p2pnet news view

“That should be enough for 10 staff journalists who will primarily coordinate stories with freelancers,” according to Arianna Huffington, co-founder and editor-in-chief.

She has a “regular seat at soirées in the Washington–New York City–Los Angeles triad” and was “once referred to as ‘the most upwardly mobile Greek since Icarus’,” according to Time, going on:

“In February the Huffington Post, the website she started in 2005 with Ken Lerer and viral-marketing guru Jonah Peretti, became the 15th most popular news site, just below the Washington Post’s and above the BBC’s.”

Ex-RIAA boss Hilary Rosen

“The Huffington Post has established itself as both a credible and diverse news organization as well as the pre-eminent home for progressive opinion.”

So said ex-RIAA boss Hilary Rosen, bolstering the credibility claim with her then just-announced appointment as the Huffington Post’s political person.

Now, Huffington — who once wanted to be governor of California — and her donors are concerned that layoffs at newspapers are, “hurting investigative journalism at a time the nation’s institutions need to be watched closely” and she “hopes to draw from the ranks of laid-off journalists”.

Work produced by the team, “will be available for any publication or Web site to use at the same time it is posted on The Huffington Post,” and, “Huffington said she hoped to encourage others to fund similar ventures,” says the announcement.

["Arianna Huffington talks to the media during her short-lived attempt to become governor of California at UC Berkeley on September 11, 2003," says the caption to the photo on the right, taken by Minesweeper and released on the Wikipediaen:GNU FDL.]

Huffington Post – Huffington Post Launches Investigative Journalism Venture,  March 19, 2009
Time – Arianna Huffington: The Web’s New Oracle, March 19, 2009
ex-RIAA boss Hilary Rosen – Hilary ‘RIAA’ Rosen: Huffington Post polperson, May 26, 2008

March, 2009

by government restrictions? Use Psiphon from the Citizen Lab at the University of Toronto. Go here for details.

Indie 103.1 will cease broadcasting over this frequency effective immediately.

Because of changes in the radio industry and the way radio audiences are measured, stations in this market are being forced to play too much Britney, Puffy and alternative music that is neither new nor cutting edge. Due to these challenges, Indie 103.1 was recently faced with only one option – to play the corporate radio game.

We have decided not to play that game any longer. Rather than changing the sound, spirit, and soul of what has made Indie 103.1 great Indie 103.1 will bid farewell to the terrestrial airwaves and take an alternative course.

This could only be done on the Internet, a place where rules do not apply and where new music thrives; be it grunge, punk, or alternative – simply put, only the best music.

For those of you with a computer at home or at work, log on to www.indie1031.com and listen to the new Indie 103.1 – which is really the old Indie 103.1, not the version of Indie 103.1 we are removing from the broadcast airwaves.

Stay tuned?

p2pnet news view

Originally revealed by Recording Industry Vs The People and p2pnet, the scandal represents more than a mere licensing difficulty.

Highly questionable evidence collected by MediaSentry is being used by Vivendi Universal, EMI, Warner Music and Sony BMG’s RIAA (Recording Industry Association of America) in alleged p2P file sharing cases whose veracity is also open to considerable doubt.

Safenet was hired by Communist China to provide DRM (Digital Restrictions Management) to hopefully stop people from sharing Beijing Olympics broadcasts originating in China.

Best of luck with that.

Meanwhile, the Big 4 record labels contend files shared equal sales lost and are suing their own customers in a fruitless attempt to force them away from independent online music sellers into the arms of corporate-supplied sites.

The Big 4 enforcement unit is using unsupported MediaSentry data to carry the cases forward, with US students now bearing the brunt of the attacks.

Pillory the people

Some 40,000 people, including very young children, are accused of being “massive online infringers” of music owned by the RIAA’s masters.

A multi-million-dollar PR dis- and misinformation mainstream media blitz has created the false impression that RIAA court cases have resulted in the successful prosecution of thousands of people for the ‘crime’ of ‘file sharing,’ even though file sharing is perfectly legal.

Moreover, only one case has reached the civil courts. And even that looks like being overturned by the same judge who heard it.

Meanwhile, the the RIAA continues to pillory the very people upon whom Vivendi Universal (France), Sony BMG (Japan and Germany), EMI (Britain), and Warner Music (US) depend for their very survival, with MediaSentry supplying much of the specious evidence used in the cases.

MediaSentry is, supposedly, an independent company.

And yet, in a ComputerWorld story on MediaSentry’s ‘investigative’ activities, a SafeNet spokeswoman says the company isn’t at “liberty” to comment on ongoing litigation.

Instead, “She referred further inquiries to the RIAA,” it said.

Here’s a digest of some, but by no means all, of p2pnet’s MediaSentry coverage.

==========================

 A question or two for RIAA PI MediaSentry … August 14th, 2008

p2pnet news view P2P | RIAA News:- “In UMG v Lindor, when the defendant got close to taking MediaSentry’s deposition, the RIAA tried to fold up its tents and run home to Mommy.” That’s Recording Industry vs The People’s Ray Beckerman. And he’s again asking for help from the online community. “Now that MediaSentry is being investigated all over the place, and giving contradictory and false responses, I’ve pointed out to other lawyers that this is a good time to take MediaSentry’s deposition,” he says, going on: “In the comments to that post, people are starting to weigh in with some interesting suggestions for deposition questions to be posed to MediaSentry. “I’d be interested in what the Slashdot community can provide, especially on the technical issues.” By way of example, “Something I’d be sure to ask Media Sentry is how they synchronize the clock of their detection server with the clock on the Target ISP’s DHCP server. Without them matching closely false identifications can easily take place,” says David Donahue, going on »»»

Another thing I’d love to ask them regards how and who set up and runs their detection server. If this server device is to be legally treated like a tape recorder, video camera or radar gun then only the people who built, setup and maintain it can testify to it’s accurate calibration.

RIAA MediaSentry in new Michigan student case, August 12th, 2008

p2pnet news view | RIAA News:- Michigan students are determined RIAA ‘investigator’ MediaSentry is held accountable for practicing as a private eye in the state without a license. It’s owner, SafeNet, has been hired by China’s Communist leaders to provide DRM  (Digital Restrictions Management) for in-country live and on-demand online video footage of the 2008 Summer Olympic Games. They must not have been aware of the company’s considerably less than sterling reputation in the West. Central Michigan University filed a complaint against it with Michigan’s Department of Labor and Economic Growth, “at least the second such complaint in Michigan, the first having gotten the RIAA’s unlicensed investigation firm into a pickle when its lawyer, responding to the accusations, made statements directly contradicting statements he’d made a month earlier in UMG v Lindor,” said Recording Industry vs The People’s Ray Beckerman recently, going on: “The 32-page complaint (PDF) cites to MediaSentry’s problems in 8 other states, including the Massachusetts cease and desist letter, and cites to MediaSentry’s own promotional materials and the RIAA’s court papers as evidence of the illegal activity.” This means there are now at least three cases pending against MediaSentry in Michigan’s Department of Labor and Economic Growth.

RIAA goes after Michigan State University coach, August 6th, 2008

p2pnet news view | RIAA News:- Stacy Slobodnik-Stoll (right) is a thief and a criminal, according to Vivendi Universal, EMI, Warner Music and Sony BMG philosophy. She’s a “massive online distrtibutor” of corporate ‘product,” says the Big 4’s RIAA. She’s also Michigan State University’s women’s golf coach and , “As she enters her 11th season at the helm, Stacy Slobodnik-Stoll continues to carry the Spartan women’s golf program into the regional and national spotlight year after year,” says her MSU Spartans profile. If Big 4 machinations don’t get in the way, that is. No doubt much, if not all, of their so-called “evidence’ against her was collected by RIAA ‘private eye’ MediaSentry.

RIAA ‘MediaSentry’ owner hired by China, August 7th, 2008

p2pnet news view RIAA | DRM | P2P:- It seems somehow fitting that SafeNet, a leader in digital wrongs and owner of seriously discredited RIAA ‘private eye’ MediaSentry, has been hired by the People’s Republic of China.SafeNet is to provide DRM  (Digital Restrictions Management) for in-country live and on-demand online video footage of the 2008 Summer Olympic Games, it boasts. DRM consumer controls are meant to stop copying. However, companies in all sectors have long been abandoning it as expensive, impractical, unworkable —- and unethical. However, in regimes such as China, whose citizens live under rigid control, DRM offers many interesting possibilities for suppression and repression.

The RIAA, the truth and Marie Lindor, July 9th, 2008

p2pnet news | RIAA News:- “These people will say ANYTHING. “Now let’s hope that the Lindor court finds out about what they’ve been saying in Michigan, and the Michigan authorities find out what they’ve been saying in Brooklyn.” That’s Ray Beckerman on Recording Industrry vs The People. He’s representing Marie Lindor, the New York health aide Vivendi Universal, EMI, Warner Music and Sony BMG’s RIAA says is a massive online infringer of copyrighted music, knowing full well she’s nothing of the kind. In the middle of it all is MediaSentry, a so-called RIAA investigator with few, if any, PI credentials.

North Carolina RIAA MediaSentry probe, July 12th, 2008

p2pnet news view | RIAA News:- RIAA “investigator” MediaSentry has been caught with its undergarments around its ankles. Again. Massachusetts State Police at the beginning of the year MediaSentry to cease and desist, according to court papers filed by a Boston University student who was asking the court to to quash an RIAA subpoena . So did it C&D? Nope. Now, “We have just learned from court papers filed in Capitol v. Doe, one of the six (6) John Doe cases targeting North Carolina State University students in Raleigh, North Carolina, that a Grievance Committee hearing, to determine the existence of probable cause, has been scheduled by North Carolina’s Private Protective Services Board, in connection with the complaints that have been filed charging MediaSentry with the crime of unlicensed investigation,” says Recording Industry vs The People.

LimeWire: RIAA, MediaSentry ‘anti-pirate’ app, May 13th, 2008

p2pnet news | RIAA News:- P2P file-sharing application LimeWire is routinely castigated by Vivendi Universal, EMI, Warner Music and Sony BMG and their RIAA (Recording Industry Association of America). But, says Catherine Rampell in the Chronicle of Higher Education, neither the RIAA, the Big 4 nor their ‘investigator,’ MediaSentry, banned by the state police in Massachusetts, could get along without it. Here’s her story>>>

To catch college students trading copyrighted songs online, the Recording Industry Association of America uses the same file-sharing software that online pirates love, an RIAA representative told The Chronicle at the organization’s offices during a private demonstration of how it catches alleged music pirates. He also said the group does not single out specific colleges in its investigations. The demonstration was given by an RIAA employee who would speak only on condition of anonymity because of concern that he would receive hate e-mail. The official explained that one way the RIAA identifies pirates is by using LimeWire, a popular peer-to-peer file-sharing program that is free online and used by many college students (there is also a more-robust version of the program sold for a small fee).

RIAA MediaSentry violates C&D order, April 10th, 2008

p2pnet news | RIAA News:- Yesterday, p2pnet posted seriously discredited RIAA private eye MediaSentry was complying with an all-out ban filed by the Massachusetts State Police. Has MediaSentry Ceased and Desisted in Massachusetts? – we asked a state certification officer, “As far as I know, they have,” she responded. But according to Recording Industry vs The People, the company, owned by SafeNet, has violated the order.

RIAA MediaSentry: shut down in Massachusetts, April 9th, 2008

p2pnet news | RIAA News:- Massachusetts state police have ordered MediaSentry, the unlicensed ‘investigator’ for Warner Music, EMI, Vivendi Universal and Sony BMG’s RIAA, to cease and desist, according to court papers filed by a Boston University student who’s asking the court to to quash an RIAA subpoena, p2pnet posted in February, continuing >>>

MediaSentry perpetrates ’spoofing,’ a seedy practice used to try to trick people into downloading fake files, or to get information they later hope to use in P2P filesharing lawsuits,.as one of its special activities on behalf of the RIAA. One of the first, if not the first, people to show MediaSentry in its true light was disabled Oregon mother Tanya Andersen who, with her lawyer, Lory Lybeck, sent RIAA attorneys scuttling off, their tails between their legs.

MediaSentry: have you checked your state? March 25th, 2008

p2pnet news | RIAA News:- Is Warner Music, EMI, Vivendi Universal and Sony BMG ‘investigator’ MediaSentry operating illegally in your state?” – p2pnet asked by way of a follow-up to MediaSentry: RIAA can of worms. The Massachusetts State police have banned the company, it’s been accused of operating without a licence in Oregon, Florida, Texas and New York, and similar charges have been levelled at it in Michigan, we said in Is RIAA’s MediaSentry illegal in YOUR state?, going on ……………..

MediaSentry: RIAA can of worms, March 10th, 2008

p2pnet news special | RIAA News:- Ray Beckerman and Lory Lybeck (top right) have a lot in common. They live and work at opposite ends of the US, Lybeck in the Pacific NorthWest, Beckerman in the East. But they’re both lawyers, and they both represent RIAA victims. And that’s not all. They’re among the increasing number of legal professionals not only in America, but also in Europe and elsewhere, who want to know more —- a lot more —- about evidence gathering and acquisition methods employed by Warner Music, EMI, Vivendi Universal and Sony BMG ‘investigative’ company MediaSentry. Lybeck acts for Oregon mother Tanya Andersen (top left) who, like the thousands of other innocent Big 4 victims, is falsely accused of being a massive online illegal distributor of copyrighted music files. She and Lybeck fought the Big 4’s high-priced RIAA hired legal guns to a stand-still and were the first to accuse MediaSentry of investigating without a license, a view clearly upheld by the Massachusetts State police which has banned the company from operating in its jurisdiction. One of Beckerman’s clients is Marie Lindor, a New York home health aide. On a scale of 1 to 10, her knowledge of computers is about -50. And yet the RIAA accuses her of illegally distributing copyrighted music files online. Through Beckerman, she recently told MediaSentry to put up, or shut up.

RIAA victim tells MediaSentry, put up or shut up, March 3rd, 2008

p2pnet news | RIAA News:- When several years ago Marie Lindor found the RIAA camped on her metaphorical doorstep, blood in its eye, she could have had no idea what was to come. A home health aide from Brooklyn, New York, she quite literally barely knew how to even switch a computer on. She didn’t know what the RIAA meant, either. But that changed, and quickly, because there were Warner Music, EMI, Vivendi Universal and Sony BMG and their RIAA (Recording Industry Association of America), publicly accusing her of being a massive online distributor of copyrighted music. Nothing could have been more ridiculous. Except, perhaps, similar accusations levelled at Rae-Jay Schwartz, bound to her wheelchair by the deadly disease of the central nervous system, multiple sclerosis. Or Larry Scantlebury, an ex-Vietnam helicopter pilot who died of a brain aneurysm before the RIAA could really get down to blackening him and his name. Or disabled mother Tanya Andersen and her 10-year-old daughter, Kylee, both harried relentlessly from pillar to post by the RIAA. Or Debbie Foster. Or Patti Santangelo. Or any of the other approximately 30,000 innocent people falsely and wrongly accused of the non-existent crime of file sharing. Tens of millions of Americans share music with each other online every minute of every an hour of every day. The RIAA and the Big 4 angrily declare that shouldn’t be happening. When someone shares with someone else, it costs one or other or all of Warner Music, EMI, Vivendi Universal and Sony BMG sales, they claim, calling people who do this criminals and thieves.

Failed MediaSentry cover-up, February 19th, 2008

p2pnet news | RIAA News:- MediaSentry has, to use the vernacular, dropped another bollock, panicking as the pigeons flock home to roost. In a lame bid to try to cover up some of the error(s) of its ways, it’s deleted “investigation” and “gathering evidence for litigation” from its web sites. “Ray, I am sending you a PDF file printed from MediaSentry’s web page on 2/3/08,” says a Recording Industry vs The People reader, going on:

In the fine print on the left hand side of each of the pages, MediaSentry claims that it [provides] “Investigative Services”, and that “Safenet has extensive experience gathering evidence for civil/criminal litigation and prosecution against those who engage in unauthorized online content distribution”. When I checked the web page again yesterday, 2/18/08, The page had been completely changed. Gone from the web page are the terms investigation, and information gathering, and they are replaced with terms like “intelligence services” and “Globally detect, track and deter the unauthorized distribution”. Looks like a MediaSentry is trying to cover its tracks.

It do. Did they try to explain the reasons behind the changes to Doug Jacobson or Warner Music, EMI, Vivendi Universal and Sony BMG’s RIAA (Recording Industry Association of America), do you think?

Hilarious RIAA training video online, February 18th, 2008

p2pnet news | RIAA News:- It’s called In Trial and it starts off with a judge’s gavel slamming down onto a wooden pad. Hard. The latest Hollywood courtroom flick? Lawyer drama, Yes. Hollywood, No —- unless the MPAA had a hand in it which, these days, is entirely possible. Because In Trial is a flick made jointly by Warner Music, EMI, Vivendi Universal and Sony BMG’s RIAA (Recording Industry Association of America) and the National District Attorneys Association, with Jonathan Lamy, Cara Duckworth and Liz Kennedy (no ladies first at the RIAA) as the points of contact. Starring ex-prosecutor Deborah Robinson and Frank Walters (right), an ex-Maryland State trooper, it was made to “assist in the training of U.S. prosecutors responsible for handling music piracy cases”. It includes footage from “surveillance” videos and, “techniques on how to identify illegal sound recordings and highlights,” not to mention, “examples of how illegal music is sold”. And here’s the kicker. It even claims to provide instructions on, and we quote, “qualifying an RIAA investigator as an expert”. So that’s where Doug Jacobson and MediaSentry acquired their skills!

RIAA: egg on face over Ray Beckerman, February 7th, 2008

p2pnet news | RIAA News:- RIAA lawyers are becoming dazed and confused as day after day, they try to con US judges into believing Warner Music, EMI, Vivendi Universal and Sony BMG customers, including very young children, are criminals and thieves. Yesterday, in Arista v Does 1-21, targeting Boston University students, the Big 4’s RIAA tried to block the EFF’s (Electronic Frontier Foundation) request for permission to file an amicus curiae brief, says Recording Industry vs The People. This is the case where Big 4 unlicensed ‘investigator’ MediaSentry was told to take a hike, by order of the Massachusetts state police. It’s now also the cause of serious RIAA embarrassment centering on Ray Beckerman, the famous New York lawyer who runs Recording Industry vs The People, the unique online repository of scores of documents relating to Big 4 sue ‘em all cases.

Cease & Desist, RIAA MediaSentry ordered, February 5th, 2008

p2pnet news | RIAA News:- Massachusetts state police have ordered MediaSentry, the unlicensed “investigator” for Warner Music, EMI, Vivendi Universal and Sony BMG’s RIAA, to cease and desist, according to court papers filed by a Boston University student who’s asking the court to to quash an RIAA subpoena MediaSentry perpetrates ’spoofing,’ a seedy practice used to try to trick people into downloading fake files, or to get information they later hope to use in P2P filesharing lawsuits,.as one of its special activities on behalf of the RIAA. One of the first, if not the first, people to show MediaSentry in its true light was disabled Oregon mother Tanya Andersen who, with her lawyer, Lory Lybeck, sent RIAA attorneys scuttling off, their tails between their legs.

2007

RIAA named in first class action, August 16th, 2007

p2pnet news | RIAA News:- In cases which should by rights have been initiated by the Bush government on behalf of innocent families across America, falsely attacked by Warner Music, EMI, Vivendi Universal and Sony BMG, RIAA victims Tanya Andersen and Michelle Santangelo are determined to make the Big 4, as well as companies involved in the sue ‘em all morass, pay, literally and figuratively, for the distress they’ve caused and are still causing. Andersen, a disabled mother living in Oregon, has launched the first class action against the RIAA and the members of the Big 4 organised music cartel. And in the second lawsuit, Santangelo, from New York, has filed a cross-suit against Sharman Networks’ Kazaa, AOL and Matthew Seckler, whom she says installed Kazaa software on her computer without her knowledge or permission. Anderson and her ten-year-old daughter, Kylee, have been harried by the RIAA from pillar to post. “I think it is really disgusting what the RIAA and these other companies have done to me and people like me,” Andersen told p2pnet today. “They have made my life a mess, put my life on hold, and created a lot of damage. I’ve been treated like a criminal for something I never did. My life will never be the same. I feel these companies should be ashamed and held responsible for what they have done. I don’t care who someone is, they shouldn’t be allowed to attack an innocent person and make their life a living nightmare. “I hope what I’m doing can help not only myself, but others like myself, who have been put under this same type of unnecessary attack.” In a request for class action status which, if and when successful, will ultimately include every one of the 30,000 or so RIAA victims, Andersen and her lawyer, Lory Lybeck (right), are looking to recover compensation for the, “significant damages caused by the Defendants” as well as punitive damages, statutory penalties, litigation fees and expenses and equitable relief. Her amended complaint is impressive. She’s citing negligence, fraud, negligent misrepresentation, federal and state RICO, abuse of process, malicious prosecution, intentional infliction of emotional distress, violation of the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, trespass, invasion of privacy, libel and slander, deceptive business practices, misuse of copyright law, and civil conspiracy. On the wrong end of the class action are

• The RIAA (Recording Industry Association of America)
• MediaSentry and its owner, SafeNet
• The Settlement Support Center, a Washington company operating as the debt collection arm for the defendants’ “coordinated enterprise to pursue a scheme of threatening and intimidating litigation”
• Atlantic Recording Corporation, Priority Records, Capitol Records, UMG Recordings, and BMG Music who filed Atlantic Recording Corp., et al v. Andersen, No. CV 05-933 AS (D Or) action against Andersen

The Pirate Bay takes on MediaSentry, July 5th, 2007

p2pnet news | music:- [Spoofing is] an appropriate response to the problem of peer-to-peer piracy,” and “a self-help measure that is completely lawful … I think it would be crazy if record labels, or motion picture studios or any other owners of content didn’t take advantage of those kinds of measures.”So says deputy RIAA spin-doctor-in-chief Cary Sherman (right), quoted in MediaSentry sales waffle. Spoofing is a shady practice used by the corporate entertainment cartels to try to trick people into downloading fake files to discourage them from going after the real ones, or to get information they (the cartels) later hope to use in P2P filesharing lawsuits. Now the Pirate Bay wants MediaDefender to walk the plank to bankruptcy ….

Tanya Andersen sues the RIAA, June 25th, 2007

p2pnet.net news:- Tanya Andersen, a disabled Oregon mother, and her 10-year-old daughter, Kylee, have for the last three years been living a nightmare, thanks to Warner Music, EMI, Vivendi Universal and Sony BMG’s RIAA. But now Andersen is turning the tables on the Big 4 enforcer, going after it and other intimidation units for malicious prosecution. She’s suing Atlantic Recording Corporation, Priority Records, Capitol Records, UMG Recordings, and BMG Music; the RIAA (Recording Industry Association of America); MediaSentry owner Safenet; and, Settlement Support Center, says Recording Industry vs The People. “They made life horrible and did a lot of damage,” she told p2pnet. “People need to fight back. It’s really wrong they can abuse their power like this. It was three years – two years for the lawsuit and a year when they were harassing me. It was horrible. “It’s really important for me to tell people what they’ve done and I’m really thankful that I’m able to do that.”

RIAA doesn’t like ‘expert’ motion, May 15th, 2007

p2pnet.net news:- Warner Music, EMI, Vivendi Universal and Sony BMG’s RIAA is betting the ball game on MediaSentry, the oft-criticised p2p investigative tool used in many RIAA cases, and on Dr Doug Jacobson (right), an “expert” in computer forensics. Marie Lindor, 57, is a self-confessed computer ignoramus who’s said by the RIAA to be a massive online distributor of copyrighted digital music files owned by the RIAA’s masters, the members of the big four music cartel. “In truth, Mrs Lindor isn’t an online desperado,” said p2pnet yesterday. “She’s a nurse’s aide, a responsible position she’s held for the last 20 years,” going on:

To her, a chip is a French fry and a computer a mystery, and she could no more “distribute” a digitized music file than she could fly to the moon. But that doesn’t play well in mainstream media stories or RIAA press releases and statements. So she’s painted as an example of the “criminal” p2p file sharers who are “devastating” the Big 4, EMI (Britain), Vivendi Universal (France), Sony BMG (Japan and Germany) and Warner Music (US).

Anyone less likely to be an online distributor is hard to imagine.

Pouwelse: witness in RIAA case, May 14th, 2007

p2pnet.net news special:- It’s going to be interesting when Dr Doug Jacobson, a self-acclaimed expert in software used to monitor or block p2p file sharing applications, meets Dr Johan Pouwelse (right), a universally acknowledged expert in next-generation p2p technology. Jacobson, based in the US, was hired by Warner Music, EMI, Vivendi Universal and Sony BMG’s RIAA to ferret around in a computer hard drive owned by Marie Lindor to show she is all the RIAA claims she is. Aged 57, she’s a criminal and a thief, someone who illegally distributed copyrighted music ‘product’ online, according to the RIAA (Recording Industry Association of America). Pouwelse, based at the Delft University in Holland and a visiting scientist at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), has now been hired by Mrs Lindor’s lawyer, Ray Beckerman, to demonstrate conclusively why ‘evidence’ derived by Jacobson during his investigation, isn’t worth a light.

Lindor vs the RIAA: round I0, May 17, 2008

p2pnet.net news:- The “massive distribution” lawsuit lodged by the multi-billion dollar Big 4 record labels against Marie Lindor, a 57-year-old New York nurse’s aid, continues to pick up steam. Warner Music, EMI, Vivendi Universal and Sony BMG’s RIAA has produced Dr Doug Jacobson as an expert witness. Hired to investigate Lindor’s hard drive, Jacobson was presented as someone who knows his way around computer systems. He was to have unearthed hard evidence of her alleged online digital music distribution activities. Instead, in a lengthy deposition, Lindor’s lawyer, Ray Beckerman (right), easily demonstrated Jacobson wasn’t quite the shining light the RIAA had hoped he would be. In the latest in a to-and-fro series of motions and counter motions, Beckerman asked that Jacobson be excluded because, he said, the latter’s testimony suggested he didn’t meet the high standards demanded for expert testimony. Richard Gabriel, a lawyer with Holmes Roberts & Owen, the RIAA’s (Recording Industry Association of America) current chief legal eagles, challenged the motion, and now Beckerman has come back with a detailed list of reasons explaining why Jacobson’s testimony doesn’t amount to a hill of beans, and why Gabriel’s bid should be dismissed.

RIAA expert’s ‘junk science’, March 1st, 2007

p2pnet.net news:- An amazing, and revealing, document has just surfaced in the RIAA’s fight to force customers of its owners, EMI (Britain), Vivendi Universal (France), Sony BMG (Japan and Germany) and Warner Music (US), to buy their digital downloads. It’s deposition given by Dr Doug Jacobson who, on behalf of the RIAA, examined a mirror image of a hard drive owned by RIAA victim Marie Lindor, the Brooklyn, New York, home health aide accused by the Big 4 of illegally distributing their music online. “Now I ask the tech community to review this all-important transcript, and bear witness to the shoddy ‘investigation’ and ‘junk science’ upon which the RIAA has based its litigation war against the people,” says Lindor’s lawyer, Ray Beckerman, the man who also runs Recording Industry vs The People. “The computer scientists among you will be astounded that the RIAA has been permitted to burden our court system with cases based upon such arrant and careless nonsense.” The quality and qualifications of so-called expert witnesses hired by the Big 4’s RIAA (Recording Industry Association of America) have been repeatedly called into question in North America and Europe, in particular, MediaSentry and anti-p2p and anti-file sharing technology developed by Audible Magic.

2006

RIAA tries to bury Dutch finding, December 20th, 2006

p2pnet.net News:- Warner Music, EMI, Vivendi Universal and Sony BMG, the members of the Big 4 Organized Music cartel, are seriously alarmed because New York judge Robert L. Levy might see a Dutch court’s written decision condemning material submitted by MediaSentry, an online scalp hunter hired by the RIAA to come up with ‘proof’ of file sharing on the part of RIAA victims. So the Big 4 instructed their RIAA (Recording Industry Association of America) to get an English-language transcript stricken from the UMG v Lindor hearing.

Utrecht MediaSentry decision, December 18th, 2006

p2pnet.net News:- To say so-called MediaSentry evidence offered up by the the Big 4 Organized Music cartel in its sue ‘em all court cases is suspect is a very considerable understatement. Warner Music, EMI, Vivendi Universal and Sony BMG are suing their own customers in an increasingly desperate attempt to convince online music lovers that buying over-priced, low fidelity ‘product’ is the thing to do. The Big 4 use the excuse that files shared equal sales lost and that hundreds of millions of men, women and children around the world are hard-core dedicated “criminals” and “thieves” bent on “massive” illegal online distribution. The Big 4, worth uncountable billions of dollars, claim they’re being “devastated” by file sharers, among whom they’re naming Marie Lindor, a New York mother who barely knows one end of a computer from the other. With their RIAA (Recording Industry Association of America) carrying the ball, Warner Music (US), EMI (Britain), Vivendi Universal (France) and Sony BMG (Japan and Germany) say data supplied by MediaSentry are enough to support their claims. And they say this despite the fact the material has been called into question time and time again. Ray Beckerman, who’s defending Lindor, has been trying to get sight of MediaSentry material and recently cited a Dutch appeals court decision in Foundation v UPC Nederland, “agreeing with the lower court that the MediaSentry investigation by Tom Mizzone was insufficiently reliable to form a basis for directing ISP’s to turn over confidential customer information,” as he says on Recording Industry vs The People.

RIAA: trying it on with MediaSentry December 17th, 2006

p2pnet.net News:- If you’re corporate, or corporate linked, you’re corporate cool. It won’t matter what you get into, how often you screw up, or whether you’re credible or totally incredible. Ask SafeNet’s MediaSentry, an online scalp-hunter held up by Warner Music, EMI, Vivendi Universal and Sony BMG, the members of the Big 4 Organized Music cartel, as well as Hollywood, as honourable, authoritative and accurate and whose findings are routinely flaunted as reliable court evidence. But on Recording Industry vs The People, Ray Beckerman, the lawyer defending New York home health aide Marie Lindor, continues to demand that the cartel’s RIAA (Recording Industry Association of America) either puts up verifiable details of MediaSentry ‘evidence’ it’s using in ‘file sharing’ allegations against his client, or shuts up.

RIAA on the hook in Stubbs case,October 27th, 2006

p2pnet.net News:- Online bounty hunter MediaSentry has again scored a negative appearance in an RIAA case, as has corporate download application Kazaa. Both companies feature in a new debacle where the Big Four Organized Music cartel’s RIAA (Recording Industry Association of America) tries to wriggle out of an unsuccessful attempt to pillory a file sharer. MediaSentry told the RIAA Tallie Stubbs had distributed music with Kazaa and the RIAA then tried to terrorize Tallie Stubbs, who’d “likened the RIAA’s tactics to extortion’,” into settling. But Stubbs said she didn’t know anything about the RIAA’s claims, demanding that the ‘trade’ unit provide specific details. It ignored her, and also ignored a declaration by her lawyer, Marilyn Barringer-Thomson, that her client had had nothing to do with copyright infringement. But, “Plaintiffs continued to proceed with the filing of a lawsuit against Defendant although Plaintiffs knew or had reason to know that said Defendant should not be a party to any case involving copyright infringement by use of a computer and the internet,” said Barringer-Thomson in a court document. Now the RIAA wants out of the Stubbs case, and if you’re a regular reader and this all looks familiar, you’re probably thinking of Oklahoma nurse Debbie Foster, also represented by Barringer-Thomson.

2005

MediaSentry’s Dutch p2p foul-up, November 14th, 2005

p2p news / p2pnet: Organized Music fink firm MediaSentry was in July once again found to have presented shoddy and, ultimately, extremely costly, results to one of its clients. It blew the game for the CRIA (Canadian Recording Industry Association of America) in 2004 when the latter demanded that a Canadian court order five ISPs to hand over the names of clients. Justice Konrad von Finckenstein was singularly and quotably unimpressed by MediaSentry ‘evidence’. Then the company blew it again in Holland when the District Court of Utrecht decided MediaSentry’s investigation of p2p file sharing wasn’t only flawed, it was “unlawful,” ruling that Dutch ISPs didn’t have to provide customer information to the CRIA’s Netherlands counterparts. Recording Industry vs The People already has MediaSentry boss Gary Millin’s Toronto deposition online. Now it’s obtained a transcript of the MediaSentry’s Dutch Disaster. Interestingly, Delft University of Technology’s Johan Pouwelse and Henk Sips were expert witnesses in the Dutch case. Professor Sips leads the Parallel and Distributed Systems (PDS) research group, and Dr Pouwelse works within the PDS group and also conducts and coordinates p2p file sharing research.

(The pic at the top is with apologies to Private Eye )

. .Stumble It!

p2pnet news | RIAA News:- If Tanya Andersen is an example of what a couple of brave and determined people can achieve against Vivendi Universal, EMI, Warner Music and Sony BMG and their RIAA (Recording Industry Association of America), the attack on another single mother, Jammie Thomas, epitomises just how far the Big 4 record labels are willing to go, and just how low they’re prepared to sink,  in their efforts to gain complete and total control of the Net as the online distribution vehicle of the 21st digital century.

Thomas was vilified by the mainstream media online and off.

But when Michael Davis, the judge who oversaw the case, admitted he’d made a mistake in law, the corporate press was equally conspicuous by the absence of its reporting on the shocking revelation.

Below is a digest of p2pnet stories on the Jammie Thomas file sharing case, up to June 24, 2008.

Jon Newton – p2pnet

==============

First-ever RIAA trial? – Definitely stay tuned
September 27th, 2007

An estimated 30,000 innocent men, women and children across America have been wrongly accused of being massive online distributors of copyrighted music.

The misnamed Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), the US spin organisation run by EMI (Britain), Vivendi Universal (France) and Sony BMG (Japan and Germany) with Warner Music bringing up the rear as the only American company, has been able to use the lawsuits to suggest it’s won countless copyright infringement (it prefers the word ‘violation’) lawsuits.

Yet no one has ever appeared before a civil court or jury, or been found guilty of anything, let alone copyright infringement.

Have there been cases, but is the RIAA keeping quiet because it doesn’t want to make its failures publicly known?

