RIAA’s Incompetent Pirate Snoopers Escape Prison
Written by Ben Jones on July 17, 2009In an odd ruling, a Michigan state agency that deals with professional licensing has closed an investigation into RIAA’s unlicensed pirate investigators MediaSentry, saying that without evidence of payment from the RIAA, there is no case. The investigation was prompted by Randy Kruger, father of one of the RIAA’s targets.
MediaSentry, a long time partner of the RIAA in their numerous court cases against alleged pirates where it was responsible for collecting evidence, has been criticized by various parties. The company’s evidence gathering techniques have been described by experts “as factually erroneous”, “unprofessional” and “borderline incompetent”.
In addition, MediaSentry is lacking the proper license required in some states to actually perform the evidence gathering. Michigan is such a state, which spurred a father of an alleged file-sharer to dispute the legitimacy of RIAA’s (former) partner so the evidence provided by them can be discounted.
If found acting as a Private Investigator within the state, the company committed a criminal act. That would have a significant negative impact on any evidence they provided to a court case, indeed it might disqualify it entirely. Without the evidence of the alleged infringement provided by MediaSentry, there is no case to answer.
Enter the Michigan Department of Energy, Labor and Economic Growth’s (DELEG) Bureau of Commercial Services (BCS). They regulate and maintain the lists of professional licenses in the state. Their investigation has turned up no license, but more critically, no evidence of payment from the RIAA either. Without that, there’s no business being performed, which means there’s no need for a license. As such, the BCS has closed (thanks to Ray Beckerman) their investigation.
However, while the case is closed for now, the letter does say it can be reopened if new evidence on payments is produced. Since the case came out of a current lawsuit (SONY Music Entertainment v. Kruger) it shouldn’t be hard to get evidence of the business relationship admitted into evidence. Once that’s done, MediaSentry might be in some hot water.
As the BCS later states, “The Court may impose a civil fine of up to $25,000 for a violation of the Act. The Court may also find a person practicing without a license guilty of a felony punishable by imprisonment.”
MediaSentry’s pirate snooping amateurs might be working for free – but that’s unlikely – as we all know the RIAA’s position on getting anything for free…
Previously: Fleeing Bruno Cam Pirate Breaks Leg Colliding With Police
Next: PWN Last.fm Brings Torrents to Last.fm
42 Responses
They might deserve it, but I wouldn’t want them in jail anyway. They’d cry at their bleeding assholes and prompt the states to control prison rape. Don’t want that to happen, now do we?
Well since the industry likes to say that the people don’t deserve privacy maybe is time to show what a lack off the said privacy means.
How about hack all their email accounts and search for the evidence or better yet get a court order to see comb through their finances, emails, personal correspondence and anything that could lead to some evidence after all that is what the MAFIAA always says isn’t? That they need the tools to get pirates lets see if they like their own remedy.
Well done TF on surpassing 1,000,000 million subscribers!
So they’re doing all this work just because they love the RIAA soo much?
@3: “1,000,000 million”?
1,000,000,000,000 subscribers? More than the population of Earth?
You’re the population of Earth.
@5: 1,000,000,000,000 subscribers? More than the population of Earth?
That is correct, pets subscribe too, but feedburner has blocked all the pet subscribers as of recently. It’s actually a major headline and feedburner is catching a lot of back lash from this sudden move. It’s being seen as an animal rights violation, look it up.
Google It :)
That’s stupid, it’s almost the same way Al Capone was put in prison, by finding he didn’t pay his taxes.
off topic ;P
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Just goes to show how underhanded these guys are. They falsify and destroy records without any sort of action against them!
Hope they get charged with the felony, and I hope they get raped.
Why does this not surprise me. Just goes to show if you have enough money you can do what ever you would like and get away with it.
doe snot the RIAA have to account to someone where and how it spends its cash, if there is missing cash where is it going?
How does mediasentry know if the file was completely downloaded?
tl:dr
CDR, even if the RIAA does have to show where their money goes(I don’t know on that part), it is very easy, and legal to hide where it is going. And seeing how they are the RIAA, they would know the ins and outs of cheating the system.
I wonder how one might request that an organization or company be audited by the IRS, or even if that’s possible.
Come on, are the courts utter cretins? No evidence of paymet, do they really expect normal people to believe that this Media Sentry company did all that work ouy of the goodness of their own hearts? *** off, its America, land of the corporate greedy and NO company does ANYTHING unless it is for PROFIT.
Maybe the courts should have that little nugget stuffed up their naughts and woken up to the fact that they indeed are making things look very like they are siding with the corporations and not with fairness and the law as in being unbiased.
Every court case I have read about or heard of via the media that has a trial in the USA or is pushed by an American company on foreign soild has been biased towards these companys and not the individuals rights to privacy or a fair trial.
