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August 13, 2007
David v. Goliath, or Cowboys vs. Cartel
Posted by Alan Wexelblat
The Cartel's jihad against its customers continues onward. It would appear that most defendants just pony up settlement money. However, a group of Oklahoma State University students have decided to fight and they're pulling out their own expert witness to do so.
According to the "Recording Industry vs The People" blog, the Cartel are attempting to shake loose the names and addresses of 11 OSU students who are the target of John Doe subpoenas. The students, in moving to quash the subpoenas, have hired their own expert witness who is picking apart the RIAA's expert testimony.
Security expert Jayson Street's declaration (here online as a PDF) doesn't contain much that's novel to computer-experienced people. But he does appear to be trying to educate the judge on the technical uncertainties of things like mapping IP addresses to individual people. This is a key claim in the Cartel's subpoenas and they're routinely given names on the basis of what Street calls errors of fact.
Even if the judge is willing to accept that assertion he may still allow the subpoenas to go through. After all, the defendants might still raise this objection at trial, should they choose to fight it. Realistically, though, the cost of such a fight far exceeds the cost of simply paying up and the rewards are dubious even if you're willing to go to the lengths Tanya Andersen has gone to, counter-suing for malicious prosecution. The hope is that the Cartel get blocked from using this tactic entirely.
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1. none of on August 13, 2007 2:20 PM writes...
Why was the hostname "copyfight.corante.com" not resolving earlier today? (It wasn't my DNS that was out -- other site names resolved as they normally do. But not yours. Late paying the bill?)
Permalink to Comment2. Anonymous on August 14, 2007 9:12 AM writes...
The site's upstream provider has some issues with losing host tables. It seems to lose them 2-3x/wk.
Permalink to Comment3. none of on August 14, 2007 10:10 AM writes...
The site's upstream provider should not affect what records are in my own ISP's DNS machines, except that the latter could become stale if updates aren't sent out.
Regardless it must stop happening. If this provider can't or won't get their house in order then find a more competent and cooperative web host than your current provider.
And why didn't selecting "Remember Me?" have any effect when I posted the first message? I'm quite sure I don't have any cookie blocker installed, and I didn't do anything that might clear them out either (clear browser history, run ad-aware, etc.)
Permalink to Comment4. Wire on August 15, 2007 6:05 AM writes...
Yes, If this provider can't or won't get their house in order then find a more competent and cooperative web host than your current provider.
Permalink to Comment5. drwex on August 16, 2007 7:55 AM writes...
Sorry guys, Copyfight is a volunteer organization that is down to one writer (me) and one tech person who handles a huge array of issues for Corante. It just doesn't rate the attention and has no money to spend on different hosting and DNS services.
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