Possibly, but p2pnet understands from two separate sources that to date, there’s never been a trial.

However, that could be about to change.

First RIAA trial starts tomorrow – Citizen reporters needed
October 1st, 2007

Citizen reporters are making the difference. Ask the people in Myanmar or, a lot closer to home, ask the families in America who are being viciously and relentlessly victimised by Warner Music, EMI, Vivendi Universal and Sony BMG’s RIAA (Recording Industry Association of America).

However, for the first time since 2003 when the RIAA launched its first attack, a case is actually going to trial.

And it’s slated to begin tomorrow.

The defendent is Jamie Thomas, a First Nations single mother of two who lives in Minnesota.

Thanks to the cooperation of the lamescream mainstream media, the Big 4 members of the organised music cartel have been able to scam most of America into believing they’ve successfully identified thousands of massive online distributors of copyrighted music, and prosecuted them.

It’s all flim-flam. Pure baloney. Just like the bulk of claims and accusations emanating from the Big 4 and all the RIAA-like alphabet organisations which front for it around the world.

But as p2pnet has been stressing for years, the realtiy is: not one of the innocent 30,000 men, women and children accused of being illicit file sharers, an offence which doesn’t exist in law, civil or criminal, has ever appeared in a civil court before a judge or jury.

Now, to its disgust, the RIAA has been told it can’t hand in 784 pages of documents it’d failed to produce until two weeks before the trial date.

Duluth RIAA p2p file sharing trial – BE THERE !!!
October 2nd, 2007

Citizen reporters are making the difference. Ask the people in Myanmar or, a lot closer to home, ask the families in America who are being viciously and relentlessly victimised by Warner Music, EMI, Vivendi Universal and Sony BMG’s RIAA (Recording Industry Association of America).

However, for the first time since 2003 when the RIAA launched its first attack, a case is actually going to trial.

And it’s slated to begin tomorrow.

The defendent is Jamie Thomas, a First Nations single mother of two who lives in Minnesota.

Thanks to the cooperation of the lamescream mainstream media, the Big 4 members of the organised music cartel have been able to scam most of America into believing they’ve successfully identified thousands of massive online distributors of copyrighted music, and prosecuted them.

It’s all flim-flam. Pure baloney. Just like the bulk of claims and accusations emanating from the Big 4 and all the RIAA-like alphabet organisations which front for it around the world.

But as p2pnet has been stressing for years, the realtiy is: not one of the innocent 30,000 men, women and children accused of being illicit file sharers, an offence which doesn’t exist in law, civil or criminal, has ever appeared in a civil court before a judge or jury.

Now, to its disgust, the RIAA has been told it can’t hand in 784 pages of documents it’d failed to produce until two weeks before the trial date.

Amateur musician on RIAA jury – ‘That says a lot Tuesday
October 2nd, 2007

An amateur musician is among 12 jurors who’ll decide if Jammie Thomas, an Ojibwe mother of two, is the filesharing criminal and thief Warner Music, EMI, Vivendi Universal say she is.

She’s the first of the estimated 30,000 men women and children across America whom the Big 4’s RIAA (Recording Industry Association of America) says are “devastating” the corporate music industry, to actually reach a civil judge and jury.

But Brian Toder, her lawyer, says the labels haven’t even proven that Thomas, who works for the Department of Natural Resources of the Mille Lacs Band of Ojibwe in Minnesota, shared the songs.

“Most of the 26,000 people the record industry group has sued have settled by paying a few thousand dollars,” continues Associated Press incorrectly.

In August last year when the number of people who’d received subpoenas had reached 8,400, only 1,700 had been frightened into paying up under the RIAA’s extortionate settlement scheme, admitted spokesman Jonathan Lamy, and it’s unlikely that the proportions are very different today, especially given that more and more people are standing up to the Big 4 and their hired legal guns.

RIAA vs Jammie Thomas: Day 1 – Keeping an open mind
October 3rd, 2007

Years back, then MPAA boss Jack Valenti, now deceased, developed the theme that studio workers were being thrown into the streets by their thousands because of staggering financial losses caused by piracy.

It wasn’t true then, and isn’t true now, but it looked good in the media and was reported as fact.

Warner Music, EMI, Vivendi Universal and Sony BMG know a good thing when they see it so they picked the line up and their various spin organisations, such as their RIAA (Recording Industry Association of America), have been using it ever since as part of disingenuous claims that ‘pirates’ are wreaking terrible havoc within the multi-billion-dollar corporate music industry.

Today marks Day 2 of a trial in which the Big 4 will try to convince a Duluth Minnesota, civil jury that as Tereastarr, Jammie Thomas, a 30-year-old mother of two, is guilty of using Sharman Networks’ Kazaa P2P file application – itself on the wrong end of a file sharing lawsuit – to illegally distribute 1,702 copyrighted music files online, with Holme Roberts & Owen lawyer Richard Gabriel leading the way for the labels.

The trial, the first in which an RIAA victim confronts the labels in an open court of law, is expected to run until Thursday at the least and will define how the sue ‘em all campaign will proceed.

Jammie Thomas vs the RIAA: Day II – Cary Sherman barred
October 3rd, 2007

“A single mother has made legal history by forcing America’s biggest record companies into a costly and potentially embarrassing trial after she refused to pay an out-of-court settlement for alleged music piracy.

“Jammie Thomas, a Native American from Minnesota, is one of 26,000 people the Recording Industry Association of America has sued over the past four years for alleged use of music ‘file-sharing’ software. But she is the first to refuse to settle and has forced the music industry into a trial that could set a legal precedent. ‘I refuse to be bullied,’ she said yesterday. ‘I know that I did not do this, and the jury will hear that I did not do this’.”

She isn’t, of course, the first to refuse to settle, far from it – ask Patti Santangelo and Tanya Andersen – but the quote is interesting nonetheless because it doesn’t come in a North American media report.

Instead, its the intro to a story in Britain’s upper-crust The Times, alarming – for EMI (Britain), Vivendi Universal (France), Sony BMG (Japan and Germany) and Warner Music (US) – because it proves the story is gaining legs with the reading public in Europe, something the Big 4 definitely don’t want and won’t like.

Because the Thomas case is only one element of a massive, carefully orchestrated international campaign on the part of the Big 4 cartel to gain control of how, and by whom, music is distributed online.

RIAA’s Cary Sherman is ’surprised’ – Wow! I took this long?
October 4th, 2007

In another blinding example of RIAA mis- and disinformation, Cary Sherman, the organisation’s chief spin doctor, says he’s, “surprised it took this long for one of the industry lawsuits to go to trial”.

He was talking about the case slated to wind up today.

In it, Minnesota mother Jammie Thomas says she’s completely innocent of accusations that she’s a massive online distributor of copyrighted music.

The absolute last thing Warner Music, EMI, Vivendi Universal and Sony BMG’s RIAA (Recording Industry Association of America) wanted was for it to actually reach the courts.They tried to get Thomas to ’settle’ but she instead decided to use the equivalent of the amount they tried to extort from her to hire lawyer Brian Toder.

The object of the RIAA exercise is to fire off subpoenas to as many people as possible using spurious information supplied by discredited companies such as Media Sentry, which is front and centre in the Thomas trial.

The labels can then use the ever-cooperative mainstream media to give the totally false impression that numerous trials have been successfully concluded and the thousands of people have been found guilty of copyright infringement when in fact Thomas’ case is the first to reach the civil courts.

Notwithstanding, Sherman professes he’s surprised it’s taken this long.

After four years, “it’s become business as usual, nobody really thinks about it,” Associated Press has him saying.

Will Jammie Thomas be found guilty? – Stay tuned …
October 4th, 2007

A question posed by jurors at the trial of RIAA victim Jammie Thomas suggests they’re seriously considering finding her guilty as charged – that’s to say, guilty of copyright infringement, says Wired’s David Kravets from Duluth, Minnesota, where it’s winding up.

They’ve asked US district judge Michael Davis to, “instruct them on the minimum amount of damages they could render,” says the story, going on:

The verdict form said if jurors believe Thomas’ file sharing on Kazaa was “willful,” they can ding her for up to $150,000 for each of the 24 violations in the case. But the form left off the minimum, $750, per violation.

“They just want to know what the bottom figure is for willful,” the judge told lawyers during a brief proceeding.

She has 24 counts lodged against her.

(ex-)RIAA-er Oppenheim rears his head – The bad penny
October 4th, 2007

Ex-RIAA employee Matt ‘The Dentist’ Oppenheim has been making his presence felt during the Jammie Thomas file sharing trial.

He acquired the sobriquet following his attack on Jesse Jordan in 2004.

He left the RIAA (Recording Industry Association of America) to work for Jenner & Block, another Big 4-favoured law firm.

Said RIAA president Cary Sherman at the time:

While we are disappointed that Matt is leaving, we are delighted that he will be joining the firm of Jenner & Block where we will continue to rely on him.

Truer words were never spoken.

Oppenheim once said the “Fourth Amendment does not apply to (the RIAA),” speaking of the lawsuits filed by the RIAA against file-sharers.

RIAA vs Jammie Thomas: RIAA wins – The champagne corks are popping
October 4th, 2007

he champagne corks will be popping in RIAA-land.

“The recording industry won a key fight Thursday against illegal music downloading when a federal jury found a Minnesota woman shared copyrighted music online and levied $220,000 in damages against her.” ~ Associated Press.

“Jammie Thomas, a single mother of two, was found liable Thursday for copyright infringement in the nation’s first file-sharing case to go before a jury.” ~ Wired.

“After less than four hours of deliberations, a federal jury in Duluth, Minnesota, handed the RIAA a victory in the first file-sharing case to go to trial, finding that Jammie Thomas willfully infringed on the record labels’ copyrights, awarding them $222,000 in damages.” ~ Ars Technica.

“[Editorial opinion: I’m sorry to hear that Ms. Thomas lost, but I don’t think the case is over by a long shot; the verdict - based as it upon an entirely erroneous jury instruction going to the very heart of the case - will almost definitely be set aside on appeal.-R.B.] ~ Recording Industry vs The People.

The RIAA ghouls smelled blood – But it isn’t over yet!
October 5th, 2007

A verdict of $222,000.00 for infringement of 24 song files worth a total of $23.76?

In a case where there was zero evidence of the defendant having transferred any of those files?.

It is one of the most irrational things I have ever seen in my life in the law.

If the judge doesn’t set aside the verdict sua sponte, I expect there to be motion practice to set aside the verdict, based on its obvious unconstitutionality and numerous other reasons, and if that fails I expect there to be a successful appeal.

It is an outrage, and I hope it is a wakeup call to the world that we all need to start supporting the defendants in these cases, and the attorneys who are sacrificing so much to represent them. And the support cannot be with words, it must be with check books.

And it cannot be next year, it must be now.

All the business people who make a living from the vibrancy, democracy, and freedom of expression which is the internet, need to get behind the RIAA’s victims.

If they do not, the world in which they hope to thrive and prosper will disappear rapidly.

The RIAA ghouls smelled blood in Duluth, and I guess they were right.

But it isn’t over ……

Ray Beckerman – Recording Industry vs The People

Hit the RIAA and Big Music where it hurts! – Show them who needs who
October 5th, 2007

Well, they’ve done it.

Four venal record companies, EMI (Britain), Vivendi Universal (France), Sony BMG (Japan and Germany) and Warner Music (US), have bankrupted a single mother with two children in their lust for money.

In what has to be one of the most outrageous verdicts ever recorded in America, without a shred of hard evidence, judge Michael J. Davis virtually instructed the jury to find Jamie Thomas guilty of copyright infringement, saying she must pay close to a quarter of a million dollars.

In the process, he made a mockery of the principle of fair use and a fair trial.

To all intents and purposes, the Big 4, all members of an organised music cartel who’ve been found guilty of price-fixing and bribery, among other things, own the RIAA, short for Recording Industry Association of America, and scores of similar organisations around the world, for example the BPI (British Phonographic Industry), IFPI (International Federation of Phonographic Industry), CRIA (Canadian Recording Industry Association), ARIA (Australian Recording Industry Association), and so on.

They’re determined to gain control of how ‘product,’ as they correctly call their shabby and over-priced offerings, is distributed online, and to make sure they, and no one else, are doing the distributing.

It isn’t enough for them to share the pie. They want it all and they’ll stop at nothing to get it.

Ultimately, they’ll lose, but not because of public opinion, not because of court decisions and not because they suddenly realise suing their own customers is a ridiculous path to take.

It’ll be because their shareholders tell them ‘enough is enough’ and to make that happen sooner rather than later, it’s up to you to stop buying ‘product’ from the Big 4 and from any of the companies linked to the RIAA —- all 1,636 of them, listed here.

RIAA victim Jammie Thomas will appeal – ‘They set themselves up’
October 8th, 2007

To no one’s surprise, Jammie Thomas, aka Tereastarr, and her lawyer, Brian Toder, will appeal the finding by a Minnesota jury which levied $220,000 in damages against her after deciding she was guilty of sharing copyrighted music online.

“We’re going on one single issue – whether simply making recordings available is in and of itself an infringement,” Toder told p2pnet this morining.

He was back in his office after spending the weekend “away from cellphones” on his tree farm near the Canadian border.

“There’s never been a single case where that’s been squarely an object of appeal,” he says.

“Were doing this so some decent law can be formed and relied on.

“The labels won the trial but they set themselves up for an appeal which can throw a wrench in this machine of theirs.”

Let the ‘Jammie’ RIAA artists know – Tell them what you think
October 8th, 2007

Here, from Oakleeman, a server admin down in Texas, is an interesting list of artists from the 24 songs dredged up by the RIAA in their disastrous attempt to turn Jammie Thomas ‘Don’t let this be you!‘ case lesson.

Jammie and her lawyer, Brian Tode, are appealing the decision. But don’t let it rest there.

We don’t need them but they need us, so …….

And, says Oakleeman, he’s also planning on, “on respectfully voicing my displeasure on the artists’ message boards.”

Excellent idea …..

Guns N Roses – http://web.gunsnroses.com – http://www.myspace.com/gunsnroses – customerservice@website.gunsnroses.com
Vanessa Williams – http://www.vanessawilliamsmusic.com – http://www.myspace.com/175437040
Janet Jackson – http://www.janet-jackson.com/ – http://www.myspace.com/janetjackson – http://janetjackson.emiforums.com
Gloria Estefan – http://www.90millas.com/ – http://www.myspace.com/gloriaestefan
Goo Goo Dolls – http://www.googoodolls.com/ – http://www.myspace.com/googoodolls
Journey – http://www.journeymusic.com/ – http://www.myspace.com/journey
Sara McLachlan – http://www.sarahmclachlan.com/ – http://www.myspace.com/sarahmclachlan
Aerosmith – http://www.aerosmith.com/ – http://www.myspace.com/aerosmith – http://forums.aeroforceone.com/
Linkin Park – http://linkinpark.com/ – http://www.myspace.com/linkinpark – http://forums.linkinpark.com/
Def Leppard - http://www.defleppard.com/ – http://www.myspace.com/defleppard – http://forum.defleppard.com/
Reba McEntire – http://www.reba.com/ – http://www.myspace.com/rebamcentire – http://www.reba.com/rebanet/
Bryan Adams – http://www.bryanadams.com/ – http://www.myspace.com/bryanadamsmusic – http://www.bryanadams.com/index.php?target=contact
No Doubt - http://www.nodoubt.com/ – http://www.myspace.com/nodoubt – http://forums.nodoubt.com/
Sheryl Crow - http://www.sherylcrow.com/ – http://www.sherylcrow.com/boards/default.aspx?cid=224
Richard Marx - http://www.richardmarx.com – http://www.myspace.com/officialrichardmarx – http://www.richardmarxonline.com/cgi-bin/ultimatebb.cgi
Destiny’s Child – http://www.destinyschild.com/ – http://forums1.columbiarecords.com/Columbia/Destiny%27sChild/
Green Day - http://www.greenday.com – http://www.myspace.com/greenday

First Jammie Thomas juror speaks out – ‘She’s a liar ….’
October 9th, 2007

Although the RIAA has won this battle, it’s lost the war, irretrievably, p2pnet posted when the news broke that a Minnesota jury had come down on the side of the corporate music industry in the Jammie Thomas file sharing trial.

“Meanwhile, it’ll be interesting to see who of the jury will be first to speak,” we added.

Now we know.

It’s ex-juror Michael Hegg, a 38-year-old steelworker from Duluth who told Wired’s Threat Level jurors found Thomas’ claim that she was the victim of a spoof, “unbelievable,” going on:

“She should have settled out of court for a few thousand dollars,” Hegg said. “Spoofing? We’re thinking, ‘Oh my God, you got to be kidding’.”

“She’s a liar,” added Hegg.

New Jammie Thomas juror steps forward – ‘It’s tough …’
October 11th, 2007

A second juror has decided to break the silence in a continuation of the Jammie Thomas (right) file sharing controversy. Thomas, 30, an Ojibwe mother of two from Minnesota, was fined almost $250,000 in a civil trial brought against her by Warner Music, EMI, Vivendi Universal and Sony BMG’s RIAA (Recording Industry Association of America). Accused of being a music copyright infringer, she’s appealing the decision and on Tuesday, Michael Hegg, a 38-year-old steelworker from Duluth, where trial was staged (word used advisedly), called Thomas a liar. But Thomas wasn’t taking the slur lying down. Hegg admits he’s never been online and, “I don’t need to say too much, obviously,” Thomas said, according to CNET News. He’d stressed Thomas’ Kazaa account username, Tereastarr, was the same as her email, online shopping, online dating and MySpace account usernames. But, “This person (Hegg) has never been on the Internet, so how can he say whether my story is possible?” – asks Thomas in the story, adding: “I’ve been contacted by Internet security experts who said that spoofing my address would have been trivial. Internet illiterate people are not going to be able to understand that.” p2pnet wondered who’d be the next juror to break his or her silence and that turned out to be Lisa Reinke from International Falls. “It’s tough because you can’t allow yourself to get involved emotionally,” Associated Press has her saying. “You’re there to do a job, and that’s what you’ve got to do.”

Jammie Thomas demands a new trial – ‘70 cents per song’
October 15th, 2007

Minnesota mother Jammie Thomas, ordered to pay the corporate music industry almost a quarter of a million dollars, says she wants a new trial.

“In what has to be one of the most outrageous verdicts ever recorded in America, without a shred of hard evidence,” judge Michael J. Davis virtually instructed the jury to find her guilty of copyright infringement, p2pnet said recently.

Now, Thomas, known online as Tereastarr, and her lawyer, Brian Toder, say they want another hearing, “on the issue of damages” to determine the extent of the actual damages or harm suffered because of Thomas’ alleged music uploads.

In a court document, they say any award above and beyond the value of the tunes, “is purely punitive, and as such must be scrutinized by the Court to insure that it is not grossly excessive, thereby violating the Due Process Clause of the United States Constitution”.

Alternatively, the document goes on, “the Court is urged to order remittitur.”

RIAA responds to Jammie Thomas – A ‘fair and reasonable manner’
October 16th, 2007

“We seek to resolve this case in a fair and reasonable manner. It is unfortunate that the defendant continues to avoid responsibility for her actions. We will continue to defend our rights.”

Three mis-statements in three sentences and not surprisingly, they’re all from Warner Music, EMI, Vivendi Universal and Sony BMG’s RIAA (Recording Industry Association of America).

They’re in reference to the Jammie Thomas case and as p2pnet revealed yesterday, Thomas, a mother of two from Minnesota, wants a new trial having been ordered to pay $222,000 for her alleged copyright infringement of song files with an estimated value of less than $17.00.

But, “In a court document, they [the labels] say any award above and beyond the value of the tunes, ‘is purely punitive, and as such must be scrutinized by the Court to insure that it is not grossly excessive, thereby violating the Due Process Clause of the United States Constitution’,” we posted.

Jammie Thomas: her story in her own words – Telling it like it is
November 2nd, 2007

Through their RIAA (Recording Industry Association of America), BPI (British Phonographic Industry), IFPI (International Federation of Phonographic Industry), CRIA (Canadian Recording Industry Association) and all the other so-called trade organisations strategically sited in major cities around the world, the members of the Big 4 organised music cartel are running a hugely expensive international disinformation campaign (a charitable description) designed to show they’re being “devastated” (their word) by their own customers, whom they’re calling criminals and thieves, even though no crime has been committed and nothing has been stolen.

These people are massive online illegal distributors of copyrighted music causing record industry support workers to be thrown onto the streets, out of work, and who are costing the labels billions of dollars in lost profits, say Vivendi Universal (France), Sony BMG (Japan and Germany), EMI (Britain), and Warner Music (US).

In America, and an estimated 30,000 people, some of them very young children, had been subpoenaed by the RIAA, accused of being file sharing criminals.

It’s, “no secret that the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) has responded to the growth of online file sharing with a wave of copyright infringement litigation,” wrote James Alonso, Marc Friedenberg, Michael Nguyen, Shawn Oakley and Sarah Calvert from The Columbia Science & Technology Law Review.

“Often, the individuals targeted by the RIAA fear the overwhelming costs of defending themselves in court, and many have agreed to pay large settlements.”

Often, but not always.

Now, inspired by the examples of people such as the five very reluctant heroines mentioned below, increasing numbers of victims are deciding not to let themselves be terrorised into settling.

The five, courageous in every sense of the word, are:

• Patti Santangelo, a New York mother of five children, two of whom have now become RIAA targets
• Rae-Jay Schwartz, another mother, bound to a wheelchair by multiple sclerosis, the terrible central nervous system disease
• Marie Lindor, a 57-year-old home health aid whose knowledge of computers and computer systems is zero
• Tanya Andersen, a disabled mother living off a disability pension
• Jammie Thomas, a young mother of two from Minnesota

But it’s Thomas, the first of the American RIAA victims to actually appear in court, who’s caught the attention of the international mainstream media for more than just a day or two.

Horrified by the negative (for them) PR the case has been generating, using their connections, political power and influence, the labels are doing their best to distort facts and spin Thomas as a cold schemer whose depredations forced the RIAA to take her to court.

Cary Sherman, the organisation’s chief spin doctor, said he was “surprised it took this long for one of the industry lawsuits to go to trial” when in fact, the organisation has done everything it can to stop any of these cases actually reaching a judge and jury.

Thomas has also achieved two other firsts:

As far as I know, she’s the first to launch her own forum, and for the first time since she was forced into the limelight, she’s telling her own story, in her own words.

Don’t complain, RIAA tells Jammie Thomas – Calculated decisions
November 9th, 2007

Warner Music, EMI, Vivendi Universal and Sony BMG’s RIAA has now responded to Jammie Thomas’ request for a new trial.

Bottom line?

Stop complaining.

Jammie Thomas answers the RIAA – Response filed
November 28th, 2007

Jammie Thomas, the Minnesota mother who was the first of the RIAA’s victims to actually appear in court, has now filed her reply papers in further support of her motion to set aside the verdict, and in response to the RIAA’s opposition papers.

DoJ backs RIAA in Jammie Thomas case – ‘Impossible to calculate the damages’
December 4th, 2007

In the Bush administration’s most blatant support of the commercial music industry yet, the US Department of Justice has stepped in on behalf of Warner Music, EMI, Vivendi Universal and Sony BMG’s RIAA in the Jammie Thomas case.

The DoJ is filing a brief defending the constitutionality of the $9,250-per-song-file jury verdict, says Recording Industry vs The People.

America’s top law agency tries to justify the amount by claiming the damages awarded aren’t, “so severe and oppressive as to be wholly disproportioned to the offense or obviously unreasonable”, and that it’s, “impossible to calculate the damages caused by a single infringement, particularly for infringement that occurs over the internet,” says Ray Beckerman.

RIAA victim Jammie Thomas seeks new lawyer – Might it be you?
January 1st, 2008

Last week two off-the-record sources told p2pnet Jammie Thomas, the first of the RIAA victims to actually appear in civil court, was looking for a lawyer to represent her in her appeal.

We were asked to keep it quite for the moment and now , “Sad news!” – says her blog, going on:

“Brian Toder and his law firm are only representing her for the remitter motion currently before the court and not for the appeal due to lack of funds. She confirmed that the donations collected here are still going into her legal defense fund and will be used to finance her appeal. She is now in search of a capable attorney ready to take the appeal either pro bono or for what is raised through fundraising efforts.

“If you can help, please contact Jammie by email: jammie [at] freejammie [dot] com.”

RIAA ‘misspeaks’ itself: Jammie Thomas case – Can you say ‘mistrial’?
January 5th, 2008

Yesterday, “National Public Radio hosted in on-air debate between Marc Fisher, the Post columnist, and Cary Sherman, president of the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA),” p2pnet posted, under the header, RIAA boss admits witness ‘misspoke’.

The ‘misspeaking’ came on the part of RIAA ‘expert witness’ Jennifer Pariser, a Sony BMG lawyer, during the trial of Minnesota mother-of-two Jammie Thomas, who ended up being ordered to pay nearly a quarter of a million dollars in damages to Warner Music, EMI, Vivendi Universal and Sony BMG’, members of the Big 4 organised music cartel.

“Hmmm,” said Aaron in a p2pnet Reader’s Write.

“Perhaps grounds for an appeal?”

Thomas lawyer Toder praises RIAA’s Gabriel – ‘Standup guy’
May 7th, 2008

Brian Toder, the attorney who unsuccessfully acted for Jammie Thomas, the only one of the RIAA’s 40,000 victims to appear a civil court, was instrumental in helping Richard Gabriel, the RIAA lawyer who defeated him, gain a much-coveted post.

Gabriel was under consideration for a judgeship in Colorado and officials who were vetting the RIAA lawyer called Toder, seeking his opinion.

“I gave him a very favorable rating,” Wired has Toder saying.

“I think he’s a standup guy and a good lawyer. And I think he would be a good judge.”

Jammie Thomas judge cops to ‘manifest error’ – ‘Contemplating granting a new trial’
May 15th, 2008

In what’s likely be the worst upset yet for Vivendi Universal, EMI, Warner Music and Sony BMG and their RIAA, a judge has admitted he made a “manifest error of law” in ruling Jammie Thomas was guilty of copyright infringement.

A federal jury in Duluth, Minnesota, decided Thomas had willfully infringed on the record label copyrights, awarding the labels $222,000 in damages.

At the time, “I’m sorry to hear that Ms. Thomas lost, but I don’t think the case is over by a long shot,” predicted Recording Industry vs The People’s Ray Beckerman, going on, “the verdict – based as it upon an entirely erroneous jury instruction going to the very heart of the case – will almost definitely be set aside on appeal.”

Now, judge Michael Davis (right), who presided in the original Thomas case, is, “contemplating granting a new trial … on the grounds that the Court committed a manifest error of law when, in Jury Instruction No. 15, it instructed the jury that ‘[t]he act of making copyrighted sound recordings available for electronic distribution on a peer-to-peer network, without licensefrom the copyright owners, violates the copyright owners’ exclusive right of distribution, regardless of whether actual distribution has been shown’.”

Thomas has consistently denied RIAA accusations that she was an illegal online distributor of copyrighted music.

Significantly Davis, ruling on the only case the RIAA has so far managed to get into court despite the 40,000 subpoenas it’s fired at equally innocent men, women and children across America, brought up the Jeffrey and Pamela Howell case which effectively destroyed the RIAA’s theories of ‘making available’ and ‘offering to distribute’ theories.

He also specifically invited “interested parties” to submit amicus briefs.

Rights groups file RIAA v Jammie Thomas brief – 18-page document
June 23rd, 2008

Four online rights groups have added their weight to that of 10 US law professors in support of Jammie Thomas, the mother of two who’s still the only one of the RIAA victims to actually go to court.

A jury decided Thomas had to pay $9,250 for each of 24 songs Warner Music, EMI, Vivendi Universal and Sony BMG’s RIAA claimed she’d infringed by sharing them online.

But judge Michael Davis, who’d presided over the civil trial, later admitted he’d made what he described as a “manifest error of law” in telling the jury the, “act of making copyrighted sound recordings available for electronic distribution on a peer-to-peer network, without license from the copyright owners, violates the copyright owners’ exclusive right of distribution, regardless of whether actual distribution has been shown”.

He also specifically invited “interested parties” to submit amicus briefs and professors Annemarie Bridy, University of Idaho; Michael W. Carroll, Villanova University; Ralph D. Clifford, Southern New England School of Law; Thomas F. Cotter, University of Minnesota; Jon M. Garon, Hamline University; Stephen McJohn, Suffolk University; Tyler T. Ochoa, Santa Clara University; Niels B. Schaumann, William Mitchell College of Law; and Christopher Sprigman, University of Virginia responded …..

MPAA joins RIAA in Jammie Thomas attack – Direct proof
June 24th, 2008

“In Capitol v. Thomas, a number of groups have accepted Judge Davis’s invitation to submit amicus curiae briefs on the issue of whether a manifest error of law was committed when the jury was instructed that Jammie Thomas could be liable for just ‘making files available’,” posted Ray Beckerman on Recording Industry vs The People over the weekend, going on:

“The deadline for filing of amicus briefs was Friday, June 20th at noon.”

The pic on the right shows “massive copyright infringer” Thomas with her two sons Tristan (left) and Tyler.

Beckerman was talking about the growing number of academics and others calling for a retrial in the case in which judge Michael Davis, who heard it, admitted making a “manifest error of law” in telling the civil jury the, “act of making copyrighted sound recordings available for electronic distribution on a peer-to-peer network, without licensefrom the copyright owners, violates the copyright owners’ exclusive right of distribution, regardless of whether actual distribution has been shown”.

Davis also asked “interested parties” to submit amicus briefs and Beckerman’s post includes a list of the briefs filed so far (see below).

However, in a 25-page amicus curiae brief, the MPAA claims the, “act of making copyrighted sound recordings available for electronic distribution on a peer-to-peer network, without a licence from the copyright owners, violates the copyright owners’ exclusive right of distribution, regardless of whether actual distribution has been shown”.

D-For-Decision-Day for RIAA, Jammie Thomas, August 2, 2008

p2pnet news view P2P | RIAA News:- Monday will a Capital Letter day for victims of the Big 4 labels in the corporate music sue ‘em all conspiracy, and Big 4 front organisation, the RIAA.

It’s the day federal judge Michael Davis will decide whether or not to overturn a decision against Jammie Thomas, a former user of Kazaa, the Sharman Networks P2P file sharing application which appears in the bulk of the RIAA cases, and which itself is now the subject of lawsuit.

And it looks as though a new RIAA lawyer, Jenner & Block’s Donald B. Verrilli Jr, is being brought in, presumably to attempt to persuade Davis to the contrary.

Verrilli was named by the Hollywood Reporter magazine as one of the top 100 ‘Power Lawyers’ in the entertainment industry for the second consecutive year, bragged J&B a couple of days ago.

Until now, Holmes Owen and Bird’s Richard Gabriel has been handling the case. But J&B is another RIAA favourite.

In July Gabriel himself became a judge in Colorado, leaving a big gap in the ranks of the RIAA’s high-priced attack   attorneys.

RIAA vs Jammie Thomas: new trial, September 24, 2008

p2pnet news view Freedom | P2P | RIAA News:- A single mother of two from Minnesota is once again about to face Capitol, Sony BMG, Arista, Interscope, Warner Bros and UMG — the multi-billion-dollar Big 4 record companies, in other words — in a new trial on a date yet to be set.

RIAA v Jammie Thomas: back to Square 1, September 24, 2008

p2pnet news view Freedom | P2P| RIAA:- Vivendi Universal, EMI, Warner Music and Sony BMG’s success rate in their efforts to sue some 40,000 of their own customers to force them to buy corporate ‘product,’ and to gain control of who distributes it online and by what means, has just been reduced from one to zero.

Kazaa, the RIAA and Jammie Thomas, October 17, 2008

p2pnet news view RIAA | P2P:- Vivendi Universal (France), Sony BMG (Japan and Germany), EMI (Britain), and Warner Music (US) and their RIAA (Recording Industry Association of America) can be quite properly described as hate organisations. They hate anything which even looks remotely like competition. They hate independents and independence. They hate anything which interferes with what they see as their God-given right to control how, and by whom, music is distributed online. They even hate the people who keep them in drugs and booze and who pay their bills. But there’s one commercial outfit that’s central to the vast majority of the RIAA hate lawsuits, but which has nonetheless escaped virtually unscathed: Australia’s Sharman Networks, owner of Kazaa, the P2P file sharing application used by almost every RIAA victim.Currently, the highest profile Kazaa case centres on Jammie Thomas, the Minnesota mother ordered to pay the corporate music industry almost a quarter of a million dollars for allegedly infringing music copyrights. Vivendi Universal, EMI, Warner Music and Sony BMG’s RIAA thought they’d finally scored when judge Michael Davis told jurors that simply making songs available in a shared folder written to her computer hard drive by Kazaa amounted to infringement, even if actual distribution hadn’t been proved.

‘Think tank’ on RIAA v Jammie Thomas, November 18, 2008

p2pnet news view | RIAA News:- US district judge Michael Davis’ mistrial decision in the Jammie Thomas file sharing case is  “unreasoned”  and “unreasonable,”  says a “market oriented think tank”. And leading the attack on behalf of the Progress and Freedom Foundation, with Vivendi Universal, EMI, Warner Music and Sony BMG and their RIAA, together with Time Warner, Viacom, Fox, Sony, NBC Universal and Disney and their MPAA as extremely interested observers, is one Thomas D. Sydnor II (right), a former aide to Hollywood aficionado, senator Orrin ‘Terminator’ Hatch of INDUCE Act infamy. Snydor was, “widely credited with the Senator’s infamous ‘blow up their computers‘ solution to P2P file-sharing,” said Seth Schoen in the EFF’s (Electronic Frontier Foundation) Deep Links.

