Slashdot Mirror
Judge OK's MediaSentry Evidence, Limits Defendant's Expert
NewYorkCountryLawyer writes "In Capitol Records v. Thomas-Rasset, the judge has denied the defendant's motion to suppress the MediaSentry evidence for illegality, holding that MediaSentry's conduct did not violate any of the three laws cited by the defendant. The judge also dismissed most of the RIAA's objections to testimony by the defendant's expert, Prof. Yongdae Kim, but did sustain some of them. In his 27-page decision (PDF), Judge Davis ruled that Prof. Kim could testify about the 'possible scenarios,' but could not opine as to what he thinks 'probably' occurred. The court also ruled that, 'given the evidence that there is no wireless router involved in this case, the Court excludes Kim's opinion that it is possible that someone could have spoofed or hijacked Defendant's Internet account through an unprotected wireless access point. Similarly, because Kim explicitly testified that this case
does not involve any "black IP space," or any "temporarily unused" IP space ...., he is not permitted to opine at trial that hijacking of black IP space or temporary unused IP is a possible explanation in this case.' Dr. Kim was also precluded from testifying as to whether song files were conspicuously placed in a shared files folder or were wilfully offered for distribution. The judge also precluded him from testifying about Kazaa's functioning, but it was unclear to me what the judge was precluding him from saying, because the offered testimony seemed to relate only to the question of whether the Kazaa-reported IP address precluded the possibility of the device having been run behind a NAT device."
This could be a victory for Jammie. The judge carefully lays out, at pages 13-14, the standards for admissibility of technical evidence.
I know for a fact that neither MediaSentry nor Doug Jacobson could satisfy those standards.
Assuming the judge applies those standards evenly, this trial may end abrutly, because the RIAA's only witnesses may both be precluded from testifying.
Ray Beckerman +5 Insightful
Jammie is, if her defense is blaming it on a wireless router that she doesn't have.
Do you even lift?
These aren't the 'roids you're looking for.
Is there a jury involved in a situation like this, or is a judge looking at possible testimony and then deciding which of that testimony he (himself) is allowed to hear vs which he (himself) isn't?
As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.
Putting up copyrighted files for anyone to download (which is what Kazaa does) is willful copyright infringement. Does anyone actually think that's not what the defendant actually did? Why do we need a ten-sentence story about what the judge did or didn't exclude? It sounds to me like a pretty fair trial so far.
Wishing that it wasn't illegal to willfully and blatantly violate copyright doesn't make it so.
Apparently, you have no clue as to the law. Licensing of Private Investigators takes place on the state, and some times even lower, level. The judge ruled that MediaSentry did not break the Minnesota law because they never entered the state, have no employees in the state, never engaged in PI behavior in the state, etc.
In other words, Minnesota law does not apply to people OUTSIDE of Minnesota.
Also, MediaSentry argued that the data they did gather was provided by the respondent's computer during the normal course of downloading the data. In other words, they looked at the IP address of requesting computer. Or, do you contend that Slashdot is being a private investigator by logging the IP address your post from?
There is no "-1 offended" or "-1 you don't agree with me" mod options for a reason.
The alternative...
"Are you in possession of an open Wireless Access Point, which allowed any client within range to connect, if its operator so chose?"
"I am."
"On the day in question, was this Wireless Access Point connected to your internet connection through ABC ISP Inc?"
"Uhhh...."
This is slashdot. Nobody here gets fucked.
Similar to the upcoming US election results
Simple. Change this:
The court also ruled that, 'given the evidence that there is no wireless router involved in this case, the Court excludes Kim's opinion that it is possible that someone could have spoofed or hijacked Defendant's Internet account through an unprotected wireless access point.
To this:
The court also ruled that, 'given the evidence that there is no wireless router involved in this case, the Court excludes Kim's opinion that it is possible that someone could have spoofed or hijacked Defendant's Internet account.
Then a demonstration. Take a PC into the courtroom and hook it to a cablemodem. Then tell the guys at Defcon to give the judge a live demonstration of pwnage.
Weaselmancer
rediculous.
Nope. Because of the joys of the internet, they never had to physically go into Minnesota. They didn't even have to access the computer in Minnesota because Kazaa provides identifying information about the source of the files, including the IP address.
Here is the judges determination:
There is no "-1 offended" or "-1 you don't agree with me" mod options for a reason.