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RIAA-fighting Maine Law Professor Speaks Out 129

Posted by Zonk from the fightin'-lawfish dept.
NewYorkCountryLawyer writes "In an interview with Jon Newton of p2pnet, Prof. Deirdre Smith of the University of Maine says that 'our students are enthusiastic about being directly connected to a case with a national scope and significance'. The UM Cumberland Legal Aid Clinic is the first law school legal clinic in the U.S. to have taken on the RIAA, to have the opportunity for hands-on experience fighting the RIAA's effort to rewrite copyright law. Smith went on to say that the case is probably one of the first intellectual property cases the clinic has ever taken on, and that if it proceeds further, she expects to also 'draw on the considerable expertise in IP among members of our faculty and the Maine Center for Law and Innovation, another program of the Law School'. "
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RIAA-fighting Maine Law Professor Speaks Out More

RIAA-fighting Maine Law Professor Speaks Out

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  • caveat (Score:3, Insightful)

    by User 956 ( 568564 ) on Friday December 28, 2007 @08:35PM (#21845066) Homepage
    Prof. Deirdre Smith of the University of Maine says that 'our students are enthusiastic about being directly connected to a case with a national scope and significance'.

    Of course they are. Just not personally.

  • This professor is clearly a terrorist. (Score:5, Funny)

    by davester666 ( 731373 ) on Friday December 28, 2007 @08:40PM (#21845092) Journal
    He is clearly trying to strike a blow and trying to destroy the very foundation of our society, which is intellectual property. And if he is successful at undermining that, in any way, he'll attack physical property. And using brainwashed law students to help him do it, thus also destroying our future. This man has no shame!

  • About time (Score:5, Insightful)

    by proudfoot ( 1096177 ) on Friday December 28, 2007 @08:42PM (#21845102)
    While it's debatable whether this challenge has much of a legal chance - from what the lawyer the lawyer types I've spoken to told me, it's not much of a challenge - the simple fact that this defense sets a rather important precedent - that schools shouldn't bend over without fighting it out first.

  • RIAA/MPAA - is the bad press worth it? (Score:4, Insightful)

    by timmarhy ( 659436 ) on Friday December 28, 2007 @08:45PM (#21845110)
    honestly is all the bad press doing them any good? yes i agree people ripping and selling songs is wrong, no i don't think kids swaping songs is wrong. when i was younger i'd listen to a few songs off my mates collection and if i liked it i'd go hunting for that artists full collection for purchase.

    i guess this really frightens no talent hacks, if people get to hear their trash before buying it, they'll fade away pretty quick.

    • honestly is all the bad press doing them any good?

      Ask many of the RIAA's customers that, and they'll say "what bad press?" The damage to their sales is localised to the comparatively few who are aware of the issue, and even then, it's dependent on whether or not they agree with the RIAA's crusade. They're losing a few sales in the short term, but they're also securing their business in the long term, which couldn't survive if people gave up actually paying for music. They're making the sacrifice to remind p

  • Isn't it a tad tacky for NewYorkCountryLawyer to submit an article that quotes him in the text? I suppose, this being Slashdot, that no one will end up reading the article.

    And NYCL, this wasn't meant as a dig. And, I was glad to get your opinion in the article.

  • Nice initiative but... (Score:3, Interesting)

    by SamP2 ( 1097897 ) on Friday December 28, 2007 @09:08PM (#21845254)
    Doesn't having a law college student handle your court case feel like having a med. college student do surgery on you?
    • eh, I guess you could relate it to that. Although, living here in Dallas, TX(TX itself apparently the medical student capitol of the US,) I like the 5th-7th year students who do my checkups and other routine bodily maintenance. They seem to pay more attention in general and IMHO, that makes them far superior to an older DR who just smiles and nods. So, maybe a law student is the same way? Perhaps this may follow most professions. I have hired some IT guys that have had formal education(University Degree)
      • Just out of curiosity: Did you pay the better workers a better wage based not on education but on performance?

        • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

          by nomadic ( 141991 )
          Just out of curiosity: Did you pay the better workers a better wage based not on education but on performance?

          Performance in the law, especially trial law, is based enormously on experience. A doctor fresh out of medical school is better equipped to handle a patient than a lawyer fresh out of law school. When a doctor treats a patient generally there isn't a doctor on the other side of the operating room intentionally trying to make the patient worse.
      • it depends on the class work that the students do some are real good others are just read the book that are some times not that good.

    • Doesn't having a law college student handle your court case feel like having a med. college student do surgery on you?
      Yeah -- maybe we should start calling them "interns" and "residents," too.

    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward
      Not necessarily. THe defense they are mounting at this point is essentially pure issue of law. No facts to try to dispute, no witnesses to depose, no jury to persuade... all things that an experienced attorney will excel at over a novice. Pure law and legal theories OTOH, are the bread and butter of the academic legal environment. The students may not be as efficient at research in the subject area as an attorney who has 20 years experience in IP law and knows the leading cases by heart, but they are mo

      • Not necessarily. THe defense they are mounting at this point is essentially pure issue of law. No facts to try to dispute, no witnesses to depose, no jury to persuade... all things that an experienced attorney will excel at over a novice. Pure law and legal theories OTOH, are the bread and butter of the academic legal environment. The students may not be as efficient at research in the subject area as an attorney who has 20 years experience in IP law and knows the leading cases by heart, but they are more open to theories and arguments to research that may be out of the mainstream (for now). They are devoted to the cause and will spend hundreds of hours pouring over research and caselaw that a practicing lawyer will not spend. The RIAA can't spend the other side into the ground because they are not racking up billable/noncollectable hours.
        Exactly correct. Except the part about "theories and arguments...out of the mainstream (for now)". In my opinion it's the RIAA that's premised its legal position on "theories and arguments... out of the mainstream". The brief the Cumberland Legal Aid Clinic filed is (a) superb, and (b) conservative. It's the RIAA lawyers that are the radicals here.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by rts008 ( 812749 )
        "The students may not be as efficient at research in the subject area as an attorney who has 20 years experience in IP law and knows the leading cases by heart..."

        Wasn't there someone who said something to the effect that quantity has it's own quality?

        Don't underestimate the potential of a herd of students hellbent on a cause. (especially if it has the potential for a paper, higher grade, cred points, maybe even trying to get laid)
    • 1. They're not college students, they're law school students.

      2. They're not in it alone, they're working under the supervision of a very eminent lawyer.

      3. Many if not most of the best briefs written in the legal profession are written in large part by young people working under the supervision of a more experienced lawyer. The younger lawyers and law students may have more time for scholarship and writing than us oldsters who are so busy taking phone calls and meetings and sending out bills and supervising youngsters.
      • I don't know if you could call a law teacher an Eminent lawyer. If they were good, they obviously could make more money in the real world practicing law. They could be famous simply be being known of but I don't think they are in the way you used the term, standing above the rest.

        In all the situations I know of where a law professor took a case after teaching, it seems that they lost the majority of them. Look at the EFF, they at one time consisted mainly of legal professors and typically lost all their cas
        • I don't consider every law school professor an eminent lawyer. I consider this particular law school professor to be an eminent lawyer.

          Parenthetically, I disagree with every single thing you said in your post.

          • Re: (Score:1, Troll)

            by sumdumass ( 711423 )
            The great thing about this country is that you can disagree with anything. However, disagreement doesn't make you right.

            This professor is a hack. Most her career has been spent as a lapdog from someone else not even practicing law but clerking or advising. She stayed in fields where there was a gimmick that played on some sympathy. Disabilities where the old gimp would carry more weight then the law. Now there are people with a bigger gimp she can latch on to and that's what is happening.

