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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.'"
I've prepared a few expert reports in my time, but IANAL, however, as satisfying/intimidating these reports may be, most of the time they'll be downplayed or ignored by the other side. In court, if you ignore it, unless the judge is on the other side, it DOES go away.
I'm waiting for the expert testimony, because anybody can type up 30 pages that equate to "Nuh-uh!" but judges sit up and take notice when someone sits in the witness chair and says "Nuh-uh!"
Essentially, what I'm saying is that while the slashdot community will rally around this news item, the legal community won't take notice until there's a precident.
Is it sad that I am more likely to recognize you and your posts by your sig than your name or UID?
Red designates new articles ("hot off the press") that have no comments yet.
Convert FLACs to a portable format with FlacSquisher
Artists deserve to make money on their work. We dislike the RIAA because they use questionable tactics and have a history of going after individual, largely non-technical defendants and suing them into the stone age.
And no, downloading music without paying for it is not STEALING. It's copyright infringement.
We don't want something for nothing. We want the right to purchase digital music ONCE with the ability to transform that single digital copy into any media or format we choose ... and purely for personal use.
I've purchased several thousand dollars worth of music over the past 35 years, and I think I'm justified in making a few MP3 copies of the various music CD's I've legally purchased and the older LP's that I've legally taped, then legally converted to digital media.
Mainframe/UNIX Bit Twiddler and long time Windows/Linux Hobbyist.
The Theorem Theorem: If If, Then Then.
Piracy has always been here, so expecting it to ever disappear is just dumb. Let us not forget that the iTunes Music Store brought music sales back up. Have sales started going back down since they went DRM free?
You're assuming that everyone pirating, or even just a significant percentage of them, would have purchased the music otherwise. Do you actually expect a business model built around selling physical media in an age where the media can be reproduced by anyone at virtually no cost or effort?
I see the glass as full with a FoS of 2.
The use of screen shots (and indeed printouts) from computers in legal trials in the UK in the 1990s resulted in a body of case law in which it was pointed out that anyone can make a computer show anything you like, that doesn't mean the data is valid.
(This case law was frequently as a result of a popular defense tactic against the Poll Tax. Just because a printout says X owes Y amount doesn't mean that this is true. You can't cross-examine a computer.)
It would be good if this argument made its way into the US legal system, but for all the flak that UK judges get for ignorance, I suspect they are smarter when it comes to technology.
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
You Poor fuckers need to get out of your parents basement and get a job you freeloading fucktaints.
Not a good thing to say at the start of a depression, friend. people have been guillotined for less.
Firstly, the RIAA has not "given" any funds back to the "artists" it represents, they're just a high profile organization that tries to scare people away from copying music - legally or otherwise. Secondly - their outrageous claims about "lost profits" and "starving artists" are patently false. It's like the US complaining about the lost tax revenue it has to bear every year by NOT conquering the world. It makes no sense. However no doubt the same accountants and mathematicians representing the RIAA also worked in the financial industry up until recently.
Frankly, I think that digital distribution of media - especially music and film, is the way to go. It's much more environmentally friendly and economically efficient - after all, if "pirates" can do it for FREE then surely the COST can't be all that great. There may be a slight problem with expecting people to pay $15 for a CD or $1 for a song, however. But look on the bright side, if artists earn less perhaps that will force the price of their cocaine down due to demand destruction?
Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
I find this all very interesting from a kind of "we're living through history" perspective. What we've been witnessing over the past few years is almost the complete devaluation of the record company's main 3 products, 'recording', 'promotion' and 'distribution'.
Artists needed record companies to make them nice recordings and to promote them (advertising and getting their records out). The record companies made most of their money off of record sales. The artists made most of their money off of concerts and appearances. With recording equipment fairly inexpensive in comparison to the recent past, and free or nearly free software that can professionally mix, recording now comes at a very low cost. The only real advantages of a studio now are the sound-proof room and the technician that knows what they're doing. If a musician spends the time to learn and experiment with acoustics, the trained technician becomes less valuable, and all you need is some equipment and a nice room.
