U. Maine legal clinic takes on the RIAA

P2Pnet news reports that the University of Maine School of Law's legal aid clinic is the first law school clinic to take a case defending university students against the RIAA since it began its ex parte litigation campaign against college students. Law students at the clinic, under the supervision of law school prof. Deirdre M. Smith, have moved to dismiss the RIAA's complaint in a Portland, Maine, case, Arista v. Does 1-27, on behalf of two University of Maine undergrads. The students filed a reply brief (pdf) that cites the US Supreme Court opinion in Bell Atlantic Corp. v. Twombly, 425 F. 3d 99 (2007) and the subsequent California decision following Twombly, Interscope v. Rodriguez (2007 WL 2408484), which dismissed the RIAA's 'making available' complaint as mere 'conclusory,' 'boilerplate' 'speculation.'"

U. Maine law clinic Prof. on the RIAA case

P2pnet news has posted information from Prof. Deirdre Smith, the U. Maine School of Law clinical professor supervising the RIAA case. Prof. Smith explains why the clinic decided to take on this case.

Prof. Bridy on copyright, internet regulation

Visiting Associate Professor Annemarie Bridy has a couple of terrific blog posts that I found via LLRX - LLRX reprinted her post on The Digital Death of Copyright's First Sale Doctrine. This article discusses the implications of the Supreme Court's declining to review Vernor v. Autodesk, a Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals decision involving the applicability of copyright's first sale doctrine to transactions involving software and other digital information goods. Prof. Bridy says that "As the transition from physical to streaming or cloud-based digital distribution continues, further divorcing copyrighted works from their traditional tangible embodiments, it will increasingly be the case that consumers do not own the information goods they buy (or, rather, think they've bought)."
A second blogpost, published yesterday, is titled Don't Regulate the Internet. No, Wait. Regulate the Internet. It talks about the RIAA's seemingly contradictory stances on regulation of the Internet.   Prof. Bridy says that "The RIAA’s political strategy in the war on piracy has been alternately to oppose and support government regulation of the Internet, depending on what’s expedient. I wonder if rights owners and the trade groups that represent them experience any sense of cognitive dissonance when they advocate against something at one moment and for it a little while later—to the same audience, on the same issue." 

audio of RIAA arguments against streaming will be streamed

Slashdot has a story about the 1st Circuit case SONY BMG Music v. Tenenbaum - in which the district court recently ruled that an oral argument about the constitutionality of statutory damages could be streamed. The RIAA has been fighting the streaming rule with a petition for 'mandamus or prohibition' in the appeals court, which is opposed by the press. Oddly enough, it seems that audio of the appeals court's oral argument about the streaming will itself be recorded and then streamed. The blog "Recording Industry vs the People" thoughtfully provides links to all the documents in the case.

AALL in Portland

All the Barco librarians are in Portland OR at the annual AALL conference along with about 2,000 other law librarians from around the country. The plenary this morning at 9 am (yes, on a Sunday). The plenary was this morning with keynote speaker David Pogue who blogs about technology for the New York Times at Pogue's Posts. He was informative, interesting, entertaining and got a standing ovation (partly because he saved us all a lot of money on our phone bills. Also his sendup of the RIAA, to the tune of "YMCA", was inspired.)
After the plenary there were so many informative sessions my head is throbbing. And any free time in between sessions is spent talking with friends from other law libraries. Hope my notes are good. More later.

Judge rules RIAA case can be televised

A federal judge ruled today that Harvard University's Berkman Center for Internet & Society can broadcast online a hearing in a recording-industry lawsuit scheduled for January 22. Sony BMG Music Entertainment is suing Joel Tenenbaum, a graduate student at Boston University, for alleged copyright infringement. "The public benefit of offering a more complete view of these proceedings is plain, especially via a medium so carefully attuned to the Internet Generation captivated by these file-sharing lawsuits," Judge Nancy Gertner wrote. Coverage will be gavel to gavel. Courtroom View Network will work with the court's IT department to stream video footage from cameras already installed in the courtroom to the Berkman Center for Internet and Society. Berkman will cover all costs for the streaming and the video feed acquisition, and the footage will be placed on the web for all to watch.