RIAA loses Jammie Thomas appeal, December 29, 2008

p2pnet news view | RIAA News:- The RIAA’s last-ditch effort to kill judge Michael Davis’ decision to take a long, hard second look at Capitol Records vs Jammie Thomas has failed. Media reports around the world trumpeted what Vivendi Universal, EMI, Warner Music and Sony BMG’s RIAA called a resounding triumph when a Minnesota jury said Thomas, a single mother of two, owed the Big 4 almost a quarter of a million dollars. “Unfortunately, by using Kazaa, Thomas acted like countless other Internet users,” Davis ruled when he decided there were grounds for a new trial. Thomas’ alleged acts were illegal, but common, he wrote, and while her, “status as a consumer who was not seeking to harm her competitors or make a profit” didn’t excuse her behavior, it did make the award of hundreds of thousands of dollars in damages, “unprecedented and oppressive”. This time around, he ruled there was, “no substantial ground for a difference of opinion” on the, “question of law presented,” and allowing the RIAA’s appeal would not “materially advance the ultimate termination of the litigation,” says Recording Industry vs the People.

FSF expert funds for Jammie Thomas v RIAA, January 26, 2009

p2pnet news view RIAA | P2P:- The one major element missing in virtually all the RIAA cases used to be the lack of examination of RIAA so-called expert witnesses, the notable exception being Ray Beckerman’s grilling of Dr Doug Jacobson, whose expert testimony he reduced to rubble. Jacobson had been using materials supplied by MediaSentry, the “private investigation firm” the RIAA was forced to fire, as p2pnet revealed. Then in late 2007 the Free Software Foundation launched its Expert Witness Defense Fund, aiming to at least partially level the playing field for the innocent men, women and even children across America who were under under attack by Warner Music, EMI, Vivendi Universal and Sony BMG’s RIAA. “Our concern was how the RIAA is trying to use this sledge-hammer against the poorest people in society to set precedents in copyright,” the FSF’s Peter Brown told p2pnet today. The launch of the fund, organized in coordination with Beckerman’s Recording Industry Vs The People, was vitally important and now it’s being used in the Jammie Thomas case, the most significant RIAA lawsuit to date.

RIAA victim Jammie Thomas gets expert defence, February 13, 2009

p2pnet news view RIAA | P2P:- RIAA lawyers are the “bottom of the barrel”. The statement comes from Recording Industry vs The People’s Ray Beckerman with the news that the RIAA tried to prevent its star victim, Jammie Thomas, from hiring an expert to help her defend herself in a case in which she’s being accused of being a massive online distributor of copyrighted music. But the RIAA efforts  to derail her efforts to present the facts as they really are, as opposed to the Big 4 record label cartel’s version of them, failed, and a highly qualified technical expert is now slated to testify on her behalf. During the upcoming trial, in which Vivendi Universal, EMI, Warner Music and Sony BMG’s RIAA’s will once again try to convince a civil court that the single mother of two is, in fact, a wicked file sharing criminal, Dr Yongdae Kim will be nullifying RIAA ‘technical’ testimony. The Big 4 have accused approaching 40,000 people of the nonexistent crime of sharing music with each other over the Net, but have only managed to get Thomas before a judge and jury in civil trial,  slated to start on March 11. And even that’s being re-heard, to the chagrin of the RIAA and its owners. “In Capitol Records v. Thomas, Jammie Thomas’s motion for an extension of the discovery deadline, in order to enable her to designate Assistant Professor Yongdae Kim of the University of Minnesota as her expert witness, has been granted by Magistrate Judge Raymond L. Erickson,” says . It’ll be fascinating to see RIAA ‘experts’ up against  someone who really does know what he’s talking about when it comes to the Net and technology which keeps its wheels turning. Dr Kim Kim specializes in group and network security.

Jammie Thomas vs the RIAA: round II, May 13, 2009

p2pnet news view RIAA | P2P:- “I am a single mother of 2 beautiful boys; Tyler who is 13 and Triston, who is 11. These two are my life and they’re the reason why I do anything. It is also because of these two I decided to fight back against the RIAA. After I received the various letters from both my ISP and the RIAA, I made up my mind I was not going to be bullied into paying for something I didn’t do. My father always taught me to stand up and fight for what I believe in and I figured what better way to teach my boys this same lesson but through example.” So said Jammie Thomas in 2007. Together with approximately 40,000 other innocent people, including very young children, she’s accused by Vivendi Universal, EMI, Warner Music and Sony Music’s RIAA of being a massive  online distributor of copyrighted music. Consequently, she faced heavyweight Big 4 lawyers in a civil court trial, after which she was ordered to pay the corporate music industry almost a quarter of  a million dollars. But US district judge Michael Davis, who heard the case, declared a mistrial after admitting he’d committed a, “manifest error of law” when he told the jury the, “act of making copyrighted sound recordings available for electronic distribution on a peer-to-peer network, without licensefrom the copyright owners, violates the copyright owners’ exclusive right of distribution, regardless of whether actual distribution has been shown”. Now, because the two sides have failed to reach a settlement, Jammie will have to go through it all again starting on June 15.

Jammie Thomas: facing the RIAA alone, May 16, 2009

p2pnet news view RIAA | P2P:- I’ve never been able to understand how Brian Toder (right) was able to continue as Jammie Thomas’ lawyer.Jammie is the Minnesota mother of two who, on June 15, will for the second time take on the Big 4 record labels, Vivendi Universal, EMI, Warner Music and Sony Music, and their RIAA. First time around, she was ordered to pay Big Music almost a quarter of a million dollars in ‘damages’. But judge Michael Michael Davis, who heard the case, declared a mistrial after admitting  he’d committed a, “manifest error of law” when he told the jury the, “act of making copyrighted sound recordings available for electronic distribution on a peer-to-peer network, without licensefrom the copyright owners, violates the copyright owners’ exclusive right of distribution, regardless of whether actual distribution has been shown”. Now, on June 15, after the two sides failed to reach a settlement agreement, unless a lawyer with a social conscience steps forward to represent her pro bono, she’ll be standing against them alone. Because Toder who, while acting as her attorney, fulsomely praised RIAA lawyer Richard Gabriel, who was doing his best to see her pilloried, has pulled out. For the second time.

Jammie Thomas has a new lawyer! May 19, 2009

p2pnet news view RIAA | P2P:- I’ve just spoken with a jubilant Jammie Thomas, the woman Vivendi Universal, EMI, Warner Music and Sony Music’s RIAA tried to nail to the wall with a bill of almost a quarter of a million dollars. She’s over the moon because only days after learning Brian Toder, her previous legal representative, had decided discretion was the better part of valour, leaving her fend for herself against the Big 4 music labels, another lawyer has come forward with an offer of pro bono help. He’s K.A.D. Camara from Camara & Sibley in Houston, Texas, says Jammie. And, “He’s the youngest person in history to graduate from Harvard Law school with honors,” she points out. Nor will her trial — or, rather, her retrial — be delayed, as was expected. It’ll now go forward on June 15, as slated.

RIAA faces big trouble with new Thomas trial, May 21, 2009

p2pnet news view | RIAA News:- In an unusual statement, Brian Toder (right), Jammie Thomas’ former lawyer, has promised his firm, “will never seek any additional payment from Jammie Thomas for the considerable work we have done in her case”. Toder had been representing Thomas, a Minnesota mother said by Vivendi Universal, EMI, Warner Music and Sony Music’s RIAA to have been an illegal online file sharer, on and off for about 18 months. He recently pulled out, claiming he was owed $129,485  “for time that will never be recovered, coupled with the likelihood that a similar,  additional amount will be incurred if ordered to continue representation of defendant who originally caused [words missing] this firm by means of false representations”. This was the second time he’d decided he could no longer be her attorney. Now, having maligned Jammie by accusing her of  “false representations” without explaining what he meant, “If we are to receive any funds from this case, it will be solely from plaintiffs if Ms. Thomas-Rasset ultimately becomes the prevailing party which we believe is highly possible given the caliber of the counsel and amici on her side,” Toder says. It isn’t clear if  the promise his firm “will never seek any additional payment” means Toder and his colleagues are leaving the $129,485 on the books and will ultimately expect payment from Jammie, but will not expect more on top of that; or, if he means payment he’s already received is sufficient. On June 15 Jammie will, for the second time, take on the Big 4 record labels, Vivendi Universal, EMI, Warner Music and Sony Music, and their RIAA, but this time K.A.D. ‘Kiwi’ Camara, a young lawyer from Houston, Texas, will be in her corner, representing her pro bono. The term usually means professional work undertaken without payment and often, people represented by lawyers acting for them in this way are still responsible for expenses of various kinds. But Kiwi has promised he’s working for, and with, Jamie for free all the way down the line.

‘Why I praised RIAA lawyer’: Brian Toder, June 8, 2009

p2pnet news view RIAA News:- In a ‘By the way,’ Jammie Thomas-Rasset’s ex-attorney, Brian Toder, has explained why he was so effusive in praise of Richard Gabriel (right), the Holme Roberts & Owen lawyer who, hired by the RIAA to go after Jammie, no holds barred, is now a judge. A week today, Jammie and her new lawyer,  Kiwi K.A.D. Camara, are to go up against Vivendi Universal, EMI, Warner Music and Sony Music’s RIAA for the second time. She’s the only one of the 40,000 or so people subpoenaed by the Big 4 extortion unit to actually appear before a judge and jury.

. .Stumble It!

p2pnet news | RIAA News:- I’ve never been able to find an accurate, and up-to-date, list of the number of people who’ve been on the receiving end of subpoenas from Vivendi Universal, EMI, Warner Music and Sony BMG and their RIAA (Recording Industry Association of America).

Most mainstream media reports, including some of the major blogs, seem to peg it at around 20,000.

The last more or less accurate figure we had for RIAA victims was a little more than 19,000, we posted in 2007. But, “Assuming they’ve been keeping up the same pace of approximately 700 new suits each month, the RIAA should be closing in on 30,000 lawsuits by now,” senior EFF (Electronic Frontier Foundation) attorney Fred von Lohmann told p2pnet.

By the beginning of this year the RIAA had turned his attentions to universities across America, firing subpoenas and students with administrations acting as corporate copyright cops in all too many instances, and by now, the number of men, women and children in the US who’ve been on the wrong end of subpoenas must be close to the 40,000 mark, if not more.

A subpoenae is a document, not a court case, but the RIAA have been able to use these pieces of paper to imply thousands of people have been found ‘guilty’ of the non-existent ‘crime’ file of sharing.

In fact, the offence, if indeed there is one, is copyright infringement. And it’s a civil, not criminal, matter.

Moreover, only one person has actually appeared in a civil court and the decision on even that case is now very much open to doubt.

Tens of millions of Americans share music with each other every year, but only 40,000 (if indeed that is the number) have been on the wrong end of RIAA subpoenas.

However, these men, women and even children have been effectively prosecuted in the mainstream media and their lives made miserable without them ever having been found guilty of anything, let alone file sharing, in a court of law: guilty with no chance of proving themselves innocent.

They’re all ordinary people completely without the ability to defend themselves against the charges and they’ve suffered because they’ve been accused of being massive illegal online distributors of copyrighted ‘product’.

The labels claim when someone shares music with someone else, it’s exactly the same as if they’d walked into a store and shoplifted a CD.

The contention is patently ridiculous, but it’s swallowed hook, line and sinker by the mainstream media, who report it as though it’s fact.

p2pnet has written about the number of the file sharing cases but Tanya Andersen’s stands out as an example of what can be achieved against the multi-billion-dollar labels.

Below is a digest, by no means complete, of p2pnet stories featuring her and her lawyer, Lory Lybeck, as they fought, and continue to fight, Vivendi Universal (France), Sony BMG (Japan and Germany), EMI (Britain), and Warner Music (US).

At the time of writing, the two are struggling to force the RIAA adhere to a court decision which stipulates the Big 4 enforcer must pay them $108,000.

Jon Newton – p2pnet

=============

The ‘We’re Not Taking Any More’ club
September 17th, 2005

An unusual, extremely expensive, international online club is starting to form.

Its first member was Patti Santangelo, a single New York mother of five.

Next came Dawnell Leadbetter, another single mother, this time from the Seattle area. If you’re a regular p2pnet reader, you’ll recognize both of the above names.

The third member was someone you haven’t met before: Tanya Andersen (right), a single mother who’s also living in Oregon and who’s seriously disabled with a painful medical condition. She and her eight-year-old daughter get by on social security payments.

By now, you’ll have probably guessed the club members are all women being brutally victimized by EMI, Universal, Warner and Sony BMG, the huge, multi-billion-dollar record label cartel that’s using its immense financial and political weight and deep, dark connections to law enforcement agencies in a bizarre marketing scheme.

Instead of wooing customers, it’s suing them and so far, it’s clocked up close to 14,000 people.

But the significance of the three women isn’t that they’re among the unfortunate victims.

Rather, they stand out because they’re standing up, defying the Mafia-like labels and their teams of hired legal thugs who work through ‘Settlement Centers’ which aim to terrorize people into paying ‘fees’ which usually start out at $7,500 to be ‘negotiated’ down to around $3,500.

Do you think the superlatives victimize, brutal, terrorize and bizarre are too strong?

They’re not strong enough.

Victim sues RIAA under RICO Act
October 2nd, 2005

“I just read your ‘We’re Not Taking It Anymore’ Club article on p2pnet.net,” emailed Anna. “I’ve never been sued by RIAA, but I do feel strongly against their actions.”

She suggested the RICO (Racketeering Influenced and Corrupt Organization) might be a way to go, continuing, “Don’t laugh. It’s a very potent law. It was originally created to battle the Mafiosi, but it has been recently used to file suits against insurance companies (by the medical associations), corrupt moving companies, and even against ‘quackbusters.’ Google it; it gets to be interesting reading.

“I believe that what the RIAA (Recording Industry Association of America) is doing is racketeering and harassment. I think a creative lawyer could possibly go to town on this. If they get maybe 15 or 20 people who have been unjustifiably sued by RIAA, I’m sure they’ll have a strong case.�

Now, in what could be the beginning of the end for the Big Music cartel’s vicious sue ‘em all marketing campaign, RIAA victim Tanya Andersen (upper right) has just counter-sued the RIAA for Oregon RICO violations, fraud, invasion of privacy, abuse of process, electronic trespass, violation of the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, negligent misrepresentation, the tort of “outrage”, and deceptive business practices, says Recording Industry vs The People.

Andersen, 42, a disabled mother, lives alone with her eight-year-old daughter. The two exist on government disability payments.

She’s demanding a trial by jury and she’s one of a growing number of people who have had enough of the blatant terror tactics being used by the entertainment and software cartels.

Represented by Lory Lybeck of Lybeck Murphy in Oregon, Andersen decided she wasn’t going to be bullied into paying an extortionate charge to a blackmail centre acting for the Big Four record label cartel.

p2pnet talks to Tanya Andersen
March 21st, 2006

Some 18,000 innocent men, women and children have been quite literally terrorized by the Big Four Organized Music cartel’s RIAA (Recording Industry Association of America). Thanks to the unrelenting, multi-million-dollar Big Four anti-p2p campaign, they’ve been held up as as thieves and criminals by the corporate media corps.

Yet nothing has been stolen, no money has changed hands, not one of the 18,000 has ever been found guilt of anything, and the unimaginably rich Warner Music, Vivendi Universal, EMI and Sony BMG have never been able to uphold their claims that they’re being “devastated” by file sharers. Nor have they ever been able to substantiate their assertions that a file shared equals a sale lost. Like Patti Santangelo, Tanya Andersen is a single mother who’s being accused of the wholly fabricated charge of criminal file sharing.

Santangelo is refusing to admit she’s shared even one file and will be the first person to challenge the labels in an open court before a jury.

Andersen, who’s laid RICO (Racketeering Influenced and Corrupt Organization) allegations of her own against the RIAA, also flatly denies its charges and since early last year, has been trying to get the labels to check her hard-drive as proof. The Big Four ‘trade’ organization didn’t want to know. Period. But suddenly, it decided it did, after all, require access to her hard-drive - to all of it. But a judge ruled Andersen could name her own investigator who’d search only for specific files. And the RIAA will have to pay his or her bill.

Meanwhile, Andersen used to buy music through BMG, but dropped the service when she was sued.

Now, in this Q&A with p2pnet, she describes how BMG Music asked her to return to the fold because she’d been, “such a great customer”. They also promised her a free CD if she’d sign up again.

“I think it’s sad that all the beautiful and hard work of artists is being tarnished by these lawsuits,” she told p2pnet.

Tanya ups the ante in RIAA case - Andersen v the Big 4
April 25th, 2007

There’s never been any question of Tanya Andersen, an Oregon mother who lives on a medical pension, or her lawyer, Lory Lybeck, rolling over for Warner Music, EMI, Vivendi Universal and Sony BMG’s RIAA (Recording Industry Association of America).

The RIAA has been pushing her since Day One of its attempt to get her to settle out of court after it wrongly accused her of illegally distributing copyrighted music online.

Her disability forced her to quit her job and she was on the verge of returning to work when the RIAA went after her and, of the many and various case the RIAA has brought against alleged file sharing victims, this has to be one of the most transparently egregious.

There’s no question that Andersen has infringed anyone’s copyright, the non-existent civil ‘crime’ she’s accused of.

It’s established procedure for the RIAA to first attack a parent or parents, knowing full well there’s no real case for them to answer, later turning on their real targets, the children of the family.

None of the RIAA victims have the financial or legal resources to match those of the RIAA, and it knows that, hoping its victims will therefore settle out of court for something they didn’t do.

And not one of the people who’ve refused to pay the extortion – the majority – has yet been before a judge or a jury.

In the Andersen case, there isn’t even a teenager to go after, not that that matters to the RIAA which has attacked children as young as 12.

So the RIAA singled out Andersen’s daughter, Kylee, who’s only 10, for special attention.

Tanya, ‘gotenkito’ and the RIAA - Read it and weep
April 26th, 2007

Yesterday we highlighted the continuing RIAA (Recording Industry Association of America) attack on Tanya Andersen, a disabled Oregon mother with a 10-year-old daughter named Kylee.

Tanya is accused of being one of those thieving, file sharing criminals the RIAA says are costing its masters, Warner Music, EMI, Vivendi Universal and Sony BMG, vast amounts of money in lost revenues, and it wanted to grill Kylee in the hope it’ll be able to get something out of her which’ll incriminate her mother.

However, as she’s said from the beginning, Andersen hasn’t done anything, let alone infringe someone’s copyright, the real nature of the alleged offence wrongly and incorrectly called a ‘crime’.

According to the RIAA, Andersen is/was also gotenkito (gotenkito@kazaa.com), an avid rapp lover who was out of bed well before the crack of dawn, illegally distributing music online.

‘Who’s gotenkito?’ – Andersen wondered. ‘Because it sure isn’t me.’

So she googled it and within five minutes, found someone calling himself ‘gotenkito’, hailing from near-by Washington state. Not only that, he admitted downloading entertainment content.

Andersen had never heard of him and she told the RIAA about her discovery, begging them to investigate.

But the RIAA didn’t want to know.

Tanya Andersen beats the RIAA - Another victory against the Big 4
June 5th, 2007  

“The RIAA has finally dismissed my case with prejudice! My counterclaims, however, are not dismissed, and I’m still fighting for those. They just stand on their own now. Plus, I can go after attorney fees and costs. It seems like this has taken forever…..what a relief! Anyway, I just wanted you to know.”

Terrific!

The email was from Oregon mother Tanya Andersen. She and her 10-year-old daughter, Kylee, have been continuously persecuted by EMI (Britain), Vivendi Universal (France), Sony BMG (Japan and Germany) and Warner Music (US) in one of the worst of the many examples of Big 4 victimisation of innocent people, including very young children.

Behind the vicious attacks on this single mother is the RIAA, short for Recording Industry Association of America, grossly misnamed because only Warner is actually American, and it’s run by Canadian.

I lived a nightmare: RIAA victim - Tanya Andersen
June 14th, 2007

Big Music has a string of agencies strategically sited around the world. With names such as the RIAA (Recording Industry Association of America), BPI (British Phonographic Industry), IFPI (International Federation of Phonographic Industry), ARIA (Australian Recording Industry Association of America), CRIA (Canadian Recording Industry Association of America) and so on, they purport to be looking after the interests of the hundreds of record labels.

But to all intents and purposes, they’re the exclusive properties of four multi-billion-dollar mega companies which rule the corporate music industry with an iron hand.

They are EMI (Britain), Vivendi Universal (France), Sony BMG (Japan and Germany) and Warner Music (US) and their so-called trade associations are in fact vicious enforcement outfits whose principal job is to make sure ‘consumers’ consume, consume, consume, rigidly toeing the corporate line as they do so.

To make sure that happens without halt, the Big 4 are using the international law courts to terrorise innocent people such as Tanya Andersen and her daughter, Kylee (right), to make their point.

Andersen and her lawyer, Lory Lybeck, recently joined the ranks of former RIAA victims who’d forced the Big 4 enforcer to scurry off, tail between its legs.

But before that happened, “It was a living nightmare,” she told me.

Tanya Andersen sues the RIAA - Malicious prosecution
June 25th, 2007

Tanya Andersen, a disabled Oregon mother, and her 10-year-old daughter, Kylee, have for the last three years been living a nightmare, thanks to Warner Music, EMI, Vivendi Universal and Sony BMG’s RIAA.

But now Andersen is turning the tables on the Big 4 enforcer, going after it and other intimidation units for malicious prosecution.

She’s suing Atlantic Recording Corporation, Priority Records, Capitol Records, UMG Recordings, and BMG Music; the RIAA (Recording Industry Association of America); MediaSentry owner Safenet; and, Settlement Support Center, says Recording Industry vs The People.

“They made life horrible and did a lot of damage,” she told p2pnet. “People need to fight back. It’s really wrong they can abuse their power like this. It was three years – two years for the lawsuit and a year when they were harassing me. It was horrible.

“It’s really important for me to tell people what they’ve done and I’m really thankful that I’m able to do that.”

Tanya Andersen v RIAA gains strength - ‘What shall we DO?’
August 31st, 2007

As p2pnet pointed out yesterday, the story of how Tanya Andersen turned the tables on Warner Music, EMI, Vivendi Universal and Sony BMG’s RIAA has captured the attention of both the on and off-line media.
Andersen, who’s living on a disablement pension in Oregon, is suing the RIAA (Recording Industry Association of America) in a class action.

The Big 4 enforcement unit went after not only Andersen, but also Kylee, her 10-year-old daughter.

The latest mainstream media report of Andersen’s lawsuit, first revealed by p2pnet, is in Hollywood newspaper Variety.

“If the court grants that status, the RIAA could be facing a losing proposition because class-action suits can be extremely risky for defendants, in this case creating the potential for a big payout by the music labels,” says the story, quoting Ronnie London, “an attorney versed in class-action law,” as saying:

“If class action is certified, it’s more likely that the record companies would settle.”

RIAA says No to Tanya Andersen - Wants complaint dismissed 
September 17th, 2007

Last month an Oregon woman, victimized by the RIAA for two years, retaliated by bringing a class action for fraud, RICO, malicious prosecution, violation of the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, misuse of copyright law, civil conspiracy, and other assorted wrongs, against the record companies, the RIAA, and their investigators, and their ‘enforcers’, in Andersen v Atlantic.

The opening gambit of the record companies, the RIAA, and Settlement Support Center LLC, all of whom are being represented by the same law firm, has been to file a motion to dismiss Ms Andersen’s complaint.

New win for Tanya Andersen against RIAA - Awarded lawyers’ fees
January 17th, 2008

It’s another win for Tanya Andersen, the disabled Oregon mother who refused to be terrorised into submission by the multi-billion-dollar Warner Music, EMI, Vivendi Universal and Sony BMG and their RIAA.

The story of her fight against the Big 4 labels reads like a story —- a horror story.

She’s pictured on the right with her lawyer, Lory Lybeck. Together, the two have fought the RIAA to a stand-still.

RIAA (Recording Industry Association of America) heavies tried to frighten her into agreeing to extortion, as the labels called their phoney ’settlement’ deals, even targeting Kylee, her ten-year-old daughter.

“The RIAA has finally dismissed my case with prejudice!” – Andersen emailed p2pnet ….

Tanya Andersen RIAA complaint dismissed - Resubmit within 30 days
February 22nd, 2008

Oregon mother Tanya Andersen has been fighting Warner Music, EMI, Vivendi Universal and Sony BMG’s RIAA ever since she was wrongly accused of being a massive online illegal distributor of copyrighted music files in 2005.

What she and her 10-year-old, Kylee, have had to suffer at the hands of the highly paid Big 4 legal teams would make a movie.

Except no one would believe it.

Andersen, who’s disabled, has refused to cave in, suing the RIAA for alleged negligence, fraud and misrepresentation, racketeering and corruption, abuse of the legal process, malicious prosecution, outrage and intention to inflict emotional distress, computer fraud and abuse, trespass, invasion of privacy, libel and slander, deceptive business practices, misuse of copyright laws, and civil conspiracy.

However, federal judge Anna Brown has dismissed Andersen’s complaint, asking her to resubmit it within 30 days, going into more detail on which specific laws the RIAA and MediaSentry are said to have violated.

Tanya Andersen takes the RIAA head-on - Milestone in RIAA campaign 
March 14th, 2008

Not so long ago Tanya Andersen was an ordinary Oregon mother with a young daughter, Kylee.

A former legal worker, she was living on a medical disability pension. Then her world suddenly collapsed. She’d been marked out for special attention by Warner Music, EMI, Vivendi Universal and Sony BMG’s RIAA (Recording Industry Association of America).

“You take all of life’s everyday stresses, emergencies, regular responsibilities, ups and down’s,” she told p2pnet, then, “add a huge lawsuit to it that turns your life upside down. It gnaws at your life every single day.

“You wonder if it will ever end.”

That was three years ago and today’s she’s still an ordinary mum, but there’s a difference. Today Kylee is 10 and now, literally millions of people around the world know her name, and her mother’s. Because Tanya Andersen fought back, never giving in to the Big Music bully organisation.

She stood up to the multi-billion-dollar Big 4 and their ruthless legal attack dogs, charging negligence, fraud and misrepresentation, racketeering and corruption, abuse of the legal process, malicious prosecution, outrage and intention to inflict emotional distress, computer fraud and abuse, trespass, invasion of privacy, libel and slander, deceptive business practices, misuse of copyright laws, and civil conspiracy.

Today, after what amounted to a detailed briefing by federal judge Anna Brown,  she re-refiled against the RIAA in what will become a milestone in the RIAA sue ‘em all terror campaign.

The RIAA vs Tanya Andersen story - Killing Dolphins
March 17th, 2008

“Not so long ago Tanya Andersen was an ordinary Oregon mother with a young daughter, Kylee,” I posted a few days ago, going on >>>

A former legal worker, she was living on a medical disability pension.

Then her world suddenly collapsed.

She’d been marked out for special attention by Warner Music, EMI, Vivendi Universal and Sony BMG’s RIAA (Recording Industry Association of America).

Warner Music, EMI, Vivendi Universal and Sony BMG have for five years been getting away with the vicious and non-stop persecution of their own customers in a fruitless effort to force them to become compliant consumers; and, to gain control of how, and by whom, music is distributed online.

Using their RIAA (Recording Industry Association of America) as a blunt weapon, they tried to hammer Andersen into confessing to ‘crimes’ she’d never committed, and although they knew full well she was ill and living on a medical disability pension, they nonetheless tried to extort thousands of dollars from her.

The lengths the Big 4 and their RIAA have gone to in their efforts to beat her into submission are truly unbelievable but fortunately for her, she was able to gain the services of local lawyer Lory Lybeck, whose dogged determination has kept her case from foundering and whose support has, quite possibly, helped to keep Andersen out of hospital.

Below is his blow-by-blow description of exactly how the RIAA went about trying to terrorise Andersen, even stooping so low as to use her at the time seven-year-old daughter, Kylee, as a weapon against her.

It’s necessarily repetitious, but nonetheless makes fascinating, if horrifying, reading.

RIAA puts a price on Tanya Andersen’s suffering - — and it’s a mockery
March 25th, 2008

“Are RIAA victims who beat the Warner Music, EMI, Vivendi Universal and Sony BMG copyright cop entitled to legal fees?” – p2pnet asked earlier today, going on, “that’s what a San Antonio man wants to know.” A little later, “Debbie Foster and Tanya Andersen can tell you all about trying to get money you’re owed out of the RIAA,” we said, adding, “Exactly how much she’s [Tanya] owed has yet to be decided, and even then she’ll have to get it out of the Big 4 enforcer.”

But now we know.

If Warner Music, EMI, Vivendi Universal and Sony BMG’s RIAA have their way, the amount awarded will be derisory —- the equivalent of nickels and and dimes. And she’ll have to fight tooth and nail even for that.

In another post, “I find it interesting that you choose to vilify Mr Gabriel for the amount he earns,” said a p2pnet Reader’s Write. “$375 is by no means an unusual rate for a senior, or even mid-level, attorney and many are paid far more than that, particularly those who work within the entertainment industries. Lawyers are paid for their expertise and for using their knowledge to represent their clients to the very best of their abilities. It’s as simple as that.”

It was in response to a story observing Holme Robert & Owen, the RIAA’s current legal gun-slingers, were, “trying to weasel $513” out of RIAA victim Michelle Santangelo and her brother, Bobby, for “processing” paperwork. We went on that Gabriel (right) is a primary RIAA out-sourced attack lawyer, saying he’s front and centre, “in more than just a few of the cases and the proceeds from a good week’s work for him would be enough to settle claims lodged against one or two of his victims”.

Andersen is represented Lory Lybeck, and Gabriel and colleague William R. Patton are acting for the RIAA (Recording Industry Association of America) in a bid to make sure Lybeck, who’s exemplary work has left Gabiriel, et al, choking in the dust, doesn’t, in effect, get paid.

Lybeck is, says Gabriel in an official document, “asking the court apply a multiplier of two, citing, in a conclusory manner, substantial risks of pursuing this case, the significant time, money and resources” spent by her attorneys, “and the novelty and complexity of the issues in this case” as grounds for her request.

Put another way, Andersen is asking for about $300,000, says Recording Industry vs The People. But she should be awarded a paltry $30,099, maintains Gabriel.

RIAA, Tanya Andersen: 3rd amended complaint - Delay, delay, delay
April 18th, 2008

Lawyers working with RIAA victim Tanya Andersen have just filed their third amended complaint in what’s becoming the seminal Vivendi Universal, EMI, Warner Music and Sony BMG case as they and their RIAA continue their mission to hunt down and sue their own customers into becoming compliant consumers.

Andersen and her attorneys, Lory Lybeck and Ben Justus, have so far kept the labels and their legal attack dogs at bay.

Now they’ve further streamlined their case, focusing on the racketeering and corruption, abuse of the legal process, wrongful civil prosecution, deceptive business practices, negligence, fraud, and civil conspiracy components.

Last month, Andersen re-refiled after what amounted to a detailed briefing by federal judge Anna Brown.

However, one of the facets of this and all RIAA cases is delay, delay, delay.

Lybeck is still waiting for his corporate music industry opposite numbers to supply documents and other information which should have provided long ago. To keep moving ahead with discovery in view of the court’s instructions, they’ve dropped certain class action claims which depend on still-missing RIAA data.

The court has explained the components which have been dropped can be re-entered once the RIAA material is in hand.

Business Week on RIAA vs Tanya Andersen - ‘Does she look like a pirate?’
April 25th, 200

Anyone who still believes Vivendi Universal, EMI, Warner Music and Sony BMG’s RIAA is effective is clearly living on a desert island without radio, newspaper or TV, or a Net connection.

The RIAA (Recording Industry Association of America) started its bizarre sue ‘em all marketing campaign back in 2003, soon claiming it was making a significant impact on the P2P filesharing community.

In fact, nothing could have been further from the truth. The opposite was then, and is still today, true with millions of new P2P enthusiasts logging on almost by the hour.

But that hasn’t stopped the Big 4 extortion outfit from attacking helpless men, women and children across America, accusing them of being massive distributors of copyrighted corporate ‘product’.

One such was Tanya Andersen, a disabled Oregon mother with absolutely no clue about file sharing. And worse, the RIAA even targeted her daughter, Kylee, who was only seven when so-called RIAA investigators first turned up on her doorstep.

But she didn’t cave in. She and her lawyers, Lory Lybeck and Ben Justus, have fought the multi-billion-dollar labels to a dead halt and Andersen has gone from being a supposedly helpless RIAA victim to the Big 4 organised music cartel’s worst nightmare, and a couple of weeks ago she was telling me she’d been interviewed by Business Week.

It wasn’t that long ago that no one in the mainstream media was willing to pay any attention to the victims, instead parroting just about every piece of garbage the RIAA cared to trot out.

But that, too, has changed, with more and more members of the corporate press carrying the other side of the story.

Today, “go here,” Andersen said in an email.

So I followed the link. It points to a major Business Week story …….
Tanya Andersen zeroes in on RIAA - 4th amended complaint
May 5th, 2008

Vivendi Universal, EMI, Warner Music and Sony BMG’s RIAA fervently wish victim-turned-nemesis Tanya Andersen would disappear into the sunset.

Forever.

But unfortunately for the Big 4 extortion unit, that isn’t going to happen.

The shoe is now on the other foot.

The recent subject of a major Business Week article, Andersen, a disabled Oregon mother whom the RIAA  sought to terrify into agreeing to out-of-court blackmail, is determined to make the labels and their so-called trade association literally and figuratively pay for what they’ve done to her.

She and her lawyer, Lory Lybeck, have now filed their fourth amended complaint.

Tanya Andersen awarded $108,000 - Latest RIAA triumph
May 15th, 2008

RIAA nemesis Tanya Andersen has achieved another milestone victory.

She fought Vivendi Universal, EMI, Warner Music and Sony BMG’s RIAA to a standstill, forcing it to drop its spurious file sharing case against her, and now an Oregon court has awarded her close to $108,000 in fees and costs.

The amount, the highest ever, also signals what is in effect a default victory for other lawyers representing RIAA victims.

It means they now know they’ll be able to proceed with counterclaims bolstered by the knowledge they’ll be paid their work.

“This will assist in levelling the playing field in other cases,” Andersen’s lawyer, Lory Lybeck, told p2pnet.

It’s also only the second time these kinds of fees and costs, which count for up to July 1 last year, have been awarded, he says.

RIAA response to Tanya Andersen: Who? Us? - Deny, deny, deny
May 23rd, 2008

Who? us?

That’s the basic RIAA response to Tanya Andersen whose fourth submission in her malicious prosecution class action against Vivendi Universal, EMI, Warner Music and Sony BMG’s RIAA, and various other elements of the Big 4 attack force, has now been accepted.

