Monday, December 10, 2007

A Reminder to Contribute to the Expert Witness Defense Fund

A holiday reminder to all, to contribute to the Expert Witness Defense Fund. In doing so you will be helping the victims of the RIAA onslaught, and will be helping them to explain to the Courts and to jurors the important technical issues on which the RIAA has been trying to sow confusion.





The fund was established by the generosity of the Free Software Foundation which announced last month that it had established the Expert Witness Defense Fund to assist defendants in RIAA cases, in order "to help provide computer expert witnesses to combat RIAA's ongoing lawsuits, and to defend against the RIAA's attempt to redefine copyright law."

Contributions to the Fund are tax deductible and may be made at the following URL:

https://www.fsf.org/associate/riaa.

1. The sole use of the funds is to pay fees and/or expenses of technical expert witnesses, forensic examiners, and other technical consultants assisting individuals named as defendants in non-commercial, peer-to-peer file sharing cases brought by the RIAA, EMI, SONY BMG, Vivendi Universal, and Warner Bros. Records, and their affiliated companies, such as Interscope, Arista, UMG, Fonovisa, Motown, Atlantic, Priority, and others.

2. The Fund is advised by Ray Beckerman, the author of Recording Industry vs. The People, along with a group of selected attorneys acting as advisors. These attorneys will submit payment requests to the Fund, based upon their views as to which cases are most deserving of assistance, and in what at amounts, and at what time.

3. Among the criteria to be considered in making recommendations to the Fund will be the following:

A. The importance of the case to critical legal issues.
B. The demonstrated commitment of the defendant, and/or of the defendant's attorney if the defendant has an attorney, to seeing his or her case through to conclusion, and to fighting for important legal issues.
C. The facts and circumstances of the particular case.
D. The level of investment made by the defendant, and/or by the defendant's attorney if the defendant has an attorney, in time, money, and labor, in defending the case.
E. The legal posture of the case.
F. The need for assistance.
G. The need for technical expertise in the case.
H. The quality and commitment of technical expertise which may have been contributed to the case.
I. The competing needs of other cases.
J. And other similar factors.
4. Defendants, or attorneys representing defendants, who request funding for experts or technical consultants, should send requests by email to Ray Beckerman; the subject field of the email should read "Technical Expert Funding Request".

Again, the link for donations is https://www.fsf.org/associate/riaa








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






No comments: