Friday, January 02, 2009

Has RIAA fired MediaSentry?

According to a tantalizing 'unconfirmed' report in p2pnet.net, it appears that the RIAA has jettisoned MediaSentry (now known as SafeNet) as its 'investigator'.

MediaSentry has, of course, come under heat in a number of different states for the fact that it was 'investigating' without an investigator's license and invading people's privacy.

Earlier this year it was found to have made diametrically conflicting written statements to 2 different tribunals within 30 days of each other, in 1 denying that it was an 'expert witness', in another claiming that it was an 'exert witness'.

If the report is accurate, the termination comes at an interesting time, since MediaSentry's investigator is the plaintiffs' only fact witness to prove copyright infringement in Capitol Records v. Thomas, which is now headed for a retrial on March 9th. If he does take the stand, the reasons for his company's termination will be fair game for cross examination.

One also has to wonder if it's in any way connected to the puzzling enigma of the New York Attorney General's alleged involvement in the RIAA's recent Wall Street Journal announcement that it would be reducing its p2p file sharing cases to a trickle."

Commentary & discussion:

p2pnet.net (Original source of story)
Slashdot
TechSpot
p2pnet.net





Keywords: lawyer 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 portable music player

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Is it true? This man could only wish.

{The Common Man Speaking}

Eric said...

This *is* the RIAA so let's all take this with a grain of salt. Even if they "fired" media sentry I bet tomorrow they will "hire" some other company that uses all the same equipment and employees. This is, at best, a way to shed some unpleasant questions about the way Media sentry/SafeNet did business ( of course ignoring the fact that the "new" company will be the same way ). Maybe it was part of their "agreement" with the AG's to stop using SafeNet, and legally they will. I hate to be so cynical, but the RIAA is nothing if not predictable.

If they truly have fired SafeNet then we should all be very afraid as it could mean they have secured through this ISP deal a more lucrative way to identify and extort people that are 'caught' file sharing.

raybeckerman said...

Their colossus... built on a foundation of lies and law breaking ... is crumbling.

Anonymous said...

Gabriel is gone and SafeNet is gone. Things that make you say hmmmmm..