RIAA Lawyers Bully Witnesses Into Perjury

[Jeremy Charette]

<div class='os_post_top_link'><a href='http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20051230-5871.html' target='_blank'>http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20051230-5871.html</a><br /><br /></div><i>"The RIAA sued the Nelsons, who in turn are basically asking for the case to be dismissed and their legal fees reimbursed, because the RIAA lawyers got the testimonies they wanted from some witnesses through coercion and/or extortion. The transcript of the deposition that followed this motion gives us a glimpse into exactly how far the recording industry is willing to go to justify their crusade against file sharing."</i><br /><br /> <img src="http://www.digitalmediathoughts.com/images/sb-perjury.gif" /> <br /><br />These are the slip-ups I've been waiting for. I knew eventually the RIAA would go so far as to clearly violate the law, in an attempt to extort money from otherwise innocent consumers. Now I'd like to see a consumer advocacy group be backed by enough finances to really scare the RIAA out of it's wits, just as they've done to so many thousands of their customers.

[Mike Temporale]

Hey Jeremy, Do have a link to the story?

I'm not surprised that the RIAA would take things into their own hands like this. :roll:

[Jeremy Charette]

Whoops! Thanks Mike.

Check the link to the story. There's some great quotes in there.

Q. What other areas do you feel that Mr. Krichbaum put words in your mouth?
A. I don't remember any specifically. Just trying to get me to say that Angie and Jim or I had ripped the music off.

[...]

Q. It wasn't true. And you felt that Mr. Krichbaum was trying to get you to say something that wasn't true?

A. Yes.

Q. And did he get you to say something that wasn't true?

A. From the statement I read, yes.

Ms. Granado went on to testify that Mr. Krichbaum had urged her to provide false and inaccurate testimony with regard to the entire portion of her original testimony implicating the Nelsons.


Q. Did he tell you why he needed you to stick with your original false story?
A. Because he said he didn't have a case unless I did.

Q. So, he told you that he didn't have a case unless you stuck with the original false story?

A. Yes.

[Pony99CA]

These are the slip-ups I've been waiting for. I knew eventually the RIAA would go so far as to clearly violate the law, in an attempt to extort money from otherwise innocent consumers. Now I'd like to see a consumer advocacy group be backed by enough finances to really scare the RIAA out of it's wits, just as they've done to so many thousands of their customers.
You knew they would, eh? You should use that power of clairvoyance to make millions gambling or on the stock market (which is the same thing). :roll: The story is good enough on its own without half-baked editorials.

Look, I don't think the RIAA is going about this the right way, either. They should go after people breaking the law, not the technology they're using to do it. But do you honestly believe that most people "file sharing" aren't basically stealing music? If you ran a music store and caught one of your customers shoplifting a CD, would you let him go just because he'd bought some CDs from you in the past?

If you don't accept that file sharing is similar to shoplifting, let's try another analogy. If you ran a music store and somebody was sitting outside your store making copies of CDs they'd bought from you and handing them out to people, would you let that go on?

If you accept that file sharing in most cases is stealing, the RIAA isn't trying to "extort" money from "customers" (if you can call somebody stealing your product a "customer"); they're enforcing their legal rights. However, that of course doesn't excuse any illegal behavior and doesn't excuse any lawsuits where they don't have a good faith belief that somebody they accused of stealing wasn't actually doing so.

Steve

[Pony99CA]

Check the link to the story. There's some great quotes in there.

Q. What other areas do you feel that Mr. Krichbaum put words in your mouth?
A. I don't remember any specifically. Just trying to get me to say that Angie and Jim or I had ripped the music off.

[...]

Q. It wasn't true. And you felt that Mr. Krichbaum was trying to get you to say something that wasn't true?

A. Yes.

Q. And did he get you to say something that wasn't true?

A. From the statement I read, yes.

Ms. Granado went on to testify that Mr. Krichbaum had urged her to provide false and inaccurate testimony with regard to the entire portion of her original testimony implicating the Nelsons.

Q. Did he tell you why he needed you to stick with your original false story?
A. Because he said he didn't have a case unless I did.

Q. So, he told you that he didn't have a case unless you stuck with the original false story?

A. Yes.
Yeah, that looks damning, but that quote from Ars Technica was taken from a blog ("Recording Industry vs The People" (http://recordingindustryvspeople.blogspot.com/2005/12/nelsons-sue-riaa-attorneys-in-michigan.html)) which has what appears to be part of a motion (although I didn't find a link to the actual motion). And, of course, we know all blogs are factual. :roll:

However, let's assume the blog is accurate. Did you read the post? I didn't read it all (it is long), but I read quite a bit. That person giving the answers above is a 15-year-old girl who worked for the Nelson's daycare business who might have been doing the file sharing herself. She gave a statement that originally implicated the Nelsons and is now recanting it, saying the RIAA attorney got her to make false testimony.

