[FC-discuss] Letter to stanford

[Ringo Kamens]

I'm working on a letter from BinaryFreedom to Stanford, please help me
edit it. I don't know all the details about their new DMCA policy so I
could use some help on this. I have put it on the wiki. Here's the
current draft
Dear Stanford University,
We are appaled at your new policy regarding DMCA notices. We have
several criticisms of this program and are disappointed that you have
chosen corporate interests over student ones.

1. The RIAA is always right
This policy assumes that any DMCA notice sent to the school is
correct. The majority of these notices will probably be coming from
representatives of the RIAA or MPAA (the corporate music/film
lobbies). Several years ago, the RIAA/MPAA started suing people
indiscriminately and now people are starting to see through the veil
of lies they have presented to the US court system.

1a. Suing Incompetent Persons
The RIAA has been caught several times suing dead people,
incapacitated people, and children. See RIAA (or RIAA label) v.
Gertrude Walton, Sarah Seabury Ward, Brianna LaHara, Raek Schwartz and
Candy Chan. The RIAA throws around its legal weight and for a long
time found no resistance as people were forced to pay over $1000 per
song, however now victims like Debbie Foster have counter-sued and the
legitimacy of these lawsuits is under serious question.

2a. False Lawsuits
The RIAA has filed numerous lawsuits where they lacked evidence to
obtain a ruling. Instead of winning the lawsuit, the RIAA chooses to
obtain settlements and in such as situation the defendant is guilty
until proven innocent. Many times, the only evidence that have is a
computer screenshot which has been ruled by courts before to be
invalid. They are easily doctored/created and offer no base for
legally sound proof. In other countries, the RIAA has lost cases due
to lack of legal basis for suit.

3a. A Guilty Until Proven Innocent
The RIAA assumes if you offer copyrighted material for download then
you have infringed on the owner's copyright. By legal principle, this
is not true because it would make non-criminals into criminals. In the
real world, this is the equivilent of saying somebody owns a gun so
they must have killed somebody with it. See Elektra v. Barker

4a. False Evidence
The RIAA has been caught red handed falsifying "expert" testimony. Dr.
Doug Jacobson, the RIAAs "expert" has been caught making false
statements and backtracking on them dozens of times by the online
community. In UMG(RIAA) v Lindor there is currently a challenge to his
testimony which will undoubtedly result in his testimony being thrown
out.

5a. The RIAA hates innovation
The RIAA/MPAA have been lobbying since their existence to kill
technological innovation. When Sony developed the betamax (the first
version of taping TV shows for home TVs), Jack Valenti (of the MPAA)
said in congressional testimony that "the VCR is to the American film
producer and the American public as the Boston strangler is to the
woman home alone.". Recently, they have tried to shut down companies
that make mix tapes, MP3 Players and file-sharing software. These
technologies are revolutionary and any attempt to stifle them should
be shunned upon by your institution.

2. Lack of Legal Expertise/Time
Under the new policy, students have 48 hours to contest a DMCA claim.
Most students do not have the legal expertise to properly respond to a
DMCA claim so they would have to contact a lawyer. 48 hours is short
notice for cold-calling a lawyer. Instead of having a student prove
their innocents, the complaining party should have to prove their
guilt.

3. Don't Bow Down, Resist
Having a hard time suing random non-infringing parties, the RIAA has
turned its scope onto universities. Most universities have taken a
wait and see approach, and one even billed the RIAA for the cost it
took to track down students and deliver letters. I encourage the
university to take a similar approach and not become an extension of
the RIAA's abuse of the legal system.


5. Interest Against Students
The RIAA has suggested to students that if they don't have money to
pay for a lawsuit settlement they should drop out of school and use
tuition money to pay it.

On the wiki at http://wiki.binaryfreedom.info/index.php/Dear_Stanford

In Solidarity,
Comrade Ringo Kamens