Oregon District Judge denies Recording Industry Motion to Compel Hard drive inspection. Appoints Neutral Expert.

Friday, March 17, 2006
Recording Industry vs the People

We've received a report that in Atlantic v. Andersen, where the RIAA made a motion to compel complete access to Tanya Andersen's computer to make a "mirror image" of her hard drive, federal judge Donald Ashmanskas declined to allow that, and instead granted Ms. Andersen's request to appoint a neutral expert who would be given a specific list of files and an identified protocol to review her computer.

The RIAA had proposed using "specialized tools and methods" along with "licensed software" and a "special device" to accomplish their review by private forensic expert. The judge did not feel that both parties interests were adequately protected with this process.

The following notation appears on the court record:

"MINUTES of Proceedings: Record of Telephone Status Conference before Judge Ashmanskas - ORDER: (1) Stay of this matter pending conclusion of computer hard drive examination by a neutral expert; (2) Cost of hard drive examination to be born by plaintiffs at this time, with leave to request allocation of costs; (3) Denying plaintiffs' motion[36] to compel as moot; (4) Striking the 4/4/06 telephone status conference. James Ruh, William Patton, Nadia Sarkis present as counsel for plaintiff(s). James Murphy, Lory Lybeck, Brian Hodges present as counsel for defendant. Court Reporter: None. Donald C. Ashmanskas presiding."

Posted by Ray Beckerman

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More from Recording Industry vs the People:

MPAA Joins RIAA Against Tenise Barker

The Motion Picture Association (MPAA) has joined up with the RIAA in the fight against Tenise Barker, putting in an amicus brief of its own arguing that the RIAA is right, and that merely "making available" is a copyright infringement.

MPAA Amicus brief (.pdf)

*Published online at Internet Law & Regulation
http://www.ilrweb.com/

The MPAA and the RIAA both filed a friend-of-the-court brief to the effect that making copyrighted movie or music files available is in itself a copyright infringement.

I guess libraries that loan records, CDs, and movies might soon have to brace themselves to face charges of making-available infringement? (Yeah, right.)
For instance, my local library is still loaning out "Romeo and Juliet" (© 196 to high school students.
Shame, shame, those "pirate-friendly" libraries!

Get a grip, entertainment cartel. Savor the remaining little time that's left on your lifeline, dinosaurs.

i'm surprised they didn't want a large sample of her brain tissue and a vital organ as well.

Our enemy is completely unreasonable. This kind of "request" doesn't suprise me at all.

This is going way too far.
Making available is not copying if no copies were made. Are they trying to to extend copyright to makingavailableright?

Methinks they are trying to simplify their suing process.

...or trying to take over the world.

MPAA: What do you want to do tonight, RIAA?

RIAA: The same thing we do every night, MPAA, TRY TO TAKE OVER THE WORLD!

Warner Bros. and Spielberg can now feel free to sue me.

Man, fuck these fuckin fuckers!

"i'm surprised they didn't want a large sample of her brain tissue and a vital organ as well."

baha what idiots! (riaa and mpaa not Capt)

I'm really surprised at the comments this article has generated. It's as if all this is new, and is just taking place now. Things like this have been going on for years, it's just that people were sued on a much smaller scale then, and the media wasn't interested in covering any of it. Come to think of it, we didn't have boycott sites back then either.

ah well, back to lurking...