It's obvious to anyone reading Slashdot that promotion and distribution can be handled through the Internet now for extremely little money.
It's amazing to think how these 3 things which were so valuable for such a long time became cheap so suddenly. The argument that file sharing is anti-capitalist is completely incorrect. It's capitalism at work. It's just that the value of the job that record companies do is no where near the value it had even a decade ago. Ironically, pretending it's still the same is anti-capitalism.
Both your examples are unlikely. And, I'll note, not listed in Dr. Kim's report. (You did read the report, right?)
In this case, the RIAA expert didn't even admit the possibility of likely things.
For example, until I locked it down, neighbors on both sides of my place were stealing bandwidth off the wireless router where I rent. If they were downloading music, we'd be the ones hit, because it would be our router that would be showing up in ISP records / on Kazaa. (A similar example appeared in Dr. Kim's report. You did read the report, right?)
The RIAA "expert" seemed to think that because the (non-timestamped) traceroute went to Thomas's computer, that it -always- went there. This isn't automatically the case. IP/MAC spoofing or other attacks (as appeared in Dr. Kim's report. You did read the report, right?) can easily obfuscate the issue.
The RIAA's expert also said that the presence of MP3s showed that Thomas downloaded them from the internet, again, ignoring the extremely likely possibility that Thomas ripped them from CD (which, I will note is both extremely easy, and mentioned in Dr. Kim's report. You did read the report, right?).
The problem with the RIAA expert is that he neglected to list other possibilities. Would he have needed to list the extremely unlikely ones? No.
But he did need to address likely alternative explanations. And when you add his extremely bad analogies, and apparent lack of understanding of NAT (to be 'fair', he could actually understand NAT, but ignored it because it would weaken his report, but that's being a bad expert), his report deserved to be torn apart by Dr. Kim. (You did read the report, right?)
I like you, Stuart. You're not like everyone else, here, at Slashdot.
In this case, the RIAA expert didn't even admit the possibility of likely things. For example, until I locked it down, neighbors on both sides of my place were stealing bandwidth off the wireless router where I rent. If they were downloading music, we'd be the ones hit, because it would be our router that would be showing up in ISP records / on Kazaa. (A similar example appeared in Dr. Kim's report. You did read the report, right?) The RIAA "expert" seemed to think that because the (non-timestamped) traceroute went to Thomas's computer, that it -always- went there. This isn't automatically the case. IP/MAC spoofing or other attacks (as appeared in Dr. Kim's report. You did read the report, right?) can easily obfuscate the issue. The RIAA's expert also said that the presence of MP3s showed that Thomas downloaded them from the internet, again, ignoring the extremely likely possibility that Thomas ripped them from CD (which, I will note is both extremely easy, and mentioned in Dr. Kim's report. You did read the report, right?). The problem with the RIAA expert is that he neglected to list other possibilities. Would he have needed to list the extremely unlikely ones? No. But he did need to address likely alternative explanations. And when you add his extremely bad analogies, and apparent lack of understanding of NAT (to be 'fair', he could actually understand NAT, but ignored it because it would weaken his report, but that's being a bad expert), his report deserved to be torn apart by Dr. Kim. (You did read the report, right?)
Good post. When I deposed Dr. Jacobson in the UMG v. Lindor case, he admitted that he had never considered any alternative explanations.
Ray Beckerman +5 Insightful
Bear in mind that MediaSentry has accused a laser printer of sharing music files. Not just alleged, stated that they had proof positive of that laser printer serving up MP3s via a P2P network. That alone suggests to me that their "evidence" is shaky at best.
They can have $.99 when I can download a non-lossy format free from DRM in an open format that I am allowed to use how I see fit. As long as it is fair and I do not re-distribute. That is what I had with CD's. This is what I want with online purchases. Also, while I am on the topic of online, when I can download the song and save it without having to use their software program to "manage" it then they can have my money. If I wanted bloatware slowing down my computer then I would install Windows*. Thanks and HAND!
I use Windows at work. I have a linux desktop too.
So, for a counterexample, I could provide one person in the US that has more of a clue about technology than one person in the EU?
