of itself was a copyright infringement.

Re:"when she testified under oath...

[belmolis]

Ms. Pariser is a lawyer and therefore an officer of the court even when she acts as a witness rather than as counsel for a party. Knowing misrepresentation of the law by an officer of the court is unethical and a potential cause for disciplinary action.

I second the motion.

[Jane Q. Public]

We should all take some time once in a while to thank NYCL and people like him for putting up the good fight and making this kind of information -- which is absolutely crucial to free markets and free people -- available to us all.

I am also going to take a little time this holiday season to go donate a few bucks to the Electronic Frontier Foundation (eff.org) and the Electronic Privacy Information Center (epic.org).

Please help support all of these people, without whom we would all be royally screwed by now.

Audio Book Format

[mdmkolbe]

Would anyone care to make an audio book out of this?

I'm curious about the content (I like learning how things work), but don't want to wade through that many pages. On the other hand, if I could listen to it in the background while I'm doing something else ...

Re:Because they say it is.

[Zombie Ryushu]

The US has never really been the freedom loving nation it aspires. when it started, it had slavery, when that ended there was an apartheid of Blacks, after that there were constant conflicts over religion internally. (In fact, religion has caused the US Public school system to be torn apart.) The list goes on. The USian public doesn't really believe in freedom. It believes in White, Christian, Male, wealthy domination. The whole secularism and tolerance thing has been around only since the early 70s.

You can't really have a true open and transparent democracy when such a huge percentage believe in a Monarchical Autocratic universe. The last 8 years, the US presidency has boiled down to "Jesus wants me to be president." My significant other has been told "Jesus wants Christians to run Windows", and "Linux is a Demonic Operating system". So telling the public "Jesus says making copies of music is wrong." and they will believe it. Because thats just the way the USA is.

Any thoughts about technical testimony?

[NewYorkCountryLawyer]

Has anybody been reading the testimony of the RIAA's investigator and of its expert witness? It would be interesting to get some discussion of that going on here, like the one that's started on my blog.

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.