Wednesday, April 09, 2008

Massachusetts cease and desist order brought to attention of Court in UMG v. Lindor

In UMG v. Lindor, defendant has submitted a copy of the Massachusetts cease and desist order to the Court, in support of her motion to compel subpoena response by MediaSentry.

April 9, 2008, Letter of Ray Beckerman to Hon. Robert M. Levy (re MediaSentry cease and desist order)*
Exhibit A, January 2, 2008, cease and desist order issued by Massachusetts State Police*

* Document published online at Internet Law & Regulation



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4 comments:

Howard Knopf said...

Ray:

If the opportunity presents itself, and if it hasn’t been done, and if it would be cost effective, somebody might consider cross-examining (as we say in Canada) - you call it a “deposing” - MediaSentry on its investigation methods. We did this with great success in Canada, where it transpired that MediaSentry was using spoofing (i.e. bogus or decoy files), admitted that nobody actually listened to the files that were allegedly downloaded (which could have been spoofs) and was unwilling or unable to provide evidence as to how they got the IP addresses in the first place.

Here’s the cross examination of Gary Millin from Media Sentry:

http://www.cippic.ca/documents/file-sharing-lawsuits/millin_cross.txt

Here’s the Federal Court judgment:

http://www.canlii.org/en/ca/fct/doc/2004/2004fc488/2004fc488.html

See pars. 19, 20.

Keep up the good work!

Howard

raybeckerman said...

There's no "if the opportunity presents itself" about it.

In EVERY case that proceeds to the discovery phase the defendant's lawyer should do a thorough deposition of MediaSentry, as I plan to do in UMG v. Lindor once we get the documents and data we have subpoenaed.

Anonymous said...

"In EVERY case that proceeds to the discovery phase the defendant's lawyer should do a thorough deposition of MediaSentry, as I plan to do in UMG v. Lindor once we get the documents and data we have subpoenaed."

Well, and if MS ever admits that any actual people are involved in the process. Although they've admitting to using thousands of man hours to develop there secret "any body can do this on the internet" techniques, they do seem to go to great efforts to make it seem like the accusations are automatically spit out by the "Accusitron9000"--a process with multiple safeguards, and, no, you aren't allowed to know what those are. But, trust us, really.

I do like the RIAA's eat your cake and have it too attitude.

Atty for defense, "We'd like to make sure your MS expert witness is qualified and depo him"

RIAA, "Expert Witness? No, no, no. They're just a "fact witness" for our investigor."

Atty for defense, "Hmm...well, if you say you aren't an expert witness then the expert witness exemption to the PI license law doesn't apply. Show me your PI license, then."

RIAA, "License? We don't need no stinking License! Following the law would be an undue burden on our extortionate litigation factory! Imagine if we had to follow the law in all 50 states???"

Atty for defense, "Yes, let's..."

(Unfortunately, that last bit does seem to actually be part of the RIAA's position in their sureply re: MS not having a PI license.)

Reluctant Raconteur said...

MS position re: processes and procedures sounds very similar to the position the eVoting companies have about examination of their products.

Which has proven to be the proper position because as soon as a competent person reviews the machines they find they are full of crap.