Features Podcasts Family Video Comics Music Tech Science Books Film & TV Games ✚

Jill

Judge to RIAA: Keep your "conference center" out of my court

Cory Doctorow at 3:12 pm Mon, Aug 29, 2005

— FEATURED —

THE LATEST

Guatemala: Archive of documents from Rios Montt genocide trial, overturned 10 days after guilty verdict

THE LATEST

Guatemala: Nation's highest court throws out Ríos Montt genocide trial verdict and prison sentence

Feature

Eurovision 2013: An American in London

Book Review

The Twelve-Fingered Boy - mesmerizing YA horror novel

Book Review

Black Code: how spies, cops and crims are making cyberspace unfit for human habitation

— FOLLOW US —

Boing Boing is on Twitter and Facebook. Subscribe to our RSS feed or daily email.

 

— POLICIES —

Except where indicated, Boing Boing is licensed under a Creative Commons License permitting non-commercial sharing with attribution

 

— FONTS —

Tweet
Kindle
Donna sez, "The transcript from a hearing in Patricia Santangelo's filesharing case shows the judge refusing to be, in Mike Godwin's words, 'a mere conduit steering Ms. Santangelo to the RIAA's 'conference center' (which should properly be called a "surrender center").'
MR. MASCHIO: No, all I was suggesting, your Honor, is that, if she doesn't come with an attorney, that the more direct way of doing this -- and this is just to facilitate things -- is to deal directly with the conference center.

THE COURT: Not once you've filed an action in my court.

MR. MASCHIO: Okay.

THE COURT: You file an action in my court, your conference center is out of it. They have nothing to do with anything.

MR. MASCHIO: Okay. I'll give her my card.

THE COURT: If you are here, you are here as an officer of the court. You're taking up my time and cluttering up my calendar, so you will do it in the context of the Court. Maybe it will be with a magistrate judge, but you will be representing your client, not some conference center. And if your people want things to be done through the conference center, tell them not to bring lawsuits.

It's a nice reminder that the RIAA lawsuits affect real people with real lives -- even busy judges who may chafe at the role they're being asked to play in this unfortunate, ineffective "education" campaign. Link (Thanks, Donna!)

I write books. My latest is a YA science fiction novel called Homeland (it's the sequel to Little Brother). More books: Rapture of the Nerds (a novel, with Charlie Stross); With a Little Help (short stories); and The Great Big Beautiful Tomorrow (novella and nonfic). I speak all over the place and I tweet and tumble, too.

More at Boing Boing

Eurovision 2013: An American in London

The technology that links taxonomy and Star Trek

Comments are closed.