Friday, September 01, 2006

In SONY v. Arellanes, RIAA Opposes Appointment of Independent Expert; Insists on Having its own

In SONY v. Arellanes, the RIAA has opposed the defendant's suggestion that the inspection be by an independent expert, instead of the RIAA's hired expert:

RIAA Reply Memorandum*
Arellanes SurReply Memorandum*

Additional commentary and discussion:
Tech Dirt
Ars Technica
digg.com
bit-tech.net

* Document published online at Internet Law & Regulation

Keywords: digital copyright online download upload peer to peer p2p file sharing filesharing music movies indie label freeculture creative commons pop/rock artists riaa independent mp3 cd favorite songs

3 comments:

Alter_Fritz said...

(a) please check the first URL. it gives "You have requested a PDF which does not exist.
Check URL for errors!"

(b) if the Plaintiffs have the evidence already as they must have (?) claimed at the point of filing this suit (or is it possible to file a suit against someone without even the slightest evidence?) it could be totally easy for them to say "We know that defendant has infringed our copyright by doing xyz. So we want to have a neutral expert to see if there is any sign of xyz on the defendants HDD as a further proof to show that our evidence is valid and not bogus"

In my opinionThe ONLY reason -I can imagine with the knowledge i have after what I have read about the RIAAs spamigation campaign so far- for them to have their "expert" checking the HDD instead of a neutral expert, that got a list from them with what to search for, is;
They have NO real evidence what so ever, therefore they can NOT produce a list of things a Neutral(!) expert should search for.

Of course I don't want to accuse the RIAA, their Lawyers and their experts that they would try to manipulate physical evidence in favour of their spamigation campaign! (according to court documents so far the RIAA-Lawyer Mr. Krichbaum is only accused to try that with "human evidence")

But if I would be the judge in this case I would have my doubts about the RIAA behaviour and would only allow a neutral expert to gather the evidence the RIAA explicitely specifies first.
At least they must know beforehand what to search for!
Or why should they have filed the suit in the firstplace if they do not know any instances of copyrightinfringement?

raybeckerman said...

Thanks, alter_fritz. I've corrected it. Sorry about that.

eclectica said...

It seems that any order compelling a defendant to produce a hard drive would violate the 4th Amendment and I am surprised they would allow it for a civil case.