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prosecutor
Do Your Duty--Be A Juror
Premium
join:2002-11-15
Plano, TX
| Re: How does SBC stand RE: recent RIAA activity? No offense, but the idea that any legitimate business would not comply with an objectively legal subpoena, warrant, or other process should really bother you. Do you really want drug dealers, mafiosi, and pedophiles to be able to run their businesses with impugnity simply by taking them online? Surely not. Asking SBC (or any online business)to disobey subpoenas, warn alleged criminal subscribers that subpoenas have issued, or look behind subpoenas is asking them to help criminals. Period.
There is room for disagreement on just how big a crime file swapping is. Arguably, downloading a song is about as serious as stealing a candybar from your local Wal-Mart. Yet we allow Wal-Mart to defend itself from candybar stealing by hiring security guards and detaining persons caught shoplifting. If a person is distributing several thousand songs on a server, then how are they any different from a record shop stocked with bootleg CD's? Law enforcement has long been authorized to seize counterfeit merchandise, destroy it, and prosecute the vendors.
The solution to this whole fileswapping debacle is arriving with the newer services selling individual songs at reasonable price points. The solution is not to encourage businesses to assist persons engaged in criminal activity, even of a de minimis nature. If you want free music, listen to the radio. Or buy a piano or guitar. | |
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GPorter
It Always Works Better When It's On
join:2001-03-21
San Antonio, TX
| Re: How does SBC stand RE: recent RIAA activity? said by prosecutor  :
No offense, but the idea that any legitimate business would not comply with an objectively legal subpoena, warrant, or other process should really bother you...
I agree with you wholeheartedly that the RIAA's use of subpoenas is legitimate and aboveboard. However, there is a written contract between the user and SBC, which is called the Terms of Service, that controls SBC's actions with the user's information.
When RIAA presented subpoenas to several colleges in the Northeast, most refused to cooperate because the subpoenas did not allow the schools to comply with what to them was an overriding statute-the higher education equivalent of the Privacy Act of 1974.
The schools had no intention of snubbing the court, they merely required more time than the subpoenas allowed to comply with other statutory requirements.
On the other hand, a number of ISPs have junked their legal responsibilities to their users, and given attorneys with questionable motives every shred of data on users at the mere threat of a subpoena. Don't they know that a subpoena is not a punitive document? Don't they know that it is a discovery tool that strictly limits (in this case) what information is sought? Don't they know that it is much easier to threaten using a subpoena than to actually obtain one? Sheesh!
I expect SBC to maintain the privacy of my user information until and unless presented with a valid subpoena issued by a bench with appropriate jurisdiction, much as the disclaimer for Broadband Reports' log in dictates. That's not too much to ask or expect from such a large company.
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Glenn-Remembering 9-11-01 "Let's Roll!" | |
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prosecutor
Do Your Duty--Be A Juror
Premium
join:2002-11-15
Plano, TX
| Re: How does SBC stand RE: recent RIAA activity? Time limits are a legitimate consideration. Overbreadth might be another.
Under no circumstances, however, can SBC (or any other internet provider) try to contract around its legal obligations to the court system. In other words, the contract does not, and cannot, matter. Your logic, taken to its extreme, might allow an ISP to contract with persons that it will notify them of the existence of a subpoena. This in turn would allow a pedophile or mafiosi to up and move prior to a legitimate law enforcement action.
Fact is, a number of major market ISP's are starting to limit the length of time they keep data in order to limit their subpoena exposure. This also means, however, that they may be (are) destroying evidence of the worst sort of criminal offenses imaginable.
Fact also is that SBC does require subpoenas for its records in every single case. The record center is here in Dallas. The system is cumbersome and slow, but it works in most cases. The hardest part is finding a real live human being to take responsibility for compliance. | |
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GPorter
It Always Works Better When It's On
join:2001-03-21
San Antonio, TX
| Re: How does SBC stand RE: recent RIAA activity? said by prosecutor :
Time limits are a legitimate consideration. Overbreadth might be another.
