Leaked RIAA prosecutor training-video
Prosecuting Music Piracy, a RIAA training video for prosecuting attorneys, has leaked onto the net -- it focuses on busting counterfeit CD vendors, and talks about how prosecutors should also use music piracy as a charge against drug dealers with large music collections:
Link
Starring ex-prosecutor Deborah Robinson and Frank Walters, an ex-Maryland State trooper, it was made to "assist in the training of U.S. prosecutors responsible for handling music piracy cases."It includes footage from "surveillance" videos and, "techniques on how to identify illegal sound recordings and highlights," not to mention, "examples of how illegal music is sold."
And here's the kicker.
It even claims to provide instructions on, and we quote, "qualifying an RIAA investigator as an expert."
So that's where Doug Jacobson and MediaSentry acquired their skills!
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Granted, I haven't seen the whole video, but "qualifying an RIAA investigator as an expert" sounds like it has to do with actually convincing a grand jury or judge that this person is an expert. When an attorney calls an expert witness, they have to qualify them before the jury or presiding judge, because expert witnesses are given more flexibility when they answer questions - what they say can be taken as fact, not just opinion or observation. An expert witness can say "This is how it is", instead of "This is what I think" or "This is what I saw".
(Was gonna be a lawyer, then realized that school is hard)
Gotta love these stodgy old fogeys attempting to wrap their tiny blinkered minds around these concepts. Because you know where there's file-sharing there might be some crack. It's like watching my elderly father trying to set the clock on his VCR... which, for the record, although he worked on technical documentation for nuclear missiles, he can't do. Scary eh?
No mashup yet? Come on talented people, lets remix this thing! :)
"Because you know where there's file-sharing there might be some crack"
It's more like, where there's crack, look for file-sharing and/or bootlegging. She says to use it as a tool. I'm staunchly against prosecuting for file-sharing, but this isn't about arresting otherwise law-abiding citizens for their music. It's about using this law as a stepping-stone to getting people for other crimes. It's a video for prosecutors and cops in violent crime divisions, saying "This is useful to you. Pay attention to this."
The video has been pulled
The clip has been pulled, but the full video is available on your favourite torrent site. There's a section where the woman just finishes talking about how critical it is to use the right terms for illegitimate CDs and then she said "it could be even so much as someone offering something on a website that they can download to your computer." Good job on using the correct terms.