“Answers filed by defendants in Andersen v. Atlantic class action,” says Recording Industry vs The People, simply, going on:

“In the Oregon class action against the RIAA and its codefendants, Andersen v. Atlantic, the defendants have filed their answers to the complaint.

Pay Tanya Andersen $108,000, judge orders RIAA - Wriggling and writhing
June 25th, 2008

The RIAA have had their chance.

Now it’s Tanya’s turn.

p2pnet posted that towards the end of last month, the subject being efforts exerted by Vivendi Universal, EMI, Warner Music and Sony BMG’s RIAA to avoid paying Tanya —- Tanya Andersen, the Oregon mother who, with her lawyers Lory Lybeck and Ben Justus, has the Big 4 and their attack dog in full retreat —- the money they owe her.

Following years of vicious and unmitigated attacks by the RIAA and its cohorts, John V. Acosta awarded her nearly $108,000 in fees and costs,.

But Pay? No Way! – says the RIAA.

The RIAA tried to dime her down to $30,000, but that didn’t work.

So they tried $60,000.

That didn’t work either and now judge A. Redden has affirmed the Acosta award.

RIAA pays Tanyan Andersen $107,951
August 14th, 2008

Another huge hole has appeared in Vivendi Universal, EMI, Warner Music and Sony BMG’s s(t)inking ship, the SS Sue ‘Em All.

And it’s well below the water-line.

Nor is the rapidly foundering merchant vessel MediaSentry looking too good.

Single mum Tanya Andersen and her daughter, Kylee, have come to epitomize the victims of the Big 4’s RIAA as the labels continue to pursue their hopeless course of trying to sue consumers around the world into buying their formulaic, cookie-cutter ‘product’.

She and her lawyers, Lory Lybeck and Ben Justus, beat the labels and their enforcer to a standstill, and a judge ordered them to pay the price.

Now the Big 4 have been forced to come through.

Word of Tanya Andersen RIAA triumph spreads
August 14th, 2008

p2pnet news view Freedom | P2P | RIAA News:- I love it!

Thanks to the Net, word of the RIAA’s defeat at the hands of the disabled Oregon mother is spreading like wild fire.

Vivendi Universal, EMI, Warner Music and Sony BMG’s RIAA (Recording Industry Association of America) tried to claim she was the massive (and illegal) online distributor of copyrighted ‘product’.

But the mother, Tanya Andersen, and her lawyers, Lory Lybeck (right) and Ben Justus, fought back from day one, proving RIAA victims don’t just have to sit there and take it, and that lawyers representing them don’t have to do so out of their own pockets.

Yesterday, p2pnet ran the first post on the fact the RIAA had actually paid up to the tune of almost $180,000.

. .Stumble It!

I’ve been meaning to update it and I’ve finally gotten around to it.

First time, I included the beginning of 2008 in the post. However, I’ve now made a new section, meaning 2007 stands alone and 2008 to date is a new post, up to June 30, 2008.

Cheers!

Jon Newton – p2pnet

==================

2008

==================

Penn State’s Spanier: RIAA all the way
January 1st, 2008

Way, way back (we won’t say ‘back in the day’ ), not long after p2pnet first went online, we were the first to post on Penn State University, the first senior American school to join forces with the entertainment cartels in a move to turn students not into well-informed, innovative and productive US citizens, but into fully indoctrinated and compliant corporate consumer drones.

With Penn president Graham Spanier (left) firmly planted on the movie and music industry’s Joint Committee of Higher Education and Entertainment Communities, alongside ace sophist Cary Sherman (right) of the RIAA, the school provided the foundation for what’s turned into a full-blown entertainment cartel penetration of US teaching institutions, coupled with all-out attacks on their students.

Instrumental in hooking Spanier was Barry K. Robinson, by pure coincidence both a member of Penn State University’s Board of Trustees and senior counsel for the RIAA (Recording Industry Association of America).

UCSC signs up as RIAA copyright cop
January 10th, 2008

The University of California, Santa Cruz (UCSC) has become another of the American schools to openly enlist as a Warner Music, EMI, Vivendi Universal and Sony BMG corporate copyright cop, acting for the Big 4 against its own students.

UCSC has, “just started blocking and throttling network traffic,” posts b14ck, one of the university’s residential network (ResNet) technicians on projectb14ck.

What’s behind the move?

“They think that they can reduce the number of RIAA complaints they get each year (which reflects poorly on the school) by blocking Gnutella network traffic, but their decision is uneducated if anything, and will most likely not result in any less RIAA complaints, but more student complaints and workarounds,” says b14ck, continuing UCSC is a public university, “which means that funding comes from both students AND California residents”.

RIAA attacks another 18 US schools
January 14th, 2008

Warner Music, EMI, Vivendi Universal and Sony BMG’s RIAA has kicked off the new year with renewed attacks on university students across America.

It boasts it’s sent out a new “wave” of 407 extortionate ’settlement’ letters to 18 universities, using “evidence of significant abuse of campus computer networks for the purpose of copyright infringement” as the excuse.

Mount Holyoke abandons students to RIAA

Mount Holyoke College, South Hadley, Massachusetts, was founded by Mary Lyon in 1837, “when higher education for women was a revolutionary idea,” it boasts, also promoting the conviction that, “women can and should make a difference in the world”.

Not in 2008, however, and not if the school can help it.

The “conviction” doesn’t stretch to protecting students, or advising them on how best to defend themselves against RIAA extortion.

Mount Holyoke was one of the 18 schools named in the RIAA’s first attack of the year as part of the Warner Music, EMI, Vivendi Universal and Sony BMG campaign to use US teaching institutions as copyright enforcement and sales units, staffed by teachers and funded by taxpayers.

“A few years ago Mount Holyoke College received one pre-litigation letter,” says the Daily Hampshire Gazette, going on:

“The student settled the claim outside of court, said Lee Bowie, dean of the college at Mount Holyoke.”

Now, “Bowie expects the 14 people who received the letters will pay the settlement at $3,000 per person and not try to fight the allegations in court,” says the story.\

Another MIT student defies RIAA
January 24th, 2008

A second MIT student has decided s/he’s not prepared to cave in to extortion on the part of the Big 4’s RIAA.

Vanderbilt University’s Cindy Frank believes ‘playing nice‘ with Warner Music, EMI, Vivendi Universal and Sony BMG’s RIAA is the way go, reported p2net last December, going on:

“And the policy has so far cost the university [read taxpayers and state and federal authorities, not to mention parents] half a million dollars.

“But Massachusetts Institute of Technology computer science major Erek Speed doesn’t agree.”

In fact, it’s time to fight back, he said in Tech Online.

Harvard chooses RIAA for law class
January 24th, 2008

Harvard University has a number of distinctions, but one in particular is particularly relevant with respect to Warner Music, EMI, Vivendi Universal and Sony BMG’s bloody-minded and bizarre sue ‘em all marketing campaign.

With that as a backdrop, professor Charles Nesson (right), William F. Weld professor of law, Harvard Law School, and founder and faculty co-director, Berkman Center for Internet & Society, had added a rather unusual, possibly unique, element to his Evidence 2008 course.

Under RIAA v University, frame a motion to, “quash a subpoena from a copyright holder to the university for the identity of a student downloader on grounds of undue burden,” he says in what has to be one of the most apt law courses at any US school excepting, perhaps, Maine where two student lawyers are actively representing two university students.

Texas school waits for RIAA attack
January 31st, 2008

The Stephen F. Austin State University in Texas is nervously poised waiting, but not ready, for an attack by the RIAA.

So far, it’s ony had to suffer C&D letters. But that’s soon about to change, suspects a senior staff member.

And while the SFA waits, “Virtually every computer that comes through (the SHACK) has Limewire installed on it,” says Jason Lisenby, going on:

“Limewire serves only one purpose, and that is to illegally download files.”

We’re pretty sure Limewire’s Mark Gorton might find a bone or 10 to pick with the statement.

RIAA goes after University of Dayton
February 1st, 2008

“As members of a Catholic and Marianist university, we’re challenged to behave in a manner consistent with our values. From a technology standpoint, one of the things this means is that we discourage illegally downloading music/films because it’s unethical – and illegal.”

This comes at the end of an article in the University of Dayton’s Flyer News which kicks off with:

The consequences of peer-to-peer file-sharing used to be attendance at a class of computer ethics and a possible 30-day suspension of UD network use. Now, however, UD students are being issued pre-litigation settlement letters from the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) recommending a financial settlement or threat of lawsuit.

“Students see this as something that happens “out there,” said Karen Bull, director of UDit business services. “But it is happening here too.”

And it’s happening everywhere as Warner Music, EMI, Vivendi Universal and Sony BMG put shareholder interests directly in front of the education of American youth.

Instruction is being disrupted, normal student activities are seriously interfered with and public funds are tapped in the interests of maintaining Big 4 profits.

RIAA goes after William & Mary – again – If at 1st you don’t succeed
Friday, February 8th, 2008

Technologically ignorant executives who run Warner Music, EMI, Vivendi Universal and Sony BMG are too dense to figure out how to use P2P file sharing and other related 21st century distribution technologies to their advantage.

So they’ve resorted to using their RIAA to try to sue their own customers into buying their boring and over-priced ‘product’.

But before they can do that, they have to somehow get hold of the names of the people they want to nail.

Last summer, the Big 4’s RIAA tried to scam judge Walter D. Kelley into granting order which to force the College of William & Mary in Virginia to hand over the identities of students alleged to have committed the awful crime of sharing music.

Seven students used the college network to, “access an online media distribution system for the purpose of downloading and distributing plaintiffs’ copyrighted works,” says a court document.

Kelley ruled the attempt wasn’t covered under the law and sent the RIAA away.

But the vultures are back, his time looking to con double the number of names out of school authorities.

RIAA attacks UCDavis staff member – ‘Waste of taxpayers’ money’   
Tuesday, February 12th, 2008

Having to deal with RIAA extortion letters is seriously, and negatively, affecting Jan Carmikle’s normal work.

She’s the UC (University of California) Davis intellectual property officer and as such, is primarily responsible for getting permission for the university to use various copyrighted materials, and to license UC Davis property elsewhere.

But Warner Music, EMI, Vivendi Universal and Sony BMG’s RIAA has, “forced her to devote 15 percent of her work to dealing with DMCA infringements – a waste of taxpayers’ money,” she says, quoted in UC Davis’ the California Aggie.

Nor is the university alone in having to puts its metaphorical hand into its own metaphorical pocket to pay for the Big 4’s bizarre, and purely commercial, anti-student marketing blitz, launched at the begining of last year.

Cindy Frank, director of service delivery and project management for information technology atVanderbilt University in Nashville in Tennessee, admits her school has spent half-a-million-dollars to keep the RIAA off its back.

Of the UC campuses, only UCLA has received more pre-lawsuit letters, she said.

UConn hands student names to RIAA – ‘Harboring illegally shared files’  
Tuesday, February 12th, 2008

Hand over student names, Warner Music, EMI, Vivendi Universal and Sony BMG’s RIAA ordered the University of Connecticut.

And it did, even though nothing has been proven and no one has been charged with anything.

“UConn has now received a subpoena which requires them to divulge the names of those in the university who are guilty of harboring illegally shared files on their personal computers,” says a Daily Campus OpEd which could almost have been written word-for-word by an RIAA hack.

“The administration, as it is bound by law to do, has complied,” says the story, going on:

“As of now, only 84 students have received pre-settlement letters asking for payments of $3,000-$6,000 for their contribution in the massive, online peer-to-peer networks.

“This is terrible. This is scary. But this is completely legal and warranted, and it is only the beginning.”

Oklahoma State tardy on RIAA subpoena – ‘Confidential information’
Tuesday, February 12th, 2008

“Anyone have any ideas on why Oklahoma State University hasn’t complied with the subpoena?” – wonders Ray Beckerman in Recording Industry vs The People.

He’s referring to the fact in Arista v Does 1-11, the case against Oklahoma State University students, despite the court’s denial of the motion by some of the students to quash the subpoena, it seems the university failed to snap right to it.

“According to the RIAA lawyers, the university has ‘neglected’ to respond to the subpoena despite ‘many reminders’,” says Beckerman, going on:

“Is it possible that, being a state university, it might have consulted with Oklahoma’s Attorney General, and learned that it has been violating federal law by failing to protect its students’ legal rights?

RIAA loses another ‘joinder’ case – John Doe defendants   
Thursday, February 14th, 2008

Warner Music, EMI, Vivendi Universal and Sony BMG’s RIAA has once again been trounced in a joinder case.

“These kinds of cases allow the corporate enforcer to efficiently terrorise a number of people simultaneously,” said p2pnet recently.

Lumping victims together also allows the RIAA to save money.

Maine magistrate judge Margaret Kravchuk recently criticised the Big 4 agency for using “gamesmanship” tactics in joinder cases —- cases where defendants are linked together.

Now, another judge has accused the RIAA of using the federal judiciary, “as a hammer by … to pound settlements out of unrepresented defendants.”

In SONY v Does 1-5, district judge S. James Otero not only threw out as to Does 1-5, based upon the long line of cases which ruled the RIAA has no right to join the John Doe defendants in a single case, he went on to rule that the plaintiff record companies were also improperly joined.

RIAA continues futile university attacks – Well done, the RIAA
Monday, February 25th, 2008

RIAA Marketing 101 —- How to force your owners’ customers to buy ‘product’:

Hound them. Harass them. Label them ‘criminals’ and ‘thieves’. Call them liars. Humiliate them in the mainstream media every chance you get.

That’s The Big 4 Way, the Big 4 being Warner Music, EMI, Vivendi Universal and Sony BMG, the venal members of the organised music gang.

As a continuation of Stage II of their bizarre sue ‘em all marketing and sales plan, the labels have set their RIAA loose on a new batch of students at universities across the country.

Under what the RIAA’s Clara Duckworth has actually been quoted as calling “cool new legal services,” they’re using staffs and administrations —- funded not by the corporate music industry, but by taxpayers —- to serve extortion letters to students, trying to hit them for upwards of three thousand dollars each.

Ohio University buys RIAA ’silver bullet’ —- retains Doug Jacobson    
Thursday, February 28th, 2008

Ohio University is patting itself on the back for a good job, well done.

Once at the top of Warner Music, EMI, Vivendi Universal and Sony BMG’s RIAA (s)hit list as the, “recipient of more music sharing complaints than any other university,” it’s now a fully fledged corporate copyright cop, passing on RIAA extortion demands to students and spending thousands of dollars in school funds on dodgy ‘filtering’ technology.

The labels claim files shared equal sales lost.

Sharing music is exactly the same as walking into a store and stealing a CD, say the likes of the RIAA’s Cary ‘Tough Love’ Sherman, mischaracterising file sharers —- their own customers —- as criminals and thieves.

However, in sharing, nothing has been stolen, no one is deprived of something they used to own and no money changes hands.

The labels have never come even close to proving the patently absurd contention that when someone shares something with someone else, they’re blocking a sale. But the statement is picked up and rebroadcast by the mainstream media as though it’s fact.

Now Ohio is boasting it spent more than $75,000 for a device that “scans data crisscrossing its network for copyrighted media”.

Cosying up to Warner Music, EMI, Vivendi Universal and Sony BMG and their RIAA may not do students a lot of good, but it makes for an easier, softer life for school administrators.

University of San Francisco joins RIAA fight – Singled out for special treatment
Thursday, February 28th, 2008

Warner Music, EMI, Vivendi Universal and Sony BMG and their RIAA hold their customers and artists in supreme contempt, heaping outrage upon outrage on them as they push forward with a warped sue ‘em all campaign designed to force people into buying Big 4 ‘product’.

Students across America have been singled out for special treatment as the carefully orchestrated scheme moves into its fifth year.

RIAA president Cary Sherman calls the bitter attacks “tough love“.

But the tide is turning, inexorably, with major universities deciding students’ interests must come before those of the corporate music industry.

Now the University of San Francisco Internet/Intellectual Property Justice Clinic has taken the unprecedented step of assigning students to a New York law firm, Vandenberg & Feliu, to help them defend clients under attack by the RIAA (Recording Industry Association of America).

Dear p2pnet: about those law students …. – ‘I read with interest …’
Thursday, February 28th, 2008

“Dear Jon,” says an email in response to p2pnet’s University of San Francisco joins RIAA fight.

“I read with interest your report that Vandenberg & Feliu, a company of New York lawyers, are now being supplemented by unpaid students at the the University of San Francisco.”

It goes on:

I find it truly disturbing that students are being used in this way against legitimate enterprises as they try to protect themselves against the rampant theft of their work.

It is indeed a sad state of affairs when this kind of thing is not only encouraged, but promoted by heavily biased media such as your site.

However, it is only a matter of time until the legitimate music industry succeeds in its fight against those who would see it deprived of its rightful earnings based on sale of product it has created, and artists it has nurtured.

Feel free to publish this so that you have at least one accurate report in your ‘blog’.

HCH

Thanks, HCH. As always, it’s a pleasure to hear from the other side.

RIAA closes down Tufts Direct Connect – Another Big 4 ‘triumph’
Monday, March 3rd, 2008

Tufts freshman Jonathan Evans used to run Tufts Direct Connect, a service he created on open source DC++.But ‘used to’ is the operative phrase because thanks to Warner Music, EMI, Vivendi Universal and Sony BMG and their RIAA, TDC is no more.

File sharing is, “putting a significant number of our students at risk for legal action,” according to Judi Rennie, the university’s information technology supervisor at Tufts Online.

RIAA ‘making available’ ruling cited in Duke case – Will it help?
Tuesday, March 4th, 2008

RIAA ‘making available’ ruling cited in Duke case – Will it help?
Tuesday, March 4th, 2008

The Atlantic v Brennan ruling by Connecticut district judge Janet Bond Arterton (right) that the RIAA’s infamous ‘making available‘ claim, upon which hinge all Warner Music, EMI, Vivendi Universal and Sony BMG P2P file sharing cases, is invalid is already echoing loudly down the corridors of American universities.

Arterton decided the corporate music industry plaintiffs must prove “actual distribution of copies” and couldn’t merely rely on the fact there are song files “available” on the defendant’s computer.

Now her decision may have implications for cases currently pending against students at Duke and other universities, says Duke University’s The Chronicle.

‘You’re jerks!’ – student tells RIAA – Jessica’s story
Wednesday, March 5th, 2008

Warner Music, EMI, Vivendi Universal and Sony BMG and their RIAA have extorted students across America out of hundreds of thousands of dollars.

It isn’t known exactly how many have been blackmailed into ’settling’ with the RIAA in the hope of avoiding a civil lawsuit, but it can’t be more than a couple of thousand and as p2pnet posted recently, “given that the US Census Bureau Back to School: 2006-2007 was projecting 7,600,000 students would be enrolled in American colleges and universities by that fall, it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out the RIAA student victimisation programme is going nowhere, and fast.”

All it’s really doing is further alienating the very people upon whom future sales depend.

Even the name RIAA is a mockery.

It’s short for Recording Industry Association of America but only one of the Big 4, Warner, is American, and that’s run by a Canadian.

The other three members of the organised corporate copyright music gang are Vivendi Universal (France), Sony BMG (Japan and Germany), EMI (Britain).

“I’ll file for bankruptcy.”

That’s Jesssica, one of 38 University of Maryland students who in 2007 found themselves on the wrong end of RIAA extortion letters.

“During an Office of Information Technology forum on file sharing Wednesday, she spoke out about her experience, calling the fines disproportionate and saying she refuses to pay,” says Chris Yu on Diamondback Online, going on:

“Jessica agreed to share her story with The Diamondback, but asked not to be identified because she feared involving her employer on campus. Jessica is a pseudonym.”

Did the RIAA ‘invent’ a John Doe? – ‘Can’t be found’   
Thursday, March 13th, 2008

“Could this be an indication that the RIAA’s unlicensed investigator, MediaSentry, doesn’t know what it’s doing? Perish the thought.”

That’s Recording Industry vs The People’s Ray Beckerman.

In the RIAA’s John Doe case against 38 North Carolina State University students, judge W. Earl Britt dismissed all the Does except for Number 2, ruling there was no basis for joining a whole slew of different John Does in one lawsuit.

But, it turns out, it looks as though John Doe #2 doesn’t exist, says Beckerman, quoting Technician Online.

RIAA, MPAA, pressure US schools – P2P file sharing  
Saturday, March 22nd, 2008

American educators continue to fight entertainment industry attempts to force US colleges and universities into not only becoming corporate copyright cops, but also installing, and paying for, software designed to filter all but corporate ‘product’ from online school networks.

“In a letter to members of Congress dated Tuesday, the Motion Picture Association of America and the Recording Industry Association of America took exception to claims by higher-education groups that online music services and technology tools to block file-sharing are costly and ineffective,” says the Chronicle of Higher Education’s Wired Campus.

“The entertainment-industry groups were responding to a letter that 13 higher-education groups sent to some members of Congress last week urging them to reject language in a House-approved bill that would require colleges to use such tools.

“The entertainment industry groups want the House language to become law. A similar Senate bill omits the language on peer-to-peer file sharing.”

RIAA, MPAA, letter to US schools – ‘Education and ethics’  
Monday, March 24th, 2008

As part of the ongoing corporate movie and music cartel ‘education’ campaign, two millionaire lobbyists are ordering American colleges and universities to shape up as far as entertainment bidnes is concerned.

US educators continue to fight entertainment cartel attempts to force US colleges and universities into not only becoming corporate copyright cops, but also installing, and paying for, software designed to filter all but corporate ‘product’ from online school networks, p2pnet posted on Saturday.

Quoting a Chronicle of Higher Education Wired Campus story, we went on:

“In a letter to members of Congress dated Tuesday, the Motion Picture Association of America and the Recording Industry Association of America took exception to claims by higher-education groups that online music services and technology tools to block file-sharing are costly and ineffective.”

The letter is signed by Tweedle-Dums Mitch ‘Bainwol and the MPAA’s Dan Glickman.

Addressed to Edward M. Kennedy, chairman of the committee on health, education, labor and pensions, Michael B. Enzi, the committee’s ranking member, George Miller, chairman of the committee on education and labor, and Howard P. ‘Buck’ McKeon, the committee’s senior Republican member, ironically, the letter accuses ACE of making “misleading assertions” and “mischaracterizations”.

Bainwol and Glickman are, of course, established experts at both.

Maine students target RIAA ‘discovery’ machine – Monkey wrench time
Wednesday, April 2nd, 2008

Dear, dear. More problems for the RIAA

“A student law clinic is about to cause a revolution in the P2P filesharing war launched by Warner Music, EMI, Vivendi Universal and Sony BMG,” p2pnet posted in December, 2007.

We went on >>>

In what’s probably a world’s first, not lawyers, but student attorneys at the University of Maine School of Law’s Cumberland Legal Aid Clinic have themselves taken up the fight on behalf of fellow students.

Hannah Ames and Lisa Chmelecki from the Cumberland clinic are now officially representing two Maine students.

Ames and Chmelecki are being guided by clinic director and U of M assistant professor Deirdre Smith.

Smith told p2pnet readers what it was all about, and now the students are at it again, only this time, “they’re trying to shut down the RIAA’s whole ‘discovery’ machine: the lawsuits it files against ‘John Does’ in order to find out their names and addresses,” says Recording Industry vs The People’s Ray Beckerman, going on:

“They’ve gone and filed a Rule 11 motion for sanctions (PDF), seeking – among other things – an injunction against all such ‘John Doe’ cases, arguing that the cases seek to circumvent the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act which protects student privacy rights, are brought for improper purposes of obtaining discovery, getting publicity, and intimidation, and are in flagrant violation of the joinder rules and numerous court orders.

“If the injunction is granted, the RIAA will have to go back to the drawing board to find another way of finding out the identities of college students, and the ruling – depending on its reasoning – might even be applicable to the non-college cases involving commercial ISPs.”

Elektra v Barker / London-Sire v Doe – ‘Making available’
Thursday, April 3rd, 2008

Same day, two federal courts, two different rulings on “making available,” says the EFF’s (Electrronic Frontier Foundation) Fred von Lohmann.

He’s talking about the Tenise Barker case and London-Sire v Doe featuring, says London-Sire Records, “individual computer users —- mainly college students —- who use ‘peer-to-peer file-sharing software to download and disseminate music without paying for it”.

Second University stands up to the RIAA – Marshall has the Moxy
Wednesday, April 16th, 2008

A second US university has had the moxy to stand up for its students instead of instanty caving into to RIAA extortion.

Following the path laid out in Oregon, where the state attorney general and University of Oregon jointly told Warner Music, EMI, Vivendi Universal and Sony BMG’s RIAA they weren’t going to stand still for blackmail, Marshall University in West Virginia has become the second known US university to attempt to quash an RIAA subpoena.

This won’t come as a surprise, however.

It’s also one of the few universities to point out the RIAA sue ‘em all campaign is having a seriously debilitating effect on universities and their staffs.

“We have to protect our institutions as well as our students, but we have yet to find a solution,” the university’s Jan Fox was last year quoted as saying, reported p2pnet.

Sudden ‘huge’ spike in school DMCA notices – Why? – administrators ask    
Friday, April 25th, 2008

A significant number of senior US school and universities are noticing “an enormous spike” in Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) notices, p2pnet has been told.

Does this mean students are ramping up their file sharing activities?

No, says a reliable source, stating, “There’s no identifiable spike in bandwidth usage at the campus level.”

Now some higher education authorities associated with the so-called Joint Committee of the Higher Education and Entertainment Communities are demanding an explanation, we understand.

18 universities named in RIAA DMCA attacks – UPDATED
Thursday, May 1st, 2008

[Revised] When p2pnet first wrote about the sudden upsurge in DMCA notices seen at universities across America, we couldn’t name the schools involved.

Now, however, Wired has followed the story up citing Indiana University, the University of Chicago, George Washington University and University of Cincinnati as four of the schools affected.

Ars Technica added two more (Update) and we supplemented the list with another 12  (Update II).

“A significant number of senior US school and universities are noticing ‘an enormous spike’ in Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) notices,” p2pnet said almost a week ago, going on:

“Does this mean students are ramping up their file sharing activities?

“No, says a reliable source, stating, ‘There’s no identifiable spike in bandwidth usage at the campus level.”

Now, “Universities are getting as many notices from the RIAA in one day as what they would typically get from all content owners in a month,” Wired has Educause vice president Mark Luker saying.

Why does Harvard escape the RIAA? – An RIAA-proof vest, maybe?
Saturday, May 3rd, 2008

What does Harvard have that most other senior schools in America don’t have?

An RIAA-proof vest, maybe?

Because while other universities across the land are being bombarded with extortion letters which Vivendi Universal, EMI, Warner Music and Sony BMG’s RIAA expects school authorities to hand-deliver to students, Harvard has yet to receive even one.

Could it be the immunity is about to vanish as the Big 4 enforcement unit ups the ante even further with scores of DMCA notices which have suddenly started arriving.

RIAA-compliant Indiana U has 2nd thoughts – Hmmmmm
Tuesday, May 6th, 2008

Indiana University has a scary “Are You Legal” site complete with an ominous logo with a giant eyeball behind it.

There’s even a T-shirt carrying the same message.

The university levies a $50 fine for the first notice officials receive about a student’s alleged improper sharing of copyrighted music or videos, and cuts off his or her access to the school network if he or she fails a 10-question quiz within 24 hours.

In other words, says Doug Lederman in his Inside Higher Ed article, you couldn’t find a more compliant (according to Hollywood and the Big 4 music cartel lights) school than Indiana.

But, Indiana officials, “are now discussing whether they should continue to respond to complaints from the recording industry with the same aggressiveness,” he says.

And that’s because administrators are beginning to question the legitimacy of the notices Vivendi Universal, EMI, Warner Music and Sony BMG’s RIAA sends accusing network users of illegally sharing music.

RIAA, MPAA demand college network police – ‘Burdensome and costly’   
Friday, May 9th, 2008

Higher-education officials say that the entertainment industry is pushing for state laws that would force colleges to police their networks for illegal trading of music and video files and to buy software to stem the problem.

Lawmakers in Tennessee and Illinois recently considered such legislation, and a similar bill may be brewing in California, according to officials who spoke at a technology-policy conference here on Thursday. The conference was sponsored by Educause, the nonprofit higher-education technology group.

College officials were advised by Educause leaders to watch for lobbying efforts in state capitols across the country by the Recording Industry Association of America and the Motion Picture Association of America. The attendees were told to prepare to start a counterattack, which would involve telling state lawmakers that the bills would be burdensome and costly for colleges, and would be ineffective in preventing students from swapping music and movie files on their campuses.

A spokeswoman for the recording-industry group, Cara Duckworth, would neither confirm nor deny that the group is singling out state legislatures.

LimeWire: RIAA, MediaSentry ‘anti-pirate’ app – ‘No capability of targeting schools’
Tuesday, May 13th, 2008

P2P file-sharing application LimeWire is routinely castigated by Vivendi Universal, EMI, Warner Music and Sony BMG and their RIAA (Recording Industry Association of America).

But, says Catherine Rampell in the Chronicle of Higher Education, neither the RIAA, the Big 4 nor their ‘investigator,’ MediaSentry, banned by the state police in Massachusetts, could get along without it.

Educause ‘astonished’ by RIAA DMCA claims – The ‘wrong end of the telescope’
Wednesday, May 14th, 2008

We’re astonished to hear an RIAA official quoted as saying, ‘We’re trying to make universities aware that they have an issue with peer-to-peer file sharing on their network, and so we don’t send automated notices to commercial ISP’s, I think because they are generally aware that there’s a problem’.”

That’s Steve Worona, Educause director of policy and networking programs and founding director of the Educause/Cornell Institute for computer policy and law (right).

Educause is a nonprofit association whose raison d’être is to advance higher education by promoting the intelligent use of information technology.

Worona says the RIAA is looking at the problem, “through the wrong end of the telescope,” referring to Catherine Rampell’s amazing and revealing Chronicle of Higher Education interview with an unnamed RIAA mouthperson.

“We have no capability of targeting any school at all,” according to the RIAA representative, who argues there’s a large “misperception” among university administrators that individual colleges are being picked on.

“Technically we can’t do it,” he stated. “We find what we find with this process, and that’s what we send to schools.”

RIAA v Maine students. Again. – It never learns
Thursday, May 29th, 2008

It seems the RIAA just can’t get enough of going after University of Maine students.

But from the look of it, the judges in Portland, Maine, may be getting wise to the record company lawyers’ antics.

The RIAA counsel submitted yet another ex parte discovery order to the court (’ex parte’ meaning ‘without notice’) in BMG v Does 1-11, but this time the judge refused to sign, pointing out there’s no emergency since there’s no evidence that records are about to be destroyed (PDF).

This is the same judge —- Margaret J. Kravchuk —- who’s previously suggested the imposition of Rule 11 sanctions against the RIAA lawyers, accusing them of gamesmanship, all of which prompts one to ask:

Has the stupidity of the RIAA lawyers attained even greater heights?’

RIAA, MPAA, bust university’s ‘file sharing’ printer – DMCA take-downs
Tuesday, June 17th, 2008

“We reverse engineer copyright enforcement in the popular BitTorrent file sharing network and find that a common approach for identifying infringing users is not conclusive,” say Michael Piatek, Tadayoshi Kohno and Arvind Krishnamurthy.

Not conclusive? A mistake, surely.

After all, Vivendi Universal, EMI, Warner Music and Sony BMG [read RIAA] and Time Warner, Viacom, Fox, Sony, NBC Universal and Disney [read MPAA] are religiously using ‘evidence’ of alleged ‘copyright infringement’ to shut down sites such as BitTorrent tracker TorrentSpy, and to sue their own customers.

However, “With the obvious flaws and inconclusive evidence provided by indirect detection, it is not very believable that these self-appointed copyright cops are unaware of the high probability that they implicate innocent people,” say the researchers, describing, “simple techniques for implicating arbitrary network endpoints in illegal content sharing and demonstrate the effectiveness of these techniques experimentally, attracting real DMCA complaints for nonsense devices, e.g., IP printers and a wireless access point.”

Their statements come in University of Washington Technical Report, UW-CSE-08-06-01, intriguingly entitled Challenges and Directions for Monitoring P2P File Sharing Networks with, even more intriguingly, Why My Printer Received a DMCA Takedown Notice, as the sub-title.

Give student names to RIAA, Judge orders W&M – ‘Rampant problem’
Monday, June 23rd, 2008

Judge F. Bradford has ordered Virginia’s William and Mary college to hand over the names of 20 students accused of downloading music to Vivendi Universal, EMI, Warner Music and Sony BMG’s RIAA.

“The music industry is at it again, hunting down small fish in the gigantic sea of music downloaders to make examples of them,” says Central Florida Future.com.

Wanted: RIAA student victims – Share experiences
Tuesday, June 24th, 2008

The Berkman Center is looking for college student RIAA targets to share their experiences in a recorded audio or video interview (either in person or through a video chat).

“Berkman’s Digital Natives Project, which investigates issues at the intersection between technology and youth culture, is putting together a series of educational videos for use in a copyright curriculum,” says Recording Industry vs The People.

“We’re looking to teach a nuanced view of creativity, copyright, and sharing. We are also putting together a podcast series on ‘Digital Natives’ issues and may be interested in the possibility of using potential interview materials for that as well,” says the center.

If you’re interested, contact John Randall (jrandall @ cyber.law.harvard dot edu)

http://www.digitalnative.org/

http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/

. .Stumble It!

Flexible Price – Rogers Launches Flexible Price Packages for Apple iPhone 3G , June 27, 2008

p2pnet news | Freedom:- “You have a lot of articles on the Canadian traffic shaping controversy,” said an email from Ottawa Gal, someone who’s played a major role in bringing the scandal to the attention of Canadians.

She goes on, “So it would be nice to have it also easy to find and see in one area, even if temporary!”

Fair enough So below are story headlines, with a few sentences as lead-ins. I think I found all the posts, but if I missed any, let me know and I’ll add them in. And I will, of course, keep this updated.And don’t forget to periodically check deslreports. It’s a US site, but it’s the largest online community centering on consumer broadband (and related) information and often has stories and forum posts with a Canadian slant —- such as this. In fact, the first mention of traffic shaping in Canada may have turned up there.

