RIAA alters ’sloppy’ testimony
p2p news / p2pnet: Did RIAA spokesman Jonathan Whitehead deliberately switch the names of two completely different p2p applications in an attempt to con a judge hearing a p2p file sharing case?
No, says the RIAA (Recording Industry Association of America) in a plea to have Whitehead’s testimony changed. It was a “clerical error”.
Programming expert Zi Mei has been shredding Whitehead’s evidence in Atlantic Recording v John Does 1-25, with Ty Rogers representing John Doe.
“He asserts that all Does are Gnutella users, directly contradicting earlier testimony, which included pages of Kazaa screenshots,” said Mei last time around.
“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.”
Now, the RIAA has amended the “error” in its Second Whitehead Declaration in Atlantic v Does 1-25, “claiming that its previous version – saying that all defendants were users of Gnutella – was wrong, and that only 11 of the 25 were Gnutella users, while 14 were Kazaa users,” says Ray Beckerman’s Recording Industry vs The People.”
“Whitehead said in his Second Declaration that ALL the Does were indeed Gnutella users,” Mei told p2pnet.
“They’re trying to downplay the maneuver by saying it should be allowed, and that this new information doesn’t prejudice the defendant, but really, it just goes to show you how sloppy and irresponsible the RIAA are with their claims and statements.”
Stay tuned.
Also See:
Atlantic Recording v John Does 1-25 – Tech expert hacks at RIAA evidence, December 29, 2005
last time around – Sloppy RIAA ‘investigation’ attacked, February 7, 2006
Discover AOL – Web Villain Rap Sheet
Recording Industry vs The People – RIAA Amends “Error” in Second Whitehead Declaration in Atlantic v. Does, February 23, 2006
February 24th, 2006 at 5:07 pm
so what. theyll still win. resistance is futile.
February 26th, 2006 at 2:34 pm
Close instead- “Resistance is Useless”
They aren’t the Borg…rather they are the unimaginative, paper pushing Vogons.
February 27th, 2006 at 7:17 am
You can just count on it, if it were the defendant who introduced allegedly “clerk-mangled” evidence, that the RIAA counsel would be jumping up and down, screaming, and demanding that such evidence be ruled inadmissable and that opposing cousel be subjected to draconian sanctions for daring to bring flawed evidence before the court. Especially evidence which has thus far NOT be authenticated by the individual (NOT the company, the individual with the company) who actually collected it.
From the artifacts that I’ve seen so far that have been made available here and elsewhere, they are just printouts of ’stuff’ that could have been fabricated by anyone with knowledge of the operation of p2p networks and clients.
Presumably, under the law, these would be considered ‘business records.’ Business records need to be authenticated by someone from the business in question. For instance, telephone companies have employees that do little else than appear in court to authenticate business records when someone’s telephone records are introduced into evidence. Recall the trials of McVeigh and Nichols (OK City Bombing) where the Government’s case hinged primarily on the call records of a certain Talk n Toss phone card. The individual from that telecom provider was on the stand for several days to validate each individual ‘record’ involved in each call.
This is just more RIAA BS. Defense Counsel should demand these records be ruled inadmissible because of the obvious credibility problem concerning them. Get it right the first time, or don’t bother dragging mounds of crap into court and then say ‘OOPS!’ when closer scrutiny reveals it is not what it’s be represented to be.
–TurboGeek