RIAA Suing Homeless man!

Our friends at the RIAA have been tossed out of court in case where the presiding judge described their lawyers as sloppy, but not intentionally misleading.

The dispute arose when they tried to serve a homeless man by attaching service in "a conspicuous place" at known bogus addresses. The freakin' guy was homeless! Of course this whole scenario shouldn't shock anyone who is familiar with the over the top behavior of the RIAA goon squad.

Recording Industry vs. The People

RIAA Secrets About To Be Revealed in Lawsuit

I can't wait until they get to the discovery phase of this trial. I'm sure the assholes at the RIAA are squirming and are quite uncomfortable as their game begins to unravel. The judge in this case has ruled that he won't take any more motions to dismiss this case. So, it seems that it will be moving forward. The only way that the RIAA can avoid this trial is to settle out of court. I sincerely hope that the lawyers for Ms. Andersen will pause for a moment, as if they were considering it, and laugh loudly and sarcasticly in their face.

This trial should bring many of the facts the RIAA has been holding close to the vest for many years to light. In past suits, when brought by the RIAA, where the defendants have decided to fight them, the RIAA lawyers have decided to drop the suits or make a "settlement offer" the defendant couldn't realisticly refuse. The reason they would do this is to avoid the discovery process that would reveal the shady way in which they operate. In this instance, the RIAA is the defendant. They aren't in control of how the trial proceeds. It is solely up to the plaintiffs attorneys and the judge. It sounds like the judge is a no nonsense type who feels like this trial should move forward and isn't likely to put up with any legal shenanigans from anybody.

I can't wait for all the juicy tidbits of this trial to become public. With the strong interest in this case from the internet community, I doubt the strongest of gag orders will keep this from happening. I'm sure that this case will be one of the more compelling "net stories" of the year and one that this blogger will certainly be blogging about for a while!

Andersen attorney on RIAA suit: "They can't run now"

Federal Judge Questions Validity of RIAA Arguments

Atlantic Records, et al., brought suit against Christopher Brennan just over a year ago. Brennan failed to respond to the complaint, never appearing in court to answer the copyright infringement charges. After an entry of default was entered on August 6, 2007, the RIAA moved the court for a default judgment, which Judge Janet Bond Arterton denied in a ruling earlier this month.

In order to obtain a default judgment, three factors have to be satisfied. First, the default needs to be willful. In so many words, the default has to arise out of the inexcusable neglect of the defendant. Second, there cannot be a "meritorious defense" available to the defendant—a defense that is sufficient, "even if not 'ultimately persuasive.'" Last, the plaintiffs need to be prejudiced if the default is not granted.

The judge had harsh words for the RIAA's argument that making files available on KaZaA equates to copyright infringement. "At least one aspect of Plaintiffs’' distribution claim is problematic, however, namely the allegation of infringement based on 'making the Copyrighted Recordings available for distribution to others."

RIAA fails again to get default judgment in uncontested case

The RIAA has once again been admonished in Federal court for trying to present vague "evidence" to support their claims of infringement. The judge in this case also left the door open to once again leave questions about the constitutionality of the excessive awards demanded in these cases while offering no proof of actual damages. It's not an unreasonable request to have the plaintiff in any litigation to prove the damages actually incurred. The mere act of "making available" as opposed to actual distribution of copyrighted files has been the lynchpin of the RIAA arguments in many cases. It's refreshing to have yet another judge in the federal court system question the merits of this ridiculous argument. If one thinks about it logically, how can you ask for a judgement well in excess of any real damages when you offer no proof the actual act of sharing ever occurred?

The judge in this case also admonished the RIAA for using a "boilerplate" complaint that was vague in it's details. The RIAA afterward, said they would be filing a brief to further clarify their position as they had done in other cases. This legal maneuver is an attempt by RIAA attorneys to give as little information as possible to the court in the hopes that they will get a judgement without ever presenting their flimsy evidence for further scrutiny. One would think that the courts will tire of this shady practice and continue to dismiss their claims as unsubstantiated. It would also be prudent for the court to deny acceptance of any brief filed after the fact. Watch closely to this case as it appears that it may end in another defeat for the RIAA and bring us one step closer to the end of these ridiculous lawsuits and awards.

Whoops—Italy inadvertently legalizes some P2P music

The Italian parliament has passed a new copyright law that would decriminalize the sharing of "degraded" music on the Internet for educational and scientific purposes. Apparently, lawmakers didn't realize that 256kbps MP3s are degraded.