Maybe that's true, but it could also be that the 15-year-old, after talking to her parents or lawyers, realizes that the RIAA may go after her. After all, it does appear that the Nelson's computer did have Kazaa on it, and the account allegedly used to share files (alex7) appears to be named after the Nelson's daughter, Alex, who is seven. I don't know if a seven-year-old girl could create a Kazaa account, but I bet a 15-year-old daycare employee could, and might use the name of somebody she was caring for.

Further, unless I missed something, this is just a claim the Nelson's have filed against the RIAA relying on what seems to be an unreliable 15-year-old girl. The case has yet to be resolved, which means that we don't know as a matter of law whether the RIAA and their attorneys have been found guilty of anyting.

You seem to believe that the RIAA can file false lawsuits, but that people accused of stealing music wouldn't do the same. What kind of logic is that?

Personally, I'm not going to make any decisions about who's guilty of doing what based on what I've read. I'll leave it for others to jump to conclusions that fit their preconceived ideas.

However, here's a quotation that might support your contention better:

After Ms. Granado’s latest deposition, Plaintiffs’ counsel Matthew Miller conferred with Defendants’ counsel about his ethical obligations as a practitioner regarding the use of Ms. Granado’s original statements and the impact of those statements on the case. At that time, Mr. Miller insisted that he was ethically obligated to immediately withdraw the complaint against Mr. and Mrs. Nelson. On December 20, 2005, Mr. Miller informed Defendants’ counsel that his clients had instructed him to continue to pursue their claims against Mr. and Mrs. Nelson notwithstanding Ms. Granado’s recent deposition testimony.

That makes it really look like the RIAA was going against their own attorneys, who had decided to withdraw the complaint against the Nelsons, and pursue them anyway.

Steve

[Jeremy Charette]

I agree that the RIAA has every right to pursue those who wantonly break the law by sharing music they have not purchased the rights to (by buying a recording of said music). However, I do think that the bullying tactics they've taken with those they've chosen to pursue are bordering on illegal (if not blatantly so). Given the numerous stories I've read on the RIAA in the past year or two, this one (which purports that they forced a witness to purjer herself) doesn't surprise me.

What really bothers me is that the RIAA is going after file sharers indiscriminately. They are generating plenty of publicity, but doing little if anything to curb the worst offenders. Personally, I think there is far more they can do to prevent file sharing, and scare tactics are not a good way to go about it. Give the consumers what they want, how they want it, and they'll gladly pay for the convenience. Witness the extraordinary popularity of iTunes.

Just for the record, I make no claims of clairvoyance. :wink: :lol:

[Pony99CA]

What really bothers me is that the RIAA is going after file sharers indiscriminately. They are generating plenty of publicity, but doing little if anything to curb the worst offenders.
At one time, the RIAA was only going after people uploading more than a certain number of files (1,000 is a number that I recall). I don't know if that's still true, but it was some attempt at discriminating between large users and small users.

Personally, I think there is far more they can do to prevent file sharing, and scare tactics are not a good way to go about it. Give the consumers what they want, how they want it, and they'll gladly pay for the convenience. Witness the extraordinary popularity of iTunes.
They did try an "educational" campaign, although it was probably too late when they started it. And I agree that if the companies provided a reasonable, low-cost way to download music from the beginning (with reasonable DRM), the problem likely wouldn't be as bad.

However, we both know that no matter how cheap the music is, some people will try to get it for free. What bothers me are the ways people try to justify that:

"CDs are too expensive." So are Ferraris, but do you steal those?
"The musicians are rich." Not all of them are, of course. But so what if they are? Is it OK to rob rich people's houses?
"I don't want all of the songs on the CD." That's obviously a matter of taste, but so what? Would it be OK to pirate Microsoft Office just because I only wanted Word and Excel? Is it OK if I don't steal your car, but just the radio?
"It's not stealing; it's just copying. The CDs are still there." So if I copied your credit card numbers down and shared them, it would be OK because you still had the cards, right?

