p2p news / p2pnet: Did RIAA spokesman Jonathon Whitehead switch the names of two completely different p2p applications in a deliberate bid to fool a court hearing a p2p file sharing case?

The question is raised in an affidavit presented in the latest stage of Atlantic Recording v John Does 1-25.

The RIAA (Recording Industry Association of America) still claims the existence of metadata in shared folders is enough to prove copyright infringement took place, but the assertion has again been roundly attacked by programming expert Zi Mei.

“Whitehead shot himself in the foot with his latest declaration,” Mei told p2pnet. “He asserts that all Does are Gnutella users, directly contradicting earlier testimony, which included pages of Kazaa screenshots.

“This demonstrates that he either doesn’t have a clue what he’s talking about, or that he’s simply inventing evidence and switching to Limewire after we totally destroyed him on the Kazaa stuff, hoping no one would notice.

“It’s obvious that Mr. Whitehead doesn’t know Kazaa from a kazoo either, or he’s simply pretending he doesn’t. The RIAA’s ‘investigative’ techniques are sloppy and harmful, to say the least.”

After weeks of non-stop, principally voluntary, work to meet the February 7 deadline, Mei today submitted his second affidavit, revealing telling holes in RIAA spokesman Jonathon Whitehead’s second set of assertions in Atlantic v. John Does 1-25, and also, “pointing out its inconsistencies with the first declaration, as well as its inconsistency with the way computers work, and with the way the internet works,” says Recording Industry vs The People.

Zi recently appealed to p2pnet readers for help and he told us he was grateful for the input he subsequently received.

In his affidiavit, Mei wonders if Whitehead deliberately and knowingly switched the names of Kazaa and Limewire p2p, “in an attempt to mislead the Court and reconcile flaws in his earlier testimony”.

If that was the case, says the programmer, “it casts clear doubt as to his integrity”.

Whitehead, “betrays either confusion or ignorance of how decentralized P2P networks like FastTrack (Kazaa) and Gnutella (Limewire) actually work,” he states.

“Moreover,” he goes on later in the paper, “Mr. Whitehead still has not even attempted to explain the process through which the plaintiffs allegedly obtained the IP addresses allegedly associated with defendants.”

Go here for a .pdf scan of Mei’s paper. We’ll try and bring you a text version in the near future.

Meanwhile, definitely stay tuned. When it concludes, this case will further damage the Big Four’s steadily eroding credibility and have an enormous impact on future sue ‘em all suits.

Also See:
Atlantic v. John Does 1-25 - Tech expert hacks at RIAA evidence, December 29, 2005
Recording Industry vs The People - Zi Mei Slams Whitehead’s Second “Declaration”, February 7, 2006
p2pnet readers - Help Zi against the RIAA, January 27, 2006

This entry was posted on Tuesday, February 7th, 2006 at 3:12 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

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