Recording Industry vs The People: Michigan agency drops MediaSentry investigation because no evidence MediaSentry had been "paid for such services"

Thursday, July 16, 2009

Michigan agency drops MediaSentry investigation because no evidence MediaSentry had been "paid for such services"

Michigan's Department of Labor and Economic Growth has dropped its investigation of MediaSentry due to the absence of evidence that MediaSentry had been paid for its services, in Kruger v. MediaSentry.

The agency's letter read:

While it appears that the activity alleged in the complaint whereby Media Sentry's action to detect and locate internet users who may be downloading music requires a license under the Private Investigators Licensure Act. there is insufficient evidence collected in the investigation that proves that Media Sentry was paid for such services

June 12, 2009, letter closing investigation because of absence of evidence MediaSentry had been paid for its services

[Ed. note. ????? This is one of the fishiest things I have ever seen. Shame on whatever DLEG official is responsible for this. -R.B.]

Commentary & discussion:

p2pnet.net
p2pnet.net (7/17)

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

10 comments:

Anonymous said...: What rhymes with John Conyers?; July 16, 2009 at 5:51:00 PM EDT
Marc W. Bourgeois said...: Can trial testimony of recording company officials or MediaSentry officials be used to determine the issue of payment? I don't know if it was explicitly stated, but it certainly was inferred (as if anyone had any doubt MediaSentry was being paid for these services).; July 16, 2009 at 6:17:00 PM EDT
Albert said...: Guess if I ever need any Private Detective services, I should hope I need them in Michigan, where it looks like based on their board I can get them for free. I guess Private Detectives must not seek money there, otherwise how else could they reach that position. I know in my state you better have cash in hand or no detective for you, and I would think that is something they could take judicial notice of.

I have heard of pro-bono Lawyers, but this is the first I have heard of a pro-bono detective.

I wonder why they did not subpoena them and ask them if they got any money.

Albert; July 16, 2009 at 6:37:00 PM EDT
Anonymous said...: No evidence was found that Media Sentry was paid for their services, but I bet we could find SOMEONE in the DLEG who was paid for theirs...; July 16, 2009 at 7:10:00 PM EDT
Jadeic said...: Can someone over in Michigan lend the Department of Energy, Labour and Economic Growth a long stick with which to lift the stones under which they will find the RIAA lurking with all the evidence they need of MediaSenty’s payment for its ’services’. Can they really believe that they did it pro bono!

Dave; July 16, 2009 at 7:16:00 PM EDT
Anonymous said...: There's no smokescreen -- just plain and obvious nonsense. One could find solace in that, since nobody will be convinced of anything by this.

But you know, I've never heard it claimed that for-profit companies deliver their services for free. First time! So it's a surprising sort of nonsense here.

XYZZY; July 17, 2009 at 9:09:00 AM EDT
derivative said...: XYZZY:

Google delivers many of its services for free.

Maybe MediaSentry does it the same way -- they make their money off the ads viewed by the RIAA goons when they are using MediaSentry's site to do their dirty work :)

On a more serious note, if I were in Michigan, I would be screaming to high heaven about this.

On the other hand, I probably would never live in Michigan because of some of their other legal attitudes. A few years back, when a couple of teachers were trying to not pay union dues because they didn't believe in collective bargaining, the Michigan supreme court basically ruled that they could opt out of all the union activites except collective bargaining. In a stunning twist on a revolutionary rallying cry, the esteemed Michigan jurists reasoned that "representation without taxation" was unfair.; July 17, 2009 at 10:17:00 AM EDT
Anonymous said...: I am from the metro detroit area and with the way things have been going around here it does not surprise me at all. After seeing the number of people getting the boot for this type of behavior i tend to think that all of our politicians are corrupted in some manner down to the local level(i always use to suspect it but now we all have lots of proof). If someone figures out what elected official made this BS happen please let me know so that i may make sure everyone i come into contact with will understand how corrupt that individual is. If these people are allowed to continue to make the laws then we may never be able to fully rid ourselves of this type of gross injustice.

Steve; July 17, 2009 at 11:03:00 AM EDT
raybeckerman said...: I've rejected several comments because they contained accusations of "corruption".

While I have no reason to doubt that that was the case, I for legal reasons am reluctant to see that accusation made without some substantiation.; July 17, 2009 at 11:30:00 AM EDT
raybeckerman said...: Yet another comment rejected because it speculated as to corruption.

