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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.""
This is why I am waiting for an uploader case to go to COURT. Let's have a martyr ... and watch him live to tell the tale.
If this motion is not denied, regardless if he wins or not, at least this may make the extortion process a bit more expensiver per a person for RIAA, assuming this instills enough fear that they attempt to properly develop a case on a per-person basis. It maybe just whishful thinking on the other hand.
Technically, to be a martyr, he'd have to lose. Otherwise he's a hero, which is just about as good. :)
In long past, yes I believe so.
I don't think death would require status as a martyr in todays age.
If they are fined and so heavily burdened to the point of "cruel and unussual"
punishment for something petty dumb and stupid according to a absurd ruling
it could work. But only if the public at large left and right are condeming
the bought finding and those behind it and calling for people to "swing."
You simply can't decide that you don't have to follow the law because you 1) don't like the law and 2) that technology allows you to violate the law easily.
Sure you can! You resign yourself, however, to suffering the full penalties of a law, even if you consider it invalid. It would probably be a gross overestimation to ascribe to any significant proportion of filesharers any kind of truly well-concieved ethical stance, though.
filter: +3. Hey, look! all the trolls went away!
You left out the piece of shit deadbeats who file frivolous lawsuits based on bullshit injury claims.
Actually, a hero would be better.
You simply can't decide that you don't have to follow the law because you 1) don't like the law and 2) that technology allows you to violate the law easily.
I hate this line of reasoning. You absolute can violate a law because you don't like it and/or have an easy time doing it. The fact that you can do something doesn't make it morally or legally right, but you can still do it. When a large number of people loose respect for a law, the will of these people being what gives the law validity in the first place, it is time for the law to be reconsidered. When the people want to repel a law, or decide how that law be applied, it is the government's job to accommodate to the extent that the Constitution allows. If the Constitution does not adequately fulfill the needs of its people then it is up to the people to work within their government to modify it.
Laws can be broken. Perhaps laws should be broken. I think everyone should intentionally break a law once and a while, just to remind yourself how thin the line is between order and chaos. And how thin a line order is within the surrounding chaos. Society lacking structure opens itself to rule of the strongest, but the government that too firmly restricts its citizens will fall at their hands.
A balance must be struck. The people must be secure in their ability to control their government, and a government must depend on her citizens to behave in a civilized fashion. For either to overstep their place would be disastrous.
Most of those people are looking for a quick settlement. They put the figure low enough so that it's cheaper to settle than to fight, but sometimes, the other side does fight back.
Marxism is the opiate of dumbasses
The RIAA won't care if someone wins a dismissal. The defendant had to pay for a lawyer and spend time fighting the case. As long as they sell the tech community on the idea that infringement will cost you something if you refuse to settle they still win, at least idealogically.
It's true no man is an island, but if you take a bunch of dead guys and tie 'em together, they make a good raft.
The very clearly reasoned and yet utterly unreasonable legal position that you describe illustrates admirably why the law is held in such low regard these days and lawyers are viewed as bloodsucking scum.
Strategies, counter-strategies, technicalities, 10 million stages to the legal "game", and every move achieving almost nothing except a transfer of money into the wallets of lawyers. Absolutely wonderful.
Meanwhile, sight is lost of whether the alleged wrongdoings actually constitute a loss for the plaintiff, rather than free advertising no different to that in radio broadcasting. All that matters for you and your colleagues is that the divine handle of law continue to be cranked, regardless of whether it is right or wrong.
WebHostingGuy, your ex-profession is morally bankrupt.
"The question of whether machines can think is no more interesting than [] whether submarines can swim" - Dijkstra
The trouble is there is little risk in these types of lawsuits. The big players sue the little guy all day every day knowing full well their suits will be settled for a net profit, while the little guy with a pro-bono attorney in other cases also have a good shot at settlement. Personally I see no morality in either situation.
If judges were required on the other hand to impose upon a losing plaintiff the defendant's legal fees, the number of frivolous suits on both sides would fall dramatically -- perhaps to 5% of today's levels.
Yes, it is a civil case but I read the complaint and I can't see a claim in there. The Federal Rules of Evidence might apply here depending on if it is heard by a Magistrate Judge but in any case each side has to fully brief the other side otherwise how can they prepare a complete defense?. Of course you can play games and keep them in the dark as long as you can get away with it. No surprises like on TV ;) IANAL, but I know quite a few.
Maybe it should voluntary, the imposing legal costs thing.
