Prof. Nesson Ordered To Show Cause 267
NewYorkCountryLawyer writes "Professor Charles Nesson, the Harvard law professor serving pro bono as counsel to the defendant in SONY BMG Music Entertainment v. Tenenbaum, has been ordered to show cause why sanctions should not be issued against him for violating the Court's orders prohibiting reproduction of the court proceedings. The order to show cause was in furtherance of the RIAA's motion for sanctions and protective order, which we discussed here yesterday. The Judge indicated that she was 'deeply concerned' about Prof. Nesson's apparent 'blatant disregard' of her order."
Is Nesson crazy like a fox, or just crazy? (Score:3, Interesting)
End It (Score:5, Interesting)
Disconnect from the RIAA.
- Do not provide them with money, directly or indirectly.
- Do not consume their products, legally or illegally.
As a bad faith actor, the RIAA must be exiled from our community.
Only consume music that can be purchased directly from the artists themselves.
Convince two others to do the same.
Re:Too much detail (Score:4, Interesting)
The better question is: do we really need the RIAA???
Their irrelevant business model is built on artificial scarcity that could only work in a time where information carriers and distribution were the bottlenecks. Now with the internet and ridiculously large storage devices, this bottleneck has been eliminated entirely. So much in fact, that everyone can carry tens of thousands of songs - entire genres - in their pocket.
They need and deserve to fail. This is of course not easy, since they can go to court and refer to laws and acts that they themselves either wrote or lobbied for!
It is a very important fight and one that needs to be won. I say: give us all the information there is!
Re:Too much detail (Score:3, Interesting)
So... Firehose? I know it's a new feature and all, but still.
Re:Listen to the MP3's (Score:3, Interesting)
Listening now, but given that you have a strong opinion on the matter, do you care to explain? In fact, does anyone knowledgeable care to explain what arguments were made about these recordings, why they should or shouldn't be public, etc.? I scanned the linked articles and nothing caught my eye as a clear explanation of what's going on.
Caroling DDoS the Courts (Score:5, Interesting)
DDoS the judicial system by doing public performances of all these copyrighted songs. There's no fucking way the courts could keep up with even 100 of these new cases a day...
Re:Too much detail (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Shooting yourself in the foot (Score:3, Interesting)
Still, I when the law is against you, and the facts - on the balance of probability - are against you, then all you've got left is to throw a hissy fit.
When the facts are against you, bang the law.
When the law is against you, bang the facts.
When the facts and the law are against you, bang the table.
--- and when your client insists on taking the stand, bang his head.
Re:Too much detail (Score:1, Interesting)
The really old timers, who shun the use of cookies and measures to track our habits, keep on keeping on as anonymous cowards and the public is none the wiser. It's better that way. We've learnt from the USENet flame wars that it is often better to not be able to be associated with something (even if under the guise of another login.)
Comment removed (Score:3, Interesting)
The have been learing how to do it from SCO vs IBM (Score:3, Interesting)
Just look at the legal tactics employed in the various cases.
SCO (like the RIAA) needs to be put out of its misery but they refise to lie down & die.
The RIAA tactics to delay & avoid giving real evidence especially about the real damages incurred is (IMHO) straight out of the SCO textbook.
I wish judges had the nerve to standup to this obvious bullshit & lies and tell them to stop wasting the courts time and get to the nitty gritty. But judges (in the USA) are AFAIK, elected and have to run campaigns so they risk cutting off the source of funding if they do.
I prefer the totally independent judiciary we have here in the UK. I'm not saying it is without fault but judges can give the Government a real boody nose (read Lord Scarman's works) without fear of retaliation.
IMHO, the US civil legal system as shown to the world by the RIAA & SCO cases is horribly broken and it is far too obvious that the only people who benefit are the lawyers who created it in the first place (when they become law makers).
Ok, Rant over, I can get back to breakfast.
Re:Listen to the MP3's (Score:1, Interesting)
From what I understand, the court flip-flopped on it. It had some discretion to allow recordings, or maybe not, depending on how you read the law. It chose to bar them from putting those up. They did it anyway. Now the judge is asking why.
I don't know what to make of this tactic. Doing something you can get sanctioned for is dangerous. VERY dangerous. They could just say that you should have appealed the order somehow and so the sanctions will stand, even if the ruling was wrong. Judges don't like being ignored. I think there had to be a better way to do this, but IANAL.
Like someone else said, I don't know if he's crazy like a fox or just plain crazy. I don't honestly think this will taint the jury pool. And if it was, sanctions are a backwards way to go about it due to the Streisand Effect. People are listening to these now just because of the order... If they want to taint the jury pool, there are better ways to do it. I don't think that letting people interested in a case hear the recordings should be that big a deal. It's public information, after all! I know the courts have lots of crazy rules, but barring people from putting up copies of a recording is just silly.
Then again, I might be the wrong person to ask, because I also think that's still the case when it infringes upon various imaginary rights, because I don't believe in imaginary property [facebook.com].