I must admit it certainly is very very fishy.; July 17, 2009 at 2:29:00 PM EDT

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JUDICIAL QUOTATIONS

"[T]he Court is concerned about the lack of facts establishing that Defendant was using that IP address at that particular time. Indeed, the [complaint] does not explain what link, if any, there is between Defendant and the IP address. It is possible that Plaintiff sued Defendant because he is the subscriber to IP address .... As recognized by many courts, just because an IP address is registered to an individual does not mean that he or she is guilty of infringement when that IP address is used to commit infringing activity." -Hon. Barry Ted Moskowitz, Chief Judge, S.D. California. January 29, 2013, AF Holdings v. Rogers
"The complaints assert that the defendants – identified only by IP address – were the individuals who downloaded the subject “work” and participated in the BitTorrent swarm. However, the assumption that the person who pays for Internet access at a given location is the same individual who allegedly downloaded a single sexually explicit film is tenuous, and one that has grown more so over time." - Hon. Gary R. Brown, Magistrate Judge, E.D.N.Y. May 1, 2012, K-Beech v. Does 1-37
"The concern of this Court is that in these lawsuits, potentially meritorious legal and factual defenses are not being litigated, and instead, the federal judiciary is being used as a hammer by a small group of plaintiffs to pound settlements out of unrepresented defendants."
-Hon. S. James Otero, Dist. Judge, Central Dist. California, March 2, 2007, Elektra v. O'Brien, 2007 ILRWeb (P&F) 1555
"The University has adequately demonstrated that it is not able to identify the alleged infringers with a reasonable degree of technical certainty...[C]ompliance with the subpoena as to the IP addresses represented by these Defendants would expose innocent parties to intrusive discovery....[T]he Court declines to authorize discovery and quashes the subpoena as to Does # 8, 9, and 14" -Hon. Nancy Gertner, Dist. Judge, Dist. Massachusetts, November 24, 2008, London-Sire Records v. Does 1-4
"[C]ounsel representing the record companies have an ethical obligation to fully understand that they are fighting people without lawyers... that the formalities of this are basically bankrupting people, and it's terribly critical that you stop it...." -Hon. Nancy Gertner, Dist. Judge, Dist. Massachusetts, June 17, 2008, London-Sire v. Does 1-4
"Rule 11(b)(3) requires that a representation in a pleading have evidentiary support and one wonders if the Plaintiffs are intentionally flouting that requirement in order to make their discovery efforts more convenient or to avoid paying the proper filing fees. In my view, the Court would be well within its power to direct the Plaintiffs to show cause why they have not violated Rule 11(b) with their allegations respecting joinder. [I]t is difficult to ignore the kind of gamesmanship that is going on here.....These plaintiffs have devised a clever scheme... to obtain court-authorized discovery prior to the service of complaints, but it troubles me that they do so with impunity and at the expense of the requirements of Rule 11(b)(3) because they have no good faith evidentiary basis to believe the cases should be joined." -Hon. Margaret J. Kravchuk, Magistrate Judge, District of Maine, January 25, 2008, Arista v. Does 1-27, 2008 WL 222283, modified Oct. 29, 2008
"[N]either the parties' submissions nor the Court's own research has revealed any case holding the mere owner of an internet account contributorily or vicariously liable for the infringing activities of third persons.....In addition to the weakness of the secondary copyright infringement claims against Ms. Foster, there is a question of the plaintiffs' motivations in pursuing them..... [T]here is an appearance that the plaintiffs initiated the secondary infringement claims to press Ms. Foster into settlement after they had ceased to believe she was a direct or "primary" infringer." -Hon. Lee R. West, District Judge, Western District of Oklahoma, February 6, 2007, Capitol v. Foster, 2007 WL 1028532
"[A]n overwhelming majority of cases brought by recording companies against individuals are resolved without so much as an appearance by the defendant, usually through default judgment or stipulated dismissal.....The Defendant Does cannot question the propriety of joinder if they do not set foot in the courthouse." -Hon. S. James Otero, Central District of California, August 29, 2007, SONY BMG v. Does 1-5, 2007 ILRWeb (P&F) 2535
"Plaintiffs are ordered to file any future cases of this nature against one defendant at a time, and may not join defendants for their convenience."
