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MediaSentry Defied Michigan Investigation For Months
Posted by
timothy
on Sat Aug 23, 2008 04:40 PM
from the pride-goeth-before-a-fall dept.
from the pride-goeth-before-a-fall dept.
NewYorkCountryLawyer writes "You may recall that MediaSentry, the RIAA's unlicensed investigator, has been the subject of an investigation by Michigan's Department of Labor and Economic Growth for its conduct of investigations without an investigator's license, an investigation in which it has made contradictory and false statements to the government's investigators. Well apparently this didn't deter MediaSentry from simply continuing its practice of conducting 'investigations' without a license. In Michigan, no less. We have learned from court papers (PDF) filed in Michigan that the practice continued for months after the DLEG had begun questioning the practice."
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Is RIAA's MediaSentry Illegal in Your State? 200 comments
NewYorkCountryLawyer writes "Is Warner Music, EMI, Vivendi Universal and Sony BMG 'investigator' MediaSentry operating illegally in your state?. The Massachusetts State police has already banned the company, and it's been accused of operating without a license in Oregon, Florida, Texas, and New York. Similar charges have now been leveled the organization in Michigan. Michigan's Department of Labor and Economic Growth, in response to a complaint, has confirmed that MediaSentry is not licensed in Michigan, and referred the complainant to the local prosecutor."
[+]
RIAA's SafeNet Caught In a Lie 242 comments
NewYorkCountryLawyer writes "For the past 2 years, the RIAA and its attack dog SafeNet (formerly known as MediaSentry) have been trying to avoid disclosure in UMG v. Lindor by telling the judge that MediaSentry is NOT an expert, that it does not use any technical expertise to get the 'evidence', and that it does only 'what any other Kazaa user does'. We have just discovered that in administrative proceedings in Michigan, attacking it for engaging in the business of investigation without a license, MediaSentry has taken the exact opposite position, comparing itself to chemical engineers, surveyors, physicians, geologists, and other expert witnesses who rely on their technical expertise. Today we went public with some of the contradictions. Now let's hope Michigan's Department of Labor and Economic Growth finds out about it."
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Makes sense (Score:5, Insightful)
Little things like questionable legality and ethics aside...
Re: (Score:2)
Little things like questionable legality and ethics aside...
There are companies which have continued "business as usual" whilst effectivly on trial. Anyway what's to stop the RIAA setting up another front company?
IANAL, so...? (Score:5, Interesting)
What's the penalty for this kind of thing, in terms of the company and individuals? I hope there's some personal liability in there somewhere.
Re:IANAL, so...? (Score:5, Interesting)
Oh well, we don't live in a country where citizens come first.
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Re:IANAL, so...? (Score:5, Interesting)
Much better would be for at least some of the judges with jurisdiction over some of the "settlements" extorted using MediaSentry's illegal investigations were to reopen the cases sua sponte, void the settlements on the basis of fraud and unclean hands, disallow all MediaSentry evidence, and invite the defendants to move for legal fees and malicious prosecution damages. Say, two or three thousand cases at perhaps $50,000 each, with the RIAA, its member publishers, MediaSentry, and the law firms jointly and severally liable.
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Much much better (Score:4, Insightful)
Would be to abolish copyright altogether and get rid of this and the whole basket of related problems in one fell stroke.
It's more likely than you might think.
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Re: (Score:3, Funny)
"Oh well, we don't live in a country where citizens come first."
Find a good live, online stock ticker and watch if people STOPPED acting like sheep and decided to boycott ANY company who has any kind of connection with mediasentry.
It would be an amusing 1 or 2 day watch (until share removed from listing because of minimum).
Re:IANAL, so...? (Score:5, Insightful)
I think it is more likely than one might think, but it won't help.
How many people do you think are actually on MediaSentry's payroll? How much actual cash do they need on hand to troll P2P sites and the like?
More to the point, how long do you think it will take after MediaDefender *ahem* I mean MediaSentry is completely dissolved before MediaProtector springs up?
The problem is that the **AA hired these folks to do a job and can't be held accountable if MediaWhatever broke the law unless they explicitly instructed them to do so.
