technologyJune 15, 2010

The Crowd As Our Legal Team

I made a public plea for readers' help in our legal battle. EMI told the Judge they have never put any music files online for free downloads — therefore all songs on Sideload.com are unauthorized piracy. Anyone in the music business knows this is false.

When we demanded EMI turn over a list of all free songs they'd distributed, they submitted a list of 3 songs. So we turned to a crowd sourced legal team. We asked customers to install a bookmarklet to help collect free EMI songs online. In a very short time users uncovered almost 1,400 free songs from EMI artists — from retailers, blogs, artist sites, and marketing sites, including EMI's own corporate blogs.

I think it's one of the first examples of crowd-sourcing evidence. The evidence was assembled not by the legal teams but by citizens with a computer and motivation to help out.

--MR

More from Michael's Minute

technologyOct 22, 2026

Open Letter To Nikesh Arora - CEO Palo Alto Networks

Open Letter To Nikesh Arora concerning Palo Alto Networks blocking traffic to MeetingTV and ongoing defamation.

Read

VideotechnologyAug 18, 2026

Born In The Shadows, The Story of Koi.ai

The shocking story of how an Israeli cybersecurity company that accused an American company of corporate espionage got started. That company was then acquired by Palo Alto Networks, the largest cybersecurity company in the world. #AI #Hallucination #PaloAltoNetworks #PANW #KOI Read the original DarkSpectre Report Here: https://web.archive.org/web/20251231125939/https://www.koi.ai/blog/darkspectre-unmasking-the-threat-actor-behind-7-8-million-infected-browsers

Watch

VideotechnologyAug 5, 2026

Hunting for the X-File Ghost

AI will soon rule the world. It will decide if you paid your taxes, qualify for a mortgage, whether your kid is admitted to university, if someone is eligible for parole, if you've been naughty on social media, etc. EVERYTHING. But what happens if it's WRONG? Here's an unbelievable and ominous situation where a cybersecurity company publishes a report stating an American company was part of a Chinese cybercriminal organization. The story spread around the world. One enormous problem: the software they claim as evidence doesn't exist, but nobody bothered to research it. No news site. No security companies. Nobody. Well, I decided to research it, and here's my results.

Watch

VideotechnologyJul 20, 2026

The Internet's Secret Blacklist - Easy In, No Way Out

AI Murdered My Company, Maybe = Episode 3

Watch

VideotechnologyJul 16, 2026

MeetingTV Is Laundering Data... for the Chinese

Episode 2 of AI Murdered My Company, Maybe Read the DarkSpectre Report Here: https://web.archive.org/web/20251231125939/https://www.koi.ai/blog/darkspectre-unmasking-the-threat-actor-behind-7-8-million-infected-browsers

Watch

All articles