First-ever RIAA trial?
p2pnet news | RIAA News:- 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.
Says a document in a file sharing case brought by Virgin Records America, Capitol Records, Sony BMG, Arista Records, Warner Bros Records and UMG
On February 21, 2005, Plaintiffs’ investigator, SafeNet, Inc., detected an individual using Internet Protocol (‘IP’) address 24.179.199.117 engaged in the infringement of Plaintiffs’ copyrighted sound recordings. This individual was distributing 1,702 digital audio files – many of them Plaintiffs’ copyrighted sound recordings – from the KaZaA ‘shared’ folder on her computer. This individual was distributing these audio files for free over the Internet under the username ‘tereastarr@KaZaA’ to potentially millions of other KaZaA users. SafeNet determined that Charter Communications, Inc. was the Internet Service Provider associated with IP address 24.179.199.117. Plaintiffs then filed a ‘Doe’ lawsuit and obtained an order for expedited discovery to determine the identity of the infringer.
SafeNet is another online scalp hunter of MediaDefender ilk trying to get rich from entertainment cartel anti-P2P, anti-file sharer cases and Kazaa is the badly marred P2P file sharing application owned by Australia’s Sharman networks and which is on the wrong end in two class action and third-party lawsuits.
Now, “The RIAA’s motion for ‘summary adjudication’ was denied last week, and the jury trial in Virgin v Thomas is now scheduled to begin on October 2nd, at 9:00 AM, before Hon. Michael Thomas, at the federal courthouse in Duluth, Minnesota,” posts Ray Beckerman on Recording Industry vs The People, stressing the trial will be open to the public.
He goes on:
This is a case in which the RIAA has no evidence that the defendant, Ms. Jammie Thomas, committed any copyright infringement. The RIAA has claimed that it will call Dr. Doug Jacobson and Cary Sherman as witnesses, as well as employees of the various record companies and of SafeNet/MediaSentry.
Ms. Thomas is represented by Brian Toder of Chestnut & Cambronne, located in White Bear Lake, Minnesota.
The RIAA is represented by Richard Gabriel and Timothy Reynolds of Holmes Roberts & Owen, located in Denver, Colorado.
This is believed to be the first jury trial since the RIAA began its litigation campaign more than 4 years ago.
Jacobson is another of the RIAA’s ‘expert’ witnesses whose expertise has repeatedly been called into question, and Cary Sherman is the RIAA’s most experienced sophist.
Apart from other considerations, trying to claim an IP address is sufficient for firm identification purposes is fraught with danger – for the RIAA.
A speedy summary judgment before a judge unlikely to have the technical knowledge needed to be able to frame pertinent questions or thoroughly probe ‘expert’ testimony would have been far better.
Now, however, the RIAA will be compelled to present its ‘evidence’ in full and in detail.
Definitely stay tuned.
Also See:
estimated 30,000 – RIAA attacks Massachusetts mother, students, September 10, 2007
MediaDefender ilk – MediaDefender fiasco: update III, September 19, 2007
class action – Michelle Santangelo vs the RIAA, July 16, 2007
third-party – Pay us $8M, Santangelos tell AOL, Kazaa, September 13, 2007
Recording Industry vs The People – First RIAA Jury Trial to Start Monday October 2nd in Duluth, Minnesota, in Virgin v. Thomas; Motion for “Summary Adjudication” Denied, September 27, 2006
September 27th, 2007 at 5:01 pm
I hope the RIAA lose and lose BIG.
September 27th, 2007 at 7:38 pm
some one please get this on film and put it online. I for one would really like to see this.
September 30th, 2007 at 9:23 am
I doubt that camera’s or recording devices will be allowed.
However,
Ray Beckerman has asked for volunteers in the area to go to this if possible, take notes,
and send them to him for posting on his site see ..
http://recordingindustryvspeople.blogspot.com/2007/09/citizen-coverage-of-virgin-v-thomas.html
Many would be VERY interested in how this progresses.
October 3rd, 2007 at 8:31 am
Since there was no text in the article to refute “beginning with 192.168″ testimony, it looks like it was left to stand as fact.
Those of you who know Duluth, Minnesota IP technical experts (who are anti-RIAA) might be able to really help. If the defense doesn’t know (limited budget? vs RIAA’s millions), you and that expert could be the hero.
Help now or whine later.
Brian N. Toder has his office in Minneapolis, MN 55402.
(Or send him a contribution?)
October 11th, 2007 at 1:52 pm
How is today’s digital format different from recording a vinyl record onto a cassette?
Again the RIAA and the jury were simply out of touch with the reality.
I suggest that the movie, music and game companies have to make all their products available for purchase over the internet at a lesser price than in the stores. This way, people could buy NON-DRM’ed music, movie and games and the industry could stop screwing their customers over.
I have all the sympathy for the woman in this case because there were numerous problems with the judgeâs instructions and the lawyer for her defense. He did not call any technical people to the stand to defend this woman and point out that there were numerous ways that someone could have been filesharing from her computer without her knowledge: trojans, worms, etc.
This ruling is outrageous and unconstitutional.
Up to $150,000 per willful act of infringement when the purchase price on download is 99cents?
The punishment doesnât fit the crime; that sounds grossly out of proportion to it! And the RIAA just stayed there smiling.
After decades of beating the artists into submission in exchange for ONE PENNEY PER SONG SOLD (15 cents per CD), now the RIAA has turned its greedy attention to the hands that feed it and they’re not stopping till they hit bone..!! They have run roughshod over those artists and now they want to play the “we’re protecting” card. Câmon!
You are the same people who, for years, engaged in payola designed to keep deserving talent off of the air and now you are accusing an individual of âillicit conductâ? ⦠again, câmon!
If the industry wants war, remember, there are hundreds of thousands kids smart enough to beat them up. Two of them could decode the iPhone or the iPod protection devices in only weeks after the items went out on sale and they certainly ruined all those millions invested by Apple on their âexclusive engineersâ to develop these devices.
The industry is NEVER GOING TO WIN THIS WAR unless groups like RIAA abandon these vicious attacks on their customers.
They should be going after the services, not the users. Of course the RIAA and others already know this won’t work because even if they shut down an entire method of sharing another pops up in its place.
Striking and attacking the weakest, huh?
What they are also provoking is that just a few people buy the CDâs and those few will start spreading their CDâs to as many friends as possible. People will get high quality recordings from a full rip from the CDâs and the CDs will get passed around and around and around. Everybody will get a huge collection in no time flat.
I doubt the RIAA is going to be following (with “gumshoes”) those millions of people handing off CDs to one another and what are you going to say? Why are you ripping copyrighted music? The answer will be only, âI was lending the CD to my friend to listen to it … I didn’t know that they were going to rip the entire CD!â.
This kind of punishment will not work. Donât make them pay for your lack of technology knowledge when the filesharing behavior started to emerge.
Make products available for a reasonable price and end all this for once, otherwise, we will be watching the death throes of a dinosaur. Take your notes!