But the item which originally opened the throttling can of worms here in Canada, land of the fee, has to be Ottawa Gal’s Bell Sympatico P2P Black List.

Published back on November 3, 2007, it kicked off with >>>

Comcast in the US of A is currently, and rightly, getting it in the neck for meddling with file sharing.

Net neutrality? What’s that?

Throwing up its metaphorical hands in horror, it claims it would never dream of doing such a thing —- it’s just kinda, well, you know, delaying things a teensy bit.

Nothing to get upset about.

Members of the SavetheInternet.com Coalition and top Net scholars don’t agree, however. And to make their position unmistakably clear, they’ve filed a class action demanding the US Federal Communications Commission fine Comcast $195,000 for every affected subscriber

“Nobody gave Comcast the right to be an Internet gatekeeper,” says Marvin Ammori, general counsel of Free Press and co-author of the complaint. “And there is nothing reasonable about telling users which Internet services they can and can’t use.”

But Comcast isn’t the only villain in the piece, and the US isn’t the only country where The Biggies have decided they can do whatever they want and get away with it, a la the movie and music cartels.

In the States, users have people trying to look after their rights and interests, but there’s no one doing that in Canada.

If you’re signed on with Bell-Sympatico and you’ve been unsuccessfully trying to coax a little more speed out of your suddenly sluggish computer; or, if you’ve been calling Bell-Sympatico support only to be told it’s not them, it’s you —- it isn’t you, says Ottawa Gal. Because here, “Bell-Sympatico is now following the Rogers lead,” she states. “It’s traffic shaping and throttling.”

Bell-Sympatico says it’s now taking action against ‘network abusers’ and performing ‘Traffic Management during periods of peak usage’, she says, but since Bell-Sympatico “didn’t or won’t” explained in detail why, how, and exactly who is affected, here it is from Ottawa Gal …

2009

JULY

Bell Canada traffic throttling saga, July 3, 2009
p2pnet news view Freedom | P2P:- Jon, just wanted to fill you in on this,” said Ottawa Gal a little earlier today. “New CRTC filing in reply to Bell’s non-reply to reopen the ‘throttling case’.” Re-opening the throttling case? She’d have been on this. But she’s taking a holiday break –” Not at my computer, can’t get to my computer, can’t get to Email and don’t have your email etched in memory … ” So »»»

1. CAIP et al. via PIAC: http://www.dslreports.com/r0/download/1445389~572b62733237bb57791279c632e847e0/2008-108_RV_Reply_2July09FINAL.pdf
2. J.F. of Vaxination: http://www.dslreports.com/r0/download/1445390~f25d06fcfee813f8c1d16ddaaa08843d/vaxination_r%26v_final.pdf

MAY

Call for class action against Bell Canada, May 22, 2009
p2pnet news view Freedom | P2P:- A group of Canadian companies has come together because its members are seriously concerned about the way Bell Canada, with the tacit approval of the Stephen Harper government, is trampling roughshod, over its own customers, including smaller ISPs. And they’re making sure the CRTC (Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission)  is fully informed about their anger.

Bell Canada throttling, DPI fight isn’t over, May 21, 2009
p2pnet news view Freedom | P2P:- Around August, 2007, Bell Canada started throttling its own Bell Sympatico (users 2pnet – P2P Black List) and we told people how to get out of their contracts. To counter the p2pnet article, Bell Canada later made a script for its phone reps to use  in an unsuccessful bid to prevent the exodus to the unthrottled wholesalers, whom Bell later also throttled, in the process of opening the doors to a serious competition problem. The Canadian Competition Bureau (headed by Ms Sheridan Scott) and at-the-time industry minister Jim Prentice wouldn’t touch it, telling people to go sort it out themselves with the CRTC. In other words, our supposed Canadian watchdog shut out the Canadian people. Then on November 20 last year,  the CRTC Telecom Decision CRTC 2008-108 opened the door to DPI  and throttling, the story being told in detail in the p2pnet traffic shaping digest. Now, six months on, there’s a new surprise for us. But this one isn’t from Bell Canada, Rogers, Videotron or Telus. Instead, it’s a CRTC filing lodged by a coalition of consumer groups and indie telecommunication groups who’ve been adversely hit by the Bell Canada’s DPI and throttling practices. And they’re standing up for your rights, your privacy, and their right to function in a business environment that hasn’t been competitively crippled and hijacked by vested corporate interests.

FEBRUARY

CRTC ‘ignored evidence’ in Bell throttling case: report, February 23, 2009

p2pnet news view Freedom | P2P:- Vaxination Informatique’s Jean-François Mezei has been at the forefront of people determined to hammer home the inefficiencies of the CRTC in the ongoing Bell Canada traffic throttling debacle. “Interesting new filing in the Throttling case,” said a post on dslreports just before Christmas last year. The Quebec Union des Consommateurs was, from the looks of it, “calling the CRTC out,” it said, going on to quote a letter Mezei sent a letter to CRTC chairman Konrad von Finckeinstein (right) to complain about the way the CRTC operates. “The second part of the letter introduces the issue of the CRTC having accepted inaccurate facts from Bell in its throttling decision,” he said, promising, “I will develop a more comprehensive document that goes through the actual CoRTC decision to show the various flaws in it, especially those points that relied on incorrect information provided by Bell.” He’s now fulfilled that promise in a detailed 14 page analysis in which he accuses the CRTC of using inaccurate facts, ignoring evidence provided by third parties, and failing to ask Bell Canada the right questions. “To understand how the CRTC Council came to this decision, an Access to Information request was made to the CRTC in December to obtain all documents presented to the Council by the analysts,” he says

JANUARY

New Bell Canada outrage: double dipping, January 31, 2009
p2pnet news view Freedom | P2P:- In 2007, Ottawa Gal was the first to point to the ongoing Bell Canada traffic throttling scandal. Now, “Have you checked your Bell Canada bandwidth lately?” – she asks. Because if you’re the type to use, or come close to using, your allocated (you thought) bandwidth, there’s a good chance you’ve over-paid, she says,

‘Public’Bell throttling hearing censored, January 19, 2009
p2pnet news view Freedom | P2P:- Public – “open to all persons: a public meeting” ~ http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/public CRTC Public Hearings on Throttling That’s the header on jfmezei_anon’s dslreports post. He goes on »»» www.crtc.gc.ca/PartVII/eng/2008/···5400.htm – This is the web page for the public hearings on the throttling public process. Great! Public hearing. That means the public can hear. So all we need to do is get in touch with the CRTC [Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission] and find out how we get hold of all the ins and outs and details. Not, says jfmezei_anon in a second comment »»»The standard [CRTC] response to all questions is: Pursuant to section 39 of the Telecommunications Act, certain information in this response is being provided in confidence to the Commission. Release of this information on the public record would allow existing and potential competitors to formulate more effective business plans and marketing strategies, thereby prejudicing the Companies’ competitive position and causing specific direct harm to the Companies. An abridged version is provided for the public record. Abridged? That means censored, surely!

Beating Bell Canada’s Throttle Monster, January 19, 2009
p2pnet news view Freedom | P2P:- Bell Canada’s ongoing efforts to screw as much out of its customers as it can, giving back as little as possible, at the same time tying down their accounts with a specious ‘traffic management’ scheme, has made it one of the most despised companies in the land. Before the Net came along, it could get away with that kind of stuff, but not any more – not when people can talk with each other wherever they are, and whenever they feel like it, passing on info and data. Matt Haughey’s MetaFilter is a blog, “anyone can contribute a link or a comment to”. On January 17, Circumvention of Bell’s Throttle Monster: three alternatives showed up as a heading.

BCE, Teachers Union deal: on the rocks?, November 27, 2008
p2pnet news view Freedom | P2P:- Plans for the $52-billion take-over of Bell Canada, the country’s largest and most hated provider, are about to come crashing down, it seems. Nor is the looming recession responsible. “Bell parent BCE Inc. said yesterday a KPMG analysis indicates the telecom giant cannot meet solvency tests defined in the agreement under which the company will be acquired by an investor group led by the Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan,” says the Canadian Press. It was predicted, “that once the the Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan and its partners had acquired BCE with Michael Sabia retiring as CEO, we’d see price hikes and layoffs since this buy-out puts the union and Bell Canada $52 billion into dept,” posted p2pnet’s Ottawa Gal recdently. She was right about the price hikes with one such announced only on Tuesday. And last month, “I guess Bell is tired of pissing off its customers and is now try to piss off its business partners,” said bellsucksbigtime on dslreports. “We are witnessing the implosion of Bell Canada.”Bell Canada: Scott and Katz, November 24, 2008
p2pnet news view | P2P | Politics:- One of, if not the, most interesting revelations to emerge from the ongoing traffic throttling war between Bell Canada and its customers is the fact one of the CRTC’s top dogs, Leonard Katz, is an ex-very senior employee of both Bell Canada and Rogers. Nor was this a case of there today, gone tomorrow. After a long delay, the CRTC (Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission) denied the CAIP (Canadian Association of Internet Providers) demand that Bell Canada halt its traffic-shaping practices against its customers, users and smaller ISPs alike, said p2pnet, going on Kazt spent 17 years working for Rogers and 11 for Bell,  the CBC elicited in a Q&AAngered by the Bell ‘keep on throttling’ decision?, November 22, 2008
p2pnet news view Freedom | P2P:- Bell Canada’s claims of an endorsement from the CRTC, which has ruled aqainst halting the company’s abuse of its customers, users and ISPs alike, proved to be as empty as Bell spokesman Mirko Mr 5% Bibic’s statement that the decision, “is good news for Internet users across Canada who benefit from better managed networks”. The CRTC (Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission) on Thursday turned down the CAIP (Canadian Association of Internet Providers) demand that Bell Canada halt the traffic-shaping practices it uses. But in response to a CBC suggestion that the CRTC is behind Bell,  “Absolutely not,” CRTC vice-chairman Leonard Katz told the CBC, stating »»»

In fact, someone told me Bell put out a press release that said the commission upheld its position that network management practices are a fundamental right of theirs. That’s not what we said at all.

Bell Canada says ‘Thanks’ to the CRTC, November 21, 2008
p2pnet news view Freedom | P2P:- Bell Canada is laughing. It reckons it’s received a solid gold endorsement from Canadian regulator the CRTC. “After a long delay, the CRTC (Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission) yesterday denied the CAIP (Canadian Association of Internet Providers) request that Bell Canada immediately stop the traffic-shaping practices it adopted for its wholesale Gateway Access Service,” said a p2pnet post earlier today. But in response to a CBC suggestion that the CRTC supports Bell’s traffic throttling,  “Absolutely not,” Leonard Katz, who’s the CRTC vice-chairman, declares, adding »»»

In fact, someone told me Bell put out a press release that said the commission upheld its position that network management practices are a fundamental right of theirs. That’s not what we said at all.

So what did Bell Canada have to say on the CRTC ruling, exactly?

CRTC defends Bell Canada throttling decision, November 21, 2008
p2pnet news view Freedom | P2P:- Canadian regulator the CRTC has reacted sharply to accusations that it’s siding with Bell Canada in the traffic shackling scandal. After a long delay, the CRTC (Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission) yesterday denied the CAIP (Canadian Association of Internet Providers) request that Bell Canada immediately stop the traffic-shaping practices it adopted for its wholesale Gateway Access Service. “CAIP is very disappointed with the Decision. Canadians in general should be disappointed,” CAIP chairman Tom Copeland told p2pnet. “This Decision is a license for carriers to continue to interfere with the consumer’s use of the Internet.  While the Commission has now, by way of the Decision, initiated a public proceeding on ‘Net Neutrality, it will be 2010 before Canada takes an official stand on the matter.  “The telecommunication regulator of our largest trading partner of data and goods has come out in favour of Net Neutrality as has the President Elect of the USA. Canadians need political leadership on this issue sooner rather than later. “Our standing in the broadband world is slipping deeper into obscurity each day.” But the CRTC isn’t defending internet throttling, declared CRTC vice-chairman Leonard Katz (right), “who spent 17 years working for Rogers and 11 for Bell,” according to the CBC.

CRTC Bell Canada ruling: what the media say, November 20, 2008
p2pnet news view Freedom | P2P:- CRTC backs Bell Canada traffic throttling, said p2pnet’s headline on the news that, “Canada’s telecom regulator has denied a complaint brought forth by a consortium of independent Internet service companies over how Bell Canada manages or ’shapes’ Web traffic on the network space which it leases to third-party providers,” as the Globe and Mail sums it up in CRTC denies Internet ‘traffic shaping’ complaint. It goes on, “But the regulator is planning public proceedings to examine the traffic management techniques of Canadian telecom companies.” CRTC Rules Against Indie ISPs In Throttling Dispute, is the dslreports take: [CRTC chairman Konrad von] “Finckenstein appears to not understand either the definition of discriminatory, or how throttling wholesale ISPs (not just resellers) kills off Bell competition on multiple fronts. Bell’s decision effectively eliminated the right of independent wholesale ISPs to offer an un-crippled connection if they’re willing to pay for the bandwidth. It also gives Bell Canada’s un-throttled video store an unfair advantage over Canada’s more limited field of competing P2P Internet video services.”

CRTC Bell Canada decision in full, November 20, 2008
p2pnet news view Freedom | P2P:- The CRTC has finally released its decision on whether or not the commercial interests of a mega telecommunications company should continue to supersede those of its customers, p2pnet posted earlier today, going on: “They should, the regulator has decided.” Below is the decision in full »»»

CRTC backs Bell Canada traffic throttling, November 20, 2008
p2pnet news view Freedom | P2P:- The CRTC has finally released its decision on whether or not the commercial interests of a mega telecommunications company should continue to supersede those of its customers. They should, the regulator has decided. Backing up Bell Canada’s claim that P2P file sharers are unconscionable bandwidth hogs, “The Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) today announced that it has denied the Canadian Association of Internet Providers’ (CAIP) request that Bell Canada cease the traffic-shaping practices it has adopted for its wholesale Gateway Access Service”,” says the CRTC. “CAIP is very disappointed with the Decision. Canadians in general should be disappointed,” CAIP chairman Tom Copeland told p2pnet.

CRTC Bell Canada ruling due Thursday, November 19, 2008
p2pnet news view Freedom | P2P:- Tomorrow is D for Decision Day for Bell Canada and the CRTC (Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission). That’s when the latter will release it’s long-delayed findings on whether or not demands from CAIP, representing 55 smaller ISPs, to force Bell to halt its traffic-throttling-cum-censorship activities, will be met. CAIP is short for Canadian Association of Internet Providers and in April, it formally lodged a complaint with the CRTC, asking that Bell be ordered to Cease and Desist. Bell began shackling the accounts of its own Sympatico customers in October last year, as was first reported by p2pnet.

OCTOBER

Bell Canada admits using DPI to throttle traffic, October 18, 2008
p2pnet news view Freedom | P2P:- In a bid to present itself as a reasonable company applying reasonable measures to manage a serious problem created by a small number of users, Bell Sympatico is trying to excuse its practice of using Deep Packet Inspection (DPI) to throttle customers’ bandwidth. The company claims it isn’t trying to rigidly control what users do with the bandwidth they pay for every month for its own purposes. Rather, it’s, “using the latest, state-of-the-art technology to improve the customer experience for a vast majority of our customers’ favourite applications,” it promises on a new web site. And you thought it was just another greedy corporation that couldn’t give a damn about the people who keep in business. Shame on you. Shame! To blame, Bell implies,  are customers who use BitTorrent, Gnutella, Limewire, Kazaa, eDonkey, eMule, WinMX, “etc”.”

CRTC delays Bell traffic throttling decision, October 17, 2008
p2pnet news view Freedom | P2P:- Bell CAnada is being allowed to continue its anti-consumer traffic shaping activities The mainstream media knew about the decision. But it came as news to Tom Copeland, chairman of CAIP (Canadian Association of Internet Providers). And, “I’ve got a bad feeling in my gut about all of this!” – says TekSavvy CEO Rocky Gaudraul in a dslreports post, going on:

SEPTEMBER

Traffic throttling costs: who pays?, September 19, 2008
p2pnet news view Freedom | P2P:- Following Bell Canada’s CRTC submission to CAIP, and in reply to consumer groups (PIAC, CIPPIC and the Quebec Union des  Consommateurs) in which Bell boldly claims CAIP was, and is, the sole instigator of the CRTC proceedings into Bell Canada’s all-out throttle of the wholesale competition as discussed here, PIAC and CIPPIC have both filed with the CRTC, countering Bell. And both claim Bell itself is solely behind the CRTC proceedings and should, therefore, be liable for cost awards.

http://www.crtc.gc.ca/public/partvii/2008/8622/c51_200805153/951234.PDF
http://www.crtc.gc.ca/public/partvii/2008/8622/c51_200805153/950392.PDF

Now, in a bizarre turn of events, Canadian Telecom heavy-weight Telus Communications, which agreed with Bell Canada’s original position, is now defending PIAC, which had also maintained costs should be down to Bell on the grounds it was the one who’d started the whole thing off.

New CAIP vs Bell Canada battle – September 10, 2008
p2pnet news view Freedom | P2P:- A new battle has started up between Canada’s largest ISP, Bell Canada, and CAIP, the organization representing some 55 smaller providers. Like its counterpart in the US, Comcast, Bell started an all-out war with its own consumers having tried to throttle their accounts, claiming it was forced into the action by the activities of people who use P2P file sharing applications. But this time the fight centers on costs, not Bell Canada’s attack on Net neutrality, or its practice of “managing” the bandwidth it’s selling to its users. The Quebec Union des Consommateurs kicked things off by filing a claim of $14,950.00. The Public Interest Advocacy Centre (PIAC), acting for the Consumers Council of Canada (CCC), and National Anti-Poverty Organization (NAPO),  followed up with a claim of $13,709.38. Then the Canadian Internet Policy and Public Interest Clinic (CIPPIC) demanded $10,355.00. This brings it to $39,014.38 by public interest groups so far. But you can bet the $39K isn’t the end of it. And the groups — all of them — want the CRTC (Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission) to order Bell Canada to pay up. In full. The money wouldn’t even amount to pocket change for Canada’s largest ISP. Nonetheless, it’s saying CAIP (Canadian Association of Internet Providers), “given its level of interest and participation in this proceeding,” should pay a third. However, CAIP doesn’t agree. Bell’s objections were online at the CRTC site for all to see, but at the time of writing, CAIP’s weren’t.

AUGUST

Bell the – - – - er (fill in the blanks) – August 7, 2008
p2pnet news view Freedom | P2P:- Bell Canada, now under new ownership, reckons it just got better. p2pnet reader Samson, an ex-Bell customer service rep, ain’t so sure. And he says so. Among other things, “If you call in and have a strong accent, reps commonly upsell them knowing full well that they didnt get the customer to understand everything involved,” he says. “They get a yes and put it on. Makes me sick.” Yup. Way better.

‘La vie est Bell’ (cough, cough) - August 7, 2008
p2pnet news view Freedom | P2P:- Thankfully, under new its ownership, Bell Canada is giving the boot to the tacky beaver duo it’s been using as figureheads, together with the late and unlamented Emily. “Beavers are best known for their natural trait of building dams,” says the Wikipedia. Undoubtedly, that inspired Bell to dam the bandwidth of ISP clients and people with Sympatico accounts in what’s turning out to be a major business and PR disaster. “With the tag lines ‘La vie est Bel’ in Quebec and ‘Today just got better’ in the rest of the country, Canada’s largest phone company hopes to reposition itself against formidable competitors in the wireless, TV, Internet and land line communications market,” says the Globe and Mail. It might be a better idea for Bell to try to reposition itself as a company which  genuinely cares about the people who keep it in business instead of routinely treating them like shit.

Tell the truth, Bell Canada, demands TekSavvy, August 2, 2008
p2pnet news view P2P | Freedom:- A Canadian ISP has accused Bell Canada, Canada’s biggest ISP, of  deliberately holding back relevant data in its efforts to justify traffic throttling. In November last year, it was revealed Bell was deliberately blocking the accounts of its users, blaming the action on  a tiny number of them who, it charged, were were hogging bandwidth by sharing files. The claim was, and is, spurious and it provoked 55 smaller IPS, all of them members of CAIP (Canadian Association of Internet Providers), to file a demand with the CRTC, asking it to order BELL to stop shaping traffic.

JULY

New Bell Canada throttling plan: Goodbye DSL, July 31, 2008
p2pnet news view P2P | Freedom:-While Bell Canada launched a frontal assault on the wholesale competition by  forcibly throttling customers, it’s now opened two new assault lines aimed at back-dooring wholesale  business models and opening another anti-competitive fight that could  see all wholesalers customers not only throttled, but limited to only  2-gigs to 60-gigs per month. Paul of Acanac Inc, a wholesale ISP, says on dslreports »»»

Just got back from the conference and here is what Bell is proposing.

512Kbps service will be limited to 2GB per month
5Mbps service will be limited to 60GB per month

They did not disclose what the overcharges will be, but don’t expect  it to be cheap. Simply put DSL as we know it right now will no longer exist.

CAIP on Bell Canada traffic throttling: final, July 24, 2008
p2pnet news view Freedom | P2P:- The CBC has picked up on the latest, and final, CAIP submission to the CRTC over the Bell Canada traffing throttling scandal. Bell implies P2P is the, “motive force behind a wave of ‘bandwidth hungry’ applications that will soon overwhelm global networks in the absence of aggressive measures taken against it,” says the submission. “It also states that all P2P data transfers should be considered the postal equivalent of ‘bulk’ or ‘lower urgency’ mail, and that such transfers are never ‘time-sensitive’[ to the same extent as web browsing and other applications." p2pnet posted the full document late yesterday and today, "The Canadian Association of Internet Providers, a group of 55 companies that rent portions of Bell’s network to provide their own broadband services, made its last plea Wednesday to regulators to force Bell to end its speed throttling," says the CBC.

CAIP debunks Bell Canada throttling claims, July 23, 3008
p2pnet news view P2P | Freedom:- Should Canada’s largest ISP, Bell Canada, continue to be allowed to interfere both with the traffic of competing ISPs; and, single out a small group of P2P users as an excuse to impose so-called 'traffic management? Bell customers don’t think so, and nor does CAIP (Canadian Association of Internet Providers), the group representing 55 smaller providers. CAIP got the ball got the ball rolling on behalf of its members, and, by default, their customers, when in April it asked the CRTC (Canadian Radio-Television and Telecommunications Commission) to order Bell to 'Cease and Desist'. Instead of recognising it's time to start treating its customers, upon whom it depends, as intelligent and reasonable people, it chose to try to bulldoze them, eventually generating a further 24 submissions, the vast bulk siding with CAIP and the hundreds of thousands of aggrieved Bell users. Bell recently entered another submission in a futile attempt to justify its actions, and CAIP has just sent its response to the CRTC. "In our final submission to the CRTC we have debunked many of the inaccuracies put forth by Bell and clarified many of the issues that seemed to be a deliberate attempt to confuse and distract the Commission," CAIP chairman and president Tom Copeland told p2pnet, adding: "Our argument continues to be based on breaches in the Telecom Act and the regulations within the Act that Bell is required to respect. We hope the Commission agrees with our views and we look forward to a positive outcome."

Bell Canada Ontario class action, July 22, 2008
p2pnet news view P2P | Freedom:- Oh look,” says Ottawa Gal in an email. "They are now going to include Ontario, but they haven’t updated their web site yet." 'They' are Quebec’s Union des consommateurs (Consumers Union) and, "When Quebec ISP Videotron changed its contract bandwidth policies from unlimited to a 100-gig cap, Quebec users fought back by contacting the Union des consommateurs (Consumers Union) to get a class-action lawsuit going against the company for false advertising and breach of contract," posted p2pnet's Ottawa Gal in March.

Bell Canada: using client data, July 21, 2008
Bell Canada has responded to CAIP’s (Canadian Association of Internet Providers) request for an "extension and disclosure" of information. In its previous filing certain information was lodged 'in confidence' with the CRTC Canadian Radio-Television and Telecommunications Commission) and it now seems the company used GAS  customers’ (an ISP) private information in the filing,  and we haven’t been privileged to know the source of the data. Here's Bell's response to CAIP’s request for an extension»»»

Bell Canada: speed up, charges down?, July 17, 2008
p2pnet news view P2P | Freedom:- Bell Canada’s chief of regulatory affairs, Mirko ‘Mr5%‘ Bibic, claims Bell’s network can’t handle the load supposedly imposed by Bell customers who use P2P. The company justifies its throttling actions based on this 5% who, it clains, cause serious congestion within its multi-million dollar network. The 5% user base has an average speed of 3.5mbps. The cure? Triple the speed for users at less cost! This rumour is making the rounds as posted by this Bell tech support rep on dslreports »»»

Starting in August, max [16-meg internet] is going to be 50 bucks with 100GB on a 2 year contract with 2 months free…

CAIP seeks extension for Bell Canada response, July 17, 2008
p2pnet news view P2P | Freedom:- Bell Canada recently asked for, and was granted, an extension for its newest submission to the CRTC on demands from the association representing 55 of Canada’s smaller ISPs for Bell to stop throttling traffic. Bell claims P2P file sharers are seriously disrupting traffic flow, forcing it to impose a bandwidth cap. CAIP (Canadian Association of Internet Providers) wanted the CRTC (Canadian Radio-Television and Telecommunications Commission) to order Bell to Cease & Desist. Now it’s CAIP’s turn. “We’ve asked the CRTC for an extension until July 22,” CAIP chariman and president Tom Copeland (right) told p2pnet …..

Is Bell Canada trying to confuse throttling issues?, July 15, 2008
p2pnet news view | Freedom | P2P:- Is Bell Canada deliberately trying to confuse watchers of the bandwidth throttling, net neutrality, debate by comparing what it does on the retail side, Sympatico, with what it’s obliged to do by regulation on the wholesale side? Bell on Friday sent its latest effort to justify its unjustifiable actions to the CRTC (Canadian Radio-Television and Telecommunications Commission). The missive came in answer to the CAIP (Canadian Association of Internet Providers) April 3 demand that it ‘Cease & Desist’ and to date, 25 individuals and organisations, including Google and Cisco, have found it necessary to also lodge their thoughts with the CRTC, by far the vast majority of them siding with CAIP. But, “The obligations they have to wholesale customers (competitive ISPs) aren’t the same as those obligations they have to their Sympatico customers,” points out CAIP chairman and president Tom Copeland. “It is the regulated wholesale function that needs to be addressed by the Commission, not how Bell treats its retail customers,” he told p2pnet. “That’s a fight for another day.”

New Bell Canada CRTC submission: first analysis, July 14, 2008
p2pnet news view Freedom | P2P:- It’s a day late —- Bell asked for, and was granted, an extension —- and considerably more than a dollar short, p2pnet reported on Saturday, referring to Bell Canada’s latest CRTC (Canadian Radio-Television and Telecommunications Commission). Our post, the first on the subject and carrying the document in full, follows the efforts of Bell and other major ISPs here and across the border in the US to control what their users do with the accounts they’ve bought and paid for. Bell, et al, call it ‘traffic management,’ claiming it’s necessary to prevent a small number of P2P users from ruining things for everyone else. Fronting for Bell was, and still is, Mirko ‘Mr 5%‘ Bibic. “Bell admits it’s, ‘also in receipt of 25 comments from such as Google and Per Vices, the company which also provided a way for people to get around Bell’s bandwidth throttling ‘traffic management’ actions,” our story said. Also among the submissions was one from Jean-François Mezei. In a Reader’s Write to Saturday’s post, “I went through Bell’s fantastic work of fiction yesterday and commented on it,” Mezei says, pointing to his post on dslreports which, not at all incidentally, also has a number of other observations on Bell’s statements and efforts justification.

New Bell Canada CRTC submission, July 12, 2008
p2pnet news view P2P | Freedom:- “In accordance with the Commission staff letter of 19 June 2008 and Bell Canada’s (or the Company’s) letter of 9 July 2008, the Company is hereby filing its Answer to the CAIP (Canadian Association of Internet Providers)  Application dated 3 April 2008.” That’s Bell Canada’s Mirko Mr 5% Bibic to Canadian Radio-Television and Telecommunications Commission secretary general Robert A. Morin. Bell admits it’s, “also in receipt” of 25 comments from such as Google and Per Vices, the company which also provided a way for people to get around Bell’s bandwidth throttling “traffic management” actions.

How to defeat Bell Canada traffic throttling, July 8, 2008
p2pnet news P2P | Freedom:- “This seems to work. It’s 10:30pm and I’m pulling 450kb/s down. That’s effbell on dslreports Subject Bell Canada bandwidth throttling Solution A, “fundamental flaw in the Traffic Management Solution championed by Bell Canada is revealed when one considers exactly how they dealt with the problem of encrypted traffic.” says Per Vices Corporation CEO Victor Wollesen.

Google joins in Bell Canada traffic throttling war, July 8, 2008
p2pnet news Freedom | P2P:- Google is the latest company to line up against Bell Canada in the Bell versus its own Customers wars. It’s, “breaking Canadian telecommunications law by slowing certain internet traffic,” says Google in a CBC story. Bell is accusing P2P file sharers of hogging bandwidth and with that as an excuse, is trying to to impose traffic shaping as a standard practise, and block net neutrality. Now Do No Evil is, “urging the CRTC to take action against the company,” says the CBC, quoting Google as saying in a 15-page submission to the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission: “Bell claims its throttling of peer-to-peer applications is a reasonable form of network management.”But, “Network management does not include Canadian carriers’ blocking or degrading lawful applications that consumers wish to use,” it wrote

CDM calls for probe on P2P throttling, July 4, 2008
p2pnet news Freedom | P2P:- Another Canadian organisation has added it weight to the campaign to stop Bell Canada from singling out P2P file sharers as scape goats in its efforts to impose traffic shaping as a standard practice, and block net neutrality. Bell Canada’s traffic shaping poses serious risks to Canada’s public interests in maintaining the Net as an open vehicle for free expression and technical innovation, says the Campaign for Democratic Media (CDM) . It also protests the use of Deep Packet Inspection (DPI) technology which, it says, undermines the Telecom Policy Objective of Protecting the Privacy of Persons. “The internet’s power to facilitate social, democratic and economic progress is inseparable from its equal treatment of all content that travels over its pathways,” it says in a submission to the CRTC (Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission) in support of the Canadian Alliance of Internet Service Provider’s (CAIP) application to force Bell to cease and desist from its throttling of P2P internet traffic.

JUNE

Bell Canada ‘throttling’ submission: CBC – June 26, 2008
p2pnet news Freedom:- | P2P:- The CRTC expects to rule in September on whether or not Bell violated wholesale requirements under the Telecommunications Act. Meanwhile, a larger probe into net neutrality is inevitable, CRTC (Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission) chairman Konrad von Finckenstein says, according to the CBC. Bell was ordered by the CRTC to publicly reveal levels of congestion it says ultimately resulted in its bandwidth throttling practices by June 23. p2pnet reported the full submission on Tuesday and now, “The data, made public on Wednesday, showed that between 2.6 and 5.2 per cent of the links that make up Bell’s network in Ontario and Quebec experienced congestion between March 2007 and April 2008,” says the story.

Bell Canada response to CRTC throttling probe, June 24, 2008
p2pnet news P2P:- | Freedom:- Yesterday was D-for-Disclosure-Day for Bell Canada —- the day it had to comply with the CRTC order to publicly reveal levels of congestion it says forced it to launch its heavily criticised bandwidth throttling practices. But isn’t there something missing? There doesn’t seem to be any mention of Bell’s Ethernet Network segments. Just about all information centres on ATM only. But here it is, as is, in full, as submitted by Mirko Mr 5% Bibic, Bell Canada’s chief of regulatory affairs, together with a supplemental version “filed in confidence with the CRTC” as per “CRTC letter dated 2008 06 19″.
Prove file sharing blocks traffic, Bell ordered, June 23, 2008
p2pnet news | Freedom:- As p2pnet posted last week, today (June 23) is the last day Bell Canada has to comply with the CRTC order to “publicly” detail levels of congestion it says forced it to launch its heavily criticised bandwidth throttling practices. “This is seen as a positive step for the consumer, and another round in the long battle of the small ISPs against the Giant Internet Service providers such as Bell Canada and Rogers Canada Communications,” says EON in a massive understatement:

Sandvine Not-So-Fairshare business model, June 23, 2008
p2pnet news Freedom:- | P2P:- If you’re a P2P file sharer, Sandvine CEO Dave Caputo loves you because in his eyes, you’re a ‘bandwidth hog’. Or so the caption to the CBC pic on the right says. His interesting observation comes in a story focusing on a CBC Q&A with Caputo at last week’s Canadian Telecom Summit, “highlighted by a panel discussion on net neutrality, the slightly amorphous topic that generally revolves around how much control service providers have over internet access”.

CRTC responds to Bell non-disclosure stance, June 19, 2008
p2pnet news | Freedom:- Under the ‘This just in’ heading, here’s the CRTC (Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission ) answer to Bell’s non-disclosure stance in the Net Neutrality / bandwidth throttling wars!

MAY

Net Neutrality, one VIP music Business, May 31, 2008
p2pnet news | P2P:- Until last November, in Canada, if you said Net Neutrality to most Canadians, they wouldn’t have had a clue what you were talking about. That changed when it was linked to bandwidth throttling, the practice by which Bell Canada and other major ISPs deliberately block the traffic flow of customers who use P2P applications. The claim was, and still is, this tiny minority —- 5%, according to Bell —- are causing so much online congestion ISPs are forced to throttle them back. Where does Net Neutrality come into it? “Canada does not have strict enforceable net neutrality legislation and so there is very little structure in place to prevent the big ISPs from discriminating by speeding up or slowing down Web content based on its source, ownership or destination,” said Liberal MP, Andrew Telegdi. “I am outraged that Canada does not have a policy to protect my ability to communicate and access information freely on the Internet and urge you to take action on this matter immediately.” However, it can affect a lot more than surfers and P2P supporters, writes Allison OutHit in Need to Know, noting: “Without net neutrality, all the good pipe will get eaten up by whoever has the power to make the deal. Which sounds a lot like the payola days all over again.”

