Slashdot Mirror
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."
From the first link: 'Mr. Oppenheim is the person who has been identified by the RIAA lawyers sometimes as the "client", sometimes as the "industry representative", and sometimes as the "client representative", and on at least one occasion as "the only person who had settlement authority" for the RIAA members. He claims to be associated with an entity called "The Oppenheim Group", and has acted as attorney of record for the record companies in several proceedings in Washington, D.C.'
So, if he represents the interests of the artists, (ahem), why is he - or his legal team, taking such extraordinary steps to avoid testifying?
It's not about the law. It's about money! Stop interfering with our money-making!
"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.
He's a suit. 'nuff said.
How we know is more important than what we know.
Your Honor, we would like you to impose sanction against him. He's not supposed to fight back. Please punish him for fighting back. Our strategy doesn't work when intelligent lawyers fight back. This must be put to an end right now.
Pathetic RIAA.
You have money SO, you can hire good lawyers SO, you can prolong the process making the necessary appeals to higher courts for a long long time
Nothing new to see here, move along.
On the other hand, when you have a strong case things are different. I'm reminded of a business acquaintance who had a case against a powerful US trade group some years ago. His lawyers said the case was unanswerable, spent a morning summarising it on one side of a letter, and sent it off. The other side promptly settled out of court. The other famous example was the UK satirical magazine Private Eye, which once received a long and very threatening letter from the lawyers of a notorious fraudster. Their reply was something on the lines of "We have had your interesting letter and we have taken legal advice. Our lawyers advise us to tell you to f**k off".
Given this history, the one liner back (in effect "bring it on") is surely instructive.
From scarped cliff or quarried stone she cries "A thousand types are gone, I care for nothing, no not one."
First they get the live online-coverage of one of these processes postponed. Now they try to legally blackmail the defense lawyer. What's next?
"That's an awfully nice courtroom you have here, your honor. Wouldn't it be terrible if something happened to it?"
Jeez, I hate these guys.
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.
Well, the old fogies as you call them are really quite young the biggest of them being Edgar Bronfman, Jr son of a booze smuggler in prohibition. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edgar_Bronfman,_Jr.
"If the King's English was good enough for Jesus, it's good enough for me!" -- "Ma" Ferguson, Governor of Texas (circa
If Mr. Oppenheimer has been the RIAA's attorney (meaning agent only) then there has to have been someone at the RIAA giving him directions and telling him what to do. Basically the RIAA is trying to hold both ends of the stick: when you ask the RIAA: "who's the person who can speak for the corporation about this litigation", they say it's Mr. Oppenheimer. When you then say "Ok, can I ask Mr. Oppenheimer some questions?" they say: no, he's actually our lawyer so he can't tell you anything.
Say the RIAA sues someone. This means they gathered evidence etc. But the RIAA is not an actual human, just a "legal person". So some human employee of the RIAA must be able to testify to things like "we told our investigators to look for X" or "this is how much money we lost due to this alleged infringement". The RIAA is trying to claim that the employee who knows all this stuff is at the same time the RIAA's lawyer, so he only knows this stuff as their attorney and can't testify to it. It's a clever way to avoid having to present their case.
You mean THIS guy:
;)
"was the Senior Vice President of Legal and Business Affairs for the RIAA."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matt_Oppenheim
"Mr. Oppenheim then became active as one of the lead litigators representing the record industry in the landmark "file-sharing" cases against peer-to-peer networks, including against Napster, Aimster, AudioGalaxy, Morpheus, Grokster and Kazaa."
http://www.spoke.com/info/p6QsSD8/MatthewOppenheim
"It is not legal, ethical or cool to copy somebody else's CD for your own use."
http://www.pbs.org/newshour/forum/june03/copyright2.html
See, he doesn't even agree with himself. What the RIAA does is not legal, ethical or cool since they copy the artists CDs for their own use. Bad Bad RIAA
its legal suicide.
Read radical news here
It is not because they are clueless. Music business just revolves around seedy people. I know. I am starting up agent myself. I have a history of 15 years of tech development and know my local law quite well. I am sought up by young bands around me because I can tell them gazillion seedy practises of how to actually get a licing out of their music.
