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"Probable Cause" Hearing Against MediaSentry
Posted by
Soulskill
on Sat Jul 12, 2008 07:18 AM
from the made-your-bed dept.
from the made-your-bed dept.
NewYorkCountryLawyer writes "RIAA sidekick MediaSentry's 'illegal investigation' problem, which surfaced the other day when it got caught in a lie in Michigan (or got caught telling the truth after having told 2 years worth of lies in Brooklyn), has taken another turn for the worse. We learned today from court papers filed in North Carolina, in one of the cases targeting NC State students in Raleigh, that the North Carolina Private Protective Services Board has scheduled a Grievance Committee hearing to determine whether there is probable cause to investigate an alleged violation of the law by SafeNet (formerly known as MediaSentry). Fortunately for MediaSentry, they won't have to testify under oath, according to the notice (PDF)."
Related Stories
[+]
Your Rights Online: NC Judge Takes "A Fresh Look" At RIAA Subpoenas 86 comments
NewYorkCountryLawyer writes "When some North Carolina State students recently brought to the attention of the Court the apparent illegality of the RIAA's investigations by unlicensed investigators, they also caught the attention of the judges. After reading these new papers, District Judge Louise W. Flanagan, who admits that she's been routinely signing the RIAA's ex parte discovery orders in the past, has indicated that she is now going to take 'a fresh look' at the RIAA's tactics. She issued a stay of the subpoena, ordering NC State not to respond to it, and referred the motions to dismiss the cases to a Magistrate Judge for him to take that 'fresh look' at what has been going on."
[+]
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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Lincoln must be spinning.... (Score:2, Insightful)
"...government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth."
I guess it's perishing. It's now becoming:
"government of the corporation, by the corporation, for the corporation"
Corporation: "they", not "it" (Score:5, Insightful)
Legally speaking, corporations are considered to be individual entities. But this causes all sorts of problems with understanding what's really happening under the cover of darkness under which corporate management operates too frequently.
Every corporation is run by a group of ordinary people, making decisions for themselves, the stockholders and (on occasion) their employees and customers.
It is this impedance mismatch between the legal interpretation and reality that causes such difficulty: The people whose decisions determine the corporation's behavior in society are insulated from responsibility by the "corporate veil". This insulation of personal responsibility from corporate authority is the cause of great difficulty.
Someday, I hope our use of language will be altered to reflect reality. A corporation is run by a group of people which is best understood conceptually as they, not a singular entity which is incorrectly referred to as an it. And it stands to reason that they need to be held to account for their decisions.
Parent
Re: (Score:2)
The government is the people. If the people let it happen then they want it to happen and deserver to be raped without fancy lubricants.
Re: (Score:2, Informative)
Corporations are legal entities too!
There, fixed that for you.
--The FNP
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
People are legal entities too !
Therefore , corporations are people , or at least run by people ( the term people here defines the actual being , and does not refer to the set of morals required to be considered a human being)
Re:Lincoln must be spinning.... (Score:4, Funny)
Parent
Money Machine (Score:4, Interesting)
It appears that, finally, the tables are turning against the RIAA and their counsel. Now, if the counsel are disciplined I'll believe that the system might just work.
Re:Money Machine (Score:5, Insightful)
Yes, but we still need a (fair) way of helping media creators to make a living from their work.
I'm not saying all downloaders should be criminalised, that's a batshit insane approach.
I'm thinking a parking ticket type system, so if you get caught, you pay a small fine, and move on without your life being poured down the crapper.
A parking ticket type system would acknowledge that not everyone plays nice, but there is a possible consequence if you choose to grab something of TPB rather than buy it. I'd say a ten, or even 100 buck fine every time your caught (not per file or anything like that) would be suitable. It would be enough to discourage some people, and if you did get caught? Pay up and move along, no big deal.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Yes, but we still need a (fair) way of helping media creators to make a living from their work.
The media companies make most of the profits from anything created these days. Maybe we should start by cutting out the unnecessary middlemen (like the RIAA) and get the media companies to reward their artists & creators accordingly.
Re:Money Machine (Score:4, Insightful)
Yes, but we still need a (fair) way of helping media creators to make a living from their work.
Such as concerts? Today the RIAA basically gets most of the profits from CDs/iTunes downloads for any signed band. Now when you buy those burnt CDs from a local indie band, most, if not all of it goes to the band, but as for signed bands, they make money from concerts. If we take out the RIAA, we have a nice stream of income from CDs and because it is the bands and not some media overlord, downloading will be tolerated, if not legal.
