Is the RIAA's contract with MediaSentry, Inc. "privileged". The RIAA says
yes. Marie Lindor says
no. The RIAA made a protective order motion on September 27th claiming that the MediaSentry contracts are subject to attorney client privilege and work product privilege. RIAA executive vice president Bradley A. Buckles
said in the RIAA's motion that "the MediaSentry Agreement provides detailed information regarding the instructions and parameters for conducting on-line investigations that were discussed and developed by the RIAA and its counsel, on behalf of the RIAA's members. The Agreement also notes processes that are highly proprietary to MediaSentry and certain sources of infringement that are beyond MediaSentry's ability to detect." The RIAA also said that "The MediaSentry Agreement is not limited to matters relating to the current lawsuit or even to lawsuits against individuals like defendant who downloaded and distributed sound recordings illegally. Rather, MediaSentry has been retained by the RIAA, on behalf of its members, to handle a wide array of anti-piracy efforts for the recording industry, and it has done so." Ms. Lindor's lawyers
say, in essence, those are good reasons the documents need to be turned over, so that we can prepare to crossexamine about the (a) "proprietary" "processes" which haven't been peer-reviewed, and (b) the "instructions" and "parameters" the lawyers dictated to their so called 'experts'. Plus, they
say, among other things, how can you have attorney client privilege where there's no attorney?