Bell Canada hit by traffic throttling class action, May 30, 2008
p2pnet news | Freedom:- When Quebec ISP Videotron changed its contract bandwidth policies from unlimited to a 100-gig cap, Quebec users fought back by contacting the Union des consommateurs (Consumers Union) to get a class-action lawsuit going against the company for false advertising and breach of contract, posted p2pnet’s Ottawa Gal in March. And now the same union, together with Bell customer Myrna Raphael, has lodged a class-action lawsuit against Canada’s largest ISP, accusing it of false advertising. “Raphael is said to have signed a three-year ADSL contract in 2006, partly on the basis of Bell’s claim of ‘constant speed’ at all times,” says Electronista. But when Bell Canada started throttling users last fall, it broke the contract, she and the union state. “Bell is further accused of violating users’ privacy, by using a technology called deep packet inspection (DPI) as part of the throttling process,” says the story.

Is C-552 Net Neutrality bill a waste of time?, May 29, 2008
p2pnet news | Freedom:- Yesterday, NDP digital culture spokesman tabled his C-552 Net Neutrality bill.  “This is a private member’s bill and they rarely go anywhere,”  says well-known copyright lawyer Howard Knopf in Excess Copyright, going on >>> I have immense respect for Charlie Angus, but this bill as quoted – presumably accurately by Jon Newton – won’t likely do much to stop the crude throttling that is now so apparent, irritating and damaging – even for unquestionably legitimate and authorized activity now.

Net neutrality bill ‘about fairness to consumers’, May 28, 2008
p2pnet news | Freedom:- “This bill is about fairness to consumers,” Charlie Angus, NDP digital culture spokesman, told the House of Commons today. “The internet is a critical piece of infrastructure not just for Canada but for the world … this bill protects the innovation agenda of Canada.” He was tabling C-552, “in reaction to moves by some of Canada’s largest internet service providers (ISPs), including Bell Canada Inc. and Rogers Communications Inc., to limit their customers’ uses of the internet,” says the CBC, going on >>> Bell, Rogers and a few others say a small percentage of customers have been congesting their networks by using peer-to-peer applications such as BitTorrent, so they have slowed the internet down at peak times of the day.”
Charlie Angus Net Neutrality bill, May 28, 2008
p2pnet news special | P2P:- “You are citizens of a digital realm and you have rights.” That was NDP digital culture spokesman Charlie Angus at yesterday’s Ottawa Net Neutrality rally. With that in mind, today he introduced a bill to keep the Net free from ISP interference. “We need to protect the internet from being hijacked by vested interests,” declared Phillipa Lawson, Canadian Internet Policy and Public Interest Clinic director. “If market forces could solve this problem we wouldn’t be here today.” Net neutrality is made up of competition, innovation and consumer rights, said TekSavvy CEO Rocky Gaudrault. And they’re ‘Not for sale’. Angus’ private member’s amendment to the Telecommunications Act prohibits network operators from engaging in network management practices which favour, degrade or prioritise any content, application service transmitted over a broadband network based on its source, ownership or destination, subject to certain exceptions. It also prohibits network operators from preventing anyone from attaching a device to their network and makes it mandatory for network operators to make information about user online access available to the user.

TOMORROW, NET NEUTRALITY RALLY, OTTAWA, May 26, 2008
p2pnet news | Freedom:- Tomorrow is Net day —- the day Canadians walk, run, ride or fly to to Parliament to rally en masse to let federal industry minister Jim Prentice and Bell Canada know who depends on who. Bell Canada, the country’s largest ISP, was suffering under the delusion it could lock off groups of its customers, trying to say they’re responsible for bandwidth congestion. And instead of sticking up for the people who put him into office, Prentice is backing Bell.

Traffic throttling Bell opens video store, May 22, 2008
p2pnet news | Movies:- Bell Canada is royally screwing customers who use P2P applications, accusing them of causing huge online traffic jams. It’s blocking their accounts but now, in an act of sheer, unmitigated gall, it’s also trying to get them to buy over-priced Bell movie downloads. It’s Canada’s, “first online service to offer download-to-own movies the same day they become available in retail stores,” says the Globe and Mail. It’s a, “collaboration between Bell and its partners, which includes digital delivery services developed by ExtendMedia as well as content from Paramount Pictures, Corus Entertainment, Maple Pictures, Eros Entertainment and Image Entertainment.” It’s the barest, baldest example of naked arrogance seen for a long while.

Sandvine FairShare traffic throttling, May 21, 2008
p2pnet news | P2P:- Whenever you see a corporate product with ‘fair’ in the name, you can be 100% sure it’ll be the exact opposite. Apple’s FairPlay DRM is a shining example, and now ace Canadian digital restrictions management company Sandvine has come out with a product sure to make the likes of Bell Canada and Rogers glow. Sandvine, which coined the notable phrase ‘policy management,’ is now touting Sandvine FairShare to, “enhance its suite of Traffic Optimization solutions”. For ‘Traffic Optimization’ read bandwidth throttling, and Sandvine’s new consumer control technology ‘empowers’ ISPs, enabling, “fair usage in the shared access network” with “advanced techniques” to “ensure equitable allocation of network resources during periods of congestion,” it says. And it’s “fully application-agnostic,” meaning BitTorrent isn’t the only P2P file sharing application it’ll target.

Canada traffic throttling cited in OECD report, May 21, 2008
p2pnet news | Freedom:- An OECD official has singled out Canada’s ongoing ISP traffic shaping scandal for special mention in a report on the country’s eroding position as a “global broadband internet leader”. “Officials at Bell and Rogers Communications Inc., Canada’s two largest ISPs, declined to comment.” The above is the tail end to a CBC article saying currently, Denmark leads OECD (Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development) countries with 35.1 subscribers per 100 inhabitants, followed by the Netherlands at 34.8 and Iceland at 32.2, it says. But Canada had only 8.6 million broadband subscribers as of December 2007, “or about 26.6 per 100 inhabitants, “enough to rank 10th among the 30 developed countries that make up the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development”.Phorm and DPI: Alex Hanff – May 20, 2008
p2pnet news | Advertising:- DPI is short for Deep Packet Inspection, an almost harmless seeming term which in Canada is being forcefully thrust into public attention by the Bell Canada throttling scandal. DPI (and filtering), “enables advanced security functions as well as internet data mining, eavesdropping, censorship, etc,” says the Wikipedia >>> Advocates of net neutrality fear that DPI technology will be used to privatize the Internet. It’s also cited by CAIP (Canadian Association of Internet Providers) which, in its attempts to have Bell’s activities curtailed, said in a submission to Canadian regulators, “Bell is using DPI to sequester or ‘hijack’ certain data packets as they pass through the network, and hold these packets hostage until certain pre-conditions are met …”

Parameters for CRTC throttling probe, May 15, 2008
p2pnet news | Freedom:- The CRTC (Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission) is opening an investigation into Bell Canada’s traffic shaping activities, p2pnet reported earlier today The company has until May 29 to respond. “Interested parties (other than Bell Canada and CAIP) may file with the Commission, serving a copy on Bell Canada and CAIP, comments with regard to the issues raised by CAIP in its application by 12 June 2008,” says the CRTC.

CRTC to investigate Bell throttling – May 15, 2008
p2pnet news | Freedom:- Canadians will have a chance to make their feelings even more clear on Bell Canada’s continuing efforts to stifle net neutrality and block its own customers from freely using the services they’ve paid for More than 1,100 people have already filed complaints in support of two CAIP submissions to the CRTC demanding Bell Canada be ordered to stop its traffic throttling activities, p2pnet posted yesterday, going on “Yet the CRTC (Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission) has, for the moment, at least, ignored their concerns “Instead, it’s turned down the CAIP (Canadian Association of Internet Providers) request for interim relief against the way in which Bell Canada is routinely throttling competitor ISPs’ ADSL traffic. The CRTC rejected appeals by 55 small Canadian IPS, represented by CAIP (Canadian Association of Internet Providers) but says it’ll open a public consultation on internet traffic throttling, says the CBC.

CRTC Bell throttling decision: full document, May 14, 2008
p2pnet news | Freedom:- More than 1,100 Canadians filed complaints in support of two CAIP submissions to the CRTC demanding Bell Canada be ordered to stop its traffic throttling activities. Yet the CRTC (Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission) has, for the moment, at least, ignored their concerns. Instead, it’s turned down the CAIP (Canadian Association of Internet Providers) request for interim relief against the way in which Bell Canada is routinely throttling competitor ISPs’ ADSL traffic. “We’ve lost our status as one of the world’s most connected nations and decisions like this should cause Canadians and the government serious concern,” says CAIP chairman Tom Copeland

Keep on throttling, CRTC tells Bell Canada, May 14, 2008
p2pnet news | Freedom:- Canadian regulators have decided it’s OK for Bell Canada to continue censoring its customers by bandwidth throttling, and to block Net neutrality efforts. Fifty-five smaller Canadian ISPs representing, by default, their customers, tried to put a stop to Ma Bell’s traffic shaping practices. Through CAIP (Canadian Association of Internet Providers), the ISPs asked the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission to order Bell to cease and desist However, the CRTC says the companies hadn’t shown their businesses would be irreparably damaged by Bell’s activities.

CIPPIC assails Bell on Deep Packet Inspection – May 13, 2008
p2pnet news | Freedom:- How long can Bell Canada keep on sliding by with claims its efforts to block both Net neutrality and its customers’ online access are OK —- that it’s just bidnes so don’t worry about it? Industry minister Jim Prentice should be looking after the people who elected him but instead, as with other members of Conservative government, he appears to be far more concerned with cosying up to vested corporate interests, including Ma Bell. However, the CBC, Canada’s National TV and radio broadcaster, has now picked up the news that CIPPIC (Canadian Internet Policy and Public Interest Clinic) has, “joined the assault on Bell Canada Inc and its traffic-shaping practices, urging an investigation by the country’s privacy commissioner”.

May 27 confirmed for Net Neutrality rally – May 13, 2008
It’s now confirmed that’s the date Canadians will rally at Parliament Hill in Ottawa to make their feelings about Net neutrality and broadband throttling known to their elected representatives.

Does Ma Bell spy on users online? – May 10, 2008
p2pnet news | Freedom:- On top of their efforts to neutralise net neutrality, large Canadian ISPs, including Ma Bell and Rogers Communications, may be spying on customers’ online, says a Canadian law group. The ISPs are already in effect censoring their customers by deliberately blocking access, and now the Canadian Internet Policy and Public Interest Clinic (CIPPIC) has filed a complaint with Canada’s Privacy Commissioner about Bell Canada’s alleged practice of monitoring internet subscribers’ internet activities without their knowledge or consent.

Liberal’s Telegdi on net neutrality – May 8, 2008
p2pnet news | Freedom:- Yesterday, CAIP (Canadian Association of Internet Providers) chairman and president Tom Copeland forecast the Liberals were getting ready to make their position on Net neutrality clear, and it seems the process may already have been started. Julianna Yau blogs on April 2, she sent a letter to her MP, Andrew Telegdi, on Net Neutrality.

May 27 – be there OR BE THROTTLED – May 9, 2008
p2pnet news | Freedom:- Click here and be there! It’s in your best interests  —- unless you want your Net controlled by a couple of big media, content-providing Telcos! The TekSavvy forum on dslreports.com was born to keep people informed about the rally on Parliament Hill slated for May 27, and it’s been the center piece for the voices of Canadian ISP customers as the debate rages in in the face of Rogers’ web-injections (and I thought only hackers interfered with you packets and performed web-injections ) and Bell’s total monopolization of what applications internet users on its own service and that on 3rd party ISP’s can use without restrictions and interference.

NDP really gets traffic throttling issue: CAIP – May 8, 2008
p2pnet news | Freedom:- “Comcast mulling Internet usage cap to discourage ‘excessive’ use,” says the Associated Press in its latest story on the US traffic shaping scandal. It makes it all look so, well, reasonable, doesn’t it? In fact, Comcast was caught red-handed with its pants around its ankles, not to mix metaphors, trying to both throttle bandwidth and put a stop to any thoughts of Net neutrality. Canadians have the same problem with Bell Canada and CAIP (Canadian Association of Internet Providers) is representing more than 50 independent internet service providers who are also Bell clients, and, in effect, the ISPs’ customers.

Support net neutrality, NUPGE tells Liberals – May 1, 2008
p2pnet news | Freedom:- Canadian opposition leader Stéphane Dion should support the National Union of Public and General Employees (NUPGE) campaign for government action to protect Net neutrality in Canada, says the union. “On behalf of the 340,000 members of the National Union, I am asking the Liberal Party of Canada to take a clear stand in support of seeing the principle of net neutrality enshrined in Canadian law,” NUPGE president James Clancy says on the union’s web site.

APRIL

Rogers ups the traffic throttling ante – April 30, 2008
p2pnet news | Freedom:- As Canada’s largest ISP, Bell Canada has been getting all the attention in the traffic shaping / net neutrality controversy. But Ted Rogers also shackles users and his company now seems ready to introduce a spy system leading to what amounts to a double hit on P2P file sharers, as well as a further blow against net neutrality. “Some of Rogers’ heaviest Internet users could soon be reaching for their wallets before they download ‘free’ movies or video games from file-sharing websites such as BitTorrent,” says the Toronto Star. For ‘heaviest users’ read P2P file sharers, and Rogers Communications is apparently on the verge of metering downloads, calling it a “utility-type model”. Under this second tier of traffic throttling, consumers would pay the company according to how much bandwidth was used.

Quebec union enters throttling fray – April 26th, 2008
p2pnet news | Freedom:- There’s a post on the CRTC site. CRTC is short for Canadian Radio Television and Telecommunications Commission and it’s on the receiving end a lot of Canadian displeasure. The post falls under “2008-04-03 – #: 8622-C51-200805153 – Canadian Association of Internet Providers (CAIP) – Application requesting certain orders directing Bell Canada to cease and desist from throttling its wholesale ADSL Access Services” and, from Wireless Nomad, it reads, simply:  Description: The Canadian Association of Internet Providers (CAIP) has requested that the Commission direct Bell Canada to cease and desist from “throttling” wholesale ADSL Internet services and in particular, the Gateway Access Service (GAS) wholesale internet service. Document: 895646.pdf – 1637KB It says, in part, “Wireless Nomad requests that the commission grant CAIP’s , a request for an interim orderdirecting Bell Canada to stop throttling its GAS service.” Great! Another company signs up to protect its own rights, and the rights of Canadians
But what isn’t on the CRTC’s website —- yet —- is the demand by the Quebec l’Union des consommateurs, the same consumer union which filed a class-action again Videotron for changing unlimited bandwidth to 100-gigs.

Bell CanadaBell Canada’s ‘5% of users’ claim trashed – April 25th, 2008
p2pnet news | Freedom:- According to Danny McPherson, CTO of Arbor Networks, who “makes all sorts of network-management and traffic-shaping tools”, used by over 70% of the ISPs around the world: 0% of traffic comes from P2P applications; During peak-load times, 70% of subscribers use http; Only 20% are using P2P; Http still makes up most of the total traffic, of which 45% is traditional web content including text and images; Streaming video and audio content from services such as YouTube account for nearly 50% of the http traffic; and, streaming content such as TV shows and YouTube is on the rise. This clearly shows the “bandwidth hogs” are, in fact, ordinary, average http users during peak time, and NOT Bell’s fictitious 5% of “heavy” P2P users” who suck up around 50% of the total available bandwidth.s ‘5% of users’ claim trashed.

Canadians vs Bell Canada: CAIP, II – April 25th, 2008
Canadian Net users and smaller ISPs have become allies in a bid to force telco giant Bell Canada to stop using P2P file sharers as an excuse to shackle bandwidth. Called traffic shaping or throttling, the corporate ‘management’ action not only severely restricts services users have paid for, it also impacts net neutrality and prevents online freedom of speech, say critics. In its first submission to the CRTC (Canadian Radio Television and Telecommunications Commission) CAIP demanded Canada Bell be ordered to to immediately halt its traffic throttling activities.  Bell responded by virtually telling CAIP and Bell customers —- users and ISPs alike —-  to take a hike. CAIP has now come back with a second CRTC submission in which it asks for an interim order on an, ‘urgent and expedited basis’ telling Bell Canada to, ‘immediately cease and desist” from interfering with the wholesale ADSL (Asymmetric Digital Subscriber Line) access services it sells to competitors, especially its tariffed Gateway Access Service (’GAS’).

p2pnet Q&A with ex-Bell Canada expert – April 24th, 2008
p2pnet news | Freedom:- On Tuesday p2pnet ran two posts, one based on a Reader’s Write from Invictus (right), and the second on a later email exchange. The subject was Bell Canada’s efforts to dictate to users what they can and can’t do with their accounts, in the process seriously interfering with freedom of speech and net neutrality. “Invictus is a former communications specialist —- and an ex-Bell Canada employee,” we said in the second post, continuing, “He’s worked as a consultant in England, Germany, Thailand, Vietnam, as well as for banks, and a major UK tourist company. “So when he says, ‘abolish the CRTC. Get on the next plane to Berlin, Germany and pick up a copy of the European rules and regulations —- Implement at once,’ he knows what he’s talking about.” p2pnet contributor Ottawa Gal had a few questions for him …

Net neutrality rally: Ottawa, April 29 – April 23rd, 2008
p2pnet news | Politics:- Canada’s traffic shaping / net neutrality battle is moving to the streets —- or, at least, to Parliament Hill in Ottawa. Rocky Gaudrault, co-owner of Teksavvy, the Ontario ISP that’s up front in the fight to make Canadians understand the bandwidth throttling issue centres as much on, “privacy, choice and ISP transparency,” as anything else, is organising an event on the Hill for April 29. “I’m working on putting together as big a rally as possible for net neutrality,” he says. “The Telco/Cableco monopolies in Canada have all recently accelerated their efforts in the resent weeks, since Bell’s throttling started.”

‘Insignificant person’ on traffic shaping -  April 23rd, 2008
p2pnet news | Freedom:- Invictus isn’t the only person to have contacted Canada’s regulators over bandwidth throttling, or ISP DRM consumer control, as it might be called. Jonathan did the same but unlike Invictus, he didn’t get an answer —- unless you call a form letter a answer.

p2pnet talks to Charlie Angus on throttling – April 23rd, 2008
p2pnet news | Freedom:- Before the Net, it was almost impossible for ordinary people to make themselves properly heard, unless they were involved in a movement with a certain amount of clout, say, had access to the mainstream media, or were unusually aggressive. But that was then …..

CRTC ‘inundated’ with ‘throttling’ calls, emails -  April 22nd, 2008
p2pnet news | Freedom:- Is all the attention focused on the bandwidth ‘management’ scandal making any kind of impression with Canada’s regulators?

Cogeco named in traffic throttling wars (Michael Geist) – April 22nd, 2008
p2pnet news | Freedom:- While Bell and Rogers have attracted much of the Canadian net neutrality attention in recent weeks, a study conducted Vuze, an online video site that uses the BitTorrent protocol, has placed another Canadian provider – Cogeco – in the spotlight. To better track ISP network management techniques, Vuze created a plug-in that allowed users to measure network interruptions. Interruptions – referred to reset messages – might occur in the ordinary course of network activity or might be the result of false messages used to hamper peer-to-peer file sharing. Vuze managed to collect an enormous amount of data – 8,000 users worldwide generating over a million hours of data.

Traffic shaping: ‘I am appalled …’ – April 22nd, 2008
“The ignorance of people claiming that traffic shaping is consumer friendly leaves me speechless,” he said in a Reader’s Write, continuing >>> I have send the following comment to the CRTC:Dear Sir / Madam, I have posted the following comment on the CBC website. As a former communications specialist I am appalled by the nonsensical approach of Bell Canada. Ultimately, this is not about the internet but the monopoly that both Bell Canada and Rogers Communications want to exercise in distributing contents. I further urge you to have specialists on your panel that are familiar with the rules and practices in other countries, especially countries in the EU, where traffic shaping of ANY sort is illegal and is being treated as anticompetitive and, in most countries, as an invasion of privacy, and therefore a criminal offense. Should Bell Canada be successful in maintaining traffic shaping, Canada, as far as I know would be the only country that legally allows this degrading of service. Under the threat of being re-regulated, Comcast in the US has abandoned the practice. Canada has the third highest internet rates in the world, and measured by speed, is dead last in Broadcom services of any industrialized country……SHAMEFUL!!!!

ISP traffic shapping – and bafflegab (Denis McGrath) – April 21st, 2008
p2pnet news | Freedom | P2P:- Does the name Denis McGrath seem familiar to you? If it does, that’s probably because you’ve watched one of the many TV shows he’s written, such as The Border or Across the River to Motor City. On his web page, Dead Things ON Sticks, he says: “This blog is entirely my opinion, and does not necessarily reflect the views of the half-dozen companies that control just about everything else you read.” Denis is Canadian and like a steadily moving number of other Canadians, he’s angry about the Net traffic throttling that’s going on here. “While there’s a pause in the CRTC Hearing bafflegab, let’s kick for a moment toward something that’s NOT being talked about, but that has EVERYTHING to do with what’s going on in the ‘review‘ of the TV system currently going on in Gatineau,” he posts …….

Bell throttling fairy tale, unravelled (Ottawa Gal) – April 21st, 2008
p2pnet news | Freedom | P2P:- Did you ever stop to wonder how an apparent 5% of the users who use up an apparent 33% of the available internal network bandwidth didn’t apparently pay enough for their usage to justify Bell upgrading its network? Did you ever stop to wonder how it came to be that Bell’s internal network congestion problem was so critical it didn’t need to inform wholesalers, instead deciding to throttle them? Did you ever stop to wonder how LITTLE Bell must be making on the network (both wholesale and Sympatico retail) to justify Bell spokesman Mirko Bibic’s comment that, “Bandwidth just doesn’t fall from the sky”? I have.

Throttling not about Net neutrality (Russell McOrmond) – April 21st, 2008
p2pnet news | Freedom:- The following was submitted as a letter to the Editor of the Hill Times.
It wasn’t included in the publication last week >>> Re: Federal government, CRTC right not over-regulating internet, says Cisco Systems. There is an interesting observation about the responses to the debate about throttling. Phone companies want the Internet to act more like phone services where people are charged per transaction (per call, per minute, per packet, per byte). Cable companies want the Internet to act more like cable service (bundles of “channels”, tiers of access services, etc). Cisco wants to sell more expensive routers which are capable of deep packets inspection and prioritization, even though in many situations increased fiber capacity is cheaper than these routers. Canadian Internet Service Providers, represented by CAIP, simply want to offer Internet Services without the packets of their customers being inspected or manipulated by third parties.

Bell Canada throttling could block free speech – April 19th, 2008
p2pnet news | Freedom:- Traffic shaping is front and centre with Canada’s national New Democratic Party. But the question isn’t merely whether or not Canada’s largest ISPs are deliberately blocking services their customers are paying for, using the activities of a tiny percentage of their client place as an excuse to do so. According to NDP digital culture spokesman Charlie Angus, it’s also a freedom of speech issue. Make sure consumers aren’t gouged and innovation isn’t stifled by laying lay down transparent ground rules on bandwidth throttling, Angus said in an open letter to industry minister Jim Prentice yesterday.

Add your 2 cents to the Bell throttling fight – April 18th, 2008
p2pnet news | Freedom:- If you’ve been following the Bell Canada scandal and thinking you’d like to contribute, now you can, thanks to Marc Bissonnette of Canadian ISP.com. For the two or three Canadians living in a cave who don’t know what’s been going on, Bell Canada, the country’s largest ISP, has decided to regulate its customers —- whether they like it or not. It’s called traffic shaping or bandwidth throttling or consumer management, and it’s being imposed because the company claims P2P application users, 5% of the company’s client base, are ruining things for the remaining 95%.

Bell ‘bandwidth problem’: is it real? (Michael Geist) - April 18th, 2008
p2pnet news view | P2P:- Bell filed its response to the CAIP submission to the CRTC on its throttling practices yesterday, unsurprisingly arguing that its actions are justified and that there is no need to deal with the issue on an emergency basis. Several points stand out from the submission including its non-response to the privacy concerns with deep-packet inspection (it merely says that it does not retain or use the data, but does not deny collecting what could easily be interpreted as personally identifiable information) and its inference that P2P usage could be deemed using a connection as a “server” and therefore outside the boundaries of “fair and proportionate use” under typical ISP terms of use. Most importantly, however, Bell provides data on its network usage that significantly undermines its claim that P2P usage is causing such havoc with its network that throttling measures that impact 100 percent of its (and some of its competitions’) users are needed. Bell again reiterates that the “problem” lies with 5 percent of its users that are heavy P2P users. Yet that 5 percent apparently uses 33 percent of available bandwidth during peak periods. That is a disproportionate use to be sure, yet it struck me as far lower than might have been expected.

3rd protester joins Bell ‘anti-throttling’ club – April 17th, 2008
p2pnet news | Freedom:- Primus Telecommunications Canada is the third entity to file a letter of support for CAIP (Canadian Association of Internet Providers), which acts for almost 60 smaller providers. CAIP was the first, followed by Vaxination Informatique. At issue is Bell’s so-called Net management technology, aka traffic shaping and bandwidth throttling, which amounts to unsanctioned industry ‘regulation’. The company puts the blame squarely on the shoulders of some 5% of its client base. They’re “heavy P2P users,” says Mirko Bibic, Bell Canada’s chief of regulatory affairs, claiming they’re spoiling things for everyone else. In a Q&A, the Montreal Gazette’s Roberto Rocha asked Bibic, “Now that Bell is offering a limited service at times, does this present a challenge in justifying rate increases?” “I’ll stick to the reasons we’re implementing network management initiatives, and they’re very compelling reasons: so that the 95 per cent of users who don’t consume inordinate amount of bandwidth aren’t held hostage,” said Bibic.

Charlie Angus to Jim Prentice on throttling – April 17th, 2008
p2pnet news | Politics:- Make sure consumers aren’t gouged and innovation isn’t stifled by laying lay down transparent ground rules on bandwidth throttling.So says NDP digital culture spokesman Charlie Angus in an open letter to industry minister Jim Prentice.In it, Angus emphasises the CRTC has already regulated third party competition online and, he says, Prentice should accept recommendations from the Telecommunications Review Panel which laid out a, “practical guide for CRTC involvement on maintaining fair and open access of the internet”.Open access, “is of such overriding importance that its protection justifies giving the regulator the power to review cases involving blocking access to applications and content and significant, deliberate degradation of service,” the panel declared.

Ottawa won’t help in Bell throttling row – April 17th, 2008
p2pnet news | Politics:- Bell Canada, “wants permission from regulators to penalize heavy bandwidth users with steep charges in a bid to curtail peer-to-peer file-sharing in peak hours”. Who says? The Hollywood Reporter, going on >>> Bell Canada on Wednesday told the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission that the serial file-sharers it seeks to “throttle” greatly slow the time it takes online subscribers to legitimately transfer music, video, software and other large files. The phone giant responded to an earlier request to the CRTC from the Canadian Association of Internet Providers to end Bell Canada’s use of ‘traffic-shaping’ technology to thwart bandwith hogs. “We have presented a variety of arguments, not the least of which is Net Neutrality, and asked that the Commission order Bell Canada to cease and desist from their current traffic shaping practices,” said Tom Copeland, president of Canadian Association of Internet Providers (CAIP), recently, as quoted by p2pne, which went on: “The filing provides additional insights into Bell’s action – the throttling has reduced speeds by as much as 90 percent – and marks an important milestone since the outcome will provide a clear answer on whether Canadian law currently protects net neutrality or if legislative reform is needed.”

Cisco on Canada Net throttling dispute – April 16th, 2008
p2pnet news | Freedom:- Cisco Systems is using the growing Net Throttling controversy in Canada to once again try to spin net neutrality as detrimental to both business and consumer interests. “As the internet becomes better, faster and more integral to our economy and personal lives, it is necessary for broadband internet access providers to use innovative technology to manage their networks in providing quality of service, new features, and new services to meet evolving consumer needs. There are legitimate reasons for use of network management tools by internet access providers to improve the internet experience as long as there is no anti-competitive effect.” That’s Morgan Elliott (right), Cisco’s Ottawa-based executive director, global policy and government affairs in a Hill Times letter. It all looks so very reasonable —- “it is necessary for broadband internet access providers to use innovative technology to manage their networks in providing quality of service, new features, and new services to meet evolving consumer needs”. But the “innovative technology” quoted by Elliott means, principally, traffic shaping, aka ‘bandwidth throttling’ and ‘traffic management’ which, the likes of Cisco claim, is absolutely vital as more and more people go online, demand for speed slyrockets and providers struggle valiantly to answer the burgeoning needs of the surfing masses.

Bell Canada to small ISPs on traffic shaping – April 16th, 2008
p2pnet news | Freedom:- Twelve days ago, CAIP (Canadian Association of Internet Providers filed a Part VII Application with the CRTC (Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission) Subject? Traffic shaping, aka traffic management and bandwidth throttling. “We have presented a variety of arguments, not the least of which is Net Neutrality, and asked that the Commission order Bell Canada to cease and desist from their current traffic shaping practices,” Tom Copeland, president of Canadian Association of Internet Providers (CAIP), told p2pnet at the time, going on: “The filing provides additional insights into Bell’s action – the throttling has reduced speeds by as much as 90 percent – and marks an important milestone since the outcome will provide a clear answer on whether Canadian law currently protects net neutrality or if legislative reform is needed.” Bell claims P2P file sharing activities on the part of 5% of users force it to shackle bandwidth in the interests of the remaining 95%. Bell’s response to the CAIP the demand? ‘Get knotted.’ Here it is in more detail >>>

Bell Canada tries to justify throttling – April 11th, 2008
p2pnet news | Freedom:- “Bell is Canada’s largest telephone and telecommunications company,” it says. “We provide consumer and business customers with phone and other communication services.” But it fails to point out its services are shackled and it’s been treating its users more like peons than valued customers. It’s those damned P2P file sharers! – it says. Ma Bell in Canada and Comcast in US have been caught red-handed using traffic shaping (throttling) to make sure Net Neutrality never becomes a reality, and to dictate to users —- including smaller ISPs —- what they can and can’t do with services they’ve paid through the nose for, p2pnet posted recently, going on: “So intense is public feeling that in Canada, executives have received death threats.”

Bell Canada backlash – Headline Roundup – April 5th, 2008

Bell Canada – ringing in the spins – April 7th, 2008
p2pnet news | Freedom:- Bell Canada is desperately hoping the throttling scandal will go away. But unless Bell admits it was wrong, seriously revamps its policies and business plans and starts treating its customers with care, it ain’t gonna happen, not as long as Ottawa Gal, who first broke the story last year, is around, keeping both eyes open for herself and other Net users. Here’s her latest >>>

Stop throttling users, ISPs tell Bell: CRTC doc – April 4th, 2008
p2pnet news | Freedom:- Back in the good old days before the Net gave P2P —- people to people —- real meaning and strength, the corporations could get away with anything, including murder. But that’s changed. Now we’re our own news providers, totally bypassing the traditional print and electronic media. Thanks to blogs, IM, texting, chats and all the other means of communication available in the 21st digital century, unspun information is reaching everyone, everywhere, keeping us informed minute-by-minute. The mainstream media are still playing catch-up as they cynically try to figure out how to regain their former power and how to ‘monetise’ the Net to their own advantages. But until they realise the answer lies in partnership, not control, they’ll continue to flounder.

It’s up to you: Prentice to Canadians on traffic throttling – April 3rd, 2008
p2pnet news | Freedom:- Industry minister Jim Prentice (right) has told Canadians it’s up to them if they want to do anything about the Net traffic throttling imposed by the major ISPs. ‘Shaping’ removes any chance of Net neutrality for customers, and seriously reduces bandwidth, particularly for people using P2P applications. Accused by NDP digital issues critic Charlie Angus of failing to understand the importance of maintaining a fair and neutral Net, Prentice yesterday avoided Angus’ questions about the government’s stance, “on practices employed by Canadian Internet service providers that restrict the flow of certain types of Internet data,” says the Globe & Mail. As p2pnet reported earlier today, Angus asked Prentice what the government was doing to about concerns over, “when it should be permissible for telecom companies to regulate or ’shape’ the flow of traffic on their networks,” as the story puts it. But, “At this point in time we will continue to leave the matter between consumers on the one hand and Internet service providers on the other,” the Globe and Mail quotes the minister as saying.

Charlie Angus slams Bell over traffic ‘throttling’ – April 3rd, 2008
p2pnet news | Freedom:- NDP spokeman on digital issues Charlie Angus has slammed Bell Canada for throttling Net traffic. “Net neutrality is a cornerstone of an innovative economy,” he declares. “The consumer and the innovator need to be in the driver’s seat. Not Ma Bell. Not Videotron. Not Rogers.” Accusing industry minister Jim Prentice of allowing telecom giants such as Bell to choke off Net traffic from smaller third party competitors, consumers and innovators are, “at the mercy of a few large Telecom empires,” Angus told the House of Commons yesterday, going on >>> “Consumers who have paid for access are being ripped off. “Badly needed competition is being stifled and most of all, this government is sitting back while a few Telecom giants are given free reign monkey wrench with the flow of ideas.” Angus says industry minister Jim Prentice apparently doesn’t understand the importance of maintaining a fair and ‘neutral’ net that allows the free flow of all information. In the meantime, we (many other ISPs) are going to prepare as well. I guess the high road is the path taken in this case. Spread the word one and all as this topic needs to reach every level possible. There’s now officially an issue and action must be taken by all if we’re to rectify things.

Bell throttling threatens a competitive Net (Michael Geist) – April 1st, 2008
p2pnet news | Freedom:- The CRTC has long acknowledged that Canadians enjoy limited competition for high-speed Internet services. In response, it has supported independent ISPs by requiring incumbents like Bell to provide wholesale broadband Internet service at regulated rates. While it is difficult to price-compete – the Bell wholesale pricing creates an effective minimum price – independent ISPs such as Chatham-based Teksavvy and Ottawa’s National Capital Freenet have carved a niche in the Canadian market through attention to customer service, innovative bundling approaches, targeted network investments, and community ownership. Last week, this important piece of the Canadian Internet connectivity puzzle learned that its future viability has been put at risk due to Bell’s plans to “throttle” its wholesale services. Last year, Bell began installing “deep packet inspection” capabilities into its network. The DPI capabilities – which allow ISPs to identify the type of content that runs on their networks – did not go unnoticed by the independent ISPs since DPI is also used to “throttle” Internet content by scaling back the amount of bandwidth allocated to particular applications. While Bell employed these throttling technologies with their own Sympatico customers, some independent ISPs sought assurances that it would not be applied to the wholesale services.

