Does that mean that the RIAA is going to sue Microsoft next?

Seeing how Media Player has the feature to RIP songs from CDs built into it, then I guess that means that Microsoft is delivering illegal music pirating tools to its customers.

That's a court battle I would love to see!

RIAA would get slaughtered, as I'm sure M$ has way more court battle expirences then the RIAA, who only knows how to bully people in small time civil courts.

THE MUSIC Industry's attempts to force a university to reveal the names of people who had been sharing music over its networks has gone all pear shaped.

For ages the RIAA has had a simple procedure of getting a subpoena and expecting a university to do what it was told.

Now it appears that the University of Oregon has called its bluff on the legality of such subpoenas. To make matters worse it is being backed by state’s attorney general, Hardy Myers.

The motion to quash the subpoena is either nasty or brilliant, depending on your standpoint on the RIAA's policy of dragging grandmothers, children and students into court and accusing them of piracy.

The motion said that the RIAA had misled the judge, violated student privacy laws and engaging in questionable investigative practices.

According to the New York Times, Cary Sherman, the president of the Recording Industry Association of America, described the motion as 'a lot of crazy stuff' but admitted to being surprised that it has come from the office of an attorney general of a state.

More Info:
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/31/us/31bar.html?ex=1356757200&en=d074f44f58dafab5&ei=5088&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss

THE THUGS IN SUITS at the RIAA might be good at suing single mothers, extracting college savings from teenagers, and bribing US congress-critters to threaten universities with loss of federal funds over students' file sharing, but it seems they're not very good at running a website to catapult their own propaganda.

Over the weekend, web denizens on the social news site Reddit got interested in a slow SQL query targeting the RIAA's website. Then, according to TorrentFreak, "someone allegedly decided to up the ante and wipe the site's entire database."

One of the posters at Reddit found evidence that the RIAA's website seems to use the Exponent Content Management System (CMS), older versions of which apparently "have a lot of vulnerabilities... including SQL injection."

In addition to completely trashing the RIAA's website, some playful geeks made it link to the file sharing anarchists' site Pirate Bay and other diverse amusements.

The RIAA managed to restore the website at least once, but it might be going down a lot because they haven't fixed the SQL injection and cross-site scripting vulnerabilities, according to TorrentFreak.

ONE OF THE WORLD'S top experts in the science of P2P file sharing has offered his harsh evaluation of the RIAA's so-called expert witness report.

With what can only be described as a good dose of Dutch courage, Delft University's Assistant Professor Johan Pouwelse, dealt a devastating thump on the head to the music industry when he labeled the RIAA's super expert, Dr Doug Jacobson's report as 'borderline incompetent'.

Prof. Pouwelse is the same bloke who stopped the Dutch equivalent of the RIAA dead in their tracks back in 2005. In the UMG v Lindor trial, the RIAA claimed it had carried out its analysis with sophisticatedly advanced equipment and software which, it assured everyone, was never, ever mistaken.

But now, Ms Marie Lindor has decided to fight back with a report drafted by her very own internationally renowned expert witness. In his report, Pouwelse writes that certain procedures that should have been taken to ascertain that a particular computer had been uploading copyrighted works illegally, weren't taken.

And, taking no prisoners, Professor Pouwelse goes on to say that Jacobson, a director at the Iowa State University Information Assurance Center, lacked 'in-depth analysis', 'proper scientific scrutiny' and that his reports were 'factually erroneous' and frequently contradicted his own deposition testimony.

Going for the jugular, Powelse describes the systems and techniques used in the indictment of Ms Lindor as 'overly simplistic', Jacobson's investigative process as 'unprofessional' and his methods 'self-developed', 'unpublished' and unaccepted by the scientific community.

He concludes by giving his expert opinion that Jacobson has shown 'borderline incompetence'.

Sorry to bring back the dead, but this story is worth noting, and I didn't see what it shouldn't be attached to the rest of the RIAA discussions:


(From INQ:)

A STUDENT at the University of Michigan targeted by the RIAA for alleged file-sharing has accused its gumshoes at Media Sentry of felonies and suggested criminal prosecution.

The 'John Doe' student identified so far only as 'Case #162983070' sent a letter to a state investigator. In his letter, he complains that Media Sentry has and continues to investigate Michigan residents such as himself without a private investigator's licence as required by state law.

