Friday, November 09, 2007

RIAA Files Opposition to Marie Lindor's son's reconsideration motion

In UMG v. Lindor, the RIAA filed papers opposing Ms. Lindor's son's motion for reconsideration of the order denying his motion for attorneys fees.

RIAA Memorandum of Law in Opposition to Motion for Reconsideration*

* Document published online at Internet Law & Regulation

Keywords: digital copyright online law legal download upload peer to peer p2p file sharing filesharing music movies indie independent label freeculture creative commons pop/rock artists riaa independent mp3 cd favorite songs






1 comment:

Anonymous said...

As a rule, hard drives themselves aren't connected directly to the Internet, although the RIAA paper here seems to imply that. In addition, hard drives are easily cloned (exact copies made), meaning that there might well be many such drives, highly confusing the issue. The RIAA knows this since they demand exact drive images for forensic examination.

I fail completely to see what can possibly be "unjust" about the facts that the RIAA is harassing non-parties in their fishing expeditions, and when those non-parties fight back at significant expense against the invasion of privacy into their own lives, they are not allowed to be compensated. This failure to compensate allows the RIAA, to whom money is not an issue, to harass in the financial sense virtually ANYBODY they choose without restraint or punishment. That does not meet my own personal standard of justice.

Interestingly, in the Oregon University case it was pointed out that the Rules of Procedure do not allow the forcing of non-parties to perform costly or burdensome investigations on the Plaintiff's behalf. Turning over all your mass storage devices, then facing the possibility of then being further accused of having NOT turned over ALL your mass storage devices, or of TAMPERING when the Plaintiffs don't find what they're so sure has to be there, is a major burden. And there's always the possibility of damage and data loss in such an operation, no matter how carefully it's performed, which can not be fully compensated.

In addition, to require somebody to turn over all hard drives, and even all MP3 players, is a guaranteed invasion of privacy because once data is let out of the bottle, it is forever available for leaks, misuse, and other mischief. Nobody in their right mind should EVER let someone else roam at will over their hard drive – especially these Plaintiffs! We've seen before how they have sought to tar a Defendant by revealing information (picture files) on a hard drive that had nothing at all to do with music or their copyrights.

I would love to hear how some Magistrate Judges other than MJ Levy would rule on this issue.