Thursday, February 05, 2009

RIAA opposes Jammie Thomas's request for extension so that she can hire an expert with grant received from Free Software Foundation

In Capitol Records v. Thomas, the RIAA has opposed Jammie Thomas's request for an extension of time to enable her to hire her own expert witness to rebut the RIAA's expert.

Ms. Thomas recently received a $3000 grant from the Expert Witness Defense Fund of the Free Software Foundation, to enable her to hire an expert witness.

RIAA Opposition to Motion for Extension of time to enable retention of expert by defendant

[Ed. note. This type of request would not normally be opposed. I wonder if the RIAA lawyers are afraid of something. Like their own expert being exposed for the fraud that he is. Like the judge actually getting to hear from both sides. The bullying nature of these attorneys is exemplified by this dastardly opposition. -R.B.]



Keywords: lawyer digital copyright law online internet law legal download upload peer to peer p2p file sharing filesharing music movies indie independent label freeculture creative commons pop/rock artists riaa independent mp3 cd favorite songs intellectual property portable music player

14 comments:

anna johnson said...

Utterly, utterly shameful.

Dave

Anonymous said...

Not found... Hurry I wanna read this... Should be good... LOL

Alter_Fritz said...

OMG the RIAA" expert" stole your http server!

Not Found

The requested URL http:// was not found on this server.


Or something like that ;-)

Anonymous said...

Broken link to the PDF file.

eZee.se said...

I guess text like this appearing on the interwebs have something to do with that fear:

In a 15 page expert witness declaration submitted to the court, Jayson essentially attacks the entire premise of the RIAA's lawsuit which is that an IP address can be used to uniquely identify an individual. He calls this assertion "factually erroneous" and "misleading,"
http://www.zeropaid.com/news/8955/Computer+Security+Expert+Testifies+that+RIAA+Can%27t+Identify+Users+by+IP+Address

Its really hard to imagine how low some people can go to get themselves an "expert" but deny the (if you would pardon the expression, but I think its worthy in this David vs Goliath case) underdog from having a chance of defending herself.

Good luck Jammie, they may have the expensive suits but you have the truth and our prayers with you.

Ryan S
www.eZee.se

Another Kevin said...

The link to the brief is broken.

Anonymous said...

It looks like the link to the pdf is down.

raybeckerman said...

ok fixed the link

next time let me know in plain english... i'm a bit slow...

raybeckerman said...

Thanks, folks. Sorry about that.

Link is fixed now.

Anonymous said...

From the Plaintiff's response...

"Plaintiffs would have less than four weeks to
review the new expert’s report, depose the new expert, find a rebuttal expert, prepare a
rebuttal report, draft any necessary Daubert challenges..."

HRO is stupid enough to bring up Daubert regarding expert witnesses? I think Mr. Reynolds forgot to check Mr. Gabriels files.

raybeckerman said...

What's really stupid is the invocation of how much time would be needed...

Duh... the motion is for an extension of time. They can have as much time as they want. Jammie Thomas isn't going to complain about giving them time to prepare their "Daubert" challenges.

Daubert?

LOL

Anonymous said...

I guess they go by the "oppose everything" rule, no matter how trivial and no matter how much it would work in their favor. Too bad it tends to make the judge regard them as being frivolous.

Alter_Fritz said...

Technical question!

This expert(*) seems to be just extremely nervous and wants to be sure he makes no errors.
That's why he refused to do junior grade math in his head in his deposition.
Something like that is not failing Daubert is it?

But if you have a guy that is extremely confident, that even claims that songs can't be ripped from CD in a certain timeframe and stands by this assertion with the fullest of his chest even when the opposite is demonstated right in front of him.
A guy that has no expert(ise) knowledge about a procedure at all, but that acts just like an "interpreter" for -by human(?) hand - manipulated print outs...

Such a guy(**) definetly fails the Daubert (and maybe even the Dilbert-) Test, doesn't he?!


(*) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sYqXlRQrBN4

(**) http://lifeboat.com/board/douglas.w.jacobson.jpg

Anonymous said...

As long as you don't annoy the judge or prejudice the case, it's not weird to be thorough. I think that's all that's all they think they're doing here -- it's not like they are going to shoot themselves in the foot on purpose. I expect that if both parties had infinitely deep pocket for legal budgets, you'd see the same sorts of things on both sides.

To be clear: I don't mean to imply that their law firm is just filing stuff because they are being paid by the hour -- just that they are doing everything they can think of that won't get them sanctioned or otherwise prejudice their case. Overreaching (and subsequent embarrassment) can be bad lawyering without being sketchy.

-R.