Parent
Re:Money Machine (Score:5, Interesting)
this poster has it right.
think back to a few hundred years ago. the king had a court jester. he was there to entertain the king. when the jester performed, he got to eat dinner with the rest. if he 'called in sick' he would not get paid.
if you perform, you get paid.
do you think the king would continue to bankroll a jester whose last performance was a few years ago?
so why does the concept of 'perform once; get paid many' work? THAT seems highly unfair. I don't get paid again and again when I wrote code. why should 'entertainers' have a different standard?
do football players get paid each time someone watches their past performance?
here's a hint: performing artists (note the magic word there) should get paid when they PERFORM.
kids today see thru this; that's one reason why they are rebelling. the system is unfair and so 'we' fight back to holding onto our cash and not giving it time and time again to the same old non-performing sitting-on-your-laurels artists.
if the entertainment industry wants to 'fix' the payment model, lets REALLY revamp it. small tweaks are bullshit; it needs a total re-do if its going to be at all acceptable to the kids (buying public) today.
Parent
Re: (Score:2, Interesting)
> I don't get paid again and again when I wrote code.
Really? I thought that was called selling software? Maybe everyone should just code until a project is done then give it away! Surely the big gains from giving years of effort away will cover the expense of paying for an engineering team. Otherwise, what are we supposed to do? Code nights & weekends for free while working at a gas station during the day?
Record companies essentially do the same thing everyone else does. They produce a product (music
Re:Money Machine (Score:4, Insightful)
The problem is that we,the people,and the *.*.A.A had a contract,which they have broken through bribery and manipulation of our laws. The whole point of copyrights was the granting of a LIMITED monopoly,for a LIMITED amount of time,in return for sharing it with the world at the end of this time through a richer Public Domain. We should have all the great music of the '50s and '60s for free right now. But they are still charging a buck a song on iTunes,why? Because through bribery and manipulation of our laws they have rigged the game in favor of themselves.
To actually feel sorry for the greedy pigs to me is just the height of insanity. It is like feeling sorry for the dealer at a blackjack table who is dealing off the bottom so the house always wins. Personally I haven't seen any of their garbage that I want,but if anyone wants to rob them blind,I say more power to them. Until a new contract is written,one in which BOTH sides get something out of it, the copyright laws are as corrupt and evil as anything passed in your average banana republic. But as always this is my 02c,YMMV
Parent
Re:Money Machine (Score:5, Insightful)
So, just stealing it and later saying "the system is broken" is some pretty strange logic. Ford makes cars. Should we just steal those too?
No. But if someone burned me a copy of their Mustang I would probably take it.
Parent
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
...
do football players get paid each time someone watches their past performance?
...
No, they don't. But the body that owns their work does... does this sound familiar: "Any rebroadcast, retransmission or other use of this telecast without the written consent of the National Football League is prohibited"
Re:AC from beyond the dead? (Score:4, Insightful)
AC has it right. Also, the NFL has no rights over what happens to anything transmitted over the airwaves once it reaches my property, it is mine to do with as I please, including recording it, encrypting/decrypting it. I may not rebroadcast (but that's purely due to FCC rules and regulations) but the FCC ruled specifically about OTA broadcasting and things like the use of police scanners for citizens - once that signal hits your property, it's yours to do with as you please.
Of course, the media corporation's response is to try to force everyone to Digital *COUGHMODIFIEDANALOG* broadcasting and encrypting the media OTA so it would be a violation of the DMCA to record it successfully.
Parent
Re:Money Machine (Score:4, Insightful)
This would be bad because?
Touring and putting on shows and concerts costs money. It's that simple. Whether the costs are for gas, plane tickets, food, music equipment, or roadies, not to mention the cuts of ticket sales that go to the venues.
It's not unknown for venues to pay bands (and PA companies) to play there.
Every band/artist has to start out at the bottom, and many bands that haven't yet "made it big" often come back from a tour with not that much more than they left with. Expecting people to live on just that income would mean the eventual death of your PERFORMING artist.
You are missing that plenty of people want to see live music and they are prepared to pay to do so. They might not always be prepared to pay what "artists" think they are worth and be fickle when it comes to tastes, but that's just human nature.
Parent
Re: (Score:2)
sure, we coming to town to perform our film for you next week, see you there!
Re: (Score:2)
In order to get caught, someone has to violate the law and snoop, which is what the first link in the post is about [slashdot.org]. The v. doe cases in these situations are just tools to extract information to be used in the civil suit.
what you're discussing would involve an internet police, which would have
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Yes, but we still need a (fair) way of helping media creators to make a living from their work.
So how was it before copyright was invented? There the artists did for a good part commission work and had no claims to any further pay after delivering the work. And, surprise over surprise they could also make a living.
I gotta rolls royce, cause its good for my voice, [...]
-- T. Rex
So what will happen in case that whole media business collapses and artists can't get any money at all from that evil internet for their hard work?