Read more from ARS Technica

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I thought the intent of this law was an interesting concept. What they are trying to say is that an mp3 is not the same as sharing the original quality commercial release. Therefore there is no infringement. Of course, here in the states, this concept would never get any legs as it is clearly in violation of the DMCA which covers reproduction of a copyrighted material in any form.

No way! The MPAA Wouldn't Lie to Anyone...

For two years, the film industry has relied on an erroneous figure to persuade the public that college students are thieves. The MPAA acknowledged Tuesday that a survey it released in 2005 overstated the damage caused by piracy at the nation's universities. The MPAA now says that instead of 44 percent, students account for 15 percent of domestic losses.


Why did colleges stay mum on MPAA stats? Tech news blog - CNET News.com

I must say that I am shocked (NOT!) that the folks from the MPAA would exagerrate their claims. I think this report is probably only the tip of the iceberg. I bet if one were to look at the tactics of the RIAA/MPAA more closely, you would find that exaggeration and exploitation of data and revenue losses are at the heart of most all the arguments they make. For example, they claim huge numbers when describing their "losses" because of file sharing. The reality is that a large number of people, when asked, wouldn't buy the narrow, crappy entertainment they offer. It's frequently overpriced and overvalued. While many might check out the junk they offer for free, they simply aren't willing to shell out their hard earned entertainment dollars on it. Again, if you ask the file sharing community, many of them are willing to purchase the content they find appealing to them or at least are willing to use ad supported content. The point to be made here is this:

Just because someone consumes content over a P2P network, it doesn't mean that they would be a paying consumer.

With this being said, all of the claims of huge losses by the industry are hogwash. This concept isn't hard to grasp. What's hard to believe is that the politicians in Washington are taking this crap hook, line and sinker. The reality is that the industry is dying a slow painful death due to their unwillingness to embrace the digital age they helped to create in the first place. The lobbyists are working hard to convince lawmakers that they are being victimized by file sharing. The only thing they are being victimized by is their own stupidity for clinging to an outdated business model.

Comcast’s BitTorrent Throttling Acceptable? Not Quite!

Comcast, and other ISPs advertise with certain upload and download rates, conforming to simple DOCSIS capacity numbers. However, they miscalculated and found that there is more to the Internet than browsing, gopher, and email. Heavy-users broke their excel return-on-investment predictions and marketing campaign promises. Their flat-rate offers simply became too popular for the capacity that was bought and installed.

Comcast’s BitTorrent Throttling Acceptable? Not Quite! TorrentFreak

This really echoes the point I've been making for a couple of years now. Charter also uses bandwidth throttling to cheat us of the bandwidth we pay for. I think a class-action lawsuit is an appropriate response to this practice. There is no other way to describe it, other than simple fraud.

Europe Embraces Decriminalizing File Sharing

The message put forward by the parties is pretty strong: “Whenever you rent a movie, the multinational media industry forces you to watch their propaganda. They claim that downloading movies is the same as snatching bags, stealing cars or shoplifting. That’s simply not true – making a copy is fundamentally different from stealing.”


European Politicians Launch Pro-Filesharing Campaign


I'm not sure that this movement is going to gain any traction in the US anytime soon. I like the fact that Europeans are open minded and recognize the flaws in the RIAA/MPAA approach to combating piracy. The "The Genie is Out of the Bottle" line of thinking makes a lot more sense than the "Let's Punish the End-User Approach". I've never seen an industry as a whole adopt an approach that believes alienating the consumer will improve the almighty bottom line. The closest analogy I can think of is the automobile industry. There was a time when, your car needed repair, you were required (By the Big 3) to bring it back to the dealership or void your warranty. This tactic was used to eliminate the little guy by forbidding the consumer to bring their vehicle to the repair shop of their choosing. You would hear these crazy stories of people who were denied legitimate warranty service because they had their tires or wipers changed elsewhere. When the imports became a serious challenge to the Big 3, they were forced to drop this ludicrous position.

Until the consumers revolt and some company comes along with a more reasonable policy, these chucleheads at the RIAA/MPAA will continue to alienate the very people to which they are trying to suck the entertainment dollar from....

P2P Hero Speaks Out at Last

In September 2007, anti-piracy company MediaDefender’s emails went public after a hacker gained access to their systems. The attacks cost the company a huge amount of money, not to mention acute embarrassment. Now the person behind the attacks speaks.
MediaDefender Hacker Speaks Out With TorrentFreak

Sleaze begets sleaze here. Media Defender were exposed as a RIAA/MPAA puppet. At the direction of these organizations, they were engaging in hacking of legal P2P networks and the corruption of files on these networks. As far as I can see they've lowered their ethical standards and severely weakened the credibility of the RIAA/MPAA's war with file sharers. I hope the Pirate Bay folks spank them hard with a lawsuit. My mother always told me that two wrongs don't make a right!

