MediaSentry & RIAA Expert Under Attack

NewYorkCountryLawyer writes "Jammie Thomas, the defendant in Duluth, Minnesota, RIAA case Capitol Records v. Thomas, has served her expert witness's report. The 30-page document (PDF), prepared by Prof. Yongdae Kim of the Computer Science Department of the University of Minnesota, attacks the reports and testimony of Prof. Doug Jacobson, the RIAA's expert, and the work of the RIAA's investigator, Safenet (formerly known as MediaSentry). Among other things, Dr. Kim termed MediaSentry's methods 'highly suspect,' debunked Dr. Jacobson's 'the internet is like a post office' analogy, explained in detail how FastTrack works, explored a sampling of the types of attacks to which the defendant's computer may have been subjected, accused Jacobson of making 'numerous misstatements,' and concluded that 'there is not one but numerous possible explanations for the evidence presented during this trial. Throughout the report I demonstrate possibilities not considered by the plaintiff's expert witness in his evaluation of the evidence...' Additionally, he concluded, 'MediaSentry has a strong record of mistakes when claiming that particular IP addresses were the origins of copyright infringement. Their lack of transparency, lack of external review, and evidence of inadequate error checking procedures [put] into question the authenticity and validity of the log files and screenshots they produced.'"

Comments

Re:Duh?

[NewYorkCountryLawyer]

Dr Jacobson is not stupid, I've met the man. I graduated with a degree in computer science from Iowa State University in December. I haven't taken a class from him, but again the man is not stupid. He's malicious. He's being paid. In fact I bet he even knows his testimony is full of shit. Again, he's being paid.

More than being paid, he has a major financial interest in the "Audible Magic" software which the RIAA is peddling for him. They go to LAN operators and say "Pay us $76,000 and the letters will stop".

Re:Duh?

[NewYorkCountryLawyer]

Would a "reasonable man" conclude that those interests are in conflict? If the answer is yes (and it probably is) then why was Dr Jacobson not eliminated as an expert witness straight away by a defense attorney raising an objection in court and mentioning this conflict? Perhaps I am missing something here, but I am sure that NYCL can explain.

That's easy.

The defendant's lawyer did not object.