RIAA Suit Rejected With Prejudice

yfarren writes "According to cdfreaks.com the RIAA has lost the case against the mother of a 13 year old girl accused of file-sharing violations." From the article: "The case was dismissed with prejudice, which prevents the case from being advanced against the defendant. Finally, the RIAA tried asking the Judge to amend the judgment in order to allow them to sue the child through a Guardian Ad Litem. However the court denied [the] RIAA's request."

Comments

Re:Defendant still lost in a way...

[pete6677]

When a case is dismissed with prejudice, it is a lot easier for the defendant to countersue for attorney fees, which I suspect they will in this case. The award is not automatic, but likely.

Re:In defense of the RIAA

[molarmass192]

Last time I checked, music pirates primarily used Windows only tools like Kazaa, most probably running on pirated copies of Windows. People who earn their livings using Linux, every single copy legitimately licensed I might add, are much MUCH less likely to participate in music and software piracy. Besides, if you're looking for anti-intellectual property types, look in the BSD camp. Last time I checked, my GPLd software did not grant me ownership of any of the itellectual property within the codebase.

Re:More appropriate title

[HardCase]

Actually, no. The court dismissed the suit "with prejudice" against the mother, Candy Chan, but they dismissed the suit "without predjudice" against anybody else. The second order denied the RIAA's motion to amend the original lawsuit to add the daughter as a defendant. Only the motion to amend was denied - the RIAA can file a new lawsuit.

In fact, the second sentence of the second order is pretty clear: "The court also ruled that the plantiffs were not prevented from bringing an action against anyone else, including Brittany Chan, the minor child of Candy Chan."

So, all that's happened is that mom has managed to shift the blame from her to her daughter. Mom gets to pay her attorney's fees and the RIAA gets another crack at the family through the daughter.

-h-

Re:Lose, lose situation for RIAA

[HardCase]

No, the RIAA did not lose. The RIAA sued the parent because that's who "owned" the IP address. When they finally got the parent to 'fess up and admit which child had done the deed, they asked for the lawsuit to be dismissed, with prejudice, against the mother and amended to name the child. The mother objected to that, so the judge had to make the decision. The real score? The RIAA won one (the case was dismissed with prejudice), lost one (they didn't get amend their original lawsuit) and the mother lost two (she gets to pay for her attorney and her daughter is still open to a new lawsuit).

Dunno if the RIAA is right or wrong, but I'm pretty sure that a /. story that links to a blog linking to a blog is probably a pretty inaccurate way to get the straight story. The real news is in the actual court documents.

-h-

Re:Nice try. But no.

[Kadin2048]

I am not a bankruptcy lawyer either, but I did ask one where I could find the list of "non-dischargable" debts:

You'll find it here: TITLE 11 > CHAPTER 5 > SUBCHAPTER II > 523. A more verbose discussion is available here, which you might find interesting, if not exactly light reading.

I'll summarize (skipping the irrelevant subsections):

A discharge under section 727, 1141, 1228 (a), 1228 (b), or 1328 (b) of this title does not discharge an individual debtor from any debt-- (19) that-- (B) results from-- (i) any judgment, order, consent order, or decree entered in any Federal or State judicial or administrative proceeding; (ii) any settlement agreement entered into by the debtor; or (iii) any court or administrative order for any damages, fine, penalty, citation, restitutionary payment, disgorgement payment, attorney fee, cost, or other payment owed by the debtor.

So pretty much, if any court orders you to pay something, or you agree to a settlement, you're SOL as far as declaring bankruptcy to discharge it goes. And unlike some of the other subsections, which have "outs" for things like inability to pay, or the benefit to the debtor outweighing the benefit to the creditor by discharging it, that section has no outs.