THE RIAA KNOWS YR GUILTY

[defrog]

ITEM [via nebris ]: Wired's Threat Level blog reveals that the US Immigration And Customs Enforcement (ICE) bureau – a division of the Dept Of Homeland Security – dropped a copyright-infringement case against popular hip-hop blog Dajaz1.com after the RIAA was unable to come up with any actual evidence that the site was infringing copyright over a year after the site was seized and shut down.

In case you thought you read that wrong, I’ll break down that timeline for you:

• The RIAA accuses Dajaz1.com of copyright infringement by allegedly linking to pre-release tracks
• The ICE seizes the domain name, effectively shutting down the site, and waits for the RIAA to gather its evidence to prosecute the case
• Thirteen months and several judge-approved extensions later, the RIAA has yet to come up with enough evidence.
• The case is dropped and Dajaz1.com’s domain name is released without comment, explanation or even an apology.

In summary, the RIAA managed to shut down a music blog for a year with no proof whatsoever that it was guilty of anything.

The punchline: The RIAA continues to insist that Dajaz1.com is guilty of copyright theft. Even if can’t actually prove that.

And people ask me why I’m opposed to dumb laws like SOPA that aim to give the RIAA and MPAA even more power to do this kind of thing with even less burden of proof. To say nothing of ICE.

FUN FACT: Former ICE intelligence chief James M. Woosley recently pleaded guilty to an elaborate scam over several years involving false travel expense reports totaling nearly $600,000.

Irony!

I like to prove it prove it,

This is dF