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RIAA Case Against Mother Dismissed
NewYorkCountryLawyer writes "In Capitol Records v. Foster, in federal court in Oklahoma, a case against a mother -- whose only connection to the alleged filesharing was that she was the person who paid for the internet access -- has been dismissed with prejudice. Faced with the mother's motion for leave to file a summary judgment motion dismissing the case against her, and awarding her attorneys fees, the RIAA made its own motion for permission to withdraw its case. The Court granted the motion and let the RIAA drop its case. The Court went on to hold that the defendant, Ms. Foster, is the 'prevailing party' under the Copyright Act and is therefore eligible for an award of attorneys fees. The Court then indicated that it would decide the attorneys fees award question upon receipt of a motion for attorneys fees."
I don't see how it's going to hurt the RIAA much to pay the fees of the small time lawyer the mother likely hired to defend her from a whole law firm of RIAA goons.
More people need to do this. They can't possibly mount lawsuits against all the people they target. If a sufficient percentage resist, they'll have to stop their campaign of terror.
Free Conference Call -- No Spam, High Quality
That means the RIAA actually lost money on this one. Hopefully A LOT!
... and in the DRM, bind them.
Suing users won't stop anything... there are simply too many. RIAA and MPAA need to embrace the wave or get knocked over by the torrent (pun intended).
Just askin'...
Downloaders should be forced to keep the files and listen to them! Crappy manufactured, processed, RIAA generated McMusic!
;-)
Wow! A clueful judge (even down to the deciding appropriate attorney's fees). Will wonders never cease?
"I'd rather be a lightning rod than a seismometer." -Ken Kesey
Glad to hear this. I'm currently being prosecuted for downloading songs that I've never even heard of, probably because I was running an open wifi network. I'm not sure how to proceed, but this precedent looks good. If I settle I can get away with $5k, which is more than I can afford right now. Still though, I think that is what I'll have to do, as getting a lawyer seems too risky in case I lose. =/
Hopefully her lawyer wasn't Rep. Stevens' Lawyer.
How Representative Stevens' lawyer would ask the judge for his fees to be compensated (if he were the defendent's lawyer in this particular case):
Lawyer: You see, Judge, when I go to the local branch of my bank, I can't just drive up with a pile of cash on the bed of my truck. You see, they've got these TUBES, and the money has to fit in them, and , and, it's - well they're TUBES!
Judge: I could give you a direct deposit.
Lawyer: Well, here's the thing, Judge. I got a direct deposit sent by my staff person last Friday, and it didn't show up in my account until this morning. WHY?
Judge: Banks are closed on weekends.
And for you Simpsons fans (which would be everybody here, right?):
Judge: This court fines you 1 million dollars
Burns: Smithers, my wallet is in my back pocket. Oh, and I'll take that statue of justice, too.
Judge (slamming gavel on podium): SOLD!
-THE END-
One particularly good thing about this ruling is that is seems to be very solid. The linkage of "prevailing party" under the FRCP and the allowance of attorney fee recovery under the Copyrights Act looks difficult to challenge. While this ruling is not binding on much of anyone (yay Western District of Oklahoma), I have no reason to assume the Cantrell case is a drastic departure from most other circuit's opinions on the FRCP. Not to mention the SCOTUS case they cite, which I haven't read but is probably still good law.
While she has to specifically file for attorney's fees, I'm sure she will. Even though the bar is set fairly high in that the court shall not award fees "routinely or as a matter of course", the standard of review (almost certainly abuse of discretion) means that if the court awards them, it'll be almost impossible to overturn.
If Chewbacca lives on Endor, you must acquit! The defense rests.
Glad to see the RIAA _not_ able to squash the little guy for once!
Of course, I doubt this would've happened without a judge who appears to actually understand the technical issues in the case. Sure wish we had more of them!
http://riaa.justgotowned.com/
In this time of big business vs. the little people, the only people who win are the lawyers. Big business get bad PR and the little people get bankrupted.
At the end of the day, the attorney's fees will be paid with the
protection money they received from those who settled.
The only ones winning with all of this are the lawyers, as usual.
IANAL, but I have read the judgement.
RIAA initially sued the mother. When the mother said it was not her, but her daughter who had done the downloading, they sued the daughter instead *and won*. (by default - this was not defended.)
