E-mail from Joel’s mom

Posted by DBR on behalf of Joel’s mom

P2Pnet broke this first:  http://www.p2pnet.net/story/20155

Joel’s mom e-mailed me with the following email (DBR: hyperlinks inserted by me):

Joel contacted me with the information about Brittany’s case and my presentation at the ABA’s Section of Administration Law and Regulatory Practice midyear meeting on February 13, 2009.  I was specifically part of the Recent Developments in Education Law Panel.    I wanted to emphasize to the audience that most of these cases like Joel’s involved students.    I briefly explained how the students’ information was made available to the RIAA, etc., I wanted to make sure that the presentation had a “human element” to it.    So, I began my presentation by reading excerpts from the letter that Brittany had written only days before my presentation.   I also excerpted the letter from an Ohio father who wrote to Charlie about his daughter’s situation.   After reading these excerpts, I began reading from the detailed “outline” that I had made to guide me through the remainder of my presentation time.   All together, I had a total of 15 minutes to say what I had to say.     I started reading some of my outline, but next thing I knew, I wasn’t looking at the outline at all.    I realized that I was running out of time and wouldn’t be able to present all of the information in my outline.

It was a small audience, but they all were sympathetic and “horrified”.   Inevitably, someone knows someone who was sued, bothered for money, who illegally downloaded and hopes they don’t get”caught”, etc. Also in the audience waiting to make the subsequent presentation was a panel dealing with issues of Recent Developments in Communications Law.   The panel included representation from teh FCC, Chris Riley, Policy Counsel of the Free Press, etc.,       They were all in the audience listening and came up and spoke to me after my presentation.  Russell Frisby, of Fleishman & Harding, Washington, D.C. came up to me.   He suggested that we check both the FCC and FTC Rules on Customer Proprietary Network Information.  I had the sense that everyone was trying to be helpful and supportive    Chris Riley was well aware of all of the goings on with Joel’s case.   Everyone was sympathetic to what was and had happened and wished us luck..    Many times, not only at this meeting, people have come up to me and said “thank you” for doing this, etc.

Just wanted to pass along another one of our experiences as we go forward in this case.  Let us know your experience.