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Reproduced in full is our communications between Music Industry Piracy Investigations Pty Limited (MIPI), the anti-piracy organization for the Australian music industry and our crack legal adviser (unaccredited) who watches a lot of Judge Judy and should be fired. Regardless of his shoddy credentials, he does a marvelous job of explaining why we’re not quaking in our boots from some hollow legal threat from Australia. Here’s the original post where someone leaked Lady Gaga’s Sydney, Australia itinerary that spawned such insane legal actions. As per our disclosure policy, we are reporting this legal exhange in full for the benefit of our readers.

Legal notice (2 images from PDF) from Sabiene Heindl, MIPI General Manager:

Prompt reply from Stephen VanDyke, EarSucker VP and fan of U.S. First Amendment protections:

Dear sirs,

We respectfully decline your demand for the removal of requested material for the following legal reasons:

1) Earsucker.com us a US-based music and entertainment news website not bound by the Australian copyright laws you have cited.
2) As journalists, it is not our duty or obligation to enforce the confidentiality agreements of your employees. That said, we were not the organization to leak this information, we merely reposted the images and content from Oh No They Didn’t: http://community.livejournal.com/ohnotheydidnt/45723983.html#cutid1 (we have no knowledge of the identity of the employee who leaked the itenerary, so we cannot be liable for your own internal leaks).
3) Future scheduled times were already removed by another party, removing any legal concerns about potential security risk to the artist. We would have redacted any such information as a matter of internal procedure regardless, since it is our goal to present news without compromising the security of the public or private individuals.
4) An internal document leaked to the press by disgruntled employees has several protections under U.S. Copyright laws and journalism shields. Again, we are a US-based website with no requirement to abide by Australian laws.

COUNTER-NOTIFICATION
Please also note that under Section 512(f) any person who knowingly materially misrepresents that material or activity is infringing may be subject to liability.

If you wish to spend your time pursuing legal action in Australian courts, we will gladly ignore in the same fashion that Google ignores China’s demand to censor their searches. You are free to pursue further legal action in the U.S., but documents must be filed in a US court by legally appointed advocates of the artist. Any further legal threats from MIPI (or unverified third party firms not originating in the U.S.) on behalf of the artist will be summarily ignored.

Thank you for your understanding,
Stephen VanDyke
VP, LibertySucker Media

UPDATE: Torrent Freak interviewed Stephen and re-published the itinerary in full. Looks like MIPI’s going to have to get busy with more legal threats.