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RIAA Brief Attacks Free Software Foundation
NewYorkCountryLawyer writes "The RIAA has requested permission to file a response to the amicus curiae brief filed by the Free Software Foundation in SONY BMG Music Entertainment v. Tenenbaum, the Boston case against a Boston University grad student accused of having downloaded some song files when in his teens. In their proposed response, the RIAA lawyers personally attacked The Free Software Foundation, Ray Beckerman (NewYorkCountryLawyer), and NYCL's blog, 'Recording Industry vs. The People.' The 9-page response (PDF) — 4 pages longer than the document to which it was responding — termed the FSF an organization 'dedicated to eliminating restrictions on copying, redistribution, and modifying computer programs,' and accused the FSF of having an 'open and virulent bias against copyrights' and 'blatant bias' against the record companies. They called 'Recording Industry vs. The People' an 'anti-recording industry web site' and stated that NYCL 'is currently subject to a pending sanctions motion for his conduct in representing a defendant' (without disclosing that plaintiffs' lawyers were 'subject to a pending motion for Rule 11 sanctions for their conduct in representing plaintiffs' in that very case)."
Probably because they keep losing. If they make themselves loud enough in the courts, a judge is bound to find something he agrees with and rule in their favor. They're grandstanding to win.
You say that as if it's a bad thing.
'open and virulent bias against copyrights' and 'blatant bias' against the record companies.
Funny. I always thought the RIAA has an open and blatant bias against Fair Use. (yes, I know file sharing is not F/U, but those guys don't even want you copying your own stuff even if you never share it)
Need more useless stuff to read on teh internetz?
The FSF's centerpiece, the GPL, depends wholly on copyright for enforcement.
So saying that the FSF has an "open and virulent bias against copyrights" clearly demonstrates either a lack of research, a lack of understanding, or a lack of honesty on the part of the RIAA's lawyers.
Five of their lawyers are now placed in high-level positions within the Department of Justice?
I dunno. It could be something else, or just a coincidence, but this does seem to be the simplest explanation among those them...
Speaking abstractly, it's not a bad national strategy in a way. We're fucked economically, and have no manufacturing base to speak of. There's not much we can do except enforce "intellectual property" overseas. The downside is the implicit effect that this will have on domestic freedom and true innovation. I suspect we (as knowledge workers) will be learning some hard lessons in the next few years. I would not be surprised if the FSF and EFF (among others) are forcibly nationalized and destroyed/reorganized within four years.
"They were pure niggers." – Noam Chomsky
Targeting lawyers instead of, say, people who don't even know how to defend is "getting better at picking targets" when it comes to law suits that are not far from simple harrassment?
Dunno if I can follow your train of thought.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
I am not a lawyer but my understanding that amicus curiae briefs came from parties not directly involved with the case but are very rarely neutral. From wikipedia: "The role of an amicus is often confused with that of an intervener. . . The situation most often noted in the press is when an advocacy group files a brief in a case before an appellate court to which it is not a litigant. . . Non-profit legal advocacy organizations such as the American Civil Liberties Union, the Electronic Frontier Foundation, the American Center for Law and Justice or NORML frequently submit such briefs to advocate for or against a particular legal change or interpretation."
Again from wikipedia: "Amicus curiae or amicus curiæ (plural amici curiae) is a legal Latin phrase, literally translated as "friend of the court", that refers to someone, not a party to a case, who volunteers to offer information on a point of law or some other aspect of the case to assist the court in deciding a matter before it." Offering additional information is the point of amicus curiae.
Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
GNU General Public License, version 6, 2013
1. Pull down you pants.
2. Bend over.
GPLv2 or later doesn't sound like such a good idea now, does it?
If you can't innovate, litigate.
If you can't litigate, legislate.
I would say that the aspersions cast concerning Beckerman and the "pending sanctions motion" would be inaccurate. If I were in a lawsuit, I could potentially move to have sanctions entered against my opponent for various miscellaneous reasons, such as making out with the court reporter while the judge's back was turned, etc., regardless of whether any of those things were true or not. For the two seconds it would take the judge to deny my motion, that motion would be pending. At that very moment, someone could file a brief in another court involving the person who is my opponent in my case, stating that there is a pending sanctions motion against that person.
In Beckerman's case, while the motion isn't based on pure ridiculousness as in my straw man above, it's still based solely on allegations made by the RIAA against Beckerman with no consideration of any evidence.
While the assertion may not be "incorrect", as there is a pending sanctions motion against Beckerman, the fact that the RIAA frames it as a reason to discredit Beckerman makes it inaccurate.
If you can't innovate, litigate.
If you can't litigate, legislate.
If you can't legislate, watergate?
So, is Ray "subject to a pending sanctions motion", and if so, what does that mean anyway?