MARCH

Bell Canada traffic shaping: update III – March 31st, 2008
p2pnet news | Freedom:- “Traffic shaping” by Canadian ISPs must be investigated by the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC), says the National Union of Public and General Employees (NUPGE). “The National Union has become increasingly concerned about the issue of network neutrality and Canada’s lack of action to protect consumers and producers of Internet material,” NUPGE president James Clancy states in a letter to CRTC chairman Konrad Von Finckenstein. The Bell Sympatico traffic “management” debacle was first revealed by p2pnet in November, 2007, and now, “I am writing to you regarding recent revelations of Internet ‘traffic shaping’ being conducted by Rogers Communications and Bell Canada,” clancy writes, going on >>> On behalf of the National Union of Public and General Employees, one of Canada’s largest trade unions, I am asking the CRTC to conduct an investigation into these practices and the implications for Canadian consumers.

New Bell Canada scandal looms – March 30th
p2pnet news | P2P:- Canada’s largest ISP, Bell Canada, is powering ahead with its traffic shaping ‘traffic management’ plan. It might have been a virtual fait accompli by now had not p2pnet’s ‘Ottawa Gal,’ and Canadian ISP TekSavvy first blown the whistle in November, 2007. With the story now receiving widespread coverage, p2pnet has unconfirmed reports a new explosion is ready to occur, and one with even more severe implications for net neutrality. The explosion will include a stop-sell on Bell’s current $25 Unlimited Usage Plan, says an official March 13 document seen by p2pnet.

Bell Canada and The Letter: update II – March 29th, 2008
p2pnet news | Freedom:- With the Bell Sympatico throttling fiasco still generating well-deserved headlines across Canada, congratulations are in order for Rocky Gaudrault, co-owner of Teksavvy and his brother, Marc. Their home base is in Chatham, Ontario, and there, they’ve been named entrepreneurs of the year. Sponsor?Bell Canada. True

Bell, Teksavvy & Battle at the Big Barn! – March 28th, 2008
p2pnet news | Freedom:- I have to regularly check p2pnet comments for hand-posted spam and I just came across this Reader’s Write from Teksavvy CEO Rocky Gaudrault under Bell download throttling: update. “Here is a copypasta from the e-mail sent to all Teksavvy customers from Rocky,” he says, going on >>> As many of you may have heard of late, there have been quite a few activities through Bell that have caused some negative performance on P2P and BT traffic for us and all other DSL providers in Ontario and Québec. TekSavvy is committed to fighting this injustice. For more details on this matter, go to: http://www.dslreports.com/forum/teksavvy for various discussions. In trying to bring a little bit of both humour and fun to this stressful week, we sat down and came up with a fun event to hold/get us We’ll be setting up a gaming server to be ready for Saturday morning.

For whom does the Bell (Sympatico) sound? (Michael Geist) – March 27th, 2008
p2pnet news | P2P:- For months, I’ve been asked repeatedly why net neutrality has not taken off as a Canadian political and regulatory issue. While there has been some press coverage, several high-profile incidents, and a few instances of political or regulatory discussion (including the recent House of Commons Committee report on the CBC), the issue has not generated as much attention in Canada as it has in the United States. I believe this week will ultimately be seen as the moment that changed. Starting with Rogers new pricing schedule without much needed transparency on its traffic shaping practices, followed by the CBC’s BitTorrent distribution of Canada’s Next Great Prime Minister, and now the revelation that Bell has quietly revamped its network to allow for throttling at the residential and wholesale level, there is the prospect of a perfect storm of events that may crystallize the issue for consumers, businesses, politicians, and regulators. The reported impact of traffic shaping on CBC downloads highlights the danger that non-transparent network management practices pose to the CBC’s fulfillment of its statutory mandate to distribute content in the most efficient manner possible.

Bell download throttling: update – March 27th, 2008
p2pnet news | Freedom:- As predicted, the CBC’s decision to release the Next Great Prime Minister online so people can download, copy, and share it freely has been seriously marred by Bell Canada’s scheme to throttle P2P downloads. “One user received a notice that it could take 2½ hours to download, while another was quoted 11 hours,” says the CBC. “The bottleneck is occurring because ISPs such as Rogers and Bell limit the amount of bandwidth allocated for file-swapping on BitTorrent. “The controversial practice, called traffic shaping, is meant to stop illegal downloading through BitTorrent. But it also slows the times on legal downloads such as Canada’s Next Great Prime Minister.” But not for everyone. In fact, Bell’s determined implementation of the measure is driving customers away in droves.

Bell-Not-So-Sympatico: throttling P2P – March 26th, 2008
p2pnet news | P2P:- “Ok.Here’s the deal.” That’s Rocky Gaudrault, CEO of Canadian ISP of Teksavvy Solutions, as quoted in dslreports. The subject? As p2pnet’s Ottawa Gal was the first to reveal last year, Bell-Sympatico is throttling wholesale Net services. Teksavvy, however, doesn’t cap its bandwidth and Gaudrault goes on >>> They’re now openly acknowledging that they are rolling out a full throttling process. They plan to have things fully throttled by April 7th. All BT and P2P traffic will be affected. They claim they are allowed to do so according to their Terms and Services under the Fair Usage Policy in the tariffed contracts. We’ll be looking into this shortly. The meeting was with Sales and Product Management. They will be preparing a formal letter before end of week.

Bell-Sympatico P2P throttling: more – March 25th, 2008
p2pnet news | Freedom:- p2pnet was the first to report the Bell-Sympatico P2P Blacklist and now we have what appears to be a newly leaked Bell-Sympatico Business Office Retentions document, a dialogue Bell-Sympatico reps are apparently supposed to use with customers who call in to cancel their service citing a “material change”. Someone says on dislreports: “If you buy a 5-meg or 7-meg or 16-meg profile you are paying damn good money for this. If you are sold a 5-meg, 7-meg or 16-meg service, do you expect to get 30kB/s? No, You expect to receive what you pay for, bought and were sold.

Is your ISP filtering your P2P traffic? – March 25th, 2008
p2pnet news | P2P:- “Do ISPs filter Internet traffic?” It’s a rhetorical question, and this time around it’s on Italy’s Gemini Project. Does Howdy Doody have wooden eye-balls? Some providers are (either openly or secretly) applying “traffic shaping” policies, tracing their users’ bandwidth usage and intervening directly to limit their transfer speeds, notes the site. Comcast is currently in the public eye for messing with customers, but it’s happening everywhere, and p2pnet was the first to reveal a P2P Bell-Sympatico P2P Blacklist in Canada. “In the States,” we posted, “users have people trying to look after their rights and interests, but there’s no one doing that in Canada,” going on, “If you’re signed on with Bell-Sympatico and you’ve been unsuccessfully trying to coax a little more speed out of your suddenly sluggish computer; or, if you’ve been calling Bell-Sympatico support only to be told it’s not them, it’s you —- it isn’t you, says Ottawa Gal. Because here, “Bell-Sympatico is now following the Rogers lead,” she states. “It’s traffic shaping and throttling.”

Rogers – new caps and fees (Michael Geist) – March 17th, 2008
p2pnet news | P2P:- Earlier today, I spoke to representatives from Rogers, who advised that they are implementing new caps and fees for broadband customers. In letters going out this week, the company will advise that their “Express” service will have a 60 GB monthly cap with an overage charge of $2 per GB up to $25 per month. The company promises to provide customers with email warnings as they approach their cap and to provide tools to easily identify Internet usage. While I have no particular problem with this approach, when I asked whether it would be combined with an end to traffic shaping, the response was no. When I asked whether Rogers would at least provide greater transparency about its network management practices, I was advised that it was working on the issue. In my view, that just isn’t good enough – transparency should extend beyond how much data subscribers consume (and pay for). Hitting consumers with new fees was the right time to address Rogers’ transparency shortcomings on traffic shaping and its failure to do so suggests yet again that the CRTC and elected officials should follow the FCC lead by prioritizing the issue.

Canada: stuck in Slow on traffic shaping (Michael Geist) – March 4th, 2008
p2pnet news | Politics:- Last fall, the Associated Press and the Electronic Frontier Foundation reported that Comcast, the largest cable provider in the United States, was actively interfering with network traffic by engaging in traffic shaping. The practice – largely undisclosed by the company – resulted in reduced bandwidth for peer-to-peer file sharing applications and delayed the delivery of some Internet content. The revelations sparked an immediate outcry from the public and U.S. officials. Class-action lawyers filed lawsuits, members of Congress introduced legislation mandating greater transparency and neutral treatment of Internet content and applications, state law enforcement officials issued subpoenas demanding that Comcast turn over information on its network management practices, and the Federal Communications Commission, the national telecommunications regulator, launched hearings into the matter. Last week, the FCC devoted a full day to the issue as companies such as Vuze – an online video provider that uses peer-to-peer technology – along with public interest groups argued that the commission needed to use its regulatory muscle to ensure greater transparency in the broadband market and to preserve an open, non-discriminatory Internet.

Jon Newton – p2pnet

p2pnet news | RIAA News:- I posted the first RIAA school report at the beginning of the year —- in February, 2008, to be exact.

I’ve been meaning to update it and I’ve finally gotten around to it.

First time, I included the beginning of 2008 in the post. However, I’ve now made a new section, meaning 2007 stands alone and 2008 to date is a new post, up to June 30, 2008.

Cheers!

Jon Newton – p2pnet

============

Warner Music, EMI, Vivendi Universal and Sony BMG, started targeting schools and students across America as a major element in their move to force ‘consumers’ to buy what they’re told to buy —- corporate ‘content,’ as the Big 4 call their formulaic outpourings.

“Contrary to conventional wisdom, the root problem is not the artists, the fans or even new Internet technology,” wrote The Eagles’ Don Henley in a Washington Post OpEd not last week, but four years ago this month.

The problem, he said, is the music industry itself. “It’s systemic,” he stated, going on >>>

The industry, which was once composed of hundreds of big and small record labels, is now controlled by just a handful of unregulated, multinational corporations determined to continue their mad rush toward further consolidation and merger. Sony and BMG announced their agreement to merge in November, and EMI and Time Warner may not be far behind.

The industry may soon be dominated by only three multinational corporations. The executives who run these corporations believe that music is solely a commodity. Unlike their predecessors, they fail to recognize that music is as much a vital art form and social barometer as it is a way to make a profit.

At one time artists actually developed meaningful, even if strained, relationships with their record labels.

This was possible because labels were relatively small and accessible, and they had an incentive to join with the artists in marketing their music. Today such a relationship is practically impossible for most artists.

Labels no longer take risks by signing unique and important new artists, nor do they become partners with artists in the creation and promotion of the music. After the music is created, the artist’s connection with it is minimized and in some instances is nonexistent.

In their world, music is generic. A major record label president confirmed this recently when he referred to artists as “content providers.” Would a major label sign Johnny Cash today? I doubt it.

So music is no longer cultural, something to be enjoyed. It’s a hard-core commodity to be peddled as ruthlessly as any washing machine and the grotesquely powerful corporations which control the ‘industry’ will stop at nothing to make sure their product, and only their product, is dominant and distributed solely by companies and methods nominated and/or controlled by them.

They don’t answer to music lovers; they answer to their shareholders. And they know the key to future sales lies in reaching and indoctrinating the customers of tomorrow.

Their systematic penetration of junior school classrooms and organisations including, unbelievably, the world scouting movement, is successfully in hand. Some scout leaders offer IP ‘merit’ badges, and spurious ‘educational messages’ are today routinely delivered by teachers who’ve been persuaded intellectual property and copyright law is something every child should learn, along with the three R’s.

The contention is ridiculous but it’s actively promoted by governments in North America, Europe and Asia. Developing nations with their desperate need for resources will be easy meat.

Meanwhile, the Big 4 have decided it’s the turn of older kids and where’s the best place to get at them? In the classrooms.

All the action is for the moment in America. But as soon as the principle is established —- and that’s well on the way to happening —- it’ll be the turn of the rest of the world.

In the US, with Graham Spanier (left) at the helm and RIAA president Cary ‘Tough Love‘ Sherman (right) locked in firmly, Penn State was the first senior US school to be corrupted.

Today, it’s accepted as given that American colleges and universities will be bombarded with RIAA extortion letters delivered by school staffs, with students living under constant threat of court action unless they buy corporate ‘music product’.

This reign of terror against students —- it’s nothing less —- is not only sanctioned, but encouraged by teachers and administrators who, like their counterparts in the junior schools, have been browbeaten into believing acting for Warner Music, EMI, Vivendi Universal and Sony BMG is in the interests of their students.

And of course, these activities are funded by taxpayers, school fees and parents.

It’s win-win for the labels, who are laughing all the way to the bank.

Below, in date order, is a selection of p2pnet school posts going back to February 13, 2007, with clips at the beginning to give an idea of content.

They’re by no means comprehensive, nor have I included every post on the subject.

But maybe seeing them all in one place will give an idea of just how widespread this terrible and ongoing corruption of American schools by Warner Music, EMI, Vivendi Universal and Sony BMG and their RIAA is.

Cheers!
Jon Newton - p2pnet

=================

2007

=================

RIAA ‘extortion’ letter to ISPs
February 13th, 2007p2pnet.net news:- The RIAA is launching its own p2p site. But not because it’s owners, Warner Music (US), EMI (Britain), Vivendi Universal (France) and Sony BMG (Japan and Germany), have suddenly seen the stupidity of trying to sue their own customers into buying ‘product’.

To the contrary, http://www.p2plawsuits.com/ (as it’ll be) represents an escalation in the RIAA extortion scheme, a move to streamline the process so the Big 4 can add more victims’ scalps to their belts, faster, lending credence to their false claims that the sue ‘em all campaign is stemming the swelling tides of people who are logging onto the p2p networks every minute of every day.

The Big 4 are now making a $1,000 per settlement discount offer to victims who agree to settle, to in effect admit they’re guilty of the RIAA’s charges, before a civil lawsuit is actually lodged.

RIAA college settlement plan
February 28th, 2007

p2pnet.net news:- If you’re a p2p, file-sharing college student, here’s your chance to volunteer your name, address and other personal details to the Big 4 record labels so they won’t have to actually go looking for you themselves.

As p2pnet posted recently, the RIAA (Recording Industry Association of America) has launched a new incriminate yourself site, and it’s more than vaguely reminiscent of the failed Clean Slate program the RIAA tried on between September, 2003, and April, 2004. Check it out here.

Quoted in the San Francisco Chronicle, ex-RIAA lawyer Matthew ‘The Dentist’ Oppenheim said, at the time, the so-called ‘amnesty’ program was an easy way for people to avoid a costly RIAA lawsuit.

The idea was: kids would in effect ‘confess’ to the RIAA, signing notarized affidavit promising never to download copyright-protected songs again and saying they’d delete whatever songs they’d already downloaded.

Said Oppenheim in the story, “if you would like some comfort that you can sleep at night after you engaged in illegal behavior, here’s a way to get that comfort.”

Then Eric Parke took it on himself to sue the RIAA..

RIAA ‘incriminate yourself’ site
February 28th, 2007

p2pnet.net news:- “Warner Music, EMI, Vivendi Universal and Sony BMG, the members of the Big 4 music cartel, think they’ve figured out a neat way to save themselves embarrassment in the courts, and costly lawyers’ bills, as they try to sue you into buying their ‘product’,” p2pnet posted in today’s (February 28) lead story intro.

“Their ‘incriminate yourself’ web site is now online.”

The idea is: American students get to admit they’ve been ‘illegally’ downloading copyrighted songs without Warner Music, EMI, Vivendi Universal and Sony BMG, the members of the Big 4 music cartel, actually doing anything themselves.

And having admitted their ‘guilt’ (for possible future reference?) the students can use their credit cards to pay the Big 4.

As Ray Beckerman, the New York lawyer who’s representing a number of RIAA victims, says in a comment post, “I hope the universities will see through this obvious ploy to increase the RIAA’s stream of easy settlement revenue, and will assist their students in finding out what their true legal rights are.”

Howard Berman attacks US schools
March 11th, 2007

p2pnet.net news:- Hollywood Howard Berman (right) and John Conyers, another Hollywood enthusiast, have chipped into the furor surrounding the mounting attacks by the entertainment cartels on American schools.

According to the current industry PR blitzkrieg repeated by the mainstream media, US schools are hard-core illegal online distribution centres with thousands of students, described as ‘thieves’ and ‘criminals,’ stealing from the honest, hard-working Big 4 labels at every opportunity.

“Annoyed” at recent movie and music cartel inspired reports that, “online campus piracy rates top 50 percent, lawmakers warned college and university administrators Thursday if they don’t do more to curb the theft, Congress would,” says InternetNews.

The ‘lawmakers’ cited are principally Berman and Conyers.

The entertainment industries have been leading contributors to Berman since 1993, topping up his coffers with amounts totalling close to $1,000,000 ($932,096, to be precise), says OpenSecrets.org.

Students ‘worst customers’: RIAA
March 23rd, 2007

p2pnet.net news:- “Years ago, college students were our best customers,” says RIAA spin doctor Cary Sherman (right). “Now they’re among our worst customers.”

Maybe that’s because years ago, Warner Music, EMI, Vivendi Universal and Sony BMG’s RIAA (Recording Industry Association of America) weren’t trying to sue students into buying ‘product’.

The quote comes in an Associated Press story on the fact the RIAA is again running wild through the US school system, sending out what it calls “pre-litigation” letters to college students across America, ordering them to pay a ’settlement’ amount. Or else.

In their most recent attack on the people who used to be their best customers, the Big 4 music cartel sent out another 405 blackmail letters to 23 universities and is now promising to send “hundreds” more every month, says AP.

This harks back to the days when the RIAA routinely fired subpoenas at men, women and even 12-year-old children every month.

Third school says No! to the RIAA
March 29th, 2007

p2pnet.net news:- Earlier in the month, the University of Wisconsin said it was refusing to forward RIAA ’settlement’ letters to students the RIAA wants to con into incriminating themselves on a web site, also paying it thousands of dollars for the privilege.

The University of Maine System also declined to become a Warner Music, EMI, Vivendi Universal and Sony BMG copyright cop, said spokesman John Diamond stating, “The only way the RIAA can get that information is if the RIAA takes us to court to get those names.”

Now, “The University of Wisconsin at Milwaukee has joined its sister school, University of Wisconsin in Madison,” says Recording Industry vs The People.

Cartels boost attack on US schools
March 30th, 2007

p2pnet.net news:- The hammer is coming, US congressman Ric Keller has warned colleges and universities, telling them to “get serious” about p2p music and movie downloads (he calls it “theft”) on campuses.

Chairman of the US House Subcommittee on 21st Century Competitiveness, he’s ably supported by Hollywood enthusiasts Howard Berman and John Conyers who’ve joined in on the increasingly discredited entertainment cartel bid to sue students into becoming submissive consumers.

But before the stick comes the carrot, which would be paid for by US taxpayers on behalf of the movie and music mega-companies.

“The Curb Illegal Downloading on College Campuses Act of 2007 (H.R. 1689) would expand the allowable use of funds by the Department of Education to include technology solutions to piracy,” says internetnews.com, going on:

“Keller’s proposal comes as academia is taking increased fire over its efforts to curb the piracy that Congress and the music industry claims is rampant. Despite years of lawsuits targeting campus pirates, more than half of all college students still download music and movies illegally, according to the University of Richmond’s Intellectual Property Institute.”

New RIAA attack on US students

April 12th, 2007

p2pnet.net news:- Warner Music, EMI, Vivendi Universal and Sony BMG’s RIAA has launched another batch of blackmail ‘pay us or else’ letters at American students.

Ohio University, the worst hit after the opening attack, received the most letters once again.

Students, “should pool their resources and hire an attorney instead of settling,” said Pat McGee, Ohio University’s Center for Student Legal Services the first time around. “If everybody fought it tooth and nail it’d probably tie up the federal court system for ten years.”

Here’s the full run-down:

Bates College (7 pre-litigation settlement letters), Brown University (12), Central Michigan University (24), Colby College (5), College of William & Mary (12), Cornell University (19), Fairfield University (15), Florida International University (16), Indiana University (28), Keene State University (19), Kent State University (19), Morehead State University (10), Ohio University (50), Oklahoma State University (16), University of Massachusetts — Amherst (32), University of Maryland System (25), University of Michigan — Ann Arbor (23), University of New Hampshire (17), University of New Mexico (16), University of Pennsylvania (17), University of Rochester (22), and Williams College (9).

The RIAA has so far sent 1,218 extortion letters, and each one gives a student 20 days to decide to settle for at least $3,000 or prepare for a lawsuit, says Ohio University’s The Post, which quotes RIAA spokeswoman Liz Kennedy as refusing to say if these letters referred to file sharing that occurred after the first round of letters.

4th school says NO! to the RIAA
April 16th, 2007

p2pnet.net news:- North Carolina State University is the latest American school to say No! to Warner Music, EMI, Vivendi Universal and Sony BMG efforts to use them as pawns to terrorise students.

The Big 4 are wielding their RIAA (Recording Industry Association of America) in a bid to stampede students into signing self-incriminating online documents.

University of Maine System spokesman John Diamond recently declared, “The only way the RIAA can get that information is if the RIAA takes us to court to get those names.”

The University of Wisconsin at Milwaukee joined its sister school, University of Wisconsin in Madison,” said Recording Industry vs The People at the time.

Now, Pam Gerace, North Carolina State director of student legal services, is fighting the lawsuits for her student clients, says Josh Harrell in the NCS Technician Online.

She also confirms a strong suspicion p2pnet has voiced several times: that students who freely giving the RIAA their names at this point could be leaving themselves open for RIAA attacks of some kind at a later.

“She advises that the students should remain anonymous,” says Harrell. “The RIAA actually said they might have use for the names in the future.”

This, “could prove dangerous for the students, as the RIAA could pursue other legal actions or give the names to record companies,” says The Technician.

RIAA singles out 10 Ohio students
April 17th, 2007

p2pnet.net news:- Ohio University has been the worse hit of the various senior American schools Warner Music, EMI, Vivendi Universal and Sony BMG are attacking as part of their student marketing program.

Now their RIAA enforcement unit is going full bore after OU students who are defying the Big 4’s ‘pay us $3,000 or else’ extortion campaign.

The RIAA (Recording Industry Association of America) announced Friday it’s filed 10 “John Doe” copyright-infringement lawsuits against OU students, says The Athens News.

“The suits, according to an RIAA press release, ‘cite individuals for illegally distributing copyrighted music on the Internet via unauthorised peer-to-peer services such as LimeWire’,” says the story, going on:

“The release also points out that once a suit is filed, the RIAA can subpoena OU to reveal the names of students who have been identified by the trade group as allegedly taking part in illegal file-sharing.”

Presumably, “other students at colleges besides OU, who were also warned in the first wave of letters, but did not accept RIAA’s settlement offer, are now facing lawsuits as well,” says the story.

RIAA gives student 24 hours
April 19th, 2007

p2pnet.net news:- Texas high school student Nicholas Hightower, 17, his mother, June, and her sister, Rochelle, 58, are all potentially massive distributors of copyrighted online music, Warner Music, EMI, Vivendi Universal and Sony BMG claim.

The Big 4 don’t really know if that’s factual or not, but rather than have their theory tested in a court of civil law before a judge and a jury, they’re using their RIAA (Recording Industry Association of America) to try to terrify June – she’s the victim in the direct line of fire, for now – into paying extortion money.

And they’ve decided to do that by leaning on Nicholas and Rochelle, demanding that the two show up in the RIAA lawyers’ offices on Tuesday (April 17), giving them only one day’s notice.

And Nicholas, who’s studying at an independent school in Houston, Texas, was slated to take his TAKS (Texas Assessment of Knowledge and Skills) tests this week.

The RIAA university lament

April 19th, 2007

p2pnet.net news:- “We simply cannot afford to write off a generation of college music fans,” says RIAA president Cary Sherman [right]. “Because we know that some audiences – particularly campus music downloaders – can sometimes be impervious to even the most compelling educational messages [threats] or legal alternatives [other threats].”

A little while back, “Years ago, college students were our best customers,” he said. “Now they’re among our worst customers.”

RIAA suddenly drops student case
April 26th, 2007

p2pnet.net news:- Warner Music, EMI, Vivendi Universal and Sony BMG bully boys the RIAA (Recording Industry Association of America) have hurriedly, and without explanation, backed out of a case they may have been building against the mother of a 17-year-old Texas high school student.

The RIAA had Nicholas Hightower’s mother, June, nicely in the frame as an illicit distributor of copyrighted online music. But now they’ve abandoned their effort.

Ohio University caves in to RIAA
April 26th, 2007

p2pnet.net news:- Ohio University, the worst hit in the RIAA attacks on American students, says it’s “restricting” the use of all p2p file-sharing on the campus computer network.

For restricting read ’spying”

Starting at 12:01 today (April 27), “the university will begin monitoring its network for P2P file sharing activity and disabling Internet access for computers found in violation of the new policy,” says an OU notice, going on:

Once disabled, a computer’s Internet access will remain off until its user contacts the IT Service Desk (740-593-1222) and agrees to abide by the university’s computer and network use policy. A second violation will result in Internet access being disabled again and a referral to University Judiciaries if a student is in violation or to the appropriate administrator if an employee is involved.

Harvard and the RIAA
May 1st, 2007

p2pnet.net news:- In their efforts to increase sales and turn students into fully compliant consumers, EMI (Britain), Vivendi Universal (France), Sony BMG (Japan and Germany) and Warner Music (US) turned their RIAA loose in junior and senior schools across America, allowing it to run wild, disrupting classes, sucking up valuable staff time and interferring with campus life.

The Bush government seems not only content to allow this to happen, but is actively encouraging it.

Here, Wendy Seltzer and Charles Nesson point out the Harvard University’s educational mission is broader than RIAA demands

Congress in RIAA school attacks
May 3rd, 2007

p2pnet.net news:- US congressmen ‘Hollywood’ Howard Berman (left) and Lamar Smith have given American universities a May 31 deadline to endorse a survey which amounts to a pledge of allegiance to Warner Music, EMI, Vivendi Universal and Sony BMG, the members of the Big 4 music cartel.

American universities are already under non-stop siege from the Big 4’s RIAA (Recording Industry Association of America) which is trying to sue students into buying ‘product’.

Now, “congress” has, “threatened 20 universities with unspecified repercussions if they fail to provide ‘acceptable answers” about what they’re doing to stop or inhibit students from illegal downloading and file sharing’,” says Variety.

“If we do not receive acceptable answers, Congress will be forced to act,” it has Smith, the “ranking member of the House Judiciary Committee,” declaring.

Stand up to the RIAA bullies
May 4th, 2007

p2pnet.net news:- Ohio University is doing its best to extricate itself from the tacky moral and legal mess it, and most other universities across America, now find themselves in, thanks entirely to the RIAA (Recording Industry Association of America).

It, and the other schools, are being threatened by the hugely powerful (in the US) Big 4 record labels, only one of which, Warner Music, can be said to be actually American. And even it is run by a Canadian. The other three are EMI (Britain), Vivendi Universal (France) and Sony BMG (Japan and Germany).

In balance are the mental health and welfare of student bodies against possible attacks not only from the RIAA, but also elements of the Bush administration.

“US congressmen ‘Hollywood’ Howard Berman (left) and Lamar Smith have given American universities a May 31 deadline to endorse a survey which amounts to a pledge of allegiance to Warner Music, EMI, Vivendi Universal and Sony BMG, the members of the Big 4 music cartel,” p2pnet posted yesterday, going on:

American universities are already under non-stop siege from the Big 4’s RIAA (Recording Industry Association of America) which is trying to sue students into buying ‘product’.

Now, “congress” has, “threatened 20 universities with unspecified repercussions if they fail to provide ‘acceptable answers” about what they’re doing to stop or inhibit students from illegal downloading and file sharing’.”

Stanford University aids the RIAA
May 17th, 2007

p2pnet.net news:- America’s “democratic decision-making process is in danger of being undermined,” writes first year political science doctoral student Kai Stinchcombe in the Stanford Daily Online, Stanford University’s newspaper, going on:

“If the RIAA lawsuits continue to intimidate millions of music-swappers, more and more of them will choose anonymous, encrypted technology that allows them to swap music even more confidently. The only effect will be that other encrypted traffic, such as communication among terrorists, will also become impossible for the U.S. government to trace. If we are going to blindfold the NSA at the cost of our national security, it should be a deliberate decision rather than an unintended consequence of an RIAA ’sue your fans’ policy that is already doomed to failure.”

More Ohio University students sued
May 19th, 2007

p2pnet.net news:- It would seem having friends in low places hasn’t done Ohio University a lot of good.

Claiming students were using school networks to share music with each other, Warner Music, EMI, Vivendi Universal and Sony BMG’s RIAA (Recording Industry Association of America) successfully intimidated university officers into banning file sharing.

Not that the action stopped anything. Music lovers simply shifted their activities to an intranet being run from the East Green section.

Ohio U officials hoped the ban will divert attention away from the university, which had until then held the record of most-sued among schools across America which had heard from the RIAA. And indeed, that’s the way it looked. Because when the most recent round of sue ‘em all letters arrived at university offices, Ohio was significantly absent, a fact that didn’t go unnoticed by school administrators. And cio Bruce Bible is still calling the move a success – from the school’s perspective.

University of Washington file sharing
May 24th, 2007

p2pnet.net news:- Right now, mention p2p file sharing and American universities in the same breath and you’ll almost certainly be talking about the lawsuits launched by Warner Music, EMI, Vivendi Universal and Sony BMG against student customers across the country.

However, as is often pointed out online but usually ignored by the mainstream media, there’s far more to peer-to-peer sharing than mere music and movies.

For example, p2p file sharing has arrived at the University of Washington in a big way, and there’s nothing negative about it.

Wanting to make classroom lessons almost immediately available to everyone, it’s using IP-based audio encoding devices throughout 24 classrooms, standardizing on Barix Instreamers

Ohio U failing students in RIAA attacks
May 25th, 2007

p2pnet.net news:- It’s been quite a while since the RIAA last issued what until early last year were routine monthly reports on the number of subpoenas dished out to innocent men women and children it was claiming were massive distributors of online music.

Almost halfway through 2007, how many Americans have been found guilty of illegally distributing copyrighted music files online?

Not one.

How many have appeared before a judge or a jury?

Not one.

And how many have received subpoenas? The RIAA isn’t saying, and that’s hardly surprising. It would far rather people are left wondering, particularly when you consider that at a minimum, an estimated 60 million people regularly share music with each other in America alone, but only a few thousand are actually involved in copyright infringement lawsuits.

Boston Uni student defies RIAA
June 14th, 2007

p2pnet.net news:- A Boston University student is blocking attempts by the major record labels to force the university to reveal names.

The demands were made after a Big 4 investigator apparently downloaded alleged copyrighted music from the university network.

In Arista v. Does 1-21, the labels’ RIAA (Recording Industry Association of America) is demanding the identities of 21 students but one of them, represented by Raymond Sayeg, is refusing to cooperate.

A “motion to vacate the ex parte discovery order, and the subpoena issued pursuant to that order, has been made,” says Recording Industry vs The People.

RIAA ID demand thrown out
June 20th, 2007

p2pnet.net news:- A typically underhand attempt by Warner Music, EMI, Vivendi Universal and Sony BMG’s RIAA to force a university to hand over the identities of students the Big 4 want to victimise has been nipped in the bud.

The RIAA (Recording Industry Association of America) was demanding the University of New Mexico disclose the names, but judge Lorenzo F. Garcia refused to cooperate, denying the RIAA’s ex parte motion, reports Recording Industry vs The People …

Another school caves in to the RIAA
June 27th, 2007

p2pnet.net news:- Another American University has decided to put the interests of the Big 4 organised music cartel in front of those of its students

In a variation of the campaign started in 2003 to blackmail ‘consumers’ into buying product, Warner Music, EMI, Vivendi Universal and Sony BMG have been cowing school administrators into acting as unpaid corporate copyright enforcers.

Ohio University offers the most infamous example, but it’s far from being alone.

Now, the University of Washington says it has no plans to actively protect students from RIAA lawsuits, but it will actively, “track them down and serve them the legal papers”.

“Eric Godfrey, vice provost for student life at the UW Seattle campus, informed students of the policy Monday through a campuswide e-mail,” says the News Tribune. “It said some students have letters on the way, but he was unable in a later phone interview to say how many.”

Arkansas schools ban p2p filesharing
June 30th, 2007

p2pnet.net news:- Warner Music, EMI, Vivendi Universal and Sony BMG have a unique theory: schools don’t exist to educate our young people: they’re primary product marketing and copyright enforcement divisions.

With that in mind, the Big 4 are having increasing success using their RIAA and threats of imminent legal action to blackmail American school staffs and administrations into compelling students to buy corporate product, and only corporate product.

It’s hard to believe this could actually be happening, but it is, and with the full knowledge and active support of the Bush administration and, sadly, what becomes de rigeur in the US inevitably spreads elsewhere, to one degree or another.

As part of its continuing implementation efforts, the RIAA has been hassling the Arkansas Public School Computer Network (APSCN),

Now, starting tomorrow (July 1} the state of Arkansas, “will deny all APSCN P2P traffic at the State Network’s Internet edge,” says the Arkansas Department of Education.

Take a hike, RIAA: US universities
July 11th, 2007

p2pnet news view | RIAA news:- According to multi-billion-dollar record labels Warner Music, EMI, Vivendi Universal and Sony BMG, they’re being “devastated” (their word) by P2P file sharers and counterfeiters, whom they lump together as thieves and criminals.

The Big 4 are using the RIAA (Recording Industry Association of America) as a blunt instrument to hammer people they claim are massive online distributors of copyrighted music.

They kicked their campaign off by issuing monthly press statements in which they tried to imply they’d successfully prosecuted an average of 750 men, women and children. The mainstream media picked these spurious statements up and ran with with them.

