RIAA Expert Witness Called "Borderline Incompetent"

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."

Tsk, tsk

[Anonymous Coward]

Look, I'm no fan of RIAA, but do we really want this kind of childish name calling going on in our court system? I mean, really. Dr. Jacobsen's background speaks for itself. He is a widely respected scientist with years of experience in real world forensics investigation. Trying to win your case by smearing his name and reputation will likely backfire with the judge.

Dur.

[Damocles the Elder]

Of course the RIAA's testimony was "factually erroneous". We've been hearing about the shaky technical ground that these lawsuits have been based on since they started coming out, and it's "experts" like this, blatantly lying to non-technically-proficient judges, that've allowed the RIAA to keep pulling the crap it's been pulling. Thank god someone is both A. Knowledgable enough to call them on it, and B. Is in a position where they might actually be listened to.

Hurry up, damnit.

[Loopy]

It occurs to me that most of this junk is already "obvious RIAA troll" type information. I.e.: Let's sue them and throw pseudoscientific data at them en masse so the defendant(s), who are probably largely computer-illiterate, have to prove they're innocent or refute our "me first" "expert" conclusions. Which makes these RIAA cases simply a matter of getting the correct data in the books to use as grounds to speed up future litigation. Assuming that premise (yeah, gross oversimplification), at the rate we're going the RIAA (and the defendants) will be at this for the next decade. Gotta make someone happy somewhere but I can't think who, aside from the lawyers on both sides.

Re:"borderline incompetent"?

[vajaradakini]

To me it sounds like more like "borderline dishonest". Anybody with a Ph.D (especially in something technical) is automatically going to have a strong understanding of the scientific method.

You've never heard of Michael Behe [wikipedia.org] I take it?

Sadly there are a number of people with PhDs in the sciences who fail to understand the scientific method.

Re:Support the EFF!

[xtracto]

Something I would never ask people to do is to go to NYCountryLawyer web page [blogspot.com] and look if any of the advertisements served by google in that page interest you...

That would make NYCountryLawyer get some cash from the ads clicks...

Experts say what they are paid to say

[harlows_monkeys]

Always take what any expert witness says with a large grain of salt. They are paid handsomely for their opinions. In a trial I witnessed, for example, in a controversy involving RAM cache, an expert testified that storing data on a hard disk would count as storing it in RAM cache, because hard disks are random access devices. You'd have a hard time finding anyone in the industry who ever used RAM cache to include caches on hard disk before that expert wrote his report, but having that opinion was better for the party that hired him, so he dug deep, and found a way to say that with a straight face.

This guy was definitely an expert. He had a string of well respected papers a mile long. He was an IEEE Fellow. He'd been, I believe, the head of the EE department at one or major engineering colleges. Advisor to numerous top companies, and member of numerous standardization committees. But he's retired now, and was probably getting $50-$100k (plus expenses) to find a way to say that disk cache was RAM cache, so even if that is a ridiculous position to take, it's not going to harm his career, or even his reputation. Even if his ridiculous position at this one trial came to the attention of people currently active in his field, they all know about the expert witness game, and will dismiss this. As long as you don't outright perjure yourself, taking a ridiculous position for money in court won't hurt you.

Re:I'm not at all surprised

[LrdDimwit]

This is the case where the attorneys asked the Groklaw (and later Slashdot) communities to assist in picking apart the declaration. I read the RIAA's "expert"'s papers. He maintains she downloaded the material using Kazaa, yet admits he found no evidence through forensic examining of Windows that Kazaa was or had ever been installed. He made no effort to explain this discrepancy -- indeed, he seemed oblivious to the discrepancy's existence.

Either she's pulled a very convincing job of doctoring the evidence (involving tools to clean the various installation footprints that were not found), or the expert testimony is worthless. Personally, I lean towards "boilerplate" as an explanation for how such deficient 'evidence' got filed -- they seem to have just filled in sections of the declaration with rote repetition of generic stuff they probably say about everybody.

Re:I hate to pick nits, but...

[NewYorkCountryLawyer]

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....... 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.

It's odd, isn't it? They did it recently in Arista v. Does 1-21 [blogspot.com]. I thought it was funny when Ars Technica reported that the head of the RIAA litigation effort was seen reading my blog on his laptop at the Capitol v. Thomas [blogspot.com] trial.

Re:Tsk, tsk

[tzjanii]

I know the common internet wisdom is to not bait the trolls, but in the second paragraph of the wikipedia article http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irreducable_complexity [wikipedia.org] on Irreducible complexity it talks about the concept being debunked. There's lazy trolls, and then there's blind fanaticism.

Re:Tsk, tsk

[Anonymous Coward]

Note: I am a current ISU student, posting anonymously to avoid backlash. This school has faculty who are notorious for pursuing grudges.

I am a current student at ISU, and I know the man personally. Some of his older research is interesting in the proper context. The man is terrible at anything related to real world problems or technology -- he should stay in the classroom.

I have read his past legal work for the MP/RIAA, and I can confirm its the quality (or lack thereof). As terrible as he is with depositions, he, his faculty peers, and the ISU community go to great lengths to make him seems like an Information Assurance genius, and the most amazing man computer security work has ever seen. They also tote his work for the MP/RIAA as being an excellent example of a man with his head on straight.

To top it off, his greatest achievement is creating a "simulated Internet", which is nothing more than a bunch of old motherboards, CPU's, and RAM connected by ancient *hubs* to create an incredibly-slow set of routing gateways over which software written for a bygone era can track communications using technology entirely outdated by modern (2000 onward) switching and routing equipment.

Re:Tsk, tsk

[NewYorkCountryLawyer]

Dr. Jacobsen's background speaks for itself

yes it does- the man has little to no experience in forensics or law(I work in forensics for legal cases) and is incredibly biased due to financial ties to the riaa and riaa associated companies. how the judge didn't strike the testimony in the first place is beyond me-

. Me too, vuffi. It is unfathomable to me.