-Hon. Sam Sparks and Hon. Lee Yeakel, District Judges, Western District of Texas, November 17, 2004, Fonovisa v. Does 1-41, 2004 ILRWeb (P&F) 3053
"The Court is unaware of any other authority that authorizes the ex parte subpoena requested by plaintiffs."
-Hon. Walter D. Kelley, Jr., District Judge, Eastern District of Virginia, July 12, 2007, Interscope v. Does 1-7, 494 F. Supp. 2d 388, vacated on reconsideration 6/20/08
"Plaintiffs contend that unless the Court allows ex parte immediate discovery, they will be irreparably harmed. While the Court does not dispute that infringement of a copyright results in harm, it requires a Coleridgian "suspension of disbelief" to accept that the harm is irreparable, especially when monetary damages can cure any alleged violation. On the other hand, the harm related to disclosure of confidential information in a student or faculty member's Internet files can be equally harmful.....Moreover, ex parte proceedings should be the exception, not the rule."
-Hon. Lorenzo F. Garcia, Magistrate Judge, District of New Mexico, May 24, 2007, Capitol v. Does 1-16, 2007 WL 1893603
"'Statutory damages must still bear some relation to actual damages." Hon. Michael J. Davis, Dist. Judge, U.S.District Court, Dist. Minnesota, January 22, 2010, Capitol Records v. Thomas-Rasset
"[T]his court finds that defendants' use of the same ISP and P2P networks to allegedly commit copyright infringement is, without more, insufficient for permissive joinder under Rule 20. This court will sever not only the moving defendants from this action, but all other Doe defendants except Doe 2."
-Hon. W. Earl Britt, District Judge, Eastern District of North Carolina, February 27, 2008, LaFace v. Does 1-38, 2008 WL 544992
"[L]arge awards of statutory damages can raise due process concerns. Extending the reasoning of Gore and its progeny, a number of courts have recognized that an award of statutory damages may violate due process if the amount of the award is "out of all reasonable proportion" to the actual harm caused by a defendant's conduct.[T]hese cases are doubtlessly correct to note that a punitive and grossly excessive statutory damages award violates the Due Process Clause....."Hon. Marilyn Hall Patel, Dist. Judge, N.D. California, June 1, 2005, In re Napster, 2005 US DIST Lexis 11498, 2005 WL 1287611
"[P]laintiffs can cite to no case foreclosing the applicability of the due process clause to the aggregation of minimum statutory damages proscribed under the Copyright Act. On the other hand, Lindor cites to case law and to law review articles suggesting that, in a proper case, a court may extend its current due process jurisprudence prohibiting grossly excessive punitive jury awards to prohibit the award of statutory damages mandated under the Copyright Act if they are grossly in excess of the actual damages suffered....."-Hon. David G. Trager, Senior District Judge, Eastern Dist. New York, November 9, 2006, UMG v. Lindor, 2006 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 83486, 2006 WL 3335048
"'[S]tatutory damages should bear some relation to actual damages suffered'....(citations omitted) and 'cannot be divorced entirely from economic reality'". -Hon. Shira A. Scheindlin, Dist. Judge, Southern Dist. New York, August 19, 2008, Yurman v. Castaneda
"The Court would be remiss if it did not take this opportunity to implore Congress to amend the Copyright Act to address liability and damages in peer to peer network cases.... The defendant is an individual, a consumer. She is not a business. She sought no profit from her acts..... [T]he damages awarded in this case are wholly disproportionate to the damages suffered by Plaintiffs." -Hon. Michael J. Davis, District Judge, Dist. Minnesota, September 24, 2008, Capitol v. Thomas
"If there is an asymmetry in copyright, it is one that actually favors defendants. The successful assertion of a copyright confirms the plaintiff's possession of an exclusive, and sometimes very valuable, right, and thus gives it an incentive to spend heavily on litigation. In contrast, a successful defense against a copyright claim, when it throws the copyrighted work into the public domain, benefits all users of the public domain, not just the defendant; he obtains no exclusive right and so his incentive to spend on defense is reduced and he may be forced into an unfavorable settlement." US Court of Appeals, 7th Cir., July 9, 2008, Eagle Services Corp. v. H20 Industrial Services, Inc., 532 F.3d 620
"Customers who download music and movies for free would not necessarily spend money to acquire the same product.....RIAA’s request problematically assumes that every illegal download resulted in a lost sale."
-Hon. James P. Jones, Dist. Judge, Western Dist. Virginia, November 7, 2008, USA v. Dove