p2pnet news | RIAA News:- Oregon state attorney general Hardy Myers (right) has joined people and organisations demanding Warner Music, EMI, Vivendi Universal and Sony BMG’s RIAA either puts up or shuts up in its bizarre sue ‘em all anti-student, anti-P2P, anti-file sharing marketing campaign.

He also says the RIAA may be illegally spying on UO students and ferreting out data they’re not entitled to.

They’ll be going bananas in RIAA land.

The University of Oregon (University) currently finds itself on a battleground not of its own making. By challenging Plaintiffs’ overbroad and burdensome subpoenae, the university has attempted to protect the fundamental privacy rights of its students, conserve limited public resources, and to provide pertinent information of the court’s consideration regarding whether the plaintiff’s discovery efforts are appropriate.

Sadly, the university’s efforts of thus far have been met by accusations that the University is obstructing the process and even is conspiring with lawbreakers. Those accusations are not warranted. Certainly it is appropriate to the victims of copyright infringement to lawfully pursue statutory remedies.

However, that pursuit must be tempered by a basic notions of privacy and due process. their record in this case suggests that the larger issue may not be whether students are sharing copyrighted music, but whether the plaintiff’s investigative and litigation strategies are appropriate or capable of supporting their conclusory allegations.

On the first day of this month, the Oregon attorney general and University of Oregon became the first to American institutions to jointly make an active and determined effort to protect state students against the depredations of the RIAA.

The quoted paragraphs in the intro are from Oregon state attorney general Hardy Myers who’s now demanding immediate discovery into the RIAA’s illegal and unlawful efforts to terrorise UO students into becoming good little consumers.

In our earlier post, “the RIAA ‘investigation’ halted at the precise point where it should have begun,” we had Randolph Geller, deputy Orgeon general counsel, and a special assistant attorney general, saying.

We went on:

“In the case of sixteen of the seventeen [UO] John Does, I believe it is not possible for the university to identify the alleged infringers without conducting interviews and a forensic investigation of the computers likely involved,” he states in a motion to quash.

However, in these cases, as with all others, the RIAA simply says it believes somebody may have done something.

‘Now, give us the names, addresses so we can prove it.’

“This is the first such motion of which we are aware that has been made by the university itself, rather than by the students,” said Recording Industry vs The People’s Ray Beckerman.

In a court document, “Plaintiffs may be spying on students who use the university’s computer system, and may be accessing much more than IP addresses,” Hardy accuses, going on:

“The University seeks the Court’s permission to serve the attached interrogatories on Plaintiffs and conductor telephonic depositions of the individuals who investigated the seventeen John DCoes named in this lawsuit to determine 1) what their investigated practices and 2) whether they had any additional information with which to identify John Does.

“Plaintiffs have refused to provide the University with answers to these basic questions. If plaintiffs had nothing to hide, they should be able to agree to these reasonable requests. Since Plaintiffs have declined to share any information about what they know and how they know it, the University seeks the assistance of the court to obtain it.”

Will the Oregon stand be echoed by other universities in America?

So far, most of them are marked blackly by their singular refusal to act on behalf of their students. Instead, like Columbia University, they’re bending over backwards to act for the members of the Big 4 organised music cartel.

It seems the only way students can gain protection against the corporate music attack dogs is to follow the lead of an Ohio student who is representing himself.

Stinging rebuke

Says Recording Industry vs The People’s Beckerman:

“In a stinging rebuke to the RIAA’s opposition papers, and in further support of the motion by the University of Oregon to quash the RIAA’s subpoena seeking the identities of the students, in Arista v. Does 1-17, the Oregon Attorney General has filed reply papers which call for immediate discovery into the RIAA’s tactics, and which point out to the Court that:

• Carlos Linares, upon whose declaration the subpoena was issued, had no first hand information whatsoever;
• the RIAA’s “data mining” investigation does not reveal how the files were obtained or whether they were ever shared with anyone;
• the RIAA papers did not show that any infringing activity actually took place;
• MediaSentry appears to have been conducting an investigation without an investigator’s license, in violation of ORS 703.045 and ORS 703.993(s), which is a crime;
• the RIAA concealed a material fact from its original ex parte motion papers — which sought to create the aura of an emergency and the need for immediate ex parte action — the fact that the University had informed the RIAA in July that the requested information had been gathered and would be preserved;
• the RIAA lawyers falsely implied that the Attorney General’s office had failed to “meet and confer” with them prior to making the motion to quash, even though they had in fact conferred with the RIAA’s lawyers;
• the deposition testimony of the RIAA’s expert witness Doug Jacobson in UMG v. Lindor tends to indicate that the RIAA has already illegally accessed private information on the computers of University of Oregon students; and
• the RIAA has failed to provide an affidavit of the individual who actually conducted the ‘investigation’.

The AG also pointed out:

• Because Plaintiffs routinely obtain ex parte discovery in their John Doe infringement suits, as they themselves have pointed out, their factual assertions supporting their good cause argument are never challenged by an adverse party and their investigative methods remain free of scrutiny. They often settle their cases quickly before defendants obtain legal representation and begin to conduct discovery, as Mr Rothman attested they did in the 2003 Portland State University case, and have dropped cases, such as their case against Tanya Andersen, in which their methods and practices have been challenged through counterclaims. Opposition, Exhibit 4, p. 2,76 &Affidavit of von Ter Stegge, Exhibit C, p. 12 (”In poker terms, defendant didn’t call; plaintiffs folded”).

Definitely stay tuned.

Jon Newton - p2pnet

Slashdot it!

Also See:
first to American institutions - Oregon AG backs university in RIAA case, November 1, 2007
bending over backwards - Columbia University RIAA unit, November 28, 2007
representing himself - Ohio student says NO! to the RIAA, November 29, 2007
Tanya Andersen - Tanya Andersen sues the RIAA, June 25, 2007

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This entry was posted on Thursday, November 29th, 2007 at 10:38 am and is filed under RIAA News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.

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