Slashdot Mirror
MPAA Executive Tampers With Evidence In Piracy Case
An anonymous reader writes "TorrentFreak reports on an internet piracy case from Finland, which saw four men found guilty and fined €45,000. During the trial, the defense attorney took note of inconsistencies in log files used as evidence against the men. An investigator for international recording industry organization IFPI revealed after questioning that the files had been tampered with. He said an MPAA executive was present when the evidence gathering took place, and altered the files to hide the identity of 'one of their spies.' 'No one from the MPAA informed the defense that the edits had been made and the tampering was revealed at the worst possible time – during the trial. This resulted in the prosecutor ordering a police investigation into the changes that had been made. "Police then proceeded by comparing the 'work copy' that the IFPI investigator produced with the material that police and the defending counsels had received. Police found out that the material had differences in over 10 files," Hietanen reveals.'"
... this surprises anyone how, exactly?
Understanding the scope of the problem is the first step on the path to true panic.
Somehow, this doesn't surprise me in the slightest
Just because you're paranoid doesn't mean they aren't out to get you
Usually I don't support "send a message" type of prosecutions (Aaron Swartz, as just one example) but these guys need to be smacked down, hard. Fines are insufficient; anything short of significant jail time won't do a damn thing to the MAFIAA sociopathic execs who honestly believe they are above the law.
A message needs to be sent, and this looks to be an open and shut case. I sure hope to see handcuffs.
I predict that unless it is proven that they fabricated evidence, the person on trial will still get convicted, and the MPAA will get nothing more than a verbal slap on the wrist.
Deletion of exculpatory evidence is one thing, but deletion to hide a source is simply redaction, which governments do daily. They will laugh it off as a minor oversight.
Sig Battery depleted. Reverting to safe mode.
that it hasn't been swept under the rug
There is a very easy solution to this kind of nonsense. I know that European courts operate quite differently from US ones, but in US terms here is what should happen.
Order a mistrial. Declare all tainted evidence inadmissible (even if the "original" is presented). Fine the IFPA a significant sum for deliberately attempting to mislead the court. Investigate if criminal charges against individuals in the IFPA are warranted. Order an arrest/extradition warrant against the MPAA agent responsible so he could explain to the court why he should not be imprisoned for evidence tampering. Begin an investigation on whether or not to permanently disbar the plaintiffs attorney (depending on if he had prior knowledge on the evidence being tainted or not).
This is something I am troubled by on a regular basis. It is increasingly clear that our government and legal system are stacked against common citizens.
At some point, it will occur to those being prosecuted for sharing some songs on the internet and being fined for more than they'll ever make in their lifetime, that the U.S. is a dictionary definition of a fascist state where government is intertwined with corporations and industry. The real problems are the corporate executives that can do this crap with no repercussions. There needs to be repercussions. If the legal system doesn't provide a way to bring the fight to the door of the powerful, then I fear that the our society will break down to the point where citizens must be vigilantes to get any sort of justice over the prosecutors, politicians, and the people who run the corporations.
If this were in the U.S., I'd say dust off the RICO act, because someone's transgressed. Anything similar in Finland? It would be fun to see organized copyright lobbyists put on the same page of the law books as Al Capone.
Indeed, even if, for the sake of argument, the only alteration was the username. The system in place authenticated the altered version just fine, until they did some digging. Apparently there's an acknowledgement that there was a username changed to protect an identity.
The problem then becomes exactly what you're describing, how do we know that was the only change that was made to those files. And given that it apparently wasn't disclosed, how do we know that all of the changes were and what the original evidence would have looked like.
I used to work security, and I remember in the fire control center they had a log that would always print out to an old dotmatrix printer and just about every bit of information would be spit out on there throughout the day to one long sheet of paper, which made it easy to show what had and hadn't been omitted. The only real trick was when we had to change paper, but everything else there was incredibly difficult to change compared with other methods of record keeping.
There is a large difference between the malum prohibitum of copyright, and the malum in se of evidence tampering.
Tom Swiss | the infamous tms | my blog
You cannot wash away blood with blood
Was the trial held in Tampere?
ba-dum-cha
Sorry, couldn't resist...
Only 'cause it's cheaper and more profitable for them to make the weapons, sell them to the government, then have government pay for the army and its use to "liberate" the resources they need.
The only reason why we won't see the big "corp wars" of Cyberpunk is simply that it's not cost effective. Why bother fighting when you can use governments to do it for you, for free?
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
That's why we have rules of evidence. I'm not sure about Finland, but in the US you would have to present somebody to testify as to how the data was selected and collected in the first place.
And what's more that log script would be something that would be subject to discovery anyways.