This is just about tidying up the suit against the mother. The RIAA asked to be allowed to drop the suit, and was allowed to do so (with prejudice - i.e. they have lost). The court finds that the mother is "eligible" for costs, at the court's discretion, but "such eligibility does not equate to entitlement" and "attorney fees are not to be awarded routinely or as a matter of course." The court has not yet decided on fees, it has just not yet rejected the idea - the mother can apply for an award of fees, and the matter will be decided then.
Quattuor res in hoc mundo sanctae sunt: libri, liberi, libertas et liberalitas.
This really is a black eye for the RIAA in terms of publicity. If I remember the facts right, the woman didn't own the computer or use it, she paid for the internet access for her weasel jailbird boyfriend. She apparently (again, if I remember correctly) didn't know a computer from a microwave. As the facts have borne out enough for her to win, the judge really had a no-brainer on his hands. All she was guilty of was a poor choice in kanoodling companions. The RIAA is (and has been) guilty of poor judgement as well, mainly of the not knowing when to quit and try another way variety.
In the end though, this will cause some bad press (what's one more bad article anyway) and the loss of say, 25 large. It won't cripple them. That will happen from the ongoing erosion of their outdated business model.
"Actually, rereading the story, it is accurate. It is the early /. comments which are seeing a victory where it does not exist."
Gee, I can't imagine why. Now maybe all those "you can't win. They're too powerful. Clueless judges, spineless lawyers, and bought politicians" will simply shut up, and realize that the court sytem exists for a reason, and this story demonstrates that.
In the interest of accuracy in joke telling, it's Senator Stevens, not Representative.
Give a man fire, and you warm him for the night. Set a man on fire, and you warm him for the rest of his life.
HA-HA!
That's our life, the big wheel of shit. - The Fat Man, Blue Tango Salvage
This actually sets a good precedent and counters one of the arguments against leaving your wifi connection open. Even if someone uses you're internet connection, you won't be charged with a crime simply because you are the owner of that connection. Which means that we no longer have to live in paranoid fear of the tiny, tiny chance that trying to do something nice for people will end up with being arrested for aiding terrorists or pedophiles.
Sounds similar to the RIAA case against Candy Chan of Michigan, for the actions of her 13 year old daughter, Brittany Chan. The court ruled the mother could not be sued for the actions of her daughter.
See Priority v. Chan
Basically it sounds like you have to sue the person who allegedly committed the offence. The RIAA needs to refile against the right person.
If someone phones in a bomb threat, you prosecute the person who made the call, not the person who pays the phone bill, right?
OOOOOklahoma where we download free....
Thank you, Michael, for your careful reading of both the decision itself and my initial post. The important legal precedent in my view is that the judge has dispelled the RIAA's notion that by withdrawing its claim against an innocent party, after she'd incurred the expense of discovery and of preparing for a summary judgment motion, the RIAA had immunized itself from an attorneys fee award. From my experience in these cases, the RIAA won't drop cases even after they know the party they are suing is innocent, because they look upon the pendency of the case as a convenient foundation for their fishing expedition -- the very investigation they ought to have undertaken before, rather than after, commencing suit. Now they'll have to think twice about that vicious practice.
Ray Beckerman +5 Insightful
They have thousands of default judgments they haven't collected a nickel on, and never will collect a nickel on, and the default judgments cost them a lot of money to obtain. So don't think they're making money on the default judgments. They're only making money on the settlements.
Ray Beckerman +5 Insightful
... but the kid has a judgement hanging over her. They can't enforce against her until she turns 18, but after that they can make her life miserable.
I'm amazed that the judge permitted a default judgment against a minor in the first place, but then in civil courts you don't have rights, you merely have privleges that you pay for.
Remove the caps and hold to a mirror.
Not only did the RIAA lose that case, but comically enough, there was a Free Music add placed in this story :)
I AAFreeMusicSlashdot.jpg
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v226/consoneo/R
As the only other good post states, this is hardly a win.
The Mother's case is more-or-less closed. RIAA members get to send the message (prepare for shouting) "WE'LL SUE YOU IF WE THINK YOU ARE STEALING MUSIC AND YOU ARE A THEIF" is the big stick message that pretty much everyone has gotten either through RIAA lawsuit activities or the dumb trailer in front of some movies.
It is very disappointing to see so many "stick it to the RIAA" messages. The war is over and your freedom to legitimately copy the media you bought is gone.
http://www.maxineudall.com/2010/02/should-economists-be-sued-for-malpractice.html
You don't remember correctly. Her daughter used the computer, and the RIAA won the case against her daughter. Her defense was "I didn't do it, my daughter did" and the RIAA agreed, the court agreed, that's all folks. This article don't mean jack - yo.
