Saturday, February 25, 2006

RIAA Amends "Error" in Second Whitehead Declaration in Atlantic v. Does


Jonathan Whitehead
Changes His Mind

The RIAA has amended what it described as an "error" in its Second Whitehead Declaration in Atlantic v. Does 1-25, now claiming that its previous version -- saying that all defendants were users of Gnutella -- was wrong, and that only 11 of the 25 were Gnutella users, while 14 were Kazaa users.

The RIAA discovered this "error" when the defendant pointed out to the Court in his reply papers that RIAA's contention, in its second Whitehead declaration, that all defendants were Gnutella users was inconsistent with the first Whitehead declaration, which relied on Kazaa screen shots as evidence.

Amendment of Second Whitehead Declaration

Keywords: copyright download upload peer to peer p2p file sharing filesharing music movies indie label freeculture creative commons pop/rock artists riaa independent mp3 cd favorite songs

2 comments:

Alex H said...

So remind me again how all these John Does are similar? Different apps, different networks, different downloads, different metadata.

By the RIAA's logic we should put all these people in a room together on the same charge:

* The 16 year old kid with a knife and the machine gun importer,

* Enron's accountant Arthur Anderson and the guy who put down "GeForce 7800" for a sales database computer,

* The shoplifter and the bank robber,

* The lady with the overdue library book and the company CEO that hasn't paid municipal taxes for 10 years.


I thought the point of lumping 25 Does together was because they were all the same.

I wonder if Whitehead makes similar "clerical errors" in his accounting too...

(Oh, and the damages are for $1 per mp3, not $100,000. Sorry your Honour - typo!)

raybeckerman said...

Dear Alex H:

Speaking of which, we have made a new motion, in Motown v. Does 1-99, one prong of which is to UN-sever the case as to John Does 2-99.

Best regards,

Ray