Tuesday, February 05, 2008

EFF files amicus brief on behalf of Boston University students in Arista v. Does 1-21

The Electronic Frontier Foundation has submitted an amicus curiae brief on behalf of the Boston University students in Arista v. Does 1-21, attacking the RIAA's ex parte discovery application, both on evidentiary and legal grounds.

Amicus Curiae Brief in support of John Doe's motion to quash, submitted by Electronic Frontier Foundation*
(Alternate Link)

* Document published online at Internet Law & Regulation

Keywords: digital copyright law online internet 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 intellectual property






4 comments:

Anonymous said...

I'm not sure whether to like, or hate, the EFF at the moment. I like very much what they're doing here, yet feel they're completely on the wrong side of the issue of Michael Savage v. CAIR.

I also wonder if anonymous file-sharing constitutes protected protest and civil disobedience against the RIAA affiliated record companies' virtual monopoly over current recorded music, and their appalling treatment of many of their artists.

XK-E

Alter_Fritz said...

"This would only serve to encourage unscrupulous copyright owners (and Amicus has no reason to think this description applies to Plaintiffs here) to use pretextual copyright infringement claims to unmask anonymous critics, parodists, commentators[...]" (emphasis added)

of course they have no reason to think so!!1eleven!

After all, the copyrightowners here are "well-known and respected record companies". They aren't unscrupulous. Non the less this is a good point raised by EFF since every pervert could for example get information about some minors and personal information like place of living, parents names (from the ISP records of the account holder) and so on if he would claim that he is a copyrightowner and provides only an IP address he got from his server logs when said minor accessed for example a lovely cartoon picture this pervert send this kid as link in a chat conversation where the pervert has no means to get information about the child he approches for example otherwise then posing as a copyrightowner that has nothing more then an IP address..

Anonymous said...

I'm glad to see the amicus brief! It's good to see the EFF doing good work like this. But no mention of the improper joinder?

I guess it's hard for an amicus to make that case (how do they establish their interest in it?), but I still wish it would get mentioned more often :(

Jadeic said...

Thanks to the the reiteration of of clear, reasoned argument like this EFF amicus brief the message will eventually get through to the judiciary that, whether the RIAA like it or not, you can still only be prosecuted under the law as it is written and not as you would wish it to be written.