            More likely, what i
            • Sounding just a little bit grumpy, and quite a bit paranoid, there, my friend.
              • Sure I do. I don't trust the lawyers of this world. Especially when they act like something they aren't. Notice how I didn't take issues with your stands particularly, It is because I know you are about what you talk about. I'm not convinced that Deirdre Smith is even close. I'm not even convinced that anything she is doing it outside wanting to better her stand somehow. It might just be that one of the coat tails she rides on had passed away and she needs to get some name recognition to replace the prestig

  • It looks to me... (Score:5, Informative)

    by hyades1 ( 1149581 ) <hyades1@hotmail.com> on Friday December 28, 2007 @09:11PM (#21845278)

    like the RIAA stepped in something squishy right over the top of their shoe, and they're at that point where they're praying it's just mud, and afraid to look down.

    How did they ever get caught pulling their crap at a university with a whole faculty devoted to making lawyers? Can't you just see it...all those sweet little law students looking hopefully up at them, like a school of piranha that have learned how when their owner taps on the tank, a pork chop will be along shortly?

    • How did they ever get caught pulling their crap at a university with a whole faculty devoted to making lawyers?

      Hell the RIAA went after students from Yale [yaleherald.com] which has a good law school. Now my question is why didn't Yale do the same thing as the Maine university?

      Falcon

    • It looks to me... like the RIAA stepped in something squishy right over the top of their shoe, and they're at that point where they're praying it's just mud, and afraid to look down. How did they ever get caught pulling their crap at a university with a whole faculty devoted to making lawyers? Can't you just see it...all those sweet little law students looking hopefully up at them, like a school of piranha that have learned how when their owner taps on the tank, a pork chop will be along shortly?

      Yep, I think the RIAA made a mistake taking on the college and university world. Right now there are a lot of envious law students all across the country wishing their law school was doing the same thing. I don't think it will be long before you see a lot more of this. I think a great sleeping giant has been awakened.

      • Thanks for the idea. If things come to pass the way I fear they will, I'll start sending suggestions to some of our law faculties and see if I can get them interested.

        I guess you've heard a little about the situation in Canada. Our PM is currently auditioning for Blair's old position as Bush's lapdog, and his minority government was planning to sneak through a bill that probably would have given the RIAA everything it wanted, even though we've been paying a blank media tax for years that was supposed t

    • "How did they ever get caught pulling their crap at a university with a whole faculty devoted to making lawyers? Can't you just see it...all those sweet little law students looking hopefully up at them, like a school of piranha that have learned how when their owner taps on the tank, a pork chop will be along shortly?"

      It's the same arrogance they've been guilty of all along. Their so called "experts" are overdue in being taken down. All it will take is some litigation savvy assistance.

      So, what is your pro
  • I wonder how many of those students will end up working on the other side once they graduate. It would be kind of like a hacker working for a security company. They'll be more familiar with the strengths and weaknesses of all the arguments and could demand premium salaries in this area of law.

    • I wonder how many of those students will end up working on the other side once they graduate. It would be kind of like a hacker working for a security company. They'll be more familiar with the strengths and weaknesses of all the arguments and could demand premium salaries in this area of law.

      Except a hacker improves security when they see something that's insecure. It's crackers and script kiddies that break into systems for gain. Hackers have an ethic [antionline.com] of not committing theft, vandalism, or breach of

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by piojo ( 995934 )
        Gaah, will you accept that a word can have two meanings, and that the meaning of a word can change over time? Your post began with the word "Except", so I was looking forward to a counter-argument, but instead you just explained what you believed the word "hacker" [reference.com] to mean. You could have at least started with "By the way" to indicate that your opinion is not actually a part of the discussion thread, but instead of a critique of the parent's choice of words.

        Sorry for ranting. But I was really hoping for some

        • Re: (Score:1)

          by JonJ ( 907502 )
          What if a "fireman" suddenly was someone that started fires, in stead of putting them out? The fact that the press and other idiots uses the wrong term to describe a criminal, does not make it right.

