|
"Piracy" Trial: Day One
SOURCE
"Thomas is fighting the charge and will reportedly claim she swapped her computer hard drive approximately the same time online investigators documented her computer was sharing copyrighted music files.
RIAA lawyers contend in its lawsuit against Thomas: "This individual was distributing these audio files for free over the Internet under the username 'tereastarr@KaZaA' to potentially millions of other KaZaA users."
The first day of testimony Tuesday and here is how it went.
The first witness for the RIAA was Jennifer L. Pariser of Sony BMG Music Entertainment and Arista Records who testified before a jury that she "has seen thousands of people lose their jobs because of Internet piracy of copyrighted songs," according to a report in the Duluth News Tribune.
The RIAA brought forward witness David Edgar, an Internet security manager from Charter Communication, Thomas' Internet service provider at the time. Edgar testified that the IP address used to share files over the Kazaa network was assigned to Thomas.
According to reports, attorney for Thomas, Brian Toder, raised the possibility during a cross examination of Edgar that someone else could have been sharing Thomas' IP address using a wireless Internet connection. Edgar claims no wireless router was used by Thomas.
A second witness for the RIAA from Safenet, a company hired by the RIAA to find potential illegal file swappers, examined Thomas' hard drive and concluded the music files found were from Kazaa.
Interestingly, the expert also stated there was no evidence of the program Kazaa or any other peer-to-peer network software program on her PC."
read the rest at
SOURCE
User Comments
(These do not necessarily reflect the beliefs of this site)
|
CodeWarrior
|
Date: October 3, 2007 @ 1:32 PM
There is an old maxim among lawyers...If you have the law on your side, quote the law...If the facts are on your side, stress the facts...If you have neither the law nor the facts on your side, pound on the table and talk loudly....I guess the toadies for the RIAA will be doing a lot of table pounding and loud talking...
~Code |
|
gfmlcka
|
Date: October 3, 2007 @ 3:34 PM
Or if you can't dazzle 'em with brilliance, baffle 'em with bullshit. Better put on your boots, it's gonna get pretty deep in that courtroom. |
|
CodeWarrior
|
Date: October 3, 2007 @ 6:12 PM
"The first witness for the RIAA was Jennifer L. Pariser of Sony BMG Music Entertainment and Arista Records who testified before a jury that she "has seen thousands of people lose their jobs because of Internet piracy of copyrighted songs," ...
WTF...was there a giant line-up or something? I really would be interested in cross examining her on her first hand knowledge as a direct fact witness of thousands of people lose their jobs...
that's gotta be some kind of marathon firing session! |
|
gdZiemann
|
Date: October 3, 2007 @ 6:54 PM
Day 2 -- Cary Sherman determined to be irrelevant. RIAA "expert" admits "The IP address does not identify an individual."
Trial is over. Closing arguments tomorrow. |
|
gdZiemann
|
Date: October 3, 2007 @ 7:14 PM
that's gotta be some kind of marathon firing session!
Actually, that was the believeable half of the sentence, Code. Between mergers and cost-cutting measures, the labels have cut thousands (as in, at least 2,000) of people from their bloated corporations.
"...because of Internet "piracy"?
Yeah, and they think radio pirates in the 1920s caused the Great Depression. |
|
Dreddsnik
|
Date: October 3, 2007 @ 8:05 PM
Call me a pessimist ......
I think they are counting on the jury's
general lack of knowledge of how the
'tubes' REALLY work, and sadly, they
may be right.
It's all too likely that they will in fact be
' baffled by bullshit '.
After all, rich people in suits don't lie .. right ? |
|
gdZiemann
|
Date: October 3, 2007 @ 8:20 PM
Five of the people on the jury have mp3 players. One jury member is a musician.
There ought to be one in there who knows enough to explain to the others how things really work. |
|
Dreddsnik
|
Date: October 4, 2007 @ 8:09 AM
Ipod owners don't count.