He notes that he is identified as a defendant in a federal lawsuit filed by an RIAA member company alleging copyright infringements by himself and six other Michigan residents, and that the plaintiff has filed evidence compiled by Media Sentry in applying to pursue discovery, that is, identify himself and other defendants by name, take their depositions, examine their personal computers and so on, in order to hail them into US District Court seeking damages.

The student further writes that the fact that the plaintiff filed Media Sentry's investigative extracts in support of its application for discovery establishes, without a doubt, that Media Sentry was engaged in obtaining evidence intended to be used in court. A pursuit that falls under Michigan's definitions of activities that require a private detective agency licence.

He then fastens upon the inherent absurdity of the situation forced upon him by the RIAA, in that he and the other defendants will be prevented from examining or otherwise challenging Media Sentry's unlicenced investigations:

"Since unlicensed investigations in Michigan are punishable as a felony, any agents or employees of Media Sentry would be able to properly assert their rights against self-incrimination in refusing to answer any questions regarding their investigative efforts in this matter."

He argues that Michigan's laws were not established to protect the self-interests of private investigators but instead to protect Michigan residents who might employ or be subjects of investigations. He writes, "As a Michigan resident, I have been subjected to harassment, intimidation, and invasions of my personal privacy as a result of the ongoing and continuing unlicensed activities of Media Sentry."

He concludes by asking that the state investigator refer information about Media Sentry's apparent felonies to the state Attorney General's Office or the local prosecutor's office.

Keep some popcorn around, because this could turn into a legal drama worth watching.

More about the RIAA and their stupid ways:

IT LOOKS like the big music cartel's claim that ISPs were working with them to shut down Internet filesharing was premature and overstated.

At the end of last year the RIAA admitted it's practice of threatening to drag old ladies and children into court unless they paid it shedloads of money on somewhat dubious evidence wasn't working out. Instead it said it would be working with ISPs that would shut the 'pirates' down.

However, CNET reports that the recording industry is still waiting to hear from the RIAA which ISPs have agreed to work with the association. While the RIAA claims that a number of different ISPs have forwarded nearly half a million notices to alleged P2P copyright infringers during the last six months, it is refusing to say which ISPs, exactly, those would be.

In fact, so far we have not heard of anyone who has actually received such a P2P filesharing notice from any ISP, let alone paid any heed to one.

It is looking increasingly likely that the RIAA's claims that ISPs were helping it to police the interwibble were nothing more than hopeful spin. ISPs don't seem to be falling all over themselves to alienate their customers just to please the grasping music industry without compensation for their time or lost revenue.

While it is true that the RIAA has been pitching its cunning anti-filesharing scheme at ISPs, it appears they have been saying "that's nice" and then proceeding to ignore the music companies' wishes altogether.

England's found the perfect way to stop illegal file sharers: Give ISP controll to the Movie and Music industry!

(From INQ:)

THE BRITISH GOVERNMENT, which used to cover the world red, has decided to outsource decisions about who can get broadband to the music and film cartels.

A new policy drawn up by Lord Mandelson, which gives the movie and film industries the power to order an ISP to cut off people it suspects of filesharing, has turned ISP's incandescent with rage.

After all the entertainment giants have told us in countless studies that they think every student is a 'pirate', so therefore we can expect everyone under the age of 30 to be cut off straight away.

UK ISP TalkTalk has complained that Lord Mandy's plan is likely to "breach fundamental rights" and will not work.

TalkTalk's director of regulation, Andrew Heaney, told the BBC News he would like to see a clamp down on illegal filesharers. However he said this would best be done by making sure there are legal alternatives and educating people, writing letters to alleged filesharers and, if necessary, taking them to court.

This is of course the natural way of doing things in a democracy with a decent judicial system, but seems to be alien to both the Government and the music and film dinosaurs, which seemed to want people carted off to prison camps.

What is particularly scary about this is that the big media conglomerates will rely on IP addresses to catch filesharers, so those who share an Internet connection will be punished along with those who are victims of IP spoofing.

To make matters worse, the ISPs will have to pay half the cost to find out which of their customers are alleged 'pirates'.

Virgin Media agreed that "persuasion not coercion" was key in the fight to crack down on the estimated six million filesharers in the UK.

Virgin told the Beeb that Mandy's cunning plan was a "heavy-handed, punitive regime [that] will simply alienate consumers."