RIAA Threatens Harvard Law Prof With Sanctions

NewYorkCountryLawyer writes "Unhappy with Harvard Law Professor Charles Nesson's motion to compel the deposition of the RIAA's head 'Enforcer', Matthew J. Oppenheim, in SONY BMG Music v. Tenenbaum, the RIAA threatened the good professor with sanctions (PDF) if he declined to withdraw his motion. Then the next day they filed papers opposing the motion, and indeed asked the Court to award monetary sanctions under Rule 37 of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure."

Comments

modern version of sending pictures

[HungryHobo]

"Stop this (perfectly legal thing) or our teams of lawyers will fuck up your life" seems to be the new iteration of having thugs beat up a family member or sending pictures of your kids playing outside.
The intent is merely to scare people.

When the client is a lawyer ...

[l2718]

If I sue you, I can't hide my claims against you on the theory that my thoughts about these claims are part of my legal representation. This is the case even if I'm a lawyer. The RIAA is trying to do just that by employing a lawyer intermediary between the RIAA itself and the legal team representing them: First, the RIAA generates "evidence". Then the RIAA gives the evidence to the intermediary lawyer, and also charges him with making all the decisions for the corporation. Finally, the intermediary becomes the "client" for the actual legal team. This way the real client is shielded from discovery: all their contributions to the lawsuit were done through their "client-attorney" relationship with the intermediary. It's a thing of beauty, but I suspect it's not legal.

Re:Capitalism at it's best.

[u38cg]

Not really. The RIAA is a perfect example of a cartel and what it can do. There's a reason they are usually illegal.

NYCL, please start annotating your submissions!

[plasmacutter]

Most people are still not understanding what this means, its implications, and its likelihood for success.

It's important to translate things out of legalese and analyze it in the context of the proceedings.

Slashdot is a tech site, not a legal one, so while the general community can see "aha", "touche'", and "gotcha" moments in, say, the realm of computer science or electrical engineering, we don't see it in legal context without some actual analysis. Feel free to qualify things with "this is my opinion" or whatever, but analysis and translation is essential.

Re:Who is this guy, & why does he not want to

[whoever57]

2) Modifying the movie, and the extra's, violates the TOC. Just like any contract, if you do not like it then do not sign for it

What contract? What TOC? I don't recall signing a contract the last time I bought a movie.

Modifying a movie is just like buying a book and then writing in the margin, or tearing out pages -- do you think that is illegal too?

Re:You don't get it, do you?

[NewYorkCountryLawyer]

I bet if RIAA had stuck to suing copyright infringers, none of us would have ever heard of NewYorkCountryLawyer.

May well be so. I only came into the fight because of my hatred of bullies, and because these bullies were so obviously wrong on the law, wrong on the facts, and immoral and unprofessional in their behavior.

You might have otherwise heard of my alter ego, Ray what's-his-name, in other contexts, but probably not in this context.

I only first discovered Slashdot when one of my litigation documents in Elektra v. Santangelo got 'Slashdotted' one day in the Summer of 2005. I traced the backlink to this place I'd never heard of, where an intelligent Talmudic discussion was going on, among a bunch of people who seemed kind of like lawyers, but who clearly were not lawyers, but who seemed smarter than lawyers. It looked like an ordinary message board, but it obviously was a whole 'nother thing.

Things haven't been quite the same since.

1. Spend a lot of time on Slashdot.
2. Get the word out.
3. Have a lot of fun.
4. ???
5. No profit whatsoever (in the financial sense).