Slashdot Mirror
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.'"
Please? At the very least you'll have someone with an honest to god education who can proofread and write decent articles on your editorial staff, as opposed to ... kdawson.
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?
Yeah, digital evidence can be such a bitch, especially when you gather it remotely. You have no idea if the client (remote end) is telling the truth or not, let alone if it was tampered in transit or not, and even if none of that is true, there's still no way to link what a computer does definitively to what a person designated as the primary user of that system, simply because that system could have been previously compromised via a litany of vectors. In short, why this ever got this far is beyond me... The standards of evidence have slipped quite a bit. These days, you yell "computer!" in a crowded court room and bring in an "expert" in a suit, and the judge and jury will believe just about anything. IP addresses and hashes as "digital fingerprints"? a smack of MP3s on a hard-drive is "evidence"? If I rip a CD I legally purchased, encode it into MP3, and then the CD is damaged and thrown away, or stolen, does that make my digital copy illegal? Apparently. things that are perfectly legal to do to their physical counterparts become illegal to do when a computer becomes involved, simply because someone yelled "computer!" in a crowded court room.
Please god, send us a lawyer worthy of Mordor.
#fuckbeta #iamslashdot #dicemustdie
I understand that the RIAA is a popular target here, but why was this article shown in bright red when I came here a moment ago? I've read Slashdot for years and I've never seen that...
Either
(a)it was because it was one of the best written articles ever in the history or internet journalism, or
(b) all the articles start out red -- during which time they are visible only to people with paid up subscriptions.
I prefer to think it was the former, but am pretty sure it was the latter.
Ray Beckerman +5 Insightful
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.
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.
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.
Comment removed based on user account deletion