I'm no fan of the entertainment industry. The music industry settled a price fixing lawsuit against them. I heard the movie industry on the West Coast was started because Edison didn't want to license his patents, so they moved as far away from New Jersey as possible and basically stole them. Both the music and movie industries are fighting to always extend copyrights beyond reasonable limits. (Disney was built by adapting the works of others to a new medium, but seems to be against allowing people to do the same with their works.) Both industries have always fought against new technology, even though they usually benefitted greatly in the end.

So I have little sympathy for the RIAA, MPAA and the companies they represent. However, two wrongs still don't make a right.

Steve

[Jeremy Charette]

So I have little sympathy for the RIAA, MPAA and the companies they represent. However, two wrongs still don't make a right.

Steve

Just so we're clear, I totally agree with that last statement. Two wrongs don't make a right.

I'm a pragmatist. Pandora's box is open, and neither the RIAA nor the MPAA nor all the lawyers in the world can make it go away. Same goes for pornography, gun crime, rape, suicide, auto theft, shoplifting...you name it. Social behaviors are very difficult to legislate.

As I see it, the best incentive to not commit crimes is to make the legal alternative so much more attractive that there's no reason to commit a crime in the first place. iTunes is a great start. Reasonable DRM (copies are allowed within limits), good pricing structure, ala carte selections (don't have to buy an entire album for a single song), and instant delivery. Is it perfect? Absolutely not. But it's good enough for most that they don't mind the few limitations, and are willing to fork over 99 cents a song to get what they want.

I agree with you that the reasons for "stealing" music don't hold much water, but no matter what the industry does, someone will always be trying to find a way to get it for free, legal or not. Make it easy to get legally, and hard to get illegally, and the choice will be clear for most consumers.

[Pony99CA]

I agree with you that the reasons for "stealing" music don't hold much water, but no matter what the industry does, someone will always be trying to find a way to get it for free, legal or not. Make it easy to get legally, and hard to get illegally, and the choice will be clear for most consumers.
But isn't part of the "hard to get illegally" part suing users who are getting it illegally? If people don't see any downside to sharing copyrighted works, there's no incentive to not do it (other than personal morality).

I think going after the actual people sharing music is better than suing the people who make the software (unless those people actually encourage piracy, of course). File sharing does have a place for public domain works and works the copyright owner wants to put there.

Steve

[bluemax]

...
If you accept that file sharing in most cases is stealing, the RIAA isn't trying to "extort" money from "customers" (if you can call somebody stealing your product a "customer"); they're enforcing their legal rights. However, that of course doesn't excuse any illegal behavior and doesn't excuse any lawsuits where they don't have a good faith belief that somebody they accused of stealing wasn't actually doing so.

Steve

I think you've missed the point of the story. The RIAA is going after innocent people and trying to get a court to believe these people are guilty. They are hunting for illegal activities with cluster bombs. They have been using gestapo tactics threatening people - both legal and illegal - with expensive law suits. It is extortion when someone threatens to harm you if you don't pay up. That is exactly what the RIAA lawyers have done.

Add into that Sony's corruption of tens of thousands of computer systems with it's root kit, of recording companies illegal payola to radio stations in the last year, and yet more information of recording companies illegally witholding royalties to artists and what do you have. It appears to me the RIAA and it's members are nothing more than a gang of mobsters and should be treated as such in the courts.

Bill B.

[Pony99CA]

...
If you accept that file sharing in most cases is stealing, the RIAA isn't trying to "extort" money from "customers" (if you can call somebody stealing your product a "customer"); they're enforcing their legal rights. However, that of course doesn't excuse any illegal behavior and doesn't excuse any lawsuits where they don't have a good faith belief that somebody they accused of stealing wasn't actually doing so.
I think you've missed the point of the story. The RIAA is going after innocent people and trying to get a court to believe these people are guilty. They are hunting for illegal activities with cluster bombs. They have been using gestapo tactics threatening people - both legal and illegal - with expensive law suits. It is extortion when someone threatens to harm you if you don't pay up. That is exactly what the RIAA lawyers have done.
I didn't miss the point of the story (which you might have figured out if you had read my analysis of the story). The RIAA lawyers have been alleged to have attempted to coerce a 15-year-old girl to stick to her original story. Whether the original story was coerced or not I found harder to determine.

The RIAA (I hope) isn't going after people they know are innocent. As they usually only get IP addresses and have to file John Doe suits, it's certainly possible that some of the people at those IP addresses are innocent, but what else would you have to them do to track down file sharers? (If you say "nothing", you're not being realistic. A company should be able to try to protect its property.)

