RIAA's Expert Witness Critiqued as "Borderline Incompetent"

While we here at TechnoEsq encourage all readers to download only legal copies of music or movies, we agree with Hon. S. James Otero’s opinion in Elektra v. O’Brien that “[In] these lawsuits, potentially meritorious legal and factual defenses are not being litigated, and instead, the federal judiciary is being used as a hammer by a small group of plaintiffs to pound settlements out of unrepresented defendants.”

Apparently, the Recording Industry Association of America can’t afford competent experts according to Marie Lindor, Defendant in
UMG v. Lindor, United States District Court, Eastern District of New York. The RIAA has filed numerous lawsuits across the country charging individuals with copyright infringement and violations of distribution rights.

According to Professor Johan Pouwelse, the same expert witness who helped stop the RIAA’s similar litigation attempt in the Netherlands (Foundation v. UPC Nederland), the RIAA’s expert witness, Dr. Doug Jacobson, is “borderline incompetent”. In Prof. Pouwelse’s report he states:

-there are certain procedures needed to be taken in order to establish if a certain computer is being used to make copyrighted works available for download, which steps were not taken;
-the RIAA’s expert witness’s work lacked “in-depth analysis” and “proper scientific scrutiny”;
-the reports were “factually erroneous”;
-statements in Jacobson’s report were contradicted by his deposition testimony;
-numerous institutions have received false claims by MediaSentry;
-MediaSentry’s techniques have never been properly tested, are overly simplistic, and fail the test for accurate peer to peer file sharing measurement;
-Verizon’s response to the record companies’ subpoena demonstrates that the subpoena used to identify Ms. Lindor’s account was flawed;
-the lack of hard drive evidence corroborating the MediaSentry claim further demonstrates the unfounded nature of Jacobson’s conclusions;
-no alternative explanations were investigated;
-no checks were conducted to determine a potential rate of error;
-no standards or controls exist;
-Jacobson’s methods are “self-developed” and “unpublished”;
-Jacobson’s methods are not peer reviewed and not accepted by the scientific community; and
-Jacobson’s investigative process was “unprofessional”.

Dr. Pouwelse came to these conclusions based upon the February 23, 2007, deposition and exhibits of Prof. Doug Jacobson, and Dr. Jacobson’s December 2007 supplemental report. Of course, one could come to the humerous conclusion that the RIAA can’t afford competent expert witnesses due to the huge revenues lost to illegal sharing of content across the Internet.