First, it'll affect only the very few acts that make it into the charts of any kind. Most musicians across the world don't live off their royalt
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Artists who make a living from their work are few and far between. When an artist does manage to find an audience the income is siphoned off by (now, entirely ancillary) distributors.
I buy all of my music - either as CD / DVD and I still have 5000 vinyl records.
I also use an iPod in the car - radio being in the terrible state that it is.
True fidelity only comes from uncompressed files or original sources and a fairly expensive home reproduction system. I have over $15k invested in my preamp/amp & spea
Re: (Score:2)
The artist and the quality of the sound are what make me buy music. It is the same as it ever was and when lossless digital files start becoming the primary material "pirated" I'll be shocked and appalled - but, you see - those of us who love music won't steal from our artists.
The labels take care of that for you.
Really, unless you are walking into Steven Tyler's house and lifting a twenty from his wallet you aren't stealing either - no matter what the labels want to call it. The law does not call it theft, it's copyright infringement.
Re:Money Machine (Score:4, Insightful)
Yes, but we still need a (fair) way of helping media creators to make a living from their work.
Why? They chose to invest in a market with no intrinsic value that depended on an artificial scarcity.
I wish someone would find a (fair) way of helping me to make a living from sleeping all day, but that's not a reasonable expectation - and neither is yours.
Parent
Except that it's not at all unreasonable... (Score:3, Insightful)
"I wish someone would find a (fair) way of helping me to make a living from sleeping all day"
1. Get hunderds, thousands, perhaps millions to see value in your sleeping all day.
2. Let that value be enough to make a living
3. done
"but that's not a reasonable expectation"
I don't see why not.
Let's say I make a movie - let's say it costs me a mere $1,000 to make. That $1,000 has to come from somewhere.
Now a hundred thousand people watch that movie and are entertained, the value they found in it being said entert
Re:Except that it's not at all unreasonable... (Score:4, Insightful)
I would say that $0.25 for a full length movie is not just *reasonable*, it's ludicrously cheap..
But here's the thing: consumers decide how much goods are worth. Always. That's how markets work. It's incumbent upon those who want to cater to a market to decide how to deliver a product at a price that their potential customers are willing to pay.
If consumers have collectively decided that music and movies are worth $0.00, then producers have three options:
Seriously, it's out of their hands. Again, producers don't decide what a reasonable price is for their products - consumers do. The best producers can do is figure out how much people are willing to pay and try to make a profit at that level.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Even cops, who have the luxury of actually seeing a citizen commit a crime, often get it wrong. Worse yet, what you're proposing would be wid
Re: (Score:2)
Presumably there would be no court time involved, so we would end up with an automated MediaSentry-like system spitting out demands for cash. No thanks.
Just wait for it:
Re: (Score:2, Interesting)
And it has to start by having a reasonable copyright law. Things have to come into the public domain *much* more quickly. If holding a copyright became increasingly costly as it ages, most items would naturally fall into the public domain, and yet Disney could still keep Mickey. But a free, nearly perpetual monopoly is absurd.
Re:Money Machine (Score:4, Insightful)
This is also the kind of signs us wags here on /. have been prophesizing (and wishing for) since this campaign of terror started. It has taken a while for the momentum to be slowed, such as we have seen with the small gains made monthly, but if the courts and the accompanying PI licensing boards go after the methodology of the RIAA, then it becomes much easier to finally stop the cases on multiple grounds. We have already seen the multiple cases summarily decided(or abandoned) in the People's favor, including with awarded attorney's fees. Now, we get to see every link in the chain as vulnerable, and a good lawyer(i.e. one on the People's side) should be able to attack every aspect of their pre-litigation discovery including their methods for discovering the IPs, the Does, the ISP's Customer, the ISP's Customer's friends and family, etc.
Thanks, NYCL, let's keep the ball rolling and see if the court system can finally stop these suits completely. Maybe the day will come when the RIAA will drop the case automatically if you refuse to pay their Settlement center.
--The FNP
Parent
Re:Money Machine (Score:4, Insightful)
This is also the kind of signs us wags here on /. have been prophesizing (and wishing for) since this campaign of terror started. It has taken a while for the momentum to be slowed, such as we have seen with the small gains made monthly, but if the courts and the accompanying PI licensing boards go after the methodology of the RIAA, then it becomes much easier to finally stop the cases on multiple grounds. We have already seen the multiple cases summarily decided(or abandoned) in the People's favor, including with awarded attorney's fees. Now, we get to see every link in the chain as vulnerable, and a good lawyer(i.e. one on the People's side) should be able to attack every aspect of their pre-litigation discovery including their methods for discovering the IPs, the Does, the ISP's Customer, the ISP's Customer's friends and family, etc.