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Re:IANAL, so...? (Score:5, Insightful)
they'll get away with it because they're fighting piracy and by extension something "for the children".
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Re:IANAL, so...? (Score:5, Insightful)
When you have an amoral guiding principle such as "maximize profit" as the primary goal of your corporation, then there is little to no difference between a "shield from liability" and a carte blanc for white collar crime. I think that is the line that divides good corporations from evil corporations; the primacy of profit. A good corp might have profit as second in it's list of priorities after something like "make the best product we can" or "provide a low cost service" but a soon as profit overrules all other aspects of the company they crossover to the Dark Side. While a protection from liablity is a societially good thing when a good corporation has it, it is a societally bad thing when a evil corp has it. MediaDefender/Sentry/Thug is a tool of the RIAA which is purely based on profit maximization.
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Re:IANAL, so...? (Score:4, Interesting)
The original idea was to shield people from financial liability so as to encourage people to invest money into a businesses. If the business failed an investor would only be liable for the amount they'd out in, unlike with sole ownership, partnership, etc, where an owner would be liable for all debts.
Somehow this has mutated into the idea of protecting executives and employees from the consequences of their actions, even breaking the law. Together with the idea of corporate entities being "people" without the necessary infrastructure to enforce criminal laws against them.
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Re:IANAL, so...? (Score:5, Informative)
What's the penalty for this kind of thing, in terms of the company and individuals? I hope there's some personal liability in there somewhere.
I believe the criminal penalties max out at $5,000 and two years. Multiply that by the number of incidents and it could be some money, but I doubt anyone will go to jail. The civil liabilities, however, might rack up some additional costs if all the people they testify against sue them and the RIAA for court fees and damages resulting from their illegal investigation.
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Re:IANAL, so...? (Score:4, Interesting)
How about $5000/2 years per employee, per day, per per person illegally investigated.
the more factors you can toss in for damages the better, like per infringment times per person shared with, times per person sharing, times punitive damages...
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Re:IANAL, so...? (Score:5, Insightful)
Far less then the lives they are trying to ruin with non existent evidence.
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Re:IANAL, so...? (Score:5, Interesting)
What's the penalty for this kind of thing, in terms of the company and individuals? I hope there's some personal liability in there somewhere.
I hope there's a penalty too, but going after MediaSentry itself is pointless. They're just a disposable face.
The court should take out its judicial fury on the corporations pulling MediaSentry's strings. I'm not talking about the RIAA either. Keep going even further back. Follow the money. Make the real people calling the shots accountable.
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Re: (Score:2)
I don't think there is anything left for Media Sentry to do as "online crime" even to American companies like Revision3. The proof is there too, in millions of machines (that leak).
It is way beyond law stuff, a real good political news investigator should document their ties with some powers. I don't think you can dare to DOS a legal file sharing and professional site if you don't trust to some powers.
Why should one need a license? (Score:2)
What is it with /., that you all side with the government on the very need for licenses for something like investigation?
We aren't even talking about standing in a rain (with a gun under the coat) next to a suspect's house, chatting up their neighbors, and bribing their butler kind of investigation — every time you perform a whois-query to figure out, which country is hosting the IP-address, that tried to hack into yo
What could happen? (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:What could happen? (Score:5, Informative)
Remember the private investigators who got hired by HP's Dunn to spy on board members to try and find who was leaking stuff to the press? The PIs who used social engineering/pretexting to illegally obtain cellphone records from the phone companies? Remember what happened to those PIs? Yup, nothing. That's what will happen here.
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Re:What could happen? (Score:5, Insightful)
The prosecutor can prosecute these cases as felonies, with a maximum penalty of a $5,000 fine and/or up to four years in prison.
Nothing too stiff compared to what you can get for pirating a movie... :/
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Re: (Score:2)
On the other hand, if by chance anyone from MediaSentry does actually go to jail (and I really doubt that will be the case), it would pretty much eliminate this practice, at least in Michigan. And that declaws a portion of the RIAA and MPAAs' operations.
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
They'll get a stiff sentence if they goto federal pound me in the ass jail alright. :D
All those criminals who got put there because they had to steal cars and stuff to support their music habit will want a peice of their ass.