Some people die at 25 and aren't buried until 75. -Benjamin Franklin
1. The case against the mother is closed. 2. The mother's case against the RIAA for attorneys fees is still open. 3. A precedent is established that by withdrawing a case the RIAA does not immunize itself from liability for the harm it caused by prosecuting its meritless lawsuit in the first place. Sounds pretty good to me.
Ray Beckerman +5 Insightful
That WOULD be even scarier, but... he's from Alaska, which, thanks to the oil industry, is second only to Texas in retarded racist rednecks.
If you don't believe me, talk to anybody from Alaska.
As I've posted before. I'm a musician that has opted to go the home studio route due to the level of development in the software and hardware available. Well, it seems that others are taking heed of the this trend and bringing the worst fears of the RIAA into reality. Many local (and regional/national) artist are taking advantage of other channels to promote and sell their wares. Case in point: Here in my home town (major U.S. city) a local radio station is perusing the local uploads on MySpace and playing their music on their radio program. Then they have votes by listeners as to which songs played were their favorites. None of these bands or musicians are "signed" by a label. The winner of the vote is slotted into the regular play rotation.
This is a win for all involved and puts the RIAA affiliates in the light they deserve to be - Mind over matter. The radio station, listeners and musicians don't mind the RIAA dregs because it doesn't matter. These bands/musicians get the exposure they so desperately need and deserve and get a change to get signed by a indie label (or an RIAA label if they see fit to). Where the RIAA/labels are concerned they are dealing with musicians that have decidedly more leverage than they may have had without this exposure.
I for one welcome and highly advocate this trend. Personally I may not get any airtime. But at least I have an even shot and the "listeners" will decide my musics' marketability, not some coked out narssicistic R&A rep. And if I don't fair well with the listeners, perhaps I'll get an objective critique, which is something I likely wouldn't get by and "industry" goon.
This latest advent in court shows two things as far as I'm concerned. 1) they're getting desperate. 2) It just goes to show how out of touch these morons are - they just set precedenct. Unfortunately for themselves (the RIAA legal team) it's in the opposite direction they had intended. Next time some innocent gets randomly targeted by these clueless idiots their lawyer will have a tool to use against the RIAA - and all thanks to the RIAA's efforts. It's nice when the thugs hand you a gun! Bang! Bang! Baby!
Yo mama so fat, when Capt. Hook tried to bury her booty, he needed a steamshovel!
Yo mama so fat, when she try to figure out her dress size, she violates the DMCA!!
Yo mama so fat, when the RIAA sue her, they get the case thrown out and have to pay the attorneys' fees!!
It's not offtopic, dumbass. It's orthogonal.
They are dropping the case against the mother, she will get attorney's fees, but the RIAA is now going after her daughter who is the real downloader. So since the mother will have to pay whatever her daughter is sued for anyway as a minor, the initial victory for the mother is hollow. DD.
"Gods cannot define morality. This has been known since ancient Greece."
Well I'm not going to get into a long debate about (G)god. Either you believe there's a God, or you don't. Simple as that.
"And your responce also reflects things wrong with this world. The 911 terrorists thought as you do now."
And if the 9/11 terrorists had been atheists? There's NOTHING that prevents one from taking God in vain. One could have said just as easily that Mark Maughan said it was OK to start a war with everyone else, neglecting his actual words to the contrary about not murdering people.
BTW For this audiance I'd recommend "Spiriting Around: A modern guide to finding yourself". It's not preachy, but practical.
If defending attorneys can just say "OK, well our fees are X, unless we win a case against the RIAA, where they'll be $5,000,000 instead", then whatever settlement the mom would have to pay for the kid would be moot, no?
09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C0 SU CK IT MP AA
The /. blurb makes it look better than it actually is. This FA is particularly hard to read, as there's simply a PDF of the court proceedings imbedded in some legal firm's web page on their site. But I actually did RTFA.
As IANAL I may not have understood it completely, but it appears that what happened here is that RIAA sued this lady, Deborah, who owned the internet account, as well as her daughter Amanda whose age is unknown; it doesn't say if the daughter is an adult or a child. Deborah answered teh suit and denied downloading anything. Amanda ignored the summons, so the RIAA asked for the case against Deborah to be dismissed. As I said, IANAL, but it seems that if you sue someone and then drop the suit, you're going to have to pay their lawyer.