These discussions always take a place in some smoky studio with booze flowing. If my client and moral quibles, he will do by himself. I have one of these. He has honestly tried to break out for 10 years and is a very talented vocalist and guitarist. I can't help him because he finds my methods unsavory.
I do not collect by success. I have a fixed price which I take from the first album or by selling them to a bigger label. I have very little investement in myself, but they know I can help and are willing to sign my contract because they are only obliged to work with me until they get to bigger stages.
Anyway. Music is dog-eat-dog on business side. Those who try to make a living out of it, are quite heartless cynic people. But brilliant, talented cynic people.
Have fun supporting your local artist. Your pennies will never feed him. Do the math and calculate how much an ethical unknown artist would have to sell and tour to make ends meet. Don't forget to calculate expense of light techicians, sound technicians, roudies the bus driver, etc. Those salaries usually go untaxed and the venues pay grey. Try to work in proper taxation, insurances and what the heck not. A gig should cost $100/person and CD another $100 for the poor sods.
Music is not a business of scarce resources. It is of scarce customers. That's why the biggest front of the business looks so brutal.
Because he's so morbidly overweight that he's no longer able to leave his bed. That and the bad hair plugs keep him from going out in public. Oh, and he's got one of those crazy eyes where you can't tell where he's looking and he knows everybody on the internet will put his testimony on YouTube and laugh at him and leave mean comments. He's really a very sensitive soul and if you met him you'd like him, except for the horrible odor that comes from his unwillingness to bathe due to his persistent aquaphobia.
That, and if he showed his face he'd be in more danger than Barack Obama at a Klan meeting.
You are welcome on my lawn.
Oh, come on. It is kind of cool.
You know it is.
And even cooler is copying DVDs. You can have like thousands of movies in perfect quality, and the best part is that Mr. Oppenheim (if that is his real name) and his Rothchild/Bavarian Illuminati/Reptilian/Council on Foreign Relations/Banking Cartel buddies don't get a single red cent.
And the fun with Blue-Ray is just starting.
Now that's really cool.
Seriously, who's doing the RIAA's public relations?
You are welcome on my lawn.
Well, IANAL, but it kinda sounds illogical. When you can't present your case, how can you have one? Isn't that like saying "I sue you, but I won't tell you why, I only want you to be convicted and forced to pay me a sum that springs from my imagination"?
Thinking about it again... that's pretty much how they do it, ain't it?
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
From the pdf, it sounds like rule 37 is saying "You haven't asked us nicely for this information outside of court first and you should"
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.
VLC FOR MAC IS DYING! IF YOU DEVELOP, PLEASE SAVE IT!!
RIAA's lawyers actually wrote this in the threat: "Defendent's repeated failures to follow basic rules of procedure is making this case far more expensive and time consuming than it should be." hmm... I'd almost say something like, Plaintiff's repeated contortions of basic rules of procedure is making multiple cases far more expensive and time consuming than it should be.
Even cooler is that you:
- don't have to worry about your kid scratching the DVD and making it unplayable
- can easily skip the fscking "no skip" crap that every DVD seems to have
- can FIND the movie when you want to watch it
In almost every way, the ripped copy of the DVD is better than the physical disc
Come play free flash games on Kongregate!
Uh... because (they say) that he wasn't actually subpoenead to testify, and so being "compelled" is Bad Juju. (They claim) Profession Nesson actually subpoenead someone other mysterious 3rd party, who is resident in Maryland and so can't be subpoenad to a Massachusetts District court anyway.
Now, maybe they're lying, but that would be pushing it even for the RIAA. It almost sounds as though they created some Fake Oppenheim, let Nesson serve him, and now they bitch-slap him for claiming that he served the Real Oppenheim.
So I guess those would be extraordinary steps too, but at least the reason for taking them is obvious: it'd be damn funny if that's what they've done. Evil Robot RIAA Doubles. It's all true.
If you were blocking sigs, you wouldn't have to read this.
Their battle is to enforce (a certain subsection of) the law until it doesn't need to be enforced. Just like any honest law enforcement agency you care to name. That's no conspiracy; anyone in a functioning democracy can read up about their responsibilities regarding IP.