In fact, no one had then, or has now, ever appeared in a civil court – copyright infringement is a civil matter, not a criminal one – before a judge and jury.

The RIAA announcements referred to subpoenas, not prosecutions.

As p2pnet has said many times since the farcical sue ‘em all campaign began, the Big 4 organisation has also been zeroing in on universities across America, turning the schools into marketing and sales divisions, copyright cops and Big Music enforcers, wholly financed by parents and taxpayers.

RIAA fails to get student IDs
July 14th, 2007

p2pnet news | RIAA news:- One RIAA sneak attack levelled at the University New Mexico students has already been vanquished.

Warner Music, EMI, Vivendi Universal and Sony BMG’s RIAA (Recording Industry Association of America) tried to weasel the university into giving it the identities of students.

Then it tried to do the same in Newport News, Virginia.

The first time around, “judge Lorenzo F. Garcia refused to cooperate, denying the RIAA’s ex parte motion,” said p2pnet.

RIAA student victimisation campaign
July 21st, 2007

p2pnet news | RIAA news:- The pleasure of enjoying music has become seriously tainted by the venality of EMI (Britain), Vivendi Universal (France), Sony BMG (Japan and Germany) and Warner Music (US), the members of the Big 4 organised music cartel who together control the corporate music industry.

Aided by so-called trade organisations such as their RIAA (Recording Industry Association of America), which is currently terrorising music lovers in the US, they’ve succeeded in using their financial clout and elements of the mainstream media to escalate copyright infringement, originally a purely civil matter, to the level of major crime.

Until fairly recently, their practice was to have about 750 subpoenas aimed every month not only at adults they were accusing of being massive online distributors of copyrighted music, but also very young children.

The Big 4 imply these subpoenas equal successful prosecutions. However, a subpoena is merely an instruction to, “appear at a certain time and place to give testimony upon a certain matter,” as the Wikipedia sums it up.

It is not a court case. It is not a lawsuit. It is not a prosecution, successful or otherwise. It is not a suggestion that someone has been, or will be, found guilty of something.

GAO p2p ‘file sharing’ controversy
July 26th, 2006

p2pnet.net News:- The RIAA, owned by France’s Vivendi Universal, Britain’s EMI, and Sony BMG from Japan and Germany, with the only American company, Warner Music, bringing up the rear, quite literally accuses school kids of all ages of being criminals and thieves.

Every time one of them shares or downloads a digital music file, somehow, a sale is lost, claim the Big Four, without a shred of evidence.

And among the worst of these hundreds of millions of file sharing criminals are American college and university students, says the RIAA through chief spikesmen Mitch Bainwol and Cary Sherman.

The RIAA (Recording Industry Association of America), with the MPAA offering full frontal support, created a self-serving organization called the Joint Committee of the Higher Education and Entertainment Communities (JCHEEC).

Penn State president Graham Spanier and RIAA president Sherman are joint chairmen, with Barry K. Robinson, RIAA senior counsel for corporate affairs, appointed as a Penn State trustee.

Should two entities, one supposedly concerned with teaching US students and the other solely concerned with keeping shareholders fat and happy, co-exist on a committee? Clearly, they shouldn’t. But thanks to entertainment cartel chicanery, they do.

No! University of Kansas tells RIAA
July 30th, 2007

p2pnet news | RIAA news:- The Big 4 organised music cartel’s RIAA (Recording Industry Association of America) is going flat out in a campaign to terrorise American students into buying Big 4 product.

Staffs at universities across the country had been cowed into acting as unpaid copyright enforcers for Warner Music, EMI, Vivendi Universal and Sony BMG.

But not all of the schools are cooperating.

The University of Kansas is refusing to forward RIAA so-called pre-litigation letters to students on the grounds that doing so could be an invasion of student privacy, says the Daily Kansan student newspaper.

The settlement letters are in fact dangerous self-incrimination documents. Students pay $3,000 or so in the hopes of being let off the RIAA sue ‘em all hook with no guarantee that, having freely handed over personal data, they won’t once again appear on RIAA hit list some time in the future.

RIAA blames universities for lawsuits
August 10th, 2007

p2pnet news | RIAA News:- Warner Music, EMI, Vivendi Universal and Sony BMG’s RIAA has come up with another tactic in their attacks on American university students.

It’s now blaming the schools themselves.

The Big 4 enforcement unit is after 16 Philadelphia students, completely ignoring mounting universal outrage against the ongoing harassment.

The labels’ RIAA (Recording Industry Association of America) accuses them of being illicit online distributors of copyrighted music, pretending it merely wants to “educate” them to the dangers of copyright infringement, seriously interfering with, and interrupting, their normal studies.

Now the RIAA is going after Drexel University network users, says the university’s student newspaper, the Triangle Online.

RIAA attacks UC Berkeley
August 17th, 2007

p2pnet news | RIAA News:- Not content with quite literally ruining the lives of thousands of American families, Warner Music, EMI, Vivendi Universal and Sony BMG and their RIAA are also hell-bent on seriously disrupting studies at you at US universities across the country.

As part of their bizarre campaign to try to sue people into becoming compliant consumers of corporate product, they’re targeting students, using school administrations and staffs as copyright enforcement cops.

Now, “Starting this fall semester, the Recording Industry Association of America is bringing their war on pirated music and videos to the residence halls of UC Berkeley,” says KRON at Berkeley, going on:

“The university is warning students that if they use campus computers to illegally download copyrighted music and videos, they will lose in-room internet connections for a minimum of one week.”

Give us more time for OSU case! – RIAA
September 7th, 2007

p2pnet news | RIAA News:- When Warner Music, EMI, Vivendi Universal and Sony BMG’s RIAA tried to bludgeon Oklahoma State University into handing over the identities of students, instead of instant compliance, it met with determined resistance.

Now Moshe Rothman, the Holme Roberts & Owen lawyer fronting for the Big 4 enforcement unit, is pleading for another two weeks to get himself organised, citing family illness as the reason for the delay.

OSU students made a motion to, “vacate the ex-parte order the RIAA had obtained compelling the university to turn over their names and addresses,” said Recording Industry vs The People when the RIAA made its demand.

But Jason Street, an expert witness who’s supported the motion, said the declaration of the RIAA’s Carlos Linares was “factually erroneous” and ‘misleading”.

The RIAA (Recording Industry Association of America) says has to have more time to prepare its papers defending the order, says RIvTP.

RIAA attacks Massachusetts mother, students
September 10th, 2007

p2pnet news | RIAA News:- So-called investigators hired by the Big 4 organised music cartel’s RIAA to, “monitor peer-to-peer systems to gather evidence that can be used in a lawsuit” and have “sent out about 3,000 pre-litigation letters to officials at colleges across the country,” says a story in the Boston Globe.

And in a sentence which reads as though it may have been written by an RIAA hack, “After the colleges notify the students whose Internet addresses were flagged, those students get the chance to call RIAA to negotiate a settlement,” it says.

EMI (Britain), Vivendi Universal (France), Sony BMG (Japan and Germany) and Warner Music (US) have used the mainstream media to escalate copyright infringement, originally a purely civil matter, to the level of major crime.

RIAA vs Oklahoma students
September 25th, 2007

p2pnet news | RIAA News:- Oklahoma State University students are resisting Warner Music, EMI, Vivendi Universal and Sony BMG efforts to force it to hand over identities.

They recently asked to have strenuous efforts extended by the Big 4’s RIAA thrown out and now, predictably, the enforcement organisation is doing its best to have the motion killed, submitting an obtuse 25-page document, dense with overblown claims, as its argument.

The RIAA has filed its opposition papers to the motion to quash, says Recording Industry vs The People.

Jason Street, an expert witness who supported the student motion, said statements made by RIAA ‘expert’ Carlos Linares were “factually erroneous” and “misleading”.

The RIAA (Recording Industry Association of America) tried the same thing with at the University of New Mexico, but failed miserably.

RIAA attacks University of New Mexico
September 27th, 2007

p2pnet news | RIAA News:- A judge in New Mexico has struck a blow upholding the rights of people being attacked by Warner Music, EMI, Vivendi Universal and Sony BMGs RIAA, said p2pnet recently, going on:

In an escalation of its aberrant marketing efforts to use so far unproven copyright infringements to force people to buy digital downloads produced by its masters, the Big 4, the RIAA (Recording Industry Association of America) is currently targeting students at universities across America. It threatens school administrators, who then bring tremendous pressure to bear on their own students. Very few schools have resisted.

However, unprompted, chief US magistrate judge Lorenzo F. Garcia saw through the RIAA’s bid to use him to compel the University of New Mexico to hand over the identities of students.

RIAA attacks stymie university CIOs
October 4th, 2007

p2pnet news | RIAA News:- While world attention focuses on Minnesota single mother of two Jammie Thomas, under attack from the multi-billion-dollar corporate music industry, chief information officers from 25 universities across America are conferencing to find ways to properly do their jobs in the face of increasing onslaughts from Warner Music, EMI, Vivendi Universal and Sony BMG.

The labels are trying to sue students into becoming compliant consumers of corporate, and only corporate, product and ‘piracy’ notices for the 2006-2007 academic year have been the focus of conference calls with CIOs, “trying to find a way to protect and inform our students,” says Marshall University’s Jan Fox.

“We have to protect our institutions as well as our students, but we have yet to find a solution,” she’s quoted as saying in Marshall University’s The Parthenon.

Students help each other defeat RIAA
October 12th, 2007

p2pnet news | RIAA News:- Before 2003, hardly anyone had heard of Warner Music, EMI, Vivendi Universal and Sony BMG’s RIAA (Recording Industry Association of America) —- unless, of course, they were among musicians the so-called trade organisation had screwed.

Now it’s a household byword ranking with ’scum’ and similar superlatives.

That’s because it’s tasked by the Big 4 with suing their customers into good (according to corporate perspectives) behaviour, which means buying their product, and only their product.

Suing adults is OK, but the best prospects for the future are students, so that’s where the RIAA is currently focusing its attention, blackmailing universities across America, demanding that schools send extortionate ’settlement’ students.

Pressured by school authorities who are supposed to be acting for the students rather than the corporate music industry, students are tricked into incriminating themselves, paying upwards of $3,000 for the privilege.

Students unite to fight RIAA case
October 17th, 2007

p2pnet news | RIAA News:- The pressure continues to build against Warner Music, EMI, Vivendi Universal and Sony BMG and their RIAA (Recording Industry Association of America).

Thanks wholly to the RIAA’s bitter and ongoing persecution of Big 4 customers, the world media are waking up to the fact all is not as it should be in the corporate music industry.

Universities across America are refusing to help their own students against ongoing attacks by the corporate music industry.

So now seven students have taken things into their own hands, setting the pace for what could become a major disaster for the organise music cartel.

The students are among the estimated 30,000 US victims of the bizarre sue ‘em all marketing campaign under which the Big 4 are using legal systems around the world to try and force people into becoming compliant consumers of corporate music ‘product’.

You’re on your own, UNM tells RIAA victims
October 17th, 2007

p2pnet news | RIAA News:- In Students unite to fight RIAA case, I said, “Universities across America are refusing to help their own students against ongoing attacks by the corporate music industry.”

They’re not all kowtowing to Warner Music, EMI, Vivendi Universal and Sony BMG’s RIAA.

Harvard pointed the way to go quite a while back but unfortunately, it’s the exception not the rule, and meanwhile, with most universities and their staff acting as copyright cops paid for by federal and state authorities, not to mention students’ parents, how can the Big 4 go wrong?

Now it’s been made plain to students at the University of New Mexico they’ll get zero help from school authorities, meaning if they’re looking protection against the RIAA, they’ll have to look to themselves.

RIAA assaults another 19 US universities
October 19th, 2007

p2pnet news | RIAA News:- Warner Music, EMI, Vivendi Universal and Sony BMG’s morally destitute RIAA is sending a heavy dose of ‘tough love’ to 19 universities across America.

We Rule! – says the RIAA (Recording Industry Association of America) , its main mouthpiece, Cary Sherman, claiming lawsuits lodged against Big 4 customers are absolutely essential.

Without them, “Its not a pretty picture,” he says. “Skyrocketing illegal peer-to-peer downloading without even a second thought about its legality or morality, and a small handful of legitimate businesses struggling to gain traction in a marketplace overwhelmingly dominated by piracy,” he says.

UNC student’s office violated in RIAA probe
October 26th, 2007

p2pnet news | RIAA News:- University staffs across America are actively working as Warner Music, EMI, Vivendi Universal and Sony BMG Copyright Cops, funnelling extortion letters to their students and, with lamentably few schools following the example of Harvard which told the RIAA to take a hike and whose students have so far been able to focus on their studies instead of worrying themselves sick over spurious Big 4 law suits.

In Britain, the Big 4’s BPI (British Phonographic Industry) has been able to use the mainstream media to turn completely unsupported accusations against Alan Ellis, who ran the OiNK BitTorrent tracker located at Oink.cd, into a ‘guilty as charged’ finding without ever going near a court. And now it looks set to move the farce to Norway.

The whole shameful affair was, and still is, paid for not by the labels, but by taxpayers in Britain and The Netherlands in much the same way that in the US, the RIAA (Recording Industry Association of America) is using teachers and administrators, whose salaries come from public funds and parents, as corporate music industry enforcers without any expression of outrage from any quarter.

RIAA Ohio University spin session
October 31st, 2007

p2pnet news | RIAA News:- Ohio University isn’t exactly a shining example of how well a teaching institution can serve and protect its students, and it was recently host to Jonathan Lamy who’s both an RIAA (Recording Industry Association of America) spin person and an OU alumnus.

Giving the school to give the benefit of his wisdom, Lamy said the multi-billion-dollar labels are “hemorrhaging jobs and money”.

“Devastated” is another popular word frequently used by RIAA disinformation specialists.

Hundreds of millions of Big 4 dollars money are currently being spent on ferrying the likes of Lamy around the country to try to pass off the bizarre sue ‘em all marketing campaign as a “necessary” educational effort, and on suing Big 4 customers, including students and very young children, into becoming obedient and compliant Big 4 ‘consumers’ .

Ohio University pays RIAA ‘expert’
October 31st, 2007

p2pnet news | RIAA News:- My earlier story on the Ohio University / RIAA fiasco didn’t go far enough.

In it, I quoted the university’s The Post as saying OU had paid out almost $100,000 in anti-P2P software – $75,000, to be precise – in a bid to make Warner Music, EMI, Vivendi Universal and Sony BMG’s RIAA (Recording Industry Association of America) members of the Big 4 organised music cartel leave the school and studens alone.

I should have looked a little further because the $75K isn’t everything.

Ohio University is also paying Dr Doug Jacobson’s company $16,000 a year in “maintenance” and Lo! – “suddenly RIAA letters stop!” – as Ray Beckerman points out in Recording Industry vs The People.

Jacobson was hired by the RIAA to provide expert testimony in a case in which the Big 4 gain is trying to paint Marie Lindor, a 57-year-old New York woman who knows as much about computers as she does about flying a 747, as a massive online distributor of copyrighted music.

However, instead of shoring up the RIAA’s fictional claims, Jacobson (right) has become a(nother) serious embarrassment.

Oregon AG backs university in RIAA case
November 1st, 2007

p2pnet news | RIAA News:- We’ve just learned the University of Oregon wants a court to dismiss a claim made by Warner Music, EMI, Vivendi Universal and Sony BMG’s RIAA against 17 students

On what grounds? That the RIAA’s claim is, in effect, rubbish.

And in a major upset for the Big 4, representing the university is the Oregon attorney general, says Recording Industry vs The People.

In effect, the RIAA ‘investigation’ halted at the precise point where it should have begun, says Randolph Geller, deputy Orgeon general counsel, and a special assistant attorney general.

“In the case of sixteen of the seventeen John Does, I believe it is not possible for the university to identify the alleged infringers without conducting interviews and a forensic investigation of the computers likely involved,” he states in a motion to quash.

However, in these cases, as with all others, the RIAA simply says it believes somebody may have done something.

‘Now, give us the names, addresses so we can prove it.’

Cornell and Ohio: in thrall to the RIAA
November 8th, 2007

p2pnet news | RIAA News:- Ohio University has been in the forefront of Warner Music, EMI, Vivendi Universal and Sony BMG’s anti-student, anti-P2P, anti- file sharing campaign from the beginning and once had the distinction of being the university on the receiving end of the most RIAA extortion demands.

Now one of its students, Brandon Martin, “could have to pay more than $7,000? because he didn’t respond to Big 4 lawsuit, says The Post.

“A default judgment by the court would rule in favor of the record companies by default because Martin did not respond to the lawsuit against him,” says the story, stating:

That motion asks for $6,750 in damages, $445 in legal fees and an injunction preventing Martin from further distributing the plaintiffs’ copyrighted works. Because the record companies are seeking the minimum damages under copyright law – $750 per song for nine songs – the motion states no evidentiary hearing is necessary.

With the University of Oregon as an example, is OU now standing firmly behind Martin and other university students being harried and harassed by the Big 4’s RIAA (Recording Industry Association of America)?

Use Napster or lose federal $: universities threat
November 13th, 2007

p2pnet news | RIAA News:- Years ago the the Big 5 record labels, now the Big 4, shoe-horned Napster Mk II (the deeply troubled, castrated corporate version, not the original) into universities across America.

The idea was: to avoid being sued by Warner Music, EMI, Vivendi Universal and Sony BMG’s RIAA, students would use Napster to download corporate product.

It didn’t work then, and it’s still not working and Napster, meanwhile, continues to haemorrhage investors’ money.

But that doesn’t mean to say the Big 4 have given up on it, or other corporate crap carriers.

RIAA anti-student attacks floundering
November 14th, 2007

p2pnet news | RIAA News:- The RIAA’s juggernaut against colleges, started in February of this year, seems to be having a bumpier and bumpier ride.

The normal game is to bring an ex parte lawsuit (ie, no one other than the RIAA knows about it), and without any opposition submit an ex parte motion for an ex parte discovery order authorizing service of a subpoena to get the name and address of the students or staff who might have used a certain IP address.

But the normal game seems to be getting disrupted here and there.

A Virginia judge threw the RIAA’s motion out the window, saying it wasn’t entitled to such discovery, in a case against students at the College of William & Mary.

A New Mexico judge denied the application on the ground there was no reason for it to be ex parte, in a case involving University of New Mexico students.

He ultimately required the RIAA to serve a full set of all of the underlying papers for each “John Doe” named, and to give the students 40 days in which to review the papers withou counsel, and make a motion to quash if they chose to do so.

In a stunning development, the attorney general of the State of Oregon made a motion to quash the RIAA’s subpoena on behalf of the University of Oregon, on grounds which are fully applicable to every case the RIAA has brought to date: the lack of scientific validity to the RIAA’s “identification” evidence.

UW RIAA web page

November 20th, 2007

p2pnet news | RIAA News:- A University of Wisconsin student has set up a webpage which looks very similar in aim and intention to Ray Beckerman’s Recording Industry vs The People.

The school is among those chosen by Warner Music, EMI, Vivendi Universal and Sony BMG’s RIAA to have its activities and curriculum seriously dislocated by claims that some of its students are massive online distributors of copyrighted music files.

In the latest outrage, the RIAA is demanding the identities of identifies 24 UW-Madison, 12 UW-Stout, eight UW-Stevens Point, eight UW-Milwaukee, three UW-Eau Claire and one UW-Whitewater students who may, or may not, be associated with IP addresses the Big 4 enforcer claims, but can’t prove, are linked to file sharing.

The RIAA scam is set up so it browbeats staff into handing over student names and the RIAA, then accuses the students without having any hard evidence of any kind of wrongdoing.

It’s a PR exercise which is shockingly effective because most school staffs give in to the RIAA and at its behest, hand out what amount to extortion letters for ’settlements’ of thousands of dollars without anyone ever having been found guilty of anything, or having appeared in a civil court.

RIAA hits top US schools. But not Harvard
November 23rd, 2007

p2pnet news | RIAA News:- Warner Music, EMI, Vivendi Universal and Sony BMG’s RIAA targeted several Ivy League universities in its latest “initiative,” as their RIAA calls it as it continues to wreak havoc in universities up and down up and down America.

InformationWeek notes that among them are Columbia University, Duke University, Dartmouth College, University of Pennsylvania, Yale, Princeton, and Brown University.

But what it doesn’t note is the fact that missing, significantly, is Harvard.

Or as Ray Beckerman puts it on Recording Industry vs The People, this latest anti-college round, “targets 7 out of 8 Ivy League schools, but continues to give Harvard University a wide berth”

One could be forgiven for thinking Harvard is escaping victimisation because it’s co-operating by sending its students RIAA blackmail letters, as are so many other US universities.

But that’s not the case. In fact, to the contrary, “take a hike,” Charles Nesson, William F. Weld professor of law, Harvard Law School, and founder and faculty co-director, Berkman Center for Internet & Society; and John Palfrey, clinical professor of law and executive director, the Berkman Center, told the Big 4’s RIAA attack dogs.

Columbia University RIAA unit
November 28th, 2007

p2pnet news | RIAA News:- Columbia University is one of the Ivy League universities to be hit by RIAA extortion demands.

Significantly Harvard, which told the RIAA to take a hike long time back, is so far unscathed.

However, instead of following that example, Columbia is using publicly funded financial and manpower resources to set up a department which will, to all intents and purposes, work for, and on behalf of, the RIAA (Recording Industry Association of America).

The university plans to, “create a Copyright Advisory Office, an administrative office which will provide educational support about copyright law and which will open on the first of the year under the direction of Kenneth Crews, a widely renowned fair use, copyright, and constitutional law scholar,” says the Columbia Spectator, going on:

“In addition, the University has already taken a proactive stance against file sharing, making all students sign an agreement stating that they won’t use the Internet to infringe on copyright and holding copyright infringement training during the annual New Student Orientation Program.”

Ohio student says NO! to the RIAA
November 29th, 2007

p2pnet news | RIAA News:- As one major US university after another caves in to the RIAA blackmail campaign, proving bullying and intimidation are effective marketing tools, it’s being increasingly left to students to defend themselves.

One such is an Ohio State student who, with his attorney, Mark Kafantaris, is determined not to let the multi-billion-dollar labels turn him into an RIAA promo statistic.

And interestingly, BitTorrent is named as the P2P file sharing application.

Nine times out of ten, Sharman Networks’ Kazaa, itself the defendent in a class action, thanks to the RIAA sue ‘em all campaign, is cited.

Sharman and BitTorrent are now both working with, and for, corporate entertainment industries.

RIAA may be spying on students: Oregon AG
November 29th, 2007

p2pnet news | RIAA News:- Oregon state attorney general Hardy Myers (right) has joined people and organisations demanding Warner Music, EMI, Vivendi Universal and Sony BMG’s RIAA either puts up or shuts up in its bizarre sue ‘em all anti-student, anti-P2P, anti-file sharing marketing campaign.

He also says the RIAA may be illegally spying on UO students and ferreting out data they’re not entitled to.

They’ll be going bananas in RIAA land.

RIAA silent on Oregon case
November 30th, 2007

p2pnet news | RIAA News:- There’s been no word, official or otherwise, from Warner Music, EMI, Vivendi Universal and Sony BMG’s RIAA on the allegation that MediaSentry, a company acting for the Big 4 enforcement organisation, illegally “investigated” students without a license, a crime.

Nor is it being reported by the mainstream media, normally quick to pick up and repeat any and all ’statements’ issued by the RIAA.

However, RIAA mouthperson Jonathan Lamy says University of Oregon determination to block the subpoenas is “misguided” and, according to Associated Press, “urged higher education officials to help prevent students from pirating music”.

“It is our view that universities carry the great responsibility of educating students about many important issues, including technology, ethics, copyright law and civic responsibility,” he also observed.

No doubt university authorities the length and breadth of America will duly take note of young Lamy’s thoughts.

Vanderbilt ‘plays nice’ with the RIAA
December 5th, 2007

p2pnet news | RIAA News:- “We want to play nice,” says Cindy Frank, director of service delivery and project management for information technology at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tennessee.

She’s referring to Vanderbilt’s efforts to keep on the good side of the corporate music industry and its adherents, which have so far cost it in the region of half-a-million-dollars, she states.

Blithely, she goes on:

“We’ve negotiated very inexpensive deals for students. Napster is $2 a month and offers 3 million songs. We have also spent a lot money and time marketing them. We encourage these legal methods for downloading music.”

The above bald faced admission from Frank in InsideVandy makes it clear not only is the university working —- unpaid —- for Napster, a desperately broke, hard-core commercial music marketing service, it’s also acting up-front for Warner Music, EMI, Vivendi Universal and Sony BMG.

Are Napster and the Big 4 footing the bill?

No. That’s down to parents and state and federal authorities responsible for America’s educational systems.

Fight the RIAA! MIT student
December 7th, 2007

p2pnet news | RIAA News:- Vanderbilt University’s Cindy Frank believes ‘playing nice’ with Warner Music, EMI, Vivendi Universal and Sony BMG’s RIAA (Recording Industry Association of America) the way go.

And the policy has so far cost the university [read taxpayers and state and federal authorities, not to mention parents] half a million dollars.

But Massachusetts Institute of Technology computer science major Erek Speed doesn’t agree.

In fact, it’s time to fight back, he says.

RIAA Christmas message to US students
December 7th, 2007

p2pnet news | RIAA News:- Warner Music, EMI, Vivendi Universal and Sony BMG’s RIAA has acknowledged the season of goodwill with a Christmas message to university students across America:

Fuck You!

The RIAA has launched another prong of its twisted and bitter campaign against the people who keep the likes of Universal’s Doug Morris (right, with admirer) fat and happy.

Student lawyers act for students in RIAA case
December 22nd, 2007

p2pnet news | RIAA News:- A student law clinic is about to cause a revolution in the P2P filesharing war launched by Warner Music, EMI, Vivendi Universal and Sony BMG.

In what’s probably a world’s first, not lawyers, but student attorneys at the University of Maine School of Law’s Cumberland Legal Aid Clinic have themselves taken up the fight on behalf of fellow students.

Hannah Ames and Lisa Chmelecki from the Cumberland clinic are now officially representing two Maine students.

Ames and Chmelecki are being guided by clinic director and U of M assistant professor Deirdre Smith (right).

They’ve filed a reply to the US Supreme Court decision in Bell Atlantic v Twombly, and the subsequent California decision, Interscope v Rodriguez, which dismissed the RIAA’s “making available” complaint as mere “conclusory”, “boilerplate” “speculation”.

Maine law students vs the RIAA
December 28th, 2007

p2pnet news | RIAA News:- One of the most important, but as yet largely unrecognized, Big Music stories to break this year centres on a small university legal clinic in Maine.

And, it’s about to cause a revolution in the P2P filesharing war launched by Warner Music, EMI, Vivendi Universal and Sony BMG, p2pnet posted just before Christmas, going on:

“In what’s probably a world’s first, not lawyers, but student attorneys at the University of Maine School of Law’s Cumberland Legal Aid Clinic have themselves taken up the fight on behalf of fellow students.

“Hannah Ames and Lisa Chmelecki from the Cumberland clinic are now officially representing two Maine students.

“Ames and Chmelecki are being guided by clinic director and U of M associate professor Deirdre Smith.”

We added:

“This could be the true beginning of the end for the RIAA in its attempts to bring students to heel, turning them into compliant consumers of corporate product under threat of legal persecution and severe financial penalties no student can afford.”

Below, Smith tells p2pnet readers what the Cumberland Legal Aid Clinic is all about.

Maine law students and RIAA: II

December 29th, 2007

p2pnet news | RIAA News:- If I was going to do a Wouldn’t it be cool …? list for 2008, this would be at the top:

Wouldn’t it be cool if Mitch Bainwol, Cary Sherman, Jonathan Lamy and all the others who work for the RIAA figured out there are decent ways of earning a living, leaving the Big 4 labels, Warner Music, EMI, Vivendi Universal and Sony BMG, to stew in their own juice?

Never happen and meanwhile, these and other RIAA spin doctors are raking it in as they come up with new ways to pillory the people who ultimately pay their salaries.

In 2003 they launched their bizarre sue ‘em all marketing campaign with the Big 4’s own customers as targets, this year switching their attention to students in universities and colleges across America.

It works like this: the RIAA has already successfully turned scores of US schools into de facto sales and enforcement divisions with administrators and teachers as staff, paid for by federal and state allocations and parent fees.

Having gotten school authorities used to the idea that corporate entities, answerable only to their shareholders, have a right to an upfront and functional place in America’s educational system, they’ve moved the campaign up a large notch, sending specious extortion letters to universities, demanding they threaten students on the RIAA’s behalf.

And many of the schools are, disgracefully, falling over themselves to cooperate, completely ignoring their students’ welfare and well-being.

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2008

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Penn State’s Spanier: RIAA all the way
January 1st, 2008

p2pnet news | RIAA News:- Way, way back (we won’t say ‘back in the day’ ), not long after p2pnet first went online, we were the first to post on Penn State University, the first senior American school to join forces with the entertainment cartels in a move to turn students not into well-informed, innovative and productive US citizens, but into fully indoctrinated and compliant corporate consumer drones.

With Penn president Graham Spanier (left) firmly planted on the movie and music industry’s Joint Committee of Higher Education and Entertainment Communities, alongside ace sophist Cary Sherman (right) of the RIAA, the school provided the foundation for what’s turned into a full-blown entertainment cartel penetration of US teaching institutions, coupled with all-out attacks on their students.

Instrumental in hooking Spanier was Barry K. Robinson, by pure coincidence both a member of Penn State University’s Board of Trustees and senior counsel for the RIAA (Recording Industry Association of America).

UCSC signs up as RIAA copyright cop
January 10th, 2008

p2pnet news | RIAA News:- The University of California, Santa Cruz (UCSC) has become another of the American schools to openly enlist as a Warner Music, EMI, Vivendi Universal and Sony BMG corporate copyright cop, acting for the Big 4 against its own students.

UCSC has, “just started blocking and throttling network traffic,” posts b14ck, one of the university’s residential network (ResNet) technicians on projectb14ck.

What’s behind the move?

“They think that they can reduce the number of RIAA complaints they get each year (which reflects poorly on the school) by blocking Gnutella network traffic, but their decision is uneducated if anything, and will most likely not result in any less RIAA complaints, but more student complaints and workarounds,” says b14ck, continuing UCSC is a public university, “which means that funding comes from both students AND California residents”.

RIAA attacks another 18 US schools
January 14th, 2008

p2pnet news | RIAA News:- Warner Music, EMI, Vivendi Universal and Sony BMG’s RIAA has kicked off the new year with renewed attacks on university students across America.

It boasts it’s sent out a new “wave” of 407 extortionate ’settlement’ letters to 18 universities, using “evidence of significant abuse of campus computer networks for the purpose of copyright infringement” as the excuse.

Mount Holyoke abandons students to RIAA

p2pnet news | RIAA News:- Mount Holyoke College, South Hadley, Massachusetts, was founded by Mary Lyon in 1837, “when higher education for women was a revolutionary idea,” it boasts, also promoting the conviction that, “women can and should make a difference in the world”.

Not in 2008, however, and not if the school can help it.

The “conviction” doesn’t stretch to protecting students, or advising them on how best to defend themselves against RIAA extortion.

Mount Holyoke was one of the 18 schools named in the RIAA’s first attack of the year as part of the Warner Music, EMI, Vivendi Universal and Sony BMG campaign to use US teaching institutions as copyright enforcement and sales units, staffed by teachers and funded by taxpayers.

“A few years ago Mount Holyoke College received one pre-litigation letter,” says the Daily Hampshire Gazette, going on:

“The student settled the claim outside of court, said Lee Bowie, dean of the college at Mount Holyoke.”

Now, “Bowie expects the 14 people who received the letters will pay the settlement at $3,000 per person and not try to fight the allegations in court,” says the story.\

Another MIT student defies RIAA
January 24th, 2008

p2pnet news | RIAA News:- A second MIT student has decided s/he’s not prepared to cave in to extortion on the part of the Big 4’s RIAA.

Harvard chooses RIAA for law class
January 24th, 2008

p2pnet news | RIAA News:- Harvard University has a number of distinctions, but one in particular is particularly relevant with respect to Warner Music, EMI, Vivendi Universal and Sony BMG’s bloody-minded and bizarre sue ‘em all marketing campaign.

With that as a backdrop, professor Charles Nesson (right), William F. Weld professor of law, Harvard Law School, and founder and faculty co-director, Berkman Center for Internet & Society, had added a rather unusual, possibly unique, element to his Evidence 2008 course.

Under RIAA v University, frame a motion to, “quash a subpoena from a copyright holder to the university for the identity of a student downloader on grounds of undue burden,” he says in what has to be one of the most apt law courses at any US school excepting, perhaps, Maine where two student lawyers are actively representing two university students.

Texas school waits for RIAA attack
January 31st, 2008

p2pnet news | RIAA News:- The Stephen F. Austin State University in Texas is nervously poised waiting, but not ready, for an attack by the RIAA.

So far, it’s ony had to suffer C&D letters. But that’s soon about to change, suspects a senior staff member.

And while the SFA waits, “Virtually every computer that comes through (the SHACK) has Limewire installed on it,” says Jason Lisenby, going on:

“Limewire serves only one purpose, and that is to illegally download files.”

We’re pretty sure Limewire’s Mark Gorton might find a bone or 10 to pick with the statement.

RIAA goes after University of Dayton
February 1st, 2008

p2pnet news | RIAA News:- “As members of a Catholic and Marianist university, we’re challenged to behave in a manner consistent with our values. From a technology standpoint, one of the things this means is that we discourage illegally downloading music/films because it’s unethical – and illegal.”

This comes at the end of an article in the University of Dayton’s Flyer News which kicks off with:

The consequences of peer-to-peer file-sharing used to be attendance at a class of computer ethics and a possible 30-day suspension of UD network use. Now, however, UD students are being issued pre-litigation settlement letters from the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) recommending a financial settlement or threat of lawsuit.

“Students see this as something that happens “out there,” said Karen Bull, director of UDit business services. “But it is happening here too.”

And it’s happening everywhere as Warner Music, EMI, Vivendi Universal and Sony BMG put shareholder interests directly in front of the education of American youth.

Instruction is being disrupted, normal student activities are seriously interfered with and public funds are tapped in the interests of maintaining Big 4 profits.

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