New Dismissal Motion in File Sharing Case

NewYorkCountryLawyer writes "A new motion to dismiss an RIAA peer-to-peer file sharing case has been made, this time in Brooklyn federal court, in Atlantic v. Huggins, reports Recording Industry vs. The People. As in Elektra v. Santangelo, the RIAA had served a boilerplate complaint alleging generally 'downloading' ,uploading', and 'distributing', but without naming any specific acts. Defendants' lawyers argue that "the Complaint alleges in conclusory fashion and upon information and belief that defendant used "an online media distribution system" to download and distribute certain alleged copyrighted recordings to the public, and/or to make such recordings "available for distribution to others." but "makes no attempt to describe the specific acts of infringement or the dates and times on which they allegedly occurred.""

Comments

This is a very bad precedent.

[Anonymous Coward]

If this continues, we might start to see a rash of people defending themselves against lawsuits, rather than sticking to the time-tested system of out-of-court-settlements our nation is founded on. Who knows what effect that might have on our national justice system?

Re:This is a very bad precedent.

[Anonymous Coward]

The DMCA allows the RIAA to pay one lawyer to file 500-1000 John Doe lawsuits at once to learn the identities associated with IP addresses. They don't pay any more court fees for all those suits than they would have if they filed only one suit. Then they pay one marketing droid to issue a press release attacking thieving piratecriminals and sit back and watch the fear campaign work its course in the media.

Their next step is hiring a direct marketing firm to send out threatening letters to the victims instructing them to call a "settlement center" in India to negotiate a multi-thousand dollar extortionate fine or face a $100,000 judgment per infringement ($infringements == $num_songs * 1000). No expensive lawyers are involved at this step.

When defendents force the RIAA to bring lawyers into the picture they break this extremely profitable business model. Its interesting that all the moral high ground defenders of intellectual property types don't find anything ethically challenged with a business model based on such a horrendous abuse of the justice system. It's legalized extortion, pure and simple.

Well, this is just silly.

[doublem]

The RIAA accused them, so they MUST be guilty!

The RIAA has whole teams gathering evidence. They wouldn't accuse an innocent person.

Re:Exactly. I'm waiting for a case.

[Propagandhi]

While that may be the most probable path to martyrdom, there are alternatives:

For instance, the defendent in this case could forgo a traditional, or "rational", defense, and instead commit ritual seppukku on the steps of the courthouse. The effects could be wide ranging:

  - The judge decides the case in favor of the defendent (he was so moved by the ritual sacrifice)
  - The RIAA renounces its single-minded persuit of wealth (because the defendent reminded them how fragile life is) and the record companies go back to advancing music as an art form.
  - Ritual suicide becomes an acceptable means of getting almost anything you want (post-humonously, obviously)
  - We get to download tons of w4r3z!!!

Let's try not to be narrowminded about this.

Sounds great but...

[StarWreck]

The RIAA want to sue everyone so they'll stop downloading music and actually pay for it. Sounds great, but what about their customers? Broke-ass college students may download the music for free now but would become addicted to always having new music and when they graduated and had massive mounds of disposable income would begin buying CD's in earnest. Why would a college graduate want to buy a CD from a company that sued their best friend back in college? Sounds good in theory, but doesnt work - like communism. In summary - suing your customers is advertising for communists.

Re:IF the motion is not denied....

[Frogbert]

At least this may make the extortion process a bit more expensiver per a person for RIAA

Thats unpossible!

Re:To be a martyr

[Velox_SwiftFox]

(checks KJV Matthew 19, v16-23)

No, that just makes you an apostle.

Re:What is copywritten ?

[PeeAitchPee]

If I downsample something to a 4 bit audio sample, is it a violation of copyright ?

No, it makes you a remixer. ;-)