Thursday, August 10, 2006

RIAA Asks for Blanket Gag Order Before Attending Depositions in UMG v. Lindor; Ms. Lindor's Lawyers Refuse, Ask Judge to Compel Depositions

In UMG v. Lindor the RIAA has refused to go forward with letting the defendant's lawyers take plaintiffs' depositions without a blanket confidentiality stipulation making all of the contents of the deposition transcripts confidential.

In view of the strong public interest in these cases, Ms. Lindor's lawyers refused to agree to such a stipulation.

Instead they have made a motion to compel the plaintiffs to appear for their depositions, without any preconditions.

In the alternative, Ms. Lindor's lawyers said they would consent to a limited order that would give the RIAA 10 days after receiving a copy of the transcript to object to specific portions of it being disclosed.

August 10, 2006, Letter of Ray Beckerman to Magistrate Robert M. Levy*

* Document available online at Internet Law & Regulation

Keywords: digital copyright online 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

3 comments:

Alter_Fritz said...

Interesting!
In german words I would say "RIAA hat Angst!"
The arguments you made in opposition of this Blanket Gag Order are good IMO. At least a thing I know about America was this free-speech thingy your country is so proud of.
So if I would be the Judge in this case I would order that it is allowed to made public ALL documents, if any privacy relevant information like Phonenumbers/FullNames ect. are blacked out. (like you suggested)


P.S. your arguments regarding public interest are in some view funny; You may aware or not, that even an american governmental institution has recently visited your site and they state on their own website In Lincoln's day, 58 percent of the people [...] needed good seeds and information [leftout intentionally to make it more funny]
Oh, and be aware that military IPs also visited your blog. Since the GOV has already showed interest in this game with the amicus thingys, maybe that's a sign that military plan to take some preemptive meassures against you. Your acts of exposing the RIAA tactics might be considered terroristic-acts against vital national interest.
The forestanding conclusion based on visitor statistics are of course pure nonsense of a paranoid german that uses his neighbors open wifi router and his IP to surf. But you never know what those RIAA lobbyists tell the politicans in charge after all! Ray, take care of you ;)

CodeWarrior said...

AMAZING....SIMPLY AMAZING !

~Code

raybeckerman said...

Good questions, jaded. Actually the answer could fill quite a few pages. Law is complex in this area, and the courts do not establish a simple rule that fits every situation. Instead they follow balancing tests, and are permitted to work within an area of sound judicial discretion, on a case by case basis.