May 26, 2004
RIAA strikes in South Dakota
What I believe are the first lawsuits against specific South Dakota residents for sharing music over the internet were filed Monday in federal court in Sioux Falls. They are evidently part of more than 500 lawsuits RIAA filed this week.
How the RIAA picks its defendants is uncertain to me but the two in South Dakota are women from Brookings and Yankton. It also appears they may be in a special class. The RIAA normally sues by IP addresses because it doesn't know the identity of most defendants. There evidently are, however, a group of 24 individuals who were sued by name "due to them declining or ignoring RIAA requests to settle the case before going to court." Since the two South Dakota lawsuits are against named individuals, not Jane or John Doe or an IP address, I speculate they are in the latter category. (And while the lawsuits are public record, I see no need to spread their actual names on the internet.)
Each complaint alleges the defendant "has used, and continues to use, an online media distribution system to download the Copyrighted Recordings, to distribute the Copyrighted Recordings to the public, and/or to make the Copyrighted Recordings available for distribution to others." The complaints seek an injunction and monetary damages for violation of the copyright act. According to exhibits attached to the complaints, both women used Kazaa. At the time RIAA "print screened" the files these women were sharing, the Brookings woman had 599 files available (ranging from Madonna and Everclear to Martina McBride and the Dixie Chicks) and the Yankton woman had 1,183 (including hip hop/rap artists, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Avril Lavigne and the Spice Girls).
As of late March, none of the RIAA cases had gone to trial and the average settlement was about $3,000. As one commentator has noted: "The RIAA victims are ordinary men, women and children, and rather than chance the huge financial penalties that losing to Big Music's limitless resources and expert legal teams inevitably would entail, they always settle out of court." If the reports on the 24 lawsuits naming individuals apply here, these women may have already rejected settlement demands.
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How the RIAA picks its defendants is uncertain to me but the two in South Dakota are women from Brookings and Yankton. It also appears they may be in a special class. The RIAA normally sues by IP addresses because it doesn't know the identity of most defendants. There evidently are, however, a group of 24 individuals who were sued by name "due to them declining or ignoring RIAA requests to settle the case before going to court." Since the two South Dakota lawsuits are against named individuals, not Jane or John Doe or an IP address, I speculate they are in the latter category. (And while the lawsuits are public record, I see no need to spread their actual names on the internet.)
Each complaint alleges the defendant "has used, and continues to use, an online media distribution system to download the Copyrighted Recordings, to distribute the Copyrighted Recordings to the public, and/or to make the Copyrighted Recordings available for distribution to others." The complaints seek an injunction and monetary damages for violation of the copyright act. According to exhibits attached to the complaints, both women used Kazaa. At the time RIAA "print screened" the files these women were sharing, the Brookings woman had 599 files available (ranging from Madonna and Everclear to Martina McBride and the Dixie Chicks) and the Yankton woman had 1,183 (including hip hop/rap artists, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Avril Lavigne and the Spice Girls).
As of late March, none of the RIAA cases had gone to trial and the average settlement was about $3,000. As one commentator has noted: "The RIAA victims are ordinary men, women and children, and rather than chance the huge financial penalties that losing to Big Music's limitless resources and expert legal teams inevitably would entail, they always settle out of court." If the reports on the 24 lawsuits naming individuals apply here, these women may have already rejected settlement demands.
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Unfortunately, a prime example of what's wrong
As details continue to emerge about the case of Brandon Mayfield, the Oregon lawyer detained and then released as a "material witness" in the Madrid bombings, it becomes more and more a prime example of the problems with our anti-terror approach.
The New York Times reports: "Court records unsealed Tuesday showed that the Spanish authorities had raised questions about the F.B.I.'s fingerprint match to [Mayfield] weeks before his May 6 arrest. Yet F.B.I. officials were so confident of a match they described as '100 percent,' the court papers show, that they never bothered to look at the original print while they were in Madrid on April 21, meeting with Spanish investigators."
Further details appear in the government's motion, which should cast things in a light most favorable to the government. It states that an FBI fingerprint lab examiner, "based upon a thorough scientific analysis," determined the print provided by Spain matched Mayfield and that identification "was subsequently verified by at least three additional examiners." After the Spanish National Police said the fingerprint belonged to someone else and the original was finally examined by the FBI, four FBI examiners spent the night of May 23 and part of the morning of May 24 conducting a "re-analysis" of the original print, concluding that what it originally examined was "of no value for identification purposes."
Moreover, the case may be one showing exactly the threat posed by the Patriot Act. The Oregonian carries a story about how "sneak and peek" searches authorized by the act evidently occurring as early as March. (Via Behind The Homefront). We then went from these searches to, in the Oregonian's words, "Secret search warrants. Sealed court documents. And, of course, the gag order that kept the Beaverton attorney from uttering a word about his captivity until the case was dismissed Monday morning."