There is a link to the term "pending sanctions motion"; if you follow the link you can read all about it. They made a motion to withdraw their own case, and joined it with a motion for "discovery sanctions" against Mrs. Lindor and myself. The motion was based on nothing but lies. It is still pending. Our Rule 11 motion against them is strictly based on the fact that their motion for "discovery sanctions" was based on nothing but lies, so the 2 motions are closely interrelated.
Ray Beckerman +5 Insightful
It is not the neo-cons that we have to worry about. It is which oligarchs have the reins of which legislators and judges. It is beginning to look like the oligarchs that control the Obama group are going to take our intellectual and cultural freedoms from us, rather than our constitutional freedoms.
No incumbents, not no where, not no how.
Vote them out every term.
If you can't watergate, waterboard.
x283.
"Trolls they were, but filled with the evil will of their master: a fell race..." -- J.R.R. Tolkien on Olog-hai
And then in the very next sentence:
I mean... unless something has changed in their pattern, they only have documentation of one legal download and that being from an investigation team that may or may not be licensed.
Why has no attorney ever taken a look at the finances and circumstances associated with one particular song - how much revenue did this earn in the year prior, the year during, and the year after the alleged infringement. Most of the songs that I've noted have been out for at least a decade if not two, with little or no marketing, and zero spins on any of the radio stations I listen to.
Another argument I never see in any of these is the challenge the RIAAs ownership of the material. A 20 year old song may or may not have a clear ownership record, and with the history of the industry, you really should establish that the recording artists, the producers, and the songwriters all have given the RIAA authority willingly and contractually prior to the filing of any individual lawsuit.
There's always some dastardly evildoers trying to steal our freedoms, nowadays, isn't there. If it's not the extremists it's the communists, or the democrats, or the republicans or the liberals, or the PC brigade with all their health and safety mumbo jumbo, coming to take away our precious, precious freedoms (it's our freeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeedommmmms, preeeeeeeeeeeeeeecious). As we stare at this wonderous package of glory. Our freedoms, which we have, and those ever growing hordes of zealots - from one side of the political spectrum or another (depending on our own beliefs) - coming to rip it from our hands and hurl it in to the volcanoes of Mordor or something. Or freedoms! Please! Won't someone think of the freedoms!
It's certainly an emotive issue.
And if people actually did care then maybe they'd stop slinging shit into the eyes of fabricated enemies for 15 seconds and realise that there is a middle ground in which you can actually work together and not just boil it down to some pitiful good/evil pantomime.
I've noticed that people resort to ad hominem when they haven't a better argument to use. The 9-page brief looks like a very nicely structured ad hominem attack, but that's all it is.
Exactly, Nefarious. Except I would question whether it was "nicely structured". It was the work of an incompetent, untrained lawyer who has no respect for the law, and no understanding of what a lawyer is supposed to be. By filing such a brief he merely reinforced the fact that the law is against him. There is not a federal court in the land that will sustain the constitutionality, as against a due process challenge, of a statutory damages award equal to 2100 or more times the actual damages sustained.
Ray Beckerman +5 Insightful
You must be new here
You must be new here if you're saying that to NYCL.
You must be new here if you're not used to people saying 'you must be new here' to NYCL.
Question: how long do I have to be here before I can be said to no longer be new here? In Soviet Russia I would probably be considered old here.
Ray Beckerman +5 Insightful
That's an XKCD reference, boy. You know what we do to XKCD referencers around here?
Cheer them on and be reminded to go check out the recent comics at XKCD? /cheer
Democrats and Republicans both hate the constitution; they just hate different parts of it (1st amendment & 2nd amendment for example).
Support Right To Repair Legislation.
That's an XKCD reference, boy. You know what we do to XKCD referencers around here?
We link to them!
Mod them up?
They act like they think they're running the US Justice Department. Oh, wait...
Help stamp out iliturcy.
Freedom can be seen as something absolute, or something relative.
Some 30 years ago, in South West Africa (now Namibia), I was startled when, at checking in, people were asked to hand in their ammunition (they got to keep their guns) when boarding the plane from Windhoek to Cape Town. Most people protested at this violation of their freedom (while disregarding that only white people woudl get such freedom in the first place), but my seat neighbour winked at me and showed me his trouser pocket full with ammo. Body searching would have been unthinkable, and indeed I saw many people clamly reloading their guns as the plane departed, and the stewardess just ignoring them.
30 years in fast forward - my wife was just insulted and her deodorant stolen by check in staff because the volume of the deodorant bottle was 110ml, and only 100ml were "allowed". The fact that the deodorant was 3/4 empty didn't matter. That on a flight back from Vanuatu to Sydney -100% tourists, 90% thereof probably scuba divers, can't get much lower in risk potential on flights I guess.
Give them your little finger, and they not only take your whole hand but proceed to bite off your head after eviscerating and raping you.
Either we have freedom - and it is absolute, or we don't have any. Thus, at present we don't have any. A person without freedom is - a slave.
My girlfriend picked that one up and ran with it X(
So nowadays, when she's heading to bed, "are we having sex, or is someone wrong on the Internet?"
Sheesh... impossible decisions...