RIAA Expert Witness Called "Borderline Incompetent" 170
NewYorkCountryLawyer writes "Prof. Johan Pouwelse of Delft University — one of the world's foremost experts on the science of P2P file sharing and the very same Prof. Pouwelse who stopped the RIAA's Netherlands counterpart in its tracks back in 2005 — has submitted an expert witness report characterizing the work of the RIAA's expert, Dr. Doug Jacobson, as 'borderline incompetence.' The report (PDF), filed in UMG v. Lindor, pointed out, among other things, that the steps needed to be taken in a copyright infringement investigation were not taken, that Jacobson's work lacked 'in-depth analysis' and 'proper scientific scrutiny,' that Jacobson's reports were 'factually erroneous,' and that they were contradicted by his own deposition testimony. This is the first expert witness report of which we are aware since the Free Software Foundation announced that it would be coming to the aid of RIAA defendants."
I'm not at all surprised (Score:5, Insightful)
Feel free to substitute "shaky" with "unfounded".
"borderline incompetent"? (Score:5, Insightful)
When someone in this position does things that are "unscientific", it means they know that a respectable study won't produce the desired conclusions.
Some choice quotes from the report (Score:5, Insightful)
A)Two reports by Dr Jacobson where[sic] based in itotal on roughly an hour of work
indicates that Dr Jacobson is not competent to judge the accuracy of information...
the investigative process has been unprofessional
and of course the incompetence claim. The brilliance of this is that in reality Pouwelse hasn't done that much work himself because he just uses the report itself to slam the guy down. This isn't a case of an independent study finding a different result, this is the original report itself undermining its own principle.
Its like a Daily Show episode playing out in court.
One sees what one wants to see (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Tsk, tsk (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:"borderline incompetent"? (Score:5, Insightful)
Support the EFF! (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm a member.. are you?
Re:I'm not at all surprised (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Tsk, tsk (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Tsk, tsk (Score:5, Insightful)
What smear? If he doesn't know what he's talking about on a given subject but insists that he does, it is perfectly fair to point that out, which this report has done. If his actions and testimony is borderline incompetent, then so be it. Name and reputation are only indicative of current credibility. If testing and research erodes that credibility, then it's his problem, and not the FSF's.
Incidentally, I believe that in the legal world the terms "competence" and "incompetent" mean something specific, and IIRC it is not name-calling to label an expert witness as either. (e.g. "competent to stand trial").
Re:I'm not at all surprised (Score:3, Insightful)
IANALBIWL&O
Re:One sees what one wants to see (Score:1, Insightful)
Now, if you have logs that show a file was downloaded and the indicated IP address was assigned to a specific computer at a given time, you would assume that you downloaded from that computer. You can probably be reasonably sure you've got the right person. False positives are probably lower than 5% or so. For most of us in our day to day life, this level of false positive is fine for making decisions. People do it all the time.
The fact that this is not sufficient for a court is up to people who know about evidence - i.e. lawyers - to deal with. The RIAA should have asked him the questions that he was asked in cross examination.
Re:Tsk, tsk (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Tsk, tsk (Score:2, Insightful)
Ooo, look! Adversaries. (Score:4, Insightful)
Whichever side you favor (and we all know who that is on
Re:One sees what one wants to see (Score:4, Insightful)
The RIAA lawyers don't know which questions to ask when it comes to technical testimony - finding out exactly what to ask (and which answers can sink your case) is part of the reason they hire an expert in the first place. The fact that he apparently did not tell the attorneys that anyone with a halfway decent understanding of the subject matter would be able to shoot his testimony full of holes speaks volumes, as does the lack of time he admitted to spending on the subject matter presented to him. I can't imagine any lawyer would want to continue on the tack the RIAA did, having been given a decent expert opinion on their evidence.
Re:Tsk, tsk (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Tsk, tsk (Score:5, Insightful)
Congratulations, you've got two kinds of stupid.
1) This is a fallacious appeal to authority. In fact, his background most definitly doesn't (and should not) speak for itself. If it did, all the RIAA would have to do is supply his name and the judge would evaluate his testimony in light of that. No, the words matter.
2) Judges do not use Slashdot or its comments to figure out how they're going to rule.
Another thing you (and your other respondents) may not know is that "incompetence" has a specific meaning in a legal context. Read that again, it's important and will be on the test later. Legal incompetence means that his expert testimony is not actually expert, or in other words "is not competent" to be considered the words of an expert. You don't become an expert witness just for having experience and getting your paycheck from a university. It's also about presenting your findings in a legally-supportable way, so when the judge calls his testimony "borderline incompetent," the judge is signalling that it may be likely to get thrown out.
Re:Tsk, tsk (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Ooo, look! Adversaries. (Score:5, Insightful)
2. The expert this poor woman, who is a home health aide in Brooklyn, was able to retain is one of the foremost experts in the world on the science of p2p file sharing. E.g., he was selected to be the scientific director of the European Union's p2p consortium P2P-Next [arstechnica.com].
3. His opinion, that the RIAA expert's work was "borderline incompetence", is a very, very strong statement.
Sorry, I think that's newsworthy.... very newsworthy.
I hate to pick nits, but... (Score:4, Insightful)
I really hate to undermine you because you make a lot of good points, but unless I've badly misread this whole story, it was an expert witness hired by the defense who called the RIAA's 'expert' testimony "borderline incompetent"
Now, don't misunderstand. I fully agree with that characterization. I was here on Slashdot (and Groklaw) helping to dissect every wrong statement in it I could find. I trawled through all those leaked MediaDefender emails to see if there were any juicy bits that could help at trial. This man is right!
Hopefully the judge WILL agree with this soon and we'll have a ruling making you retroactively correct, though!
Oh, I should mention one other thing. The RIAA *DOES* have an odd habit of citing random posts online and airing them in court. Mostly they focus on Mr. Beckerman's blog and try to use that against him in court, but I would _NOT_ put it past them to cite any other random comment online if they thought it would prove anything. I don't think it's bought them anything, and you're certainly correct that judges do not seem to pay much attention to them.
But it's still one of those things to be aware of, because I've seen plenty of evidence in legal filings that the RIAA is essentially cyber-stalking Mr. Beckerman, for all the good it will do them. Sort of like how SCO reads Groklaw all the time. Must be agonizing, that. Watching the public gawk at the train wreck you're making of your own business. I mean, even if the RIAA wins all these lawsuits, at best, they'll teach people to hate corporate music.
Re:Not exactly unbiased is he? (Score:3, Insightful)
You're post sounds like pure RIAA-troll material, from the obligatory disclaimer
Re:Tsk, tsk (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:Tsk, tsk (Score:3, Insightful)