The point is that, if the owners of the IP address haven't been sharing files, the RIAA should then drop their suits. The referenced story alleges they kept a suit going in the face of evidence that the Nelsons weren't sharing files. However, as I said, that doesn't seem to have been ruled on, so it's just another allegation, just like the RIAA alleging the people shared files.

Your reference to Gestapo tactics is laughable, though. How many people have had their homes broken into late at night and had guns held to their heads (or worse). :roll:

As for extortion, what you called extortion is what the legal community probably calls negotiation. In criminal courts, it's called offering a plea bargain -- you plead guilty to a lesser crime and we won't prosecute you for the greater crime (or you plead guilty to the greater crime and we'll drop lesser charges).

Civil suits like this have the same thing happen all the time. The plaintiff proposes a settlement number. The defendent can accept that or get sued for possibly more money. Is that extortion, too?

Add into that Sony's corruption of tens of thousands of computer systems with it's root kit, of recording companies illegal payola to radio stations in the last year, and yet more information of recording companies illegally witholding royalties to artists and what do you have. It appears to me the RIAA and it's members are nothing more than a gang of mobsters and should be treated as such in the courts.
Yes, the rootkit incident was nasty and badly handled. It also has nothing to do with this story. That was one company and had nothing to do with a court case.

However, you again overstate your case by calling them mobsters. How many kneecaps have the RIAA or its members broken? :roll:

Steve

[whydidnt]

Your reference to Gestapo tactics is laughable, though. How many people have had their homes broken into late at night and had guns held to their heads (or worse). :roll:


Actually they have come close : http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20040109/147216_F.shtml
Not a home, but certainly showing signs of Gestapo like tactics. It doesn't take much imagination to see an obvious next step is for the RIAA to show up at someone's door at midnight and demand to see their computer.

The RIAA has brought the troubles of illegal file sharing upon themselves by refusing to accept that the world has changed and they have a need to invent a new business model. If they would have embraced digital music and MP3 players when first introduced and began offering reasonably priced downloads of music (say .35 - .50/song) they would have taken away the incentive for a majority of people to use illegal file sharing networks. Instead they stuck their head in the sand and actually sued to prevent the technology that nearly all of their target market wanted!! 8O

The RIAA has a long history of using underhanded, dirty and illegal tactics to try and extort more money out of its customers and its artists, including using such schemes as Payola &amp; Price Fixing - both of which they have admitted to. Not to mention the artists who have sold thousands of albums, but never received a penny because of their record contract and it's undefined "administrative" fees.

You can say all you want about how two wrongs don't make a right, but in this situation I prefer not to give the PROVEN dirtbags (RIAA) the benefit of the doubt. It is the RIAA that needs to provide alternative, better solutions to this issue. If they had spent half the money they have on tracking down file sharers to develop a better way to deliver what their customers want they wouldn't even need to use these meaningless law-suits. By the way, can you point me in the direction of even one court decision that found an individual guilty of breaking copyright law? My understanding is that nearly every time an individual has stood up to the RIAA, the RIAA has dropped their suit. There are perhaps two or three cases pending today, but.... how strong of a leg do they have to stand on if they refuse to bring most of these suits to court.

Finally, let me say, I don't use Kazza or Grockster, or any other file-sharing network. I subscribe to Yahoo! Music, but DRM issues are about to drive me to one of these networks. I have had consistent issues in transferring 'licenses' to my PPC for listening on the go. I am tired of having to redownload thousands of songs to reaquire licenses, as their support organization tells me each time I complain! :roll:

[Pony99CA]

Your reference to Gestapo tactics is laughable, though. How many people have had their homes broken into late at night and had guns held to their heads (or worse). :roll:

The RIAA has brought the troubles of illegal file sharing upon themselves by refusing to accept that the world has changed and they have a need to invent a new business model. If they would have embraced digital music and MP3 players when first introduced and began offering reasonably priced downloads of music (say .35 - .50/song) they would have taken away the incentive for a majority of people to use illegal file sharing networks.
I said earlier that if the RIAA had embraced digital music earlier, they might have avoided most of the file sharing problem, so you're preaching to the choir. However, guess what? It's their business, and they don't have to embrace any business model they don't want to. If you don't like the prices being charged, don't buy the music. Your world won't collapse if you don't have the latest Eminem song.

Saying they brought it on themselves is like saying you brought auto theft on yourself because you left your keys in the car and the doors unlocked. You certainly helped, but the only criminal was the person who stole the car.