However, just like most dishonest law enforcement agencies, they are not above threatening people who aren't doing anything wrong.
There really isn't much more to read into it than that.
You know, there is a difference between trolling and pointing out the flaws in your reasoning. Just saying.
Nesson loves this stuff. He represented Ellsberg (the guy that stole and released the pentagon papers) against the us government. In classes he loves telling stories of how he stood against government intimidation to protect Ellsberg's location (e.g., being followed everywhere, never using phones in his home or office, taking elaborate trips arranged through fantastic means to have in person meetings away from the watching eyes of the us government). The government was breaking law after law to find Ellsberg and put him away, but Nesson managed to hide him long enough to prepare for defense and turned the government's own illegal actions back at them to get the case thrown out.
This is just the type of action the RIAA can be sure will get Nesson even more excited about this stuff. He'll just wear it a badge of honor.
You can make it, you just might not make it big.
My dad's been self-employed as a musician for fifteen years now and gets by. It's enough for him to support himself and help support the family. The trick was his business experience and not being too caught up in his art to not find new markets. He does a fair number of kids programs, but also a bunch of festivals, concerts in small venues, and a few big openers. It's about living within your means, selling your name and music at every opportunity, and not spending $50 on gas for a $40 show.
So, if he represents the interests of the artists
He doesn't. Nobody represents the artists, who get screwed over badly. The artist doen't even hold copyright to his own recorded performances, the label does.
If you want to know just how badly the RIAA labels screw over their artists, read any treatise by any RIAA musician (except Mad Donna or the dufus drummer from Metallica). There are good ones by Courtney Love and Steve Albini that will make you feel REAL sorry for the fools who sign with major labels.
Free Martian Whores!
They who can give up essential backups to obtain a little temporary convenience, deserve neither data integrity nor security.
Apologies Mr Franklin.
Do not meddle in the affairs of geeks for they are subtle and quick to anger
Mr. Oppenheim is a shadowy figure, who changes his stripes according to what he thinks the judge wants to hear. I.e., he will say whatever is most advantageous for him to say. He has claimed at various times to be:
-the client
-the client representative
-the industry representative
-the principal
-the only person in the world who has settlement authority
-the attorney
It is clearly true that he was the person who has controlled these cases, and who had complete authority to settle the cases. He is the enforcer of whatever unholy agreement these 4 supposed competitiors made among themselves, and he is instrumental in whatever trickery was developed to ensure that only the Big 4 -- and no other RIAA members -- were permitted to participate in this litigation war. He is the enforcer.
He is clearly an appropriate person to be deposed.
Ray Beckerman +5 Insightful
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?
The real "Libtards" are the Libertarians!
This is all mildly interesting twitter, but assuming you're not just karma whoring, maybe you'd like to explain how the people who produce the content you so eloquently demand must be shared are going to make a living?
The system is clearly broken at the moment, and shady legal actions and stacking from large groups that rarely have the artists' best interests in mind hardly help. Their passe distribution and promotion mechanisms also have to go.
But all these poetic "information wants to be free" essays I see here (yours is honestly just slightly north of corny) inevitably fail to explain how artists are supposed to avoid starvation and homelessness when freedom-loving folk like you are hard at work "sharing" their work.
The other day I read an article on game piracy. It centered mostly on DRM, but it also identified the lack of availability of titles in most of the world as a driving cause for piracy. In other words, there are millions of potential customers who would gladly pay for a game, yet simply can't because they have no legal way to do so. So they simply pirate it. That got me thinking that maybe if we had an open, secure and global mechanism for micropayment (< $100 on average) transactions, that could be used as an effective way to allow independent artists to profit from their hard work. Sure, there would be some piracy, that's a given. But depending on your overhead, even if only 10% of a hundred million people who have access to your work could pay, you'd probably break even and then some.
But just offering up empty prose on how everyone must "share" (and where is your shared content, BTW?) is and how eeeevil the **AA people are is, as usual, nothing but empty prose.
Web2.0: I love when people Flickr my cuil and digg my boingboing until my google is reddit and I start to yahoo