Under no circumstances, however, can SBC (or any other internet provider) try to contract around its legal obligations to the court system. In other words, the contract does not, and cannot, matter. Your logic, taken to its extreme, might allow an ISP to contract with persons that it will notify them of the existence of a subpoena. This in turn would allow a pedophile or mafiosi to up and move prior to a legitimate law enforcement action.
I wouldn't want them to notify the subject of a subpoena. But I would expect them to-as you state elsewhere-require a subpoena before divulging information they have contracted to retain in confidence.
said by prosecutor :
Fact is, a number of major market ISP's are starting to limit the length of time they keep data in order to limit their subpoena exposure. This also means, however, that they may be (are) destroying evidence of the worst sort of criminal offenses imaginable.
From what I've read of these sorts of offenses, the only thing that is lost is the potential for information detailing the length of time the offender has been committing said offenses. On the other hand, maintaining a shorter archive of customer records reduces the number of personnel and amount of storage space needed. I call that a business compromise, not aiding and abetting.
said by prosecutor :
Fact also is that SBC does require subpoenas for its records in every single case. The record center is here in Dallas. The system is cumbersome and slow, but it works in most cases. The hardest part is finding a real live human being to take responsibility for compliance.
Bureaucracies of all sorts have a certain amount of inertia. Obtaining a subpoena is not exactly a speedy process, is it? On the other hand, having access to the actual keeper of records has the effect of deterring the casual (excuse the expression) hack lawyer attempting to intimidate a firm into releasing something that said hack lawyer has no legal right to.
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Glenn-Remembering 9-11-01 "Let's Roll!" | |
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Mortis
Premium
join:2001-12-07
Clearlake, CA
clubs:
 ·AT&T Southwest
 ·Mediacom
| Just my opinion here, but there is a difference, Wal-mart doesn't try to charge you a minimum of $750 per candy bar infringed. Who are these RIAA people hacking into your system? Law enforcement? Do they have a warrant to search your system? No, they are hackers, who now seemed legally endorsed to search private property on behalf of businesses. Be very careful what you wish for...just because something is legal or illegal doesn't make it right or wrong. We all can think of stupid laws that have no weight.
You may laugh, but soon other companies will form RIAA-like consortiums. Soon, perhaps Micro$oft will be continuously scanning and blocking anyone who modifies the "functionality" of Windows, which is a TOS violation. "Sorry, sir, but you owe us $750 for infringing our intellectual rights by disabling our moronic and useless Messenger application." Where does it say in any law that it is okay to destroy someone else's intellectual property by crashing web servers and such on the suspicion of piracy? If so, that would mean it is legal for me to cause a denial of service attack on Microsoft? They stole Windows from Mac and their software is anticompetitive....isn't suspicion enough? How about a bundled antipiracy package placed obligatorily into antivirus software, in order to assure that your system is "legitimate". Do you know that if you change too many of your system components, that Windows XP can arbitrarily decide that you have a "new system" and therefore you need to re-pay for it? As a person who likes to upgrade his computer, I think that it is fair to use my XP OS on one machine at a time. Microsoft thinks that intellectually that one configuration is enough.....who do we want deciding right and wrong in these cases, the greedy corporations or courts of law?
Just my $.02
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Crouching Sniper, Hidden Camper | |
| | CCCMTech
Premium,VIP,MVM
join:2002-05-17
Pound, VA
| Re: How does SBC stand RE: recent RIAA activity? said by Mortis :
Who are these RIAA people hacking into your system? Law enforcement? Do they have a warrant to search your system? No, they are hackers, who now seemed legally endorsed to search private property on behalf of businesses.
Also keep in mind this eliminates due process of law and violates the constitution which overrides all newer bills.
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There is no such thing as a dumb question. Better to ask and get it right, than to guess and mess it up. | |
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prosecutor
Do Your Duty--Be A Juror
Premium
join:2002-11-15
Plano, TX
| If the RIAA hacks your server, sue 'em. Get everyone else together and file a class action. The law is on your side, there.
That is a completely different issue from subpoena compliance.
In fact, as part of your lawsuit, the first thing you should do is subpoena RIAA's records regarding their contracts with the persons hacking the system.
[text was edited by author 2003-07-28 14:22:37] | |
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