MediaSentry Evidence In, 'Fair Use' Defense Out in P2P Case

Authored by Mark Hefflinger on June 11, 2009 - 12:16pm.

Duluth, Minn. - A federal judge has denied accused file-swapper Jammie Thomas' request to disallow evidence from MediaSentry, the firm hired by record labels to track activity on file-sharing networks and gather evidence on suspected copyright infringers, CNET News.com reported.

Thomas's attorney had argued that MediaSentry is not licensed as a private investigator in Minnesota, and therefore any evidence it collected should not be allowed in court.

U.S. District Court Judge Michael Davis also said that Thomas' attorneys may not raise "fair use" as a defense in the case, wherein they would argue that file-sharing for noncommercial purposes should not be construed as copyright infringement.

"The record in this case, with which this Court is intimately familiar, gave no hint that a fair use defense would be forthcoming," Judge Davis wrote in his decision.

"It would be highly prejudicial to Plaintiffs to allow Defendant to assert this new affirmative defense on the eve of retrial."

Thomas was previously convicted of copyright infringement by a jury, but a mistrial was declared after the judge found he had erred in his instructions to the jury.

http://snipurl.com/jxsrd (DMW previous coverage)

Published in DMW Daily, June 11, 2009

Previous story: Reports: Twitter Growth Flat; Majority Have Never Tweeted
Next story: AOL Goes Local with Acquisitions of Patch Media and Going

Email this page

Comments

Its about time sombody told

Submitted by anonymous (not verified) on June 12, 2009 - 5:18am.

Its about time sombody told a P2P base/tech company that Fair Use doesnt cover P2P, especially when the Fair Use is obtained for free. The supreme court made that clear a very long time ago with the VCR, etc... Fair use only applies if the owner of the content is paid for the use or ownership of that content. Funn Networks is coming!