A New York times editorial is charitable calling this a case that "smacks of a rush to judgment based on flimsy evidence" and being one heavily influenced by Mayfield's Muslim ties. The fact is it also demonstrates the extent to which this administration will invoke the Patriot Act's draconian provisions. Doesn't this all instill confidence with the government today warning that al Qaeda is planning a major attack in the US. That news, of course, will simply provide a basis to downplay Mayfield as "better safe than sorry." Given the fact the government can offer no details of this impending threat, isn't it an amazing coincidence how the announcement comes immediately after the Mayfield story?
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The New York Times reports: "Court records unsealed Tuesday showed that the Spanish authorities had raised questions about the F.B.I.'s fingerprint match to [Mayfield] weeks before his May 6 arrest. Yet F.B.I. officials were so confident of a match they described as '100 percent,' the court papers show, that they never bothered to look at the original print while they were in Madrid on April 21, meeting with Spanish investigators."
Further details appear in the government's motion, which should cast things in a light most favorable to the government. It states that an FBI fingerprint lab examiner, "based upon a thorough scientific analysis," determined the print provided by Spain matched Mayfield and that identification "was subsequently verified by at least three additional examiners." After the Spanish National Police said the fingerprint belonged to someone else and the original was finally examined by the FBI, four FBI examiners spent the night of May 23 and part of the morning of May 24 conducting a "re-analysis" of the original print, concluding that what it originally examined was "of no value for identification purposes."
Moreover, the case may be one showing exactly the threat posed by the Patriot Act. The Oregonian carries a story about how "sneak and peek" searches authorized by the act evidently occurring as early as March. (Via Behind The Homefront). We then went from these searches to, in the Oregonian's words, "Secret search warrants. Sealed court documents. And, of course, the gag order that kept the Beaverton attorney from uttering a word about his captivity until the case was dismissed Monday morning."
A New York times editorial is charitable calling this a case that "smacks of a rush to judgment based on flimsy evidence" and being one heavily influenced by Mayfield's Muslim ties. The fact is it also demonstrates the extent to which this administration will invoke the Patriot Act's draconian provisions. Doesn't this all instill confidence with the government today warning that al Qaeda is planning a major attack in the US. That news, of course, will simply provide a basis to downplay Mayfield as "better safe than sorry." Given the fact the government can offer no details of this impending threat, isn't it an amazing coincidence how the announcement comes immediately after the Mayfield story?
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May 25, 2004
Worth the time
- Kos does an extremely thorough analysis in asking Who is Larry Diedrich? As a side note, how much will the uproar over Tim Johnson's Taliban comment hurt Stephanie when her lead is already narrowing? The circle jerk bloggers and their fellow GOP/right travelers are in ecstasy. (And one even construes Kos' analysis as a below the belt attack on Diedrich).
- Welcome to the Tripp County Democrats blog. (Via smartblog). As the links on the left of that blog indicate, the number of "SD Liberal Blogs" is few and far between.
- An op-ed piece by Phillip James in The Guardian examines how a recent Meet the Press program showed the true face of the Bush administration.
- And Ted Rall is seeing the sad but true face of what is hopefully a minority of the right. Ever since his strip on Pat Tillman, Ted has been subject to voracious attack. Ted's blog gives you an indication of what he has been experiencing here and here. It certainly appears many of these people need remedial work on their literacy.
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May 24, 2004
Big lies, little lies and the fools who consume them
Due to real life activity, blogging may be even more sporadic for the near future. But there just seemed a perverse karma here:
BIG LIES: Reuters, The Guardian and the Associated Press report that AP has obtained a videotape that contradicts US claims that our attack last week killing 40+ people was on a safehouse for insurgents, not a wedding.
LITTLE LIES: Kos shows that when the President's own "training wheels" come off, the Bushies even have to lie about the details.
THE FOOLS: 67 percent of South Dakotans in the recent Argus-KELO poll agree with the way Bush has approached homeland security and the war on terrorism since the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks and 48 percent support the president's handling of the war.
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BIG LIES: Reuters, The Guardian and the Associated Press report that AP has obtained a videotape that contradicts US claims that our attack last week killing 40+ people was on a safehouse for insurgents, not a wedding.
LITTLE LIES: Kos shows that when the President's own "training wheels" come off, the Bushies even have to lie about the details.
THE FOOLS: 67 percent of South Dakotans in the recent Argus-KELO poll agree with the way Bush has approached homeland security and the war on terrorism since the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks and 48 percent support the president's handling of the war.
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, Timothy Egan
, Lewis Black
, Yevgeny Zamyatin
, Daniel J. Levitin
, Richard Powers
, Nick Schou
, Cormac McCarthy
, Richard Dawkins
, Sam Harris