Thanks, NYCL, let's keep the ball rolling and see if the court system can finally stop these suits completely. Maybe the day will come when the RIAA will drop the case automatically if you refuse to pay their Settlement center.
To quote Longfellow:
"Though the mills of God grind slowly, yet they grind exceeding small."
Parent
Re: (Score:2)
"Though the mills of God grind slowly, yet they grind exceeding small."
I'm hungry for dinner and you're talking to me about grinding cornmeal??
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
"Though the mills of God grind slowly, yet they grind exceeding small."
I'm hungry for dinner and you're talking to me about grinding cornmeal??
It's 10:03 AM and you're hungry for dinner?
When did you have breakfast? Last night?
Re: (Score:2)
When did you have breakfast? Last night?
I guess I gotta come clean, now.
while I was patching my kernel (trying a new method that seemingly allows division by zero) - something happened to space-time that I could not explain. the more watchpoints I set in my code, the faster things ran! at some point, I must have added too many and my machine melted down.
after that, well, things got REALLY weird.
fortunately, I was able to find a block of RET instructions still on a shred of disk drive, and that saved me.
Re: (Score:2)
When did you have breakfast? Last night?
I guess I gotta come clean, now. while I was patching my kernel (trying a new method that seemingly allows division by zero) - something happened to space-time that I could not explain. the more watchpoints I set in my code, the faster things ran! at some point, I must have added too many and my machine melted down. after that, well, things got REALLY weird. fortunately, I was able to find a block of RET instructions still on a shred of disk drive, and that saved me.
Well go get yourself some breakfast. It'll make you feel better.
Then come back tomorrow and we can talk about God making cornmeal out of the RIAA and its lackeys.
Re: (Score:2)
Then come back tomorrow and we can talk about God making cornmeal out of the RIAA and its lackeys.
you mean yest-
ah, right. sorry. still having sync issues.
(btw, I have a recipe for cornmeal lackeys. the secret is to use cold water.)
Re: (Score:2)
It appears that, finally, the tables are turning against the RIAA and their counsel. Now, if the counsel are disciplined I'll believe that the system might just work.
The system almost always works, it just works incredibly slowly. If your life happens to get caught in the mill wheels of the legal system in between, tough tofu.
Unfortunately whilst the sensible course of action might be to refrain from downloading music illegally until everything sorts itself out in a decade or two, that's generally impractical, the RIAA might sue you anyway, and lets not forget the big one: pushing at the boundaries of a bad law is what helps to get that law changed.
Re:Money Machine (Score:4, Informative)
Parent
Re: (Score:2)
Although the RIAA likes to tell judges and the press that these cases are about downloading, in all the cases I've seen I've yet to see one where the case was about downloading.
But surely we're talking about p2p technologies whereby downloading comes hand-in-hand with uploading?
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Re: (Score:2)
But surely we're talking about p2p technologies whereby downloading comes hand-in-hand with uploading?
Not all p2p technologies work like BitTorrent. Gnutella (LimeWire, Bearshare, etc) has no inherent "to download you must upload" requirement. Having a large amount of shared material may improve you connectivity (some Gnutella "ultras" will disconnect those with little or no shared stuff as they near capacity), but it's easy enough to load up a shared directory with stuff you won't get sued over, but download infringing content.
Re: (Score:2)
You can't make such a sweeping statement. If you're using something like the Gnutella protocol, you don't have to upload at all. You can simply leech. Consequently you are performing no distribution at all.
Protocols like Bit Torrent, on the other hand, generally don't permit leeching
Re: (Score:2)
From a technical perspective, that's because proving distribution is much more easily done than proving receipt. From the legal standpoint, though, if they could easily show that someone downloaded a copyrighted work, what would be the significance of it?
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The "system" is as flawed as everything is. I can name hundreds of wrong decisions.
My lie is caught in the mill wheels of the legal system - I'm an attorney.
Don't sue Media Sentry! (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Secretaries of state have corporate registers. You can look it up yourself. You may find several layers of corporations and LLC entities, but eventually you will find the officers and directors or members or partners.
And let me say a resounding (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:And let me say a resounding (Score:4, Informative)
What?! Only in a country where a democratically controlled congress passes a bill giving a free pass, sorry for using pass so much, to the telecoms for violating the law would the courts allow a company that illegally collects data to testify in a case without being under oath. Now how about the defendants, they get this free pass too, right?
If you had actually read the summary, you would see that it is not the courts that are asking MediaSentry to testify, it is the North Carolina Private Protective Services Board. This is no more the "courts" than the FCC is on the federal level.
Parent
Honesty (Score:2)
It would be so much easier if we all decided to simply TELL THE TRUTH!
Not just here, but in every area of our lives... politically, economically, socially, personally, even to ourselves...
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Re: (Score:2)