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from the Have-you-ever-read-a-book,-magazine,-or-newspaper?-Which-ones? dept.
Music-industry lawyers plan to ask potential jurors in a piracy case whether they read Ars Technica.
"Have you ever read or visited Ars Technica or TorrentFreak?" is one of 40 voir dire questions that plaintiffs propose to ask prospective jurors in their case against Grande Communications, an Internet service provider accused of aiding its customers' piracy, according to a court filing on Friday.
[...] Record-label attorneys also want to ask potential jurors if they "know what a peer-to-peer network is," have "ever downloaded content from any BitTorrent website" such as The Pirate Bay and KickassTorrents, obtained music or video from "any stream-ripping service," been "accused of infringing a copyright," or "ever been a member, contributor or supporter of the Electronic Frontier Foundation."
The full list of questions by each party were made available by TorrentFreak as pdfs:
Have you now, or ever been, a member of the Pirate Party?
(Score: 1, Troll) by DannyB on Tuesday February 04 2020, @04:17PM (2 children)
A jury of your peers is a jury of people who cannot get out of jury duty, and therefore are not clever.
If some well meaning, bright, educated person, who could get out of jury duty, decides to do their duty and serve, then they will be automatically excused by one or the other parties for not being gullible.
I personally remember this. I was in the pool of jurors. A criminal (rape) trial. (yes, rape is indeed criminal, just FYI.) Defense asked all jurors what would be an important thing they would be looking for in the testimony. Someone said that the witness seems honest and credible. When the question got to me, I added that I would look for logical consistency or inconsistency among witnesses as an additional factor to evaluate what I thought of their testimony. Immediately I saw this brief, but distinct look of horror on the defense attorney's face. The defense and prosecution and judge consulted outside the jury pool presence. After that a number of jurors were excused, including me. Since that one question is the only question of significance I had answered, I can only assume why. Other trivial questions were things like what kind of work you did or pretended to do, could you be impartial, etc. Did you personally know any of the others in the jury pool (one other potential juror had been my daughter's childhood playmate long ago, but I had not seen for many years).
The thing about landline phones is that they never get lost. No air tag necessary.
(Score: 2) by https on Tuesday February 04 2020, @05:21PM (1 child)
The lawyers and judge may have had an entirely different criterion of "significance" than you did. Logic is only one of many tools available for clear thinking.
Wanting to get out of jury duty contradicts wanting a fair trial for yourself.
Offended and laughing about it.
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Tuesday February 04 2020, @07:06PM
Absolutely.
That's why I participated in the process. Twice, so far. If they come calling again, I will be happy to participate.
I'm sure I could manipulate my way into getting excused. But it is called "duty" for a reason.
The thing about landline phones is that they never get lost. No air tag necessary.