RIAA vs Joel: Questions for the jury …
p2pnet news view | RIAA:- It’s getting close to July 27, the day judge Nancy Gertner is slated to open what could easily become a circus as Boston student Joel Tenenbaum, and his team of Harvard law students, led by professor Charlie Nesson, and the Big 4 record labels’ RIAA, and its team of highly paid copyright lawyers, fight it out over alleged copyright infringements.
The first and, until now, only time the RIAA managed to get one of the 40,000 or so people it’s accused of being file-sharing criminals and thieves before a judge and jury continues to be a public relations disaster.
At the conclusion of Part I, Jammie Rasset Thomas, an ordinary mother with ordinary resources, supposedly owed $1.92 million for supposedly sharing 24 songs online.
But there’s more to come on that case and, meanwhile, whether or not Joel v The RIAA will be a battle of wits or a similar farce remains to be seen and, “The parties have jointly submitted a proposed jury questionnaire in Sony BMG Music Entertainment v Tenenbaum, says Ray Beckerman in Recording Industry vs The People.
It includes the usual “Do you know anything about this case, or have you heard anything about this case from newspaper, radio, television or other media, friends or relatives?” type queries, and then adds »»»
15. DO YOU USE A COMPUTER FREQUENTLY? _____ YES _____ NO
16. DO YOU USE THE INTERNET ON A REGULAR BASIS? _____ YES _____ NO IF SO, LIST ANY WEB SITES YOU VISIT REGULARLY:
17. DO YOU OWN OR USE AN IPOD OR AN .MP3 PLAYER? _____ YES _____ NO
18. ARE YOU OR IS ANYONE IN YOUR FAMILY OR A CLOSE FRIEND A MUSICIAN? ______YES ________NO
19. HAVE YOU EVER RIPPED A CD TO A COMPUTER? _______YES _______NO
20. HAVE YOU EVER BURNED A CDR? ________YES ________NO
21. HAVE YOU OR HAS ANYONE IN YOUR FAMILY OR A CLOSE FRIEND EVER DOWNLOADED MUSIC, BOOKS OR MOVIES FROM THE INTERNET?
_______YES ________NO
IF YES, HAVE YOU OR HAS ANYONE IN YOUR FAMILY OR A CLOSE FRIEND EVER USED ANY OF THE FOLLOWING PROGRAMS:
NAPSTER: Y ________ N _________
NAPSTER 2.0: Y ________ N _________
GROKSTER: Y ________ N _________
LIMEWIRE: Y ________ N _________
KAZAA: Y ________ N _________
IMESH Y ________ N _________
BITORRENT: Y ________ N _________
MORPHEUS: Y ________ N _________
ITUNES: Y ________ N _________
RHAPSODY: Y ________ N _________
22. DO YOU OR DOES ANYONE IN YOUR FAMILY OR A CLOSE FRIEND HAVE ANY CONNECTION TO HARVARD UNIVERSITY, HARVARD LAW SCHOOL OR THE BERKMAN CENTER FOR INTERNET AND SOCIETY? _____YES ______NO
23. HAVE YOU EVER HEARD OF LAWSUITS BROUGHT BY RECORDING COMPANIES AGAINST PEOPLE WHO DOWNLOAD AND SHARE MUSIC FILES OVER THE INTERNET? _____YES ________NO
“It seems to me that both legal teams have a greatly inflated sense of their own importance, a distorted view of how the trial will be conducted, and little practical experience,” says Ray.
“I’m expecting a no-nonsense trial, with no baloney in it about all the other people who allegedly infringed plaintiffs’ copyrights, or all of the unfairness of the RIAA’s lawsuits, or anybody’s theories about the internet, or ‘burning’ or ‘ripping’.
“I’m expecting a simple trial presided over by a stern, no-nonsense judge, about whether this defendant infringed certain copyrights.
“I’m predicting that nothing resembling this questionnaire will be used.
“Judge Gertner will probably provide a much more normal and much simpler version, or use the Court’s standard version if it has one …”
Stay tuned.
Jon Newton - p2pnet
First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win ~ Mahatma Gandhi
July, 2009
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July 24th, 2009 at 11:31 am
24. knowing that we are ruining the live of people who we THINK download stuff, are you actually going to answer 19-21 truthfully ? _______ Yes, i’m a tool _______ are you fucking kidding me ?
July 24th, 2009 at 11:37 am
This is hilarious. If the aim of this is to prune the jury people to be good for the RIAA and bad for Joel, and they answer truthfully, there won’t be anyone left. hehe
July 24th, 2009 at 11:40 am
“meanwhile, whether or not Joel v The RIAA will be a battle of wits or a similar farce remains to be seen”
Of course it’ll be a farce. Given how bent and corrupted by the kartels the politicians and the law courts have become.