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by piojo ( 995934 )

            What if a "fireman" suddenly was someone that started fires, in stead of putting them out? The fact that the press and other idiots uses the wrong term to describe a criminal, does not make it right.

            After enough time, it does make it right. That's just the way most languages change. We don't have a governing body that decides what is acceptable English. (Such panels exist, but they have no authority--there's no such thing as "official English".) In short, if people started using "fireman" to refer to people who start fires, I wouldn't like it at all, but maybe ten years later I would have to concede that the word had gained a second meaning.

  • The Riaa makes it seem like you're a thief who went into the record store and stole a bunch of CDs'.

    This is ip ifringement. Not the exact same as theft.

    The songs can be deleted and nothing is left. Is that the classical definiton of theft?

    Where is the evidence? This to me is the part that is left out of the debate.

    Just because you download shouldn't convict you!

    If you delete then there is no evidence! damnit!
  • Good for them, but contrary to what was written, the problem is not that the RIAA is re-writing the copyright laws. The problem is that RIAA is exploiting the anachronism of our current copyright laws. The laws truly do need to be re-written to incorporate creative works that are not strictly analog and paper-based, and that should be the goal.

    • Re:what is the real problem? (Score:5, Informative)

      by Dr_Art ( 937436 ) on Friday December 28, 2007 @10:00PM (#21845548) Journal

      ...the problem is not that the RIAA is re-writing the copyright laws...
      I beg to differ. Here's just one example. The RIAA insists that "making available" is the same as copyright infringement. But take a look at Title 17 USC 106(3) [cornell.edu] which defines the exclusive distribution right as "to distribute copies or phonorecords of the copyrighted work to the public by sale or other transfer of ownership, or by rental, lease, or lending". This is the statute that the RIAA uses to sue, that is, they claim their exclusive distribution right granted by this statue is being infringed. But note, this statute clearly indicates a "sale or other transfer of ownership", and courts have consistently ruled that this means an actual transfer must take place to be considered infringement. The RIAA was successful in getting the judge in the Capitol v. Thomas [blogspot.com] case to instruct the jury [wired.com] that "The act of making copyrighted sound recordings available for electronic distribution on a peer-to-peer network, without license from the copyright owners, violates the copyright owners' exclusive right of distribution, regardless of whether actual distribution has been shown.". So it may be true that the RIAA is not literally rewriting copyright law (they have lobbyists that do that), but they sure are trying to rewrite copyright law by establishing precedents via cases against those who can't afford to defend themselves.

      Regards,
      Art (IANAL)

      • ...the problem is not that the RIAA is re-writing the copyright laws...

        I beg to differ. Here's just one example. The RIAA insists that "making available" is the same as copyright infringement. But take a look at Title 17 USC 106(3) [cornell.edu] which defines the exclusive distribution right as "to distribute copies or phonorecords of the copyrighted work to the public by sale or other transfer of ownership, or by rental, lease, or lending". This is the statute that the RIAA uses to sue, that is, they claim their exclusive distribution right granted by this statue is being infringed. But note, this statute clearly indicates a "sale or other transfer of ownership", and courts have consistently ruled that this means an actual transfer must take place to be considered infringement. The RIAA was successful in getting the judge in the Capitol v. Thomas [blogspot.com] case to instruct the jury [wired.com] that "The act of making copyrighted sound recordings available for electronic distribution on a peer-to-peer network, without license from the copyright owners, violates the copyright owners' exclusive right of distribution, regardless of whether actual distribution has been shown.". So it may be true that the RIAA is not literally rewriting copyright law (they have lobbyists that do that), but they sure are trying to rewrite copyright law by establishing precedents via cases against those who can't afford to defend themselves.

        Beautiful comment, Dr_Art. MYSBAL (maybe you should be a lawyer) IYCATCIP (if you could afford the cut in pay).