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.
If you cannot keep politics out of your moderation remove yourself from the Mod Lottery.. NOW!
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.
And neither would the production of music by the artists be worth the effort.
Excuse me, but your assuming that most artists have ever received a monetary return that would financially make creating & performing music "worth it". Here's a clue from a musician of 30-plus years; most musicians, even very talented and creative musicians, don't make anywhere near what it costs them to create and perform their music in just about any measure you'd care to use.
We real musicians don't play and write for money...we do it because the music is inside us and burning a hole in our souls to get out. Between instrument and equipment costs, travel costs, etc etc, we rarely ever break even and even more rarely do we ever actually get ahead financially. This is why the majority of musicians have day jobs. Even many artists signed to a label seldom come out ahead because of "Hollywood accounting".
Read this piece by Steve Albini on what a typical artist/band goes through even in the rare case they're even offered the chance to sign with a major label.
The Problem With Music
Even knowing all that, how the odds are totally stacked against a band or artist ever making a living from music, we still work, strive, and sacrifice to write and perform our music.
This is why the idea that you espouse is, no offense, totally wrong.
Cheers!
Strat
Progressivism (aka US 'Liberalism'): Ideas so good they need a police/surveillance-state to enforce.
Mostly innuendo and facts of marginal relevance.
Except for these two zingers:
http://lists.sans.org/pipermail/unisog/2004-April/
http://lists.sans.org/pipermail/unisog/2005-January/
Look for the messages regarding "MediaSentry". Real network administrators posting their experiences receiving nonsensical requests from MediaSentry and related entities for information about bogus IP addresses. Doesn't reflect too well on MediaSentry's methodology.
What would be interesting, and possibly helpful, would be a screenshot showing that someone with the IP address of a SafeNet office (or an RIAA lawyer's law office) has a lot of files on their computer with filenames suggesting kiddy porn or something to that effect. Introducing that faked screenshot as evidence would be interesting, since any testimony supporting the validity of the Safenet screenshots may support a felony case against Safenet (or the RIAA lawyer).
I don't have the skills/time to find the appropriate IP addresses, ascertain operating systems and such, and then fake the believable screen shot. I don't know that it would be legal, either, so please don't take this as a suggestion. It would be interesting in court, though.
I own a Sony CD transport. I also own two Pioneer DVD-RWs which are good at reading red book CDs. My fiancee owns a portable CD player made by some yumcha brand or other, and we both have CD players (manufactured by different manufacturers) in our automobiles. If the fancy took me, I could trivially, using the technology on hand, assemble SOME device which could play red book PCM audio. Even if Sony and Philips both went bankrupt tomorrow.
Similarly, I have, lying around at home, about 15 devices which are capable of playing MP3s, manufactured by a large number of different entities (although quite possibly all made in the same dragons' breath factory in china.) Were every single MP3-player manufacturing entity in the world to disappear overnight, it would not impact my ability in the slightest to play MP3s. Worst case, i've got a copy of the mpg123 source code and the handful of technical data about the format I could find when I was writing a tool which needed to understand the format on some level. The various MPEG standards are quite well documented and implementable by anyone who gives a fuck. If the Fraunhoefer institute (or whoever claims to own those patents this week) goes broke, it impacts my life exactly 0.
I don't own anything that can (trivially) play an iTunes .m4p file, excepting the one iPod that was purchased several years ago and has since suffered chronic, irreversable headphone jack damage. If Apple go away, it doesn't matter how much effort I exert, I am not going to be in a position to play a .m4p file. This is the very DEFINITION of platform lock. Simply being tied to a format is NOT platform lock-in, because you're always going to have, at the very least, some way of reimplementing that format.
Go home, and write "Itunes tracks are platform locked. MP3s are not platform locked. Red book audio is not platform locked." 1000 times. I want it on my desk first thing in the morning.
You're doing it wrong.
Thank you for your coverage of these events, even if you're biased. ;)
Everyone is biased one way or another. Your point?
I'm not biased.
I hate their friggin' guts... But I have an open mind about it.
Ray Beckerman +5 Insightful