You wait, the prosecution will again put forward some lame-ass case, riddled with the kinds of errors that would get any other case thrown out of court. They will surprise and gobsmack everyone by “winning” this case and use it to set precedent and force ever more draconian laws down our throats eg ACTA etc. If this scenario sounds familiar, just think back a few weeks to the farce that was the Pirate Bay “trial”.
The PR disasters don’t matter, because establishing precendent in their interests is paramount, as they want to get all those horrible laws using their bent sock puppet politicians passed their way.
The great unwashed public have a short memory and when/if they’ve got all the laws and technology set their way, the sheeple will gladly slurp the crap ‘product’ they’re dishing out.
File sharing will become socially unacceptable and will be driven underground, so that it once again only be relatively a few geeks who share files and they will always be looking over their shoulder.
Then Big Media really will win.
This is what really makes me sick.
July 24th, 2009 at 1:01 pm
Once again, you see why the jury selection process is designed to hang the Defendant.
Instead of getting a “jury of your peers”, you get a jury of anything but.
You would think radical lawyers like Nesson would be jumping all over that one.
July 24th, 2009 at 1:03 pm
NO JUSTICE NO PEACE.
July 24th, 2009 at 1:09 pm
If you keep pulling the tail of the tiger you are going to get it eventually.
The RIAA parasites are going to end up dead.
July 24th, 2009 at 1:17 pm
I understand how they do this now.
Jury selection shall not be allowed. The jury should be chosen randomly.
July 24th, 2009 at 4:03 pm
I don’t care about downloading music, I’m a free jazz advocate and helper and the whole phenomenon of fetishism over stuff is a bit disturbed. That said the RIAA are idiots for wasting time on this when they could just set up an industry clearing house for back catalog downloads and price it to put all these bucket shops under. People will pay if the price is fair and the system is user friendly.
The labels could enter a new heaven of making money from everything they own without the cumbersome mess of manufacturing and supply chain, just a fat server farm. The fact that they let Apple do this speaks volumes about their sclerotic senility.
I don’t like the major labels but I’m also not fond of the something or nothing mentality of fat moron modern Americans. It has hurtled us into the worst economic disaster since the great depression.
July 24th, 2009 at 7:31 pm
” donât like the major labels but Iâm also not fond of the something or nothing mentality of fat moron modern Americans. ”
This mentality is not limited to americans.
Corporate control of governments is very close to global.
To think it is strictly an american phenomenon is to ignore ones own back yard.
July 24th, 2009 at 10:06 pm
@ Dredd, “This mentality is not limited to americans.
Corporate control of governments is very close to global.” Spot on brother!
@ everybody else, justice at its finest, you’re guilty till proven inocent, and
you will NEVER EVER be tryed by a jury of your “peers”. Think about it, some
pusher gets caught doing his thing, do you really believe they would bring in
a jury full of pushers to hear his case…..really!
stw
July 24th, 2009 at 10:16 pm
They’re suing on 30 songs. He seems to admit that he probably downloaded them. Let the jury sit down, be reasonable, and say he owes $29.70 at most.
July 24th, 2009 at 10:56 pm
Interestingly, membership of iTunes and Rhapsody would appear to be a bad thing according to the list.
Also they missed emule and a whole pile of file sharing programs.
Shouldnt the question have remained at “Have you ever downloaded music?”
It would now appear that using iTunes legally disqualifies a potential juror. I’m sure Steven jobs will love that little analogy.
OK – I do Grok the differentiation – “Are you a legal downloader or an illegal one?” Just thought I would stir the pot.
In other words, will the Jury members know the difference??????
July 25th, 2009 at 11:05 am
My opinion is – It’s time that we stop referring to the RIAA as “Parasites”. The real Parasites are the folks behind the RIAA – Sony BMG. EMI, Universal Music, and Warner Music. The world needs to stop doing business with these people.
July 25th, 2009 at 3:11 pm
“Are you a legal downloader or an illegal one?…will the Jury members know the difference??????”
First off, downloading is NOT illegal, period!
However, UPLOADING the wrong thing to someone else is, in the most extreme, a civil infraction known as “copyright infringement”. This needs to be stressed until everybody understands the way Big Media has succeeded in completely distorting the whole thing.
The jury selection process these cases pretty much removes anyone that would even grasp the above, leaving the “off with his head” mentality to rule the jury.
July 26th, 2009 at 2:42 am
“20. HAVE YOU EVER BURNED A CDR? ________YES ________NO”
Stupid question. The most obvious interpretation is a “music CDR”, but burning a CDR covers much more than music. Before recordable DVDs became affordable, CDRs were the only practical means of backing up files for most people.
July 26th, 2009 at 4:01 am
“The real Parasites are the folks behind the RIAA – Sony BMG. EMI, Universal Music, and Warner Music. The world needs to stop doing business with these people.”
Ya! we have to spray there first and the RIAA/MPAA and their law firms next.
Then we steal and or destroy the exec’s properties of these nasty corporation of criminals lawers included.
Then we go after the corrupted judges, representatives and senators who were doing the entertainment industry deed for money.
The world will become a better place then.