“Oregon is fast becoming Ground Zero in the contentious battle between the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) and the tens of thousands of consumers it accuses of illegal music sharing,” Jaikumar Vijayan reports for Computerworld.
“The state Attorney General’s office this week filed an appeal in U.S. District Court in Oregon calling for an immediate investigation of the evidence presented by the RIAA when it subpoenaed the identities of 17 students at the University of Oregon who allegedly infringed music copyrights. It is the second time in a month that Oregon Attorney General Hardy Myers has resisted attempts by the RIAA to force the university to turn over the names of individuals it says shared music illegally,” Vijayan reports.
“‘It is a really huge step when the head law enforcement officer of a state wants to investigate the RIAA’s evidence-gathering techniques,’ said Ray Beckerman, a New York-based lawyer who has been defending individuals in RIAA lawsuits,” Vijayan reports.
“In a 15-page brief filed Wednesday, Oregon’s assistant attorney general, Katherine Von Ter Stegge, said that while it is appropriate for victims of copyright infringement to pursue statutory remedies, that pursuit had to “tempered by basic notions of privacy and due process,” Vijayan reports. “‘The record in this case suggests that the larger issue may not be whether students are sharing copyrighted music,’ the state’s brief noted. Rather it is about whether the litigation strategies adopted by the RIAA are appropriate or capable of supporting their claims.”
“The brief also questioned whether the RIAA’s investigators themselves might have illegally accessed and uploaded private confidential information not related to copyright infringement, that might have been stored on the computers of people being investigated,” Vijayan reports.
Full article here.
Wow, I certainly hope that the Oregon AG can nail the RIAA for this…
MaWo ‘place’: As in, ‘The RIAA needs to be put in theirs…’
“The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.”
– United States Bill of Rights, Fourth Amendment.
Protection from unreasonable search and seizure.
You mean these guys may have been using homeland security tactics before the government and even that ain’t considered strait legal.
can’t wait to roast marshmallows on it’s burning corpse.
This RIAA tactic of suing file sharers only strengthens their determination and brings others to their cause, it’s no longer a effective deterrent. People can exchange entire genres of encrypted music on DVD’s, hard drives or even via file sharing web sites or emails in matter of seconds.
It’s usually only the poor that can’t pay, anyone who has a little money will usually do the right thing and buy their music.
I understand they need to educate the young that sharing music doesn’t help the economic system, that artists need to eat too. But there has to be a better way to go about it.
Every time a news article comes out like this, it’s free advertising for the new potential illegal file sharer. The RIAA only catches a few, but millions of mice get away with it. So why bother advertising?
“The RIAA only catches a few, but millions of mice get away with it.”
Nice analogy. Here’s a visual take:
ROVE!!!
“can’t wait to roast marshmallows on it’s burning corpse.”
You must have gotten a pre-release copy of Steve Ballmer’s memoirs. That’s a line in the Weekend Camping with the Family chapter. You’ll want to skip the part about he “craps the campfire out”.
If you own a computer and/or an iPod you can hardly claim to be “poor”. If you own such devices then you ought to be willing to pay for you entertainment, if payment is requested, or agree with your parents about what they are/aren’t willing to pay for.
Those are the ethics, like it or lump it.
Then there’s the other side of the coin … the RIAA. They are not subject to the limitations of the Fourth Amendment regarding limits on their ability to “search and seize”. Their limits are set in laws that derive from the 4th but are not actually dependent on it. Trespass, theft, these are both private and public matters. If the RIAA wants to use information it obtains in a “search” in court, it needs to obtain a warrant to get it … and obtaining that warrant requires the use of legally obtained information.
It SO looks like Oregon is clamping down – for good reasons or bad – on the information used to support the requested warrants. Good for them. Stealing music is, in my mind, both illegal and BAD, but the tactics used to capture the criminals is every bit as wrong and should be stopped.
My opinion.
Dave
GO OREGON!!!
The RIAA uses spy programs disguised as MP3’s that are downloaded inadvertently from P2P sites.
These spy programs are really Trojans that install spyware that reports the computer users ID back to the masters at the RIAA.
They send teenage hackers directly from their mothers’ basements to jail for doing the same thing. Why is the RIAA immune?
A Court challenge on the RIAA’s right to infect computers with malware and steal personal information is long overdue.
Everyone knows Russia holds the patent on malware infections. This is clearly a breech of that patent.
Fry the f’ing RIAA!
Go to their website and try to find an email link. They took it down several years ago once all this crap began. They obviously don’t want to hear feedback from the public and just want to continue their witch hunt.
@Ampar: Don’t you remember, his Imperial Highness, King Bush, did away with the 4th amendment with Presidential Signing Statement #27.
Wow, between Oregon fighting for some sensible application of the law, to the beginnings of DRM-free digital downloads, to EMI stating publicly that it’s rethinking its support of the RIAA, and even some semi-rational statements from Middlebronfman of late, my head is a-tizzy with the notion that some form of mental sanity may be starting to afflict the music business.
Of course, just when I start to think this, I read the latest yammerings from Jermaine Dupri and reconsider.
It’s really good to see someone stand up to the incredibly noxious bullying tactics that the RIAA has employed in its war against piracy. While I’m no fan of the “take whatever you want, it’s free” mentality, I have long complained that the RIAA’s notion of due process is somewhere near Gitmo.
Denounce the RIAA’s gestapo tactics! Download free music now!
The Most Anti-Tech Organizations in America
Guess who is on the list:
http://www.pcworld.com/article/id,140081-page,1/article.html
To External Observer:
“All of us in America want there to be fairness when it comes to justice.” –George W. Bush, Washington, D.C., Sept. 20, 2007
RIAA’s initials stand for:-….Them Fat Greeedy Bastards!!!!!!
Strangely, I haven’t heard of anyone suing Homeland Security over uploading trojans to their hard drive. Maybe you need to stop reading PrisonPlanet and get over your adolescent hatred. The RIAA’s tactics do look familiar. They remind me very much of the intimidation tactics used by Hillary in handling “bimbo eruptions” and the surprising number of people who ended up dead around her.
Unlike that guy over on Pennsylvania Avenue who talks freedom but doesn’t actually believe the rights of US citizens should be protected, I am proud of my state’s Attorney General for kicking a little sand in the RIAA bully’s face.
Proud Oregonian here. Keep up the good work!!
@ BustingTheSkullsOfIdiots
And shall we compare the dead around Hillary to the number of coffins about the feet of Bush/Cheney/Rumsfeld/Blackwater ?
“Laura, would you wipe my poopy butt?” – George W. Bush, White House crapper, Sept. 21, 2007
Some people on this site need to grow up, or at least act that way in their public statements.
@LorD1776
Yup… Sure do… You will recall Hillary voted in favor of the war… Minor detail….
Additionally, the death toll during the conflicts in Iraq & Afghanstan are actually LOWER than during peacetime in the 1980’s and only slightly higher than during your beloved Clinton Presidency…..
But liberals tend to argue emotion & avoid facts at all costs…. DUH!
Military Deaths Lower Now Than in 1980s
By Fred Lucas
CNSNews.com Staff Writer
November 12, 2007
(CNSNews.com) – American soldiers died in higher numbers during some of the peace-time years in the 1980s than in recent years when the military has fought conflicts in both Iraq and Afghanistan, according to a government report on casualty rates.
Further, the number of annual U.S. military deaths for the last three years is just slightly above the average annual death toll in the 1990s.
At the same time, the war in Iraq has the lowest death-per-wound ratio of any war going back to World War I, according to the report from the Congressional Research Service (CRS), which studied military deaths in a historical context.