New Hampshire Law Students Take On RIAA 173
NewYorkCountryLawyer writes "We have recently learned that another law school legal aid clinic has joined the fight against the RIAA. Student attorneys from the Consumer and Commercial Law Clinic
of the Franklin Pierce Law Center in Concord, New Hampshire, working under law school faculty supervision, are representing
a lady targeted by the RIAA in UMG Recording v. Roy in New Hampshire. The case is scheduled for trial next Fall. That makes at least 4 law schools providing anti-RIAA defense services: University of Maine,
University of San Francisco, Franklin Pierce, and, most recently, Harvard. Hopefully many
more will follow. One commentator theorizes that this news 'will ... [encourage] professors and students at other law schools to take on hitherto defenseless people being pilloried by the corporate music industry.'"
Re:Awesome (Score:2, Insightful)
they didnt say the lawyer was working for free. wait for the bill to come. she might have been better off settling
Re:Awesome (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Awesome (Score:5, Insightful)
See, not all lawyers are bad
Ray is my third favorite lawyer, right behind the lady who handled my divorce and the gentleman who handled my bankrupcy. When you need a lawyer, you NEED a lawyer!
The only "bad" lawyers (a) work for corporations or (b) are suing you. When you need a lawyer, one will save you far more than (s)he costs in fees. If you need to sue (say an uninsured drunk driver puts you in the hospital), one will tell you if you have a case or not. Here in Illlinois lawyers generally charge 1/3 of a settlement, or 50% of a judgement if it goes to court.
In an auto accident here, you get 3x the medical costs for "pain and suffering". If you have $10k in medical bills, the doctor(s) get(s) $10k, your lawyer gets $10k, and you get $10k. Without a lawyer you'll be lucky to get your bills paid.
Its Standardized Education (Score:5, Insightful)
A class where students get into groups and provide legal council in different cases that almost all look the same? Computer science students can get identical computers, biologists can dissect many of the same species, but I don' think before the RIAA started going sue happy across the country was there such an opportunity to standardize a law class year after year fighting the same case in a real courtroom over and over again.
This is going to help real people, but realistically I hope it doesn't last long. I can just see it now: RIAA gets bailout from congress to save law school curriculum across country. HA!
Good law schools should really take advantage of this opportunity. I think schools could be judged by this for how up to date they are and how much they really care about their lawyers getting real experience in the classroom.
Let's not stop just here (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Remember, kids! (Score:5, Insightful)
I swore off biting trolls but dammit, I guess I'm relapsing. Guess I need trollbiter rehab.
If you're spewing out copies of music, movies, or software, it's because information wants to be free and copyright infringement != theft...
If I'm spewing out copies of music, movies, or software, it's because the writers WANTED it to be "spewed out", like most file sharers. Like Lessig said in his book, of the three kinds of P2P, only one can possibly harm the artist, and the other three actually help. P2P is no more a threat to the entertainment industries than the VCR and cassette were. It's only a threat to the established but outmoded business practices. Everyone else from musicians to film makers are using P2P constructively.
Information doesn't want anything. I guess you could anthropomorphise and say "information wants to be free like compressed gas wants to escape", or you could just say "when information isn't free, neither are you."
However, copyright infringement is indeed not theift. Neither is smoking dope or jaywalking. Extortion IS theift, which is exactly what the RIAA is doing, Mr. Record Company Executive (you guys must get some killer cocaine to be such greedy, selfish, heartless bastards).
unless you're messing with open-source software
No, it's still not theift. It's copyright infringement.
The rest of your incredibly stupid rant is beneath discussion. Go back under your bridge.
Re:Awesome (Score:5, Insightful)
Why just cases vs RIAA? Now THAT is a pretty damned good question! It might just be that the tactics of the RIAA's legal team are so reprehensible that people are volunteering to fight them. If you are a judge or know one, you should perhaps help point this out to them.
It has always been my thinking that Harvard law school very rarely ever comes out on the wrong side of a legal issue. It is their business after all. That term Preponderance of evidence [thefreedictionary.com] would seem to apply here when so many law schools are weighing in on this issue, and doing so against the RIAA legal team.
It would seem to me that this should be seen as a very bad omen for the RIAA et al. When all the kids circle around and start picking on the class bully, things normally get sorted out, and the bully gets a black eye or two as needed. I think that is what we might be witnessing in the greater stage of legal theater.
Re:Awesome (Score:5, Insightful)
The only "bad" lawyers (a) work for corporations or (b) are suing you.
You've been fortunate.