The RIAA has a long history of using underhanded, dirty and illegal tactics to try and extort more money out of its customers and its artists, including using such schemes as Payola &amp; Price Fixing - both of which they have admitted to. Not to mention the artists who have sold thousands of albums, but never received a penny because of their record contract and it's undefined "administrative" fees.
I already said that I have no sympathy for the RIAA, and I pointed out the price fixing suit, too.

You can say all you want about how two wrongs don't make a right, but in this situation I prefer not to give the PROVEN dirtbags (RIAA) the benefit of the doubt. It is the RIAA that needs to provide alternative, better solutions to this issue.
Again, they don't need to do anything. I do agree that they should do something.

Do you need to give a dollar to the guy who asks for money at the gas station? If you don't give him money, does that make it OK if he mugs you?

By the way, can you point me in the direction of even one court decision that found an individual guilty of breaking copyright law?
That's easy. There was a U.S Court of Appeals decision (http://news.com.com/File-swapping+fine+upheld+by+appeals+court/2100-1028_3-5991531.html) last month where a court rejected a woman's defense that she was just downloading songs to see if she liked them. The judge rejected her argument based (at least in part) on the fact that she never erased the songs she didn't like.

My understanding is that nearly every time an individual has stood up to the RIAA, the RIAA has dropped their suit.
Maybe you're only getting news from sites that support file sharing and they only cover cases where the person fighting won. Or maybe most of the guilty people have settled, and those cases don't make the news.

Steve

[whydidnt]

That's easy. There was a U.S Court of Appeals decision (http://news.com.com/File-swapping+fine+upheld+by+appeals+court/2100-1028_3-5991531.html) last month where a court rejected a woman's defense that she was just downloading songs to see if she liked them. The judge rejected her argument based (at least in part) on the fact that she never erased the songs she didn't like.


So you found the FIRST and ONLY decsion of this type and it happend last month. What a long track record of success the RIAA has had with these cases. :roll: And in this particular case the woman charged pursued an incredibly stupid defense: "sure I shared files, but I deleted the ones I didn't like".

While my post may imply it, I don't think the RIAA HAS to adopt a different business model if they don't want to. They can simply wither away and be irrelevant. However, you missed the point that the RIAA seems to feel it is above the law in many areas, including the pursuit of people that it believes have infringed, including the use of a para-police force. The original post was correct, the RIAA has overstepped it's bounds and needs to be reigned in. Just because the RIAA doesn't HAVE to adopt my stance, doesn't mean I can't voice my opinion about what I think they should do. You seem to think that because I say they should do this or that, that I have some sort of belief that they must do what I say and if they don't the holy wrath of whydidnt will come down on them. :P . I have no such delusions of grandeur.

My feelings are that the your defense of the RIAA's tactics is comparable to a file trader defending his "right" to download music freely because CD's are too expensive. Neither side is right.

And btw, I would sooner die than have an Eminem song on my computer! :D

[Pony99CA]

That's easy. There was a U.S Court of Appeals decision (http://news.com.com/File-swapping+fine+upheld+by+appeals+court/2100-1028_3-5991531.html) last month where a court rejected a woman's defense that she was just downloading songs to see if she liked them. The judge rejected her argument based (at least in part) on the fact that she never erased the songs she didn't like.

So you found the FIRST and ONLY decsion of this type and it happend last month. What a long track record of success the RIAA has had with these cases. :roll:
Well, you asked for "even one", and I gave you one. Also note that this is an Appeals Court decision. Are you sure there haven't been any other lower court decisions?

You seem to think that because I say they should do this or that, that I have some sort of belief that they must do what I say and if they don't the holy wrath of whydidnt will come down on them. :P
No, I don't think that at all. I think people should choose their words more carefully and use "should" and "have" appropriately.

My feelings are that the your defense of the RIAA's tactics is comparable to a file trader defending his "right" to download music freely because CD's are too expensive. Neither side is right.
Actually, I am right. :D I'm not defending any illegal activities that the RIAA or their lawyers engage in, and I think that if they have engaged in anything illegal they should be appropriately punished.

My initial posts provided an alternate take on the situation. I didn't like the author's "I knew it would happen" comment and thought there were facets of the story he might have missed beyond the initial quote that he posted. But I also specifically stated that I didn't condone any illegal activity if that had occurred. Perhaps they did something wrong, but I cited several reasons why that story might have been blown out of proportion.

What I am defending is the right of an intellectual property holder (the RIAA in this case) to protect their intellectual property by suing people who illegally share files. Do you disagree with that stance?

Steve