Sony and RIAA ripe for a lawsuit

RIAA lawyer states in legal brief that copying songs from CDs to computer for personal use is just as illegal as posting them online.You, too, could be sued for thousands of dollars by the major record companies — even if you've never once illegally downloaded music.That's because at least one lawyer for the Recording Industry Association of America, the Big Four record companies' lobbying arm and primary legal weapon, considers the copying of songs from your own CDs to your own computer, for your own personal use, to be just as illegal as posting them online for all to share, according to a federal lawsuit filed in Arizona.

Here's my beef with this whole RIAA crap......If I buy a CD from the Sony/BMG Record Club and pop it into the Sony manufactured CD drive of my Sony Vaio laptop, I might even make a duplicate copy onto some Sony made CD-Rs for good measure, I can't see how the RIAA (representing Sony)could then sue me.....according to them and the courts, merely "enabling" copyright violation is in itself a violation. Why hasn't anyone caught on to this concept? I would like to see an artist sue Sony and the RIAA for "enabling" copyright violations and for not protecting them from said violations.I would go one step further and say that Sony was in fact tantamount in the consortium of companies that developed digital file standards and mp3's themselves. Thus Sony is one example of a copyright violation enabler...Stop and think of how many violations Sony alone has enabled through software and hardware as well as blank media. You could apply this theory backwards into the Eighties when mix tapes were the rage. Who made the best blank tapes and tape recorders....Sony! Can you say Walkman? If you apply the same amounts that Jammie Thomas was slapped with...you get the picture. Bye Bye Sony.....

Read more about what these pinheads had to say...

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Students at Vermont Law School should join this fight...

A small university legal clinic in Maine 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.

Maine law students vs the RIAA

This a great idea that may well thwart the draconian tactics of the RIAA folks. It would be great to see similar programs take root in other states as well. Like Vermont, many states have a multitude of programs with young, eager, net-savy law students looking to get their feet wet in real world cases. A program like this would tap into the youthful energy of a generation of kids who have grown up on the web. I would venture a bet that more kids have participated in file sharing than have smoked marijuana. This generation views the web as theirs, and they will be loathe to let outsiders ruin the free wheeling nature of the net as we now know it.

Of course in the end, the reality is that this rush to claim this fight as theirs, will end in a resolution somewhat short of what they might envision. But hey...that's all part of growing up.....

Vermont town seeks Bush, Cheney arrests

"Vermont town seeks Bush, Cheney arrests"
By Dave Gram / Associated Press

MONTPELIER, Vt. - President Bush may soon have a new reason to avoid left-leaning Vermont: In one town, activists want him subject to arrest for war crimes.
A group in Brattleboro is petitioning to put an item on a town meeting agenda in March that would make Bush and Vice President Cheney subject to arrest and indictment if they visit the southeastern Vermont community."

http://www.michaelmoore.com/words/latestnews/index.php?id=10614


While I'm generally suspect of anything I read on Michael Moore's website, I had also heard this on the local news as well. Once I was able to contain my gleeful giggling, I found myself amused, yet a bit disturbed. Then I realized that I was more pissed off that Bush has never been here in 8 years than I was about the concept of this ballot initiative.

Ok, I get why he isn't chomping at the bit to visit us, but if I were Republican Governor Jim Douglas, I would be fairly well insulted by this. Is Bush afraid that Howard Dean will jump out of the bushes and give him a "shout"? Granted most people in Vermont don't care for Bush, but there are folks that support his administration. I'm just not sure where they are...

If they want to issue a warrant for their arrest in Brattleboro, I say go for it....I don't think they'll get too far!

Disabled woman wants seeing-eye horse

A Warren, VT woman is fighting to have her landlord accomodate her service animal which just happens to be a horse. Patty Cooper's service animal is a horse of a different color: a black and white miniature horse, to be exact. She thinks she should be allowed to have this animal under the laws regarding persons with disabilities....an interesting premise, but hardly practical.

Disabled woman wants service animal of a different color: Times Argus Online

Frequent N.H. Speeder Wants Limit Raised

DOVER, N.H. (AP) - A man with a penchant for speedy driving has come up with an unusual tactic for beating speeding tickets - raise the limit. So far this year, Larry Lemay has been ticketed four times for speeding.
Rather than slow down, Lemay is suing the state Department of Transportation to study traffic and speed limits across New Hampshire, to see whether limits could be raised.




My Way News - Frequent N.H. Speeder Wants Limit Raised