        • Re: (Score:1)

          by Dr_Art ( 937436 )
          Thanks for the compliment!!! I guess all of those years of watching Perry Mason [wikipedia.org] reruns really paid off!!! Or else maybe it was staying in a Holiday Inn Express last night!!! :-)

          Regards,
          Art

      • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

        by The Empiricist ( 854346 )

        So it may be true that the RIAA is not literally rewriting copyright law (they have lobbyists that do that), but they sure are trying to rewrite copyright law by establishing precedents via cases against those who can't afford to defend themselves.

        Just a fine point: binding precedents are generally not established by suing individuals who don't try to put up much of a defense. While the decisions of district court judges may have some persuasive impact (particularly if well-written), they do not create

        • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

          by NewYorkCountryLawyer ( 912032 ) *
          The RIAA is constantly citing its 'victories' in district court ex parte cases (cases where the other side doesn't even know there's a case), default cases (cases where the other side either didn't know there was a case or failed to defend it), and pro se cases (cases where the other side couldn't afford a lawyer). When we had motion practice in an appeals court, they cited their lower court ex parte 'victories' as though they were binding (although as you and I know, they were not).

          Even when dealing with
      • I beg to differ. Here's just one example. The RIAA insists that "making available" is the same as copyright infringement. But take a look at Title 17 USC 106(3) [cornell.edu] which defines the exclusive distribution right as "to distribute copies or phonorecords of the copyrighted work to the public by sale or other transfer of ownership, or by rental, lease, or lending".

        ___
        BTW, if I would set my bittorrent client to stop seeding when the ratio reaches 99%, so there would be evidence on my machine that I n

        • Re: (Score:1)

          by Dr_Art ( 937436 )

          BTW, if I would set my bittorrent client to stop seeding when the ratio reaches 99%, so there would be evidence on my machine that I never could have distributed even 1 (full)copy? That could hardly be named 'making available', no?

          Excellent point!! How would you define a "copyrighted work" for the purposes of a lawsuit when bittorrent allows partial pieces to be transferred? I'm sure the RIAA would interpret it as a transfer, even if it wasn't 100%. I think that was Don Music's (the GP's) point in his post when he said:

          The problem is that RIAA is exploiting the anachronism of our current copyright laws. The laws truly do need to be re-written to incorporate creative works that are not strictly analog and paper-based, and that should be the goal.

          It's as if we're in the wild wild west. The RIAA is the rich banker that is cheating the poor farmers out of their land in order to gain the mineral rights just before a big gold rush. The government is the sher

    • I disagree. The RIAA's entire litigation campaign is based upon an invented legal principle which exists neither in the statute, nor in the caselaw.

  • Pissing off/on the Lawyers of Tomorrow... (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Sfing_ter ( 99478 ) on Friday December 28, 2007 @09:54PM (#21845516) Homepage Journal
    At this point someone over there at the RIAA/MPAA have got to realize they are pissing off/on the legal minds ,business leaders and congress critters of tomorrow, this must be making them spot. It's one thing to get the little old lady who's grandson was over at christmas and installed limebearfreezemule and began downloading all his favorite songs, then left with the software starting everytime(and sharing!!!) granny went online; her only hope is to pay for a lawyer and that is not likely to happen, she'll be dead in a few years anyway... IT IS A TOTALLY DIFFERENT thing to sue those who are in the process of learning the law or (choose on of the others i previously mentioned), they will be in their prime to fight back soon enough and will do it with great force. My name is Innigo Montoya, you have sued my father, prepare to die.
  • Warning: nitpicking bellow.

    Professor Deirdre M. Smith is an Associate Professor of Law at the University of Maine School of Law, and the Director of the Cumberland Legal Aid Clinic. The University of Maine School of Law is actually a part of the University of Southern Maine, which is a part of the University of Maine System. The University of Maine, which has a flagship campus in Orono and a few other campuses, is also a part of the University of Maine System. The University of Maine and the University of

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