Re:What could happen? (Score:5, Funny)
I'm interested in knowing what's the worst that could happen to the people behind Mediasentry...
Three words...
Voracious Rectal Mites
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Re: (Score:2)
They will not be fined, jailed or punished in anyway?
Why would a court piss it's employer off?
Re: (Score:2)
In current age of internet, DOS attack is a very, very serious crime. If you mess with companies making legal money from content, at least here, it doubles the crime penalty. Anything advertising supported/login required is more protected than the free content. I am telling since they messed with Revision3 which gets money from companies like Microsoft as advertisers.
Can't blame them really (Score:5, Interesting)
Re: (Score:2)
They haven't had any injunctions against them or any court orders to stop... so why would they quit?
Because that's not an excuse for breaking the law?
People don't say "I'll go dump toxic waste because there's no injunction or court order telling me not to."
Re:Can't blame them really (Score:4, Insightful)
What?? They sure do go dump Toxic Waste because there aren't specific injunctions and court orders not telling them to...
http://www.mentalfloss.com/blogs/archives/11165 [mentalfloss.com]
http://archive.newsmax.com/archives/ic/2006/5/27/93622.shtml?s=ic [newsmax.com]
http://www.terradaily.com/reports/Toxic_waste_dump_killing_children_in_Kenya_UN_report_999.html [terradaily.com]
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/07/06/MN2510MASF.DTL&type=printable [sfgate.com]
You think these companies waited until they were in trouble to start dumping their crap?
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Re:Can't blame them really (Score:5, Informative)
They haven't had any injunctions against them or any court orders to stop... so why would they quit? They may be a scummy company, but I can't really blame them for not stopping when they're just being investigated, but no one is forcing them to stop. However, my hope is that the investigation will make them have to pay fines for each infraction, and that any evidence found in every single case they help with will be thrown out.
They weren't exactly ordered to stop but they were gently reminded [blogspot.com] on February 22nd.
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Re: (Score:2)
Not only don't they have any reason to quit, they have two very good reasons to keep right on going with what they're doing. First, of course, the RIAA is still paying them to investigate and they don't want to lose that income. Second, they haven't been charged, yet, let alone convicted, so in the eyes of the Law, they're still considered innocent of any wrong-doing. Stopping now could easily be constr
Re: (Score:2)
Maybe someone should phone up the real mafia to leave a few horse heads in their beds... Or firebomb their offices... That might send them a message. Today MediaDefender, tomorrow the RIAA's offices.
As soon ... (Score:5, Interesting)
As soon as an investigation is instgated, any "evidence" submitted by the RIAA to the courts should immediately be recognized as non-admissible ...
Look at i this way ... would you trust the word of a homeless tramp, a drug dealer, a hippie, Jay OR Silent Bob ?
There are standards of conduct that the RIAA and it's investigators have broken time and time again ... and yet their "evidence" is STILL admissible in court ? WTF ?
Re:As soon ... (Score:5, Insightful)
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Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
Court isn't supposed to rely on trust or any other sort of bias. It's up to the Judge to establish that evidence is relevant and authentic. The character or track-record of the submittor is by necessity irrelevant. Though these can make it unlikely that the evidence will be relevant or authentic, the evidence has to be decided as such on provable grounds.
All a track-record of the RIAA being fuckups means is the court system should get good at figuring out what they should be asking about the authenticity of
Re: (Score:2)
First, I am not a judge or lawyer... but:
I'd think there are more grounds than what you mentioned for throwing out evidence - such as (in this and other RIAA cases) it was illegally obtained (being one additional one - and key to these issues if I am correct).
If I remember correctly, there are pretty specific rules to what laws can be broken while obtaining evidence - and those laws apply to legitimate law enforcement (police, FBI, etc) - not to MediaWhoever. I would think thus, that MediaSentry's evidenc
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
An investigation doesn't mean anything. Hypothetically, they could decide "MediaSentry did everything right" still. It's not likely and almost certainly won't be the case, but until they've issued findings the fact that you're being investigated means little. It definitely shouldn't invalidate their evidence; innocent until proven guilty and all that. I wouldn't have an issue with judges postponing all related cases until a decision is rendered though.
