In Atlantic v. Boggs, the RIAA has designated Dr. Doug Jacobson -- the same expert witness that is the subject of an in limine exclusion motion in UMG v. Lindor -- as its expert witness.
It is very unusual -- indeed it is probably a violation of the Court's rules -- to file such a document with the Court, which is what the RIAA did in this instance.
June 21, 2007, Expert Witness Designation by Plaintiffs*
* Document published online at Internet Law & Regulation
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9 comments:
Ray, You should point them to your deposition and the comments we posted following the deposition and they should possibly solicit more questions/topics to ask Jacobson when they depose him in that case (though why do I get the feeling the RIAA will file a silly motion saying that since Jacobson was deposed once in a different law suit, he doesn't need to be deposed again).
I feel like given the previous deposition and the follow up discussion, we can come with a few more questions that can expose Dr. Jacobson and the "evidence" he relies upon as bogus...
For example...in the Texas they should get a copy of a packet log (like you posted) change the text so the IP address on it is a random one and ask him if that now proves that the random IP is responsible for whatever is they are claiming the original IP is responsible for :).
I think the defendant's lawyer Charles Rogers is very familiar with the Jacobson deposition and in limine motion in UMG v. Lindor.
Dr. Jacobson should be asked how he can draw any meaningful conclusions at all from data he has received second-hand, from persons unknown to him, using collection methodologies unknown and unverified by him, and to which he has no way at all to verify the authenticity of.
And again I point out that if Media Sentry is using KaZaA in the same way as any other user might (which they have claimed in the past), that all the additional spy/ad-ware loaded by that application would make any data collected by such a computer highly questionable.
And if they've modified the application in an attempt to eliminate the pollution of their monitoring computers, then the program is not operating in the usual fashion, and may well return results no normal user would ever find.
Ray,
Why would this be a violation of court rules?
AMD FanBoi said...
Ray,
Why would this be a violation of court rules?
Rule 5 of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure specifically prohibits filing it. The rule prohibits filing of most kinds of "discovery" documents and specifically prohibits filing this kind of discovery document.
Has anyone asked for a copy of the hard disk at MediaSentry of one of their monitoring computers for an indepedent forensic analysis of their monitoring system?
Why would they file it if it's a violation of the rules? It's an interesting read, but to a non-lawyer it seems like a document that's helpful to the defense, not the RIAA.
It would make sense to hear that they were forced to file it, but not that they did so voluntarily. What am I missing?
Sorry, I think I went one level too deep. I was reading the depositions that this linked to, and couldn't figure out why documents showing that their expert witness was clueless about critical facts (how Media Sentry works, for starters) would be useful for the RIAA.
It should be noted, as in the Sony v. Crain counterclaim, that what MediaSentry does is illegal in the state of Texas as they are not licensed private investigators.
Texas AG Greg Abbott has already taken an interest in the music mafia, suing them under the state's 2005 anti-spyware law for the Sony rootkit fiasco (the one that made me quit buying RIAA music for good).
The RIAA might consider treading lightly in the Lone Star State.
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