The problem is that the rich guy can use his money to crush the little guys. The suits don't even have to be for a profit, they just need to kill off the big file sharers, and they wager that the cost of getting rid of the major distributors will greatly hurt filesharing. And they think that a 10% to 20% reduction in piracy would greatly boost their shares, which reduction is what I guess they'd get from forcing a less centralized system and higher costs of the file sharing world.
Of course, if one guy wins, it totally forces them back to square one, esp if the winning guy shares the legal strategy that brought him victory.
In this case, I'd say the sharer is in the right, because don't you have to know exactly what you're being charged with? I mean, I can't sue someone for breaking my stuff, I have to be more specific. The same standards apply here.
But then of course, the only way they could (reasonably) do this, is to download a copy of the song from that person. But then, doesn't that mean they're committing the same crime as they are charging the person with? Is it legal to steal something back if it was stolen from you to begin with? (of course, this is a bad example; copyright infringment isn't theft, and it certainly isn't tangible, along with a civil action, not a criminal one.. yet).
Yes, it is a bad example, and flat out wrong on a couple points.
First, in the matter at hand, it would be perfectly fine for them to download from someone. They own the copyright, and have full rights to it.
Second (and much more shakily), I think that in most jurisdictions it IS legal to reclaim stolen property provided you don't break any other laws in the meantime. Perhaps SWIAL (someone who is a lawyer) can shed some light?
Great post.
I'd like to add, when the populace, in large numbers, chooses to willfully break a law, or thinks they would not be acting *unjustly* if they were to do so, this is often an indication that the law itself does not reflect the actual will of the people. In today's climate, where it is often the wealthy and powerful minority that make or influence the laws, rather than the "will of the people" (in representative form), it's important to note this point.
Of course, the public also sometimes seeks to resist laws that they don't like simply because the laws are designed to benefit society at their individual expense (Social Security, Medicare, smoking bans, taxes in general).
And finally, the public is often so misinformed, easily manipulated, and easily swayed by persuasive (but fallacious) arguments by friends, colleagues, and celebrities, that they form unreasonable beliefs about whether certain laws are just, similar to how the public is so easily manipulated into voting for politicians who promise to serve the public interest if elected/re-elected, despite having prior *public* voting records that demonstrate the emptiness of those promises. My point being, society is often wrong about what's good for itself, so it should always be with a large grain of salt that any particular credence is given to demonstrations by "the will of the people."
However, if the people are in strong opposition against a particular law, that *should* motivate the smarter people to take a hard look at the law and examine whether the law is in fact not in the populace's best interest.
Maybe I'm a little thick, but I don't get this whole digital signature thing. It's a file hash, right? If you created a file in notepad with the text "hello" in it, it would have the same hash as if I created a file in notepad with the text "hello" in it. Likewise, if you ripped a song to a .mp3 using the default settings in CDex (or some other software) and I ripped the same song from the same CD using the same software and the same default settings (not an unreasonable assumption), it would again have the same hash. The hash proves nothing other than that fact that the files are quite likely identical. It does not prove their origin.
Now lets say the MPAA plants a file on the web with some hidden watermark and you download it from a p2p network. They would then have strong proof that you downloaded a copyrighted file. But by placing it on the web they implicitly gave you permission to download that file (and perhaps possibly to distribute it). They can't prove you uploaded the file to anyone any more than they can prove they only uploaded it to one person. They could, of course, download the watermarked file from you again. But what would that prove?
the record companies go back to advancing music as an art form.
When did they ever do that?
Does a Christian soccer team even need a goalkeeper?
In which case no law has been broken. That copy was perfectly legal, since it was the RIAA doing it!
Now that they have a file from you, they analyze it. There is digital information in the file that proves that it has been transfered over the internet and how many times.
No there isn't.
So....... you got it from the internet and you made it available through the internet to anyone who wanted it, and THEY CAN PROVE IT.
No, I got it from somewhere, who knows where, and I made it available to only the RIAA themselves as far as they can prove. And making music available to the RIAA, I strongly suspect, is not illegal in any way - how am I infringing copyright if I allow the copyright owner himself to copy my music collection?
Real Daleks don't climb stairs - they level the building.
All we need now is a good definition for the MAFIAA acronym to would accurately represent the MPAA/RIAA/etc.'s self-serving extortionist nature.
Music and Film Indictment Axis of America ?
That number can run well into the 10's of thousands of dollars and still be cheap enough to settle. That's high to me, and crap like that is why we all pay high insurance rates.