Re: (Score:2)
Look at i this way ... would you trust the word of a homeless tramp, a drug dealer, a hippie, Jay OR Silent Bob ?
I would trust the word of any of those people more than I'd trust the word of someone who fails to spellcheck their slashdot posts.
Same company (Score:5, Insightful)
This is the same company that admits to using illegal denial-of-service attacks. They have no regard for the law, and if they get busted, they'll close shop and reopen under another name.
Re:Same company (Score:4, Insightful)
Oh, they have regard for the law... (a) the ones they can buy, (b) the ones they can use to further their cause, and (c) the ones they can ignore because no one is stopping them.
As for (b) they have already made mention (and the MPAA has already won such suits) of trying to drag these things into criminal prosecution - and folks, though people here claim that is not possible, the laws already exist to allow it. The MPAA won one such case (already talked about someplace on slashdot not too long ago) and the video game industry recently won another:
http://www.afterdawn.com/news/archive/15143.cfm
If they start getting more wins in civil suits, I can guarantee you they will be going for a two pronged attack (civil and criminal) - at least that's my opinion from reading what they have said, what they have done and what the MPAA has done.
The key difference in the type of suit (if I understand it correctly - and IANAL, so I might not) is that for it to be criminal, the person must be doing it for the purpose of gaining some sort of compensation (such as money). (1) I am sure the **AA would love to see that expanded to these type cases, where compensation is not the reason it's done, and (2) I am sure they could always argue that the file sharer is indeed gaining compensation via downloading songs of certain value during or in conjunction with the commission of their distribution crime. Remember, compensation does not have to be monetary... and while this may be a stretch, the RIAA has made numerous other "stretches" that they have been allowed to carry on over the years.
Enderandrew is right - though the situation may become even more bleak as the RIAA become even more desperate.
Big question is, will they shoot themselves in the collective foot before they maneuver or legislate themselves into a protected haven? (wish I knew - wouldnt wanna bet either way)
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MediaSentry == SafeNet (Score:2)
Just so people are aware, MediaSentry is owned by a greater company, SafeNet. SafeNet controls their operations and is headquartered in Belcamp, MD (1/2 mile from me, as it turns out). When attacks are lodged against one company, you should always be aware of that company's right hand operations that could go ignored.
Re:MediaSentry == SafeNet (Score:5, Informative)
Just so people are aware, MediaSentry is owned by a greater company, SafeNet. SafeNet controls their operations and is headquartered in Belcamp, MD (1/2 mile from me, as it turns out).
Actually SafeNet is MediaSentry; MediaSentry just changed its name to SafeNet.
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Re:Why Lie? (Score:4, Informative)
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Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Re:MediaSentry == SafeNet (Score:4, Interesting)
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Death Penalty (Score:4, Funny)
Re:MediaDefender and MediaSentry (Score:4, Informative)
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Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:defied an investigation? (Score:5, Interesting)
Michigan *law* prohibited unlicensed investigations without the need for a court order to explicitly stop each occurrence, which should have been as much legal proscription as these bozos needed. Similarly, burglars generally aren't sent subpoenas or C&Ds in connection with breaking into people's houses.
What makes me feel good is that these additional instances of violating the law, after they were informed by the DLEG that they need a license, will weigh against them at their sentencing.
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Re:defied an investigation? (Score:4, Interesting)
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Re:Four more letters: RICO (Score:4, Interesting)
Or in establishing the case and penalties in a RICO countersuit... It seems to me that this lawlessness qualifies for RICO counteraction, against both MediaSentry and RIAA. (and could it be a class action??)
Very technical question. It's all quite new. American judicial history has never seen a litigation campaign like this one before, all based upon conduct which violates various states' licensing laws, some of which make violation a felony, some of which make violation a misdemeanor. Probably you should follow Andersen v. Atlantic [blogspot.com] and Atlantic v. Raleigh [blogspot.com] for some specific instances of RICO litigation, and UMG v. Del Cid [blogspot.com] and Atlantic v. Boyer [blogspot.com], on civil conspiracy to commit crime of unlicensed investigation, but nothing is definitive at this point. It will be years before we know the answer to your question.
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