Another $40,850 goes into the RIAA’s copyright infringement coffers
Arizona resident Jeffrey Howell learned some a hard lessons this past week. If you are being sued for copyright infringement, get a lawyer and if you are served with a lawsuit that tells you not to tamper with your hard drive, don’t go ahead and format it anyway. In an unfortunate turn of events last week, the second high profile RIAA copyright infringement case came to a screeching halt as it was revealed that the defendant Howell had tampered with the evidence. Howell uninstalled Kazaa, deleted its logs, and formatted his hard drive after receiving the lawsuit; thereby making any evidence irretrievable. The RIAA argued and the judge agreed that “The deliberate destruction… by itself, compels the conclusion that such evidence supported Plaintiffs’ case.” The case was found in favor of the RIAA and a final judgment was announced today. Howell must now cough up a mere $350 in court costs and whopping $40,500 in statutory damages. This case was notable as the RIAA was handed a big setback last April when a judge ruled that simply making a file available on a P2P network did not constitute copyright infringement. A crushing blow to the legal basis of the RIAA’s infringement cases. Too bad it had to end so badly.
Tags: Copyright Infringement, file sharing, Jeffrey Howell, Kazza, mp3, music, p2p, RIAA
why format the damn thing and make yourself look guilty?
Should have accidentally set the thing on fire!
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maybe jeffrey had other things on his hard drive that may be a little more damaging that some mp3’s…. something Chris Hansen may want to talk to you about.
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obviously they wer tracking him via isp didn’t one of ther faild cases have ruling that you could not use isp subscriber 411 as evidence or something?
wonder who got paid $$$ to snitch on him?
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Idiot. He stood a chance of having the amount either reduced or of winning the case, but instead he had to go let his stupidity show.
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The guy was an idiot. The second he got the pre-litigation letter he should have removed the hard-drive, smashed it with a ball-peen hammer, doused with diesel fuel and set the bitch on fire, taken the remains and dumped them in the ocean. Take PC, put new HDD in, set system clock to 2 weeks before date on pre-litigation letter. Load system with OS, Apps, etc, then format and do it again still with system clock set to past. Install everything before connecting to the internet and do not set the clock to auto update. Up the clock by a day (alternating the time) and visit a few websites until you reach the current date/time. clear the web cache and stuff but don’t scrub it. Set PC to normal date & time. Use as normal until they request your HDD (could be a good few months at LEAST). When they check it, say that you had a computer virus that you had to format the HDD and re-install the entire OS from scratch a few weeks before you even got the pre-lit letter, blame the Kazaa files on the virus.
Now of course that won’t work if you have a mac so replace virus to your hard-drive died. When they try to cry foul, you say “check the PC, the OS was installed way BEFORE I even got the pre-litigation letter, I had no way of knowing”
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And then of course, they will want to check the date the new hard drive was purchased, who bought it and where so they can hit the person who helped you. And if it was you, you’ll have a whole lot of explaining to do to a judge as to why you lied under oath about the hard drive.
Just my opinion.
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@ imahotguy dude destroying evidence of any kind is a serious offence. regardless that i know
what I was asking is how the RIAA got the wind of it they can’t do it by themselves becuas it violates ip rights an privacy laws. Thata law enforcments Mainly the FBI job NOT the RIAA’s In fact some cases th RIAA tried filing suit for were thrown out because of that. the result being the the evidence wasn’t harvested by the resonsable authorities therefore the evidence is circumstantial an dosn’t mean jack.
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@George:
Your reading a gadget blog and you don’t have any hard-drives just laying around. Heck I got like 5 MBP compatible HDD’s in my office.
If I don’t, so I drive to Delaware without my EZ-Pass tag and after I stop at Wine World (Tax free booze baby!), I go to a mom & pop store and buy a new HDD in cash. I’ll even wear neat little sunglasses and a hat.
Then I drive back to Philly. When they ask, be like “Oh, I had that thing laying around. Don’t really remember where I got it.”
Besides, I would never get a pre-lit letter from the RIAA. I never use my own internet to pirate stuff.
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P.S.: There is more that needs to be done other than what was hit in the small scope of a comment. For example, hitting up wine world in Delaware while picking up a hard drive may or may not be the best idea.
Also, there is also very little they can discover, because this is a civil suit, not a capital murder case. The chances they find a store 25 miles away that may have sold a hard drive for cash and identify you most likely two years after the fact is just shy of zero.
Unless you are an idiot and you pay with credit and use your EZ-Pass to get down there and get pulled over for speeding on the way there and back and the cop sees the hard-drive laying in the seat and you acting suspicious. Yeah, they may find out you bought a HDD.
However, they do _not_ have the right to search your home, your car, your financial records, EZ Pass records, etc…
This douchebag voluntarily gave them his HDD. Heck, if I got a pre-lit letter I would two claim that I have never infringed content and I don’t have any on my computer and I would send them a drive. I would claim my WiFi was hacked and I would change my router to a weak WEP password (the Verizon FiOS default) and pay the Geek Squad to secure it for like $299. Then have the Geek Squad dude say that my network was vulnerable despite having some form a security so I am not guilty of infringement through negligence.
Send them a “clean” drive and be fine.
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I’m a lawyer and policy wonk. I don’t have an extra internal hard drive lying around.
I like reading gadget blogs, but I’m not a tech guy. I just like reading about the latest gadgets and then making a determination as to whether I need or want one. Usually it’s a want, but then other pressing needs get in the way….but if I need it, I’ll have all the latest info on why one gadget is better than the other.
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Gearoge: Oh ok. But you got my point, I could spend 6 hours and write a 3-page comment on covering your tracks alone. Some of it is not even needed because there are things that the RIAA can and can’t do. Heck, even in a capital murder case, they rely more on confessions and circumstance coupled with motive and means.
As for the RIAA case. They see that an IP address is sharing a song. Okay, but it could be the kid down the block with a Pringles can antenna who spent the time watching the youtube video Cracking WEP Keys for Dummies.
This isn’t CSI. 99.999% of the time you can get by with simple common sense and using your right to remain silent.
For instance when they asked why you didn’t warranty replace the drive if it died and the computer is under warranty, you just say “I was planning to upgrade to a larger hard-drive and when it died it served as motivation for getting a larger hard-drive.”
If they ask where you bought it, just say that you walked into a bunch of stores on your lunch break from work and picked one up, that you really weren’t sure.
You of all people must understand, by the time you get to that sort of discovery, you are talking months if not years down the road (in this case over 2 years). In civil law, everything is at least 30 days. File a motion, okay 30 days and we reconvene.
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Oh and also, you don’t ever want to get caught in a lie. Get a story down and stick to it. Keep it short, simple and then STFU.
Oh as the cliche goes, “A man who represents himself in court has a fool for a lawyer.”
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Well, all of your comments are nice and everything, but in my case, here in sunny South Africa, things happened a little different for me!
“Ring Ring” goes the door bell.
“Hi, This is the police, I have a search warrant. Let me in.”
Me: “Ummm… okay?”
“Where is your computer? This one over here? Here is your warrant. We are taking the PC.”
Me: “Ummm… okay?”
*Pulls out the black evidence bag. Turns everything off. Unplug cables. Tower–> In the bag!
“Thank you very much. You will hear from us shortly.”
Me: “Ummm… okay?”
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