That's like asking an AOL user how the
internet works. |
|
CodeWarrior
|
Date: October 4, 2007 @ 10:49 AM
George, my point was that her testimony was that she has "seen" thousands of people lose their jobs due to Internet "piracy", which would indicate to me she is claiming firsthand direct witness knowledge of these thousands of firings. |
|
gfmlcka
|
Date: October 4, 2007 @ 1:01 PM
Bummer. I was hoping to hear Sherman perjure himself.
http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20071003-judge-bars-riaa-president-from-testifying-in-capitol-records-v-thomas.html
|
|
gdZiemann
|
Date: October 4, 2007 @ 5:59 PM
Sadly, Dreddsnik was right.
RIAA wins. Thomas has to pay $222,000. |
|
pessimist
|
Date: October 4, 2007 @ 10:29 PM
Flawed reasoning leads to a path that departs from truth.
In regard to: all those people losing their jobs "because of internet piracy"
Losing jobs? If true, it may be a secondary or even a third effect stemming from one or more primary effects.
BIG question: What was the primary cause, or causes?
Why were the jobs lost? It MIGHT have been because the labels lost lots of money (if indeed they did; how can we ever know for sure -- do they open their books any better than major league baseball franchises?); or perhaps it was due to a different reason than loss of profits, or even due to a COMBINATION of significant causes!
IF losing jobs WAS due mostly to the labels losing lots of money, then someone should STILL be burdoned with having to show that such loss of money was mostly due to internet piracy! Until preponderance of evidence can be established one way or another, it is a display of ignorance or even arrogance for anyone in a representative capacity to testify in a courtroom in such an uneducated manner.
(As an aside, how did the counsel for the defense deal with this issue? Any attorney worth their mettle should be able to give it a good scrutiny and voice a vigorous challenge to such a "juvenile" presentation.)
How ignorant do you have to be to skip the steps I just mentioned and make the broad-brush sweep of the hand with something like, "Oh, the labels have been losing lots of money, and the obvious cause is internet piracy"?
I'm somewhere between intrigued and annoyed how often this type of error is made, and worse, condoned. The public needs to have logic taught better in our schools so that citizens can be better equipped to recognize violations of logic, and NOT tolerate them.
Twenty years ago, Barbara Walters said schools should concentrate more on how to teach pupils to THINK. (My position on her recommendation: nobody even has to know what "metacognition" means to be able to appreciate an appeal like that.)
Consider this potential pitfall: Are people who sleep well generally healthier, or do healthier people generally sleep better?
Which is the cause, and which is the effect? Until it can be reasonably established, nobody should "jump to a conclusion".
Or this: My aunt hates to take medicine, and when she has to, she gets upset.
So, is it fair to say that the medicine itself causes her to become upset?
This circumstance involves positive correlation, but NOT necessarily cause and effect; medicine itself does not have to automatically be implicated as having a side effect of causing a person to become upset, even in my aunt's instance. That's because OTHER FACTORS ARE LIKELY INVOLVED in her case, and may be in other cases similar to hers.
Same story with the labels losing money, and people losing jobs. Important reasons can, and should, be brought up when there is a possibility or a likelihood of those factors being responsible.
Bottom line in my argument is really quite essential: "Positive correlation does not substantiate cause and effect." (Hey, RIAA, is that concept too far over your head?)
Here's a little quiz: What's wrong with this set of statements?
All terriers are dogs.
All terriers are mammals.
Conclusion: Therefore, all mammals are dogs.
Where is the fallacy? (I'll leave that to the reader to determine.)
You know, it never ceases to amaze me how many individuals don't know about such concepts as premises or conditionals. But even despite that, most folks could STILL use common sense, yet so many DON'T!!
Speaking of premises, here's a pertinent one: "People can be destroyed through lack of knowledge."
(Grr-rr.)
[exhaling; descending from soap box; ostensible end of rant]
|
|
pessimist
|
Date: October 4, 2007 @ 10:42 PM
Just to add a little more fuel to the fire I stirred up:
I can't help but wonder about the impact that woman's testimony had on the jurors. (It probably had a more significant effect than it deserved.)
Sadly, it's been my experience in life that most people take more stock in appearance and presentation than they should, even at the expense of logic or substance or common sense. Could that be one of the big reasons how our nation and our nation's government got so screwed up??
You be the judge.
|
|
pessimist
|
Date: October 4, 2007 @ 10:45 PM
Would it be trite for me to say that I'm, ahem, PESSIMISTIC about the chances for improvement in the issue I've been lamenting about?
|
|
|
Navigation