The RIAA still got its pound of flesh, it appears. However, some good news may be that this will create some kind of common sense precident; just because you own a computer and an internet connection doesn't mean you're the one using it. What if there were five people using it and all denied downloading? What if Amanda had hired a lawyer and denied downloading?
And the legal proceedings say "On November 18, 2004, the plaintiffs filed this action against Deborah Foster alledging that she had infringed their copyrights by unlawfully downloading music to which they owned the copyrights." This confuses me; I thought the NOTA said downloading was legal but uploading was illegal?
Is there a non-RIAA lawyer in the house that can explain this to me?
While I'm delighted by this decision, it has the same glaring error that comes out of every such decision. Why may this woman simply get her lawyers fees paid? Yes, it is nice that her lawyers will be able to bill their time at perhaps $350/hour. But why shouldn't she be able to bill, at least at the rate she ordinarily earns money. If she had to take a day off work without pay to consult with her lawyers or to be in court, why can't she bill that? Why when a defendant wins, does all the money end up in the pockets of lawyers? Why do courts fuss over that and not say one word about any damages a defendant/victim may deserve for the harm done them? This is business in usual in the court systems of our country. Lawyers looking out for other lawyers as they go about their task of screwing the public. In that sort of situation, the fact that we can, at great cost, hire a lawyer to defends us from the misdeeds of another lawyer means little. --Mike Perry, Seattle
Because in the end they just pass along the costs to the consumer. Also, the lawsuits are surprisingly cost effective for them anyways. They have one group of attorneys who write up a form letter, costing approximately 500 an hour (assuming they're going for some decent lawyers) then the letters get mass mailed (bulk mailing rates knock the postage price per letter something close to 25 cents each) and then they wait for the Mom or whoever else gets the letter to go out, get a lawyer (at far more reasonable $150 an hour for some local bofunk) and they spend all this money filing motions, etc.
Meanwhile the RIAA has the process down to a science and the same time they file responses to Mom's motions, they're filling a half dozen motions of their own in proceedings against others who are actually guilty. Cost per transaction? Negligible.
The mom, meanwhile, has racked up roughly 2100 or so in legal fees (because it's unlikely her lawyer has handled many of these types of cases and thus spends more time researching and writing briefs) while the RIAA has spent surprisingly less (because they've done so many of these suits before filing the motions are a matter of fill-in-the-blanks now and they're down to roughly postage plus filing fees plus the cost of stuffing envelopes.)
Now, even better is that the average settlement in these cases is what? 5,000? Maybe 10? I've heard a few of the results, but conversely even fewer dismissals so my average may be high or low.
So basically the times they win or settle for a few thousand equal out to the costs they're spending.
And lets be honest for a minute here, in many of these cases there is no real defense. The dismissals I've heard of have been mostly "oh, we don't even own a computer so we couldn't have done it" or "you're suing me but I didn't do it so you should have been suing my child" type stuff.
None of the Slashdot friendly "oh, I run p2p because I think the prices are unfair" or "I use Limewire/Kazaa/the various torrent programs because I'm protesting the RIAA's unfair stand" cuts it in the courts.
The Legal Equation comes to something like
I did it because I don't like the prices = I did it.
So if half of the cases are dismissals (and I believe that number is rather high) and RIAA had to pay the legal fees for all these low-level lawyers out there (none of the Napsterites are hiring Biglaw lawyers) doesn't even scratch the pool of money they've gotten from every scare tactic settlement.
>Because in the end they just pass along the costs to the consumer.
They don't pass it along to me, since I stopped buying their crap years ago and don't intend to start back up again any time soon!
-- Give me ambiguity or give me something else!
I'm curious --thanks!
Blogging because I can...
The mother is being awarded fees for what amounts to malicious litigation, not for winning the case. The RIAA dragged her into court, causing her to spend money on legal defense, and then backed out. When you do that in America you frequently end up paying the other party's legal fees. They pulled out precisely because they didn't want a prcedent set by the mother winning the case. They already got the daughter and had no need to push their luck. Nothing to see here. Move along.
- RIAA files suit against Deborah Foster.
- Deborah explains that the computer belongs to her daughter Amanda who lives in a separate house, but Deborah pays her internet bills.
- RIAA adds Amanda to the suit. Amanda knuckles under. Then RIAA removes Deborah from the suit.
