Wednesday, November 21, 2007

Thanksgiving Fund-Raising Appeal for Expert Witness Defense Fund Administered by Free Software Foundation

As many of you know, a remarkable event took place the other day, when the technical community reached out its hand to the victims of the RIAA reign of terror, and the Free Software Foundation established a special fund to assist the victims of the RIAA's onslaught.

I think this is a cataclysmic event in the history of the RIAA's litigation campaign. It represents a coming together of the tech community, which is the community most aware of the faked nature of the RIAA's cases, and the RIAA's victims.

I think this wonderful initiative by the Free Software Foundation will have a very broad appeal for a number of reasons.

One, it will help to get the truth out to the Courts, who until now have been hearing almost exclusively from the RIAA's dubious experts-for-hire. Some judges have admitted their lack of technological savvy. Witness the string of cases, Interscope v. Duty in Arizona, Arista v. Greubel, Fonovisa v. Alvarez, and Warner v. Payne in Texas, and Maverick v. Goldshteyn in Brooklyn, New York, where all five (5) judges declined to decide a simple question of law because they said they didn't understand the technology of Kazaa well enough to make a decision.

Secondly, it will be an enormous equalizer, enabling the RIAA victims to have technical experts who are not only as good as the RIAA's, but who will be much better, and who will not have a financial interest in the outcome of the case, as the RIAA's experts -- Doug Jacobson and Tom Mizzone -- have.

Thirdly, I think it will have an enormous appeal to the computer and internet industries and to the tech community, because (a) it will help to oppose the sloppy junk science the RIAA has been trying to foist upon the courts, (b) it will help stop the RIAA's attempts to rewrite copyright law and destroy the internet, by establishing precedents in cases against defenseless victims who do not have the resources with which to fight back, and (c) it will enable tech people who take their time to assist RIAA victims to receive compensation for their services.

This Thanksgiving would be a great time to make a contribution to the fund, so that next year, and in years to come, the Thanksgivings of so many decent, law-abiding American families, will not be ruined as they have been during the past four years by the RIAA's lawless, irresponsible, unscientific, and unAmerican campaign of terror against the working people of this country.

Please:

1. Go this link and contribute:


https://www.fsf.org/associate/riaa

and

2. Pass this along to your friends, neighbors, and everyone on your email list.

Thank you, and have a Happy Thanksgiving.

Best regards.

-Ray

Commentary & discussion:

p2pnet.net

Other commentary & discussion on establishment of Expert Witness Defense Fund:

p2pnet.net
Wired
Slashdot
Ars Technica
The Inquirer
Hard OCP
tweakers.net (Dutch)
Linux.org.ru (Russian)
ZDNet.Be (Dutch)
Ratiatum (French)
Afterdawn
Punto Informatico (Italian)
OS News (Polish)
TechDirt
Tom's Hardware (Leonardo.it) (Italian)
Slyck
Republika (Polish)
p2pnet.net






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






1 comment:

Anonymous said...

This is certainly one way to Sock-It-To the RIAA's liars and so-called "expert witnesses".