Here's one anecdote in contradiction with your anecdotes: A friend of mine had a divorce lawyer that dropped him 6 months in and 1 week before court because they discovered that his wife had done one of those "free first appointments" with them 7 months prior (she apparently did that with all of the local divorce attorneys so that he would have a hard time finding representation). They kept his money and because of the "old boys club" of lawyers in his town he had to go out of town to even find an attorney who was willing to sue the first for his money back.
Which leads to the real problem with lawyers - the bar. Lawyers are "self-regulating" which we should all know by now is an inherent conflict of interest that inevitably leads to corruption, regardless of what industry does it.
In an auto accident here, you get 3x the medical costs for "pain and suffering". If you have $10k in medical bills, the doctor(s) get(s) $10k, your lawyer gets $10k, and you get $10k. Without a lawyer you'll be lucky to get your bills paid.
Your last sentence is telling. How much of that is because of the way the system works? The system that was setup by, is run by, and is regulated by lawyers?
Re:Awesome (Score:4, Insightful)
"The only "bad" lawyers (a) work for corporations or (b) are suing you."
Oh man, you couldn't be more wrong. There are many, many lawyers out there just aiming to make a quick buck on someone who "NEEDS" a lawyer and doesn't know how to pick one.
My father hasn't had to deal with lawyers much, and he picked a bad one. It ended up costing him a LOT of money without actually fulfilling his 'need'. The lawyer was good at one thing: Convincing the client to stay with him instead of going elsewhere. No matter what I said, my father refused to leave and find a better lawyer, even after admitting that the guy wasn't doing the job.
Re:Its Standardized Education (Score:0, Insightful)
Hear hear. When I was studying Engineering, the most interesting case studies were the real life cases - actual original research and current theories.
Similarly here, these students seem to have a deparment which values them enough to give them something interesting AND useful to work on.
Good on them all.
=Smidge=
Re:Awesome (Score:3, Insightful)
Lawyers are "self-regulating" which we should all know by now is an inherent conflict of interest that inevitably leads to corruption, regardless of what industry does it.
Professional engineers are self-regulated. State boards of professional engineers, the exams, all that stuff is run by engineers and for engineers. In Florida, for example (which is typical of most states), the only government involvement is a few laws that give the Board its power. And medicine is not all that different.
You don't need an engineer (Score:1, Insightful)
to sue the engineer who did a crap job.
You do need a lawyer to sue another lawyer.
Re:Awesome (Score:5, Insightful)
the fact that he is proud of that marble shit just goes to show what kind of dickhead tends to become a lawyer--- or maybe, what kind of dickhead becoming a lawyer tends to turn you into.
Isn't there a third possibility? Like that some lawyers are jerks? Just like there are some jerks everywhere else in the general population?
Re:Awesome (Score:3, Insightful)
c) lose your perfectly valid case
That's not a bad lawyer, it's an incompetent one. Lawyers are like programmers or doctors, though - some of them are excellent, some are mediocre. Like finding a mechanic, doctor, or barber, the trick is to find a competent one.
Re:Remember, kids! (Score:5, Insightful)
care to explain why Cory Doctorow's Little Brother sells well despite being on the internet? Look it up and read the introduction for his excellent reasons for doing so.
Everyone is listening to the RIAA's bullshit, good thing we dodn't listen to the MPAA when Heston said "the VCR is to movies like Jack the Ripper is to women." Logical, reasonable, but dead wrong.
No artist has ever starved from having his works given away, but many have starved from obscurity.
Re:Remember, kids! (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Awesome (Score:2, Insightful)
Your friend didn't get dropped because of any "old boys club". Your friend was dropped because it is against the Rules of Professional Conduct to represent someone in the situation you mentioned. That lawyer could have been disbarred if he had not withdrawn.
And should have promptly returned the fees paid - which should never have been accepted in the first place. The lawyer failed to do due diligence to check if the wife had already consulted him prior to taking on the husband as a client.
Anyhow, the GP didn't say his friend got dropped because of the old boy's club. He said the friend couldn't find a local lawyer willing to challenge the original lawyer who was at fault. This is common. I've been to court many times, and all the attorneys know they will one day come up against each other in court and have to have good relationships in order to be successful. It's stupid, but that's how it is.
Re:Some good, some bad, how do you know which? (Score:5, Insightful)
How does someone find a good lawyer, except by chance?
The only reliable way is through referrals from people you know. I.e., networking. E.g., if you need a personal injury lawyer, but the only good lawyer you know is a real estate lawyer, ask the real estate lawyer to help you find a good personal injury lawyer. If you can't do it through a good lawyer, reach out to friends, business associates, etc., whose judgment you respect.
I didn't think it was possible (Score:3, Insightful)
Rightly or wrongly, the legal profession enjoys somewhat the same level of public approval as your average used car salesman. The fact that law students fighting the RIAA are looked on as the good guys shows you what complete douchebags the RIAA really are.