Possibly why now in court cases involving people in another country that these people are extradited to the USA to face an unfair trial.
This philosophy is not just limited to music piracy but almost anything, take the Gary Mckinnon, accused without any evidence. Same for music piracy, people are accused without any evidence and that evidence that is produced can in reality only be understood by experts.
NO ONE GETS A FAIR TRIAL IN THE USA… The land of the free is a corporat pile of corruptions and infringement on personal liberty and human rights.
“as we all know the RIAA’s position on getting anything for free…”
In it’s lawsuit against Usenet.com the RIAA reproduced and distributed –without permission– a *copyrighted* article from Slyck.com
“Stealing is fine as long as we’re the ones doing it” says the RIAA
I just did some poking around the riaa domain….
Guys, you wanna get a load of this…
The legislation regarding corporations like the RIAA for example is such that the domain records for said domain MUST be as part of new legal requirements not only reflect the company in the real world but also the information therein should result in contactable information like email addresses that work, clearly indicated contact by land mail.
So I probed them and found that the RIAA are breaking legislation by not providing required contact information as set out in the new legislation which is a legal requirement.
One law for us, one law for them, maybe if ARIN was informed of this, the RIAA site would be taken down for non compliance with the legislation.
Makes the RIAA a bunch of hypocrites, they chase people who break the law but are not prepared to work within the law…
They deserve the fine, for what their doing to the torrent industry.
Consider that $25000 for their blatant organized crime is just roughly 1% of what Jammie Thomas has to pay for downloading songs worth $20.
There is no way that MediaSentry is doing the dirty work for free. No one can love the RIAA that much.
Shell companies, anyone?
using the MAFIAA’s own method of calculating losses that is $25,000 for each and every violation = $89 Billion they owe the people of America
http://www.h33t.com living in the modern world
stop dreaming people . RIAA must had done something . it’s impossible for mediasentry that operate for so many years for riaa can get a way with “no evidence of payment from the RIAA .”
how could anyone come out such ridicules excuse . mediasentry not even registered as charity organization.
@ 1 LOL – the state would charge a monitary value on each buggering – as it would be deemed ass piracy and not ass sharing – if caught not paying you could ….eh get a jail term and well you get the picture
It will be nice when the courts finally SHOVE the RIAA back over the line which they crossed and remind them …. “THAT is the line you do not cross… EVER!”
Then throw someone in jail for 5 years – make it a precident setting ruling, then suspend the sentence as I’m sure that poor bastard won’t do it again.
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These corperations and associations are pure garbage…reading stuff like this is shocking, but not surprising.
Go figure someone like SONY to use a copy protection system that installs a back door on your computer (before you agree to the EULA).
Wikipedia: Sony Scandal
And the best part about this scandal was the code for the copy protection system may have in fact infringed on someones copyright (the irony is it’s was GPL).
This is pretty f***ed. I’m glad I don’t support these guys.
I hate organizations like MediaSentry that corrupt P2P networks…with private bittorrent and indexed ed2k links I don’t usually experience a lot of problems with them but they are out to ruin everybody’s experience and that’s what pisses me off.
two prudent questions I’ve never heard asked on this subject:
Is media sentry based in a state that requires licensing for what they do?
Are online investigations considered to have taken place at the location of the investigator, or the investigated?
RIAA has the backing of a lot of multi-national corporations who have deep pockets and lots of lawyers on retainer. Also there is a literal army of corporate lobbyist is manipulate (re: bribe and blackmail) politicians and high-level government bureaucrats to do what they want. Most of that is done behind close doors. This is what happens when you are given a lot of power with no transparency or accountability.
Wootz Go my state :)
We have the worst state but we like our torrents.
Arrgh
Gee, I always thought you needed a license to perform a restricted activity, not just to get paid for it.
Guess nobody in Michigan needs a Drivers License either, except for those getting paid to drive. (ie: bus drivers, truck drivers, taxi drivers, and chauffeurs)
Why don’t you just check out the electronic frontier foundation dot org?
It’s pointless to just keep complaining.
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This exposed a nasty loophole for the RIAA to use.
Don’t pay Mediacentry directly and they can legally be your slutpupies.
Speaking of driver’s licenses, how dare the government tell me what to do and what not to do with my car! i bought it so it’s my property, right? i should be able to do whatever i want with it! what’s all this have to wear a seatbelt/can’t tint my windows/have to adhere to the signs and lights and speed limits?
ZOMG! THAT’S BS, MAN! MY NATURAL RIGHTS TO DO WHAT I WANT ARE TOTALLY GETTING STOMPED ON! IT’S MY CAR! MY PROPERTY! ZOMG! I DO WHAT I WANT! CARS WANT TO BE FREE! ZOMG! CHE QUEVARA!
Hey, how the hell can we be punished? I don’t make money with my downloading, so it didn’t happen… ;)
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