The RIAA got their pound of flesh.I think what this ruling shows is a simple way to avoid getting nailed by the RIAA. Simply run your internet connection through a wireless hub. If the person who owns the connection is not responsible for its use, then by having an open connection you can easily deny that you were the offender.
Granted, this ruling hold no precedence for anywhere other then the county it was ruled in, but it does show that at least one judge interprets these fishing expeditions against Internet connection owners as unacceptable.
The judge can still make the demand that Lawyer's fees do get paid, even if the lawyer is working pro bono.
Still waiting on Serviscope_minor to wake up to fucking reality and realize that Jessica Price isn't going to fuck him.
> If you are being sued, and a lawyer protects you from the lawsuit,
> and the lawyer gets his or her fees paid for having accomplished something good,
> why is that a bad thing? I don't get it.
I don't know the OP's reasons for resenting the lawyer's fees but I can give you mine.
In no particular order:
1) The compensation is disproportionate
A lot of lawyers in such cases are not paid by the hour but rather get a (large) cut of the fine/settlement/etc amount.
We, regular people who get paid for actual work, feel that this amounts to robbery or, at best, to "justice tax" collected by individuals.
Consider, for example, physicians, who regularly "accomplishes something good" and yet their pay is usually correlated to the amount (or difficulty) of their work. Why is a lawyer better than somebody who saves your life or helps maintain its quality?
2) The lawyers are not "good"
Most lawyers are not out to "accomplish something good". They usually don't care whether their client is right or wrong, good or bad, guilty or innocent. They play at the "law" game and the one that plays better - wins (money, prestige, etc. which eventually translate to money). The fact that this "game" can ruin other people's lives is an irrelevant side effect.
3a) The lawyers perpetuate the "justice for money" system
No matter how you look at it, we don't have a justice system. We only have a legal system, in which the thickness of your wallet determines the quality of the justice that you can afford. It does not matter if you are right or wrong if the other party can outspend you. The framework of laws is so intricate, complex and sometimes contradictory to the point of being completely incomprehensible to a lay person, and lawyers (and politicians) do their best to keep it that way.
3b) The system works by ensuring that we can be easily victimized
Imagine yourself as a 5 years old orphan child living in a city full of drunk gangsters, drug-lords and corrupt policemen.
As long as keep out of sight and don't interfere with their business, they might leave you alone but if one of them decides that you're a nuisance, you're screwed and nobody can (or even wants to) help you.
Not a pretty feeling, right?
Now give these people names. Call them "Sony", "RIAA", "Microsoft", etc. The fact is that corporations, or just wealthy individuals, can often ruin you just by suing. And there's nothing to do against it because everything is legal and proper.
Well, the society (the government) is supposed to protect the weaker members from predators but it doesn't because it is actually run by them (and before you ask - no, it doesn't really matter whether you vote for Kang or for Kodos).
There is more but it's late and I'm tired.
> Some people take the extreme; and intentionally leave their AP wide open.
> Plausible deniability then ensues. you can't be held responsible if you, by policy, don't protect your net connection.
> They can't prove it was you who 'did the bad thing'. the worst they can do is call you a bad sysadmin
That's the theory.
In practice, "they" label you a terrorist, ship you off to gitmo and screw you so bad you wish you were never born.
Just to make a point. Because "they" can.
The judgement didn't award attorney's fees, the judgement stated the woman is eligible to APPLY for them under the copyright act. The only way the fees would actually be awared is if the lawsuit was frivolous or violated free speech rights or something like that. The lawsuit was not frivolous, because there was copyright infringement. It also sounds this woman tried everything she could do to avoid identifying who really did the copyright infringement (because the judgement states there were protracted negotiations).
This also does not mean that one would be shieled from legal problems related to an open WIFI connection. The only way this woman avoided getting sued is by identifying the actual infringer. If the owner of an open WIFI connection can't identify who did the deed in question, then they are exposed to liability. I would expect there to be a tendency for people to give them a break if they really are clueless, but nobody actually has to.
An engineer who ran for Congress. http://herbrobinson.us
Dear "Anonymous Coward" I think that when you lump all lawyers together like that -- treating those who would help poor and working people without any real hope of getting properly paid for it the same as those who would do the unconscionable and unspeakable things the RIAA lawyers do daily, for which they are handsomely paid -- you do a disservice to the good guys, and a favor to the bad guys. Lawyers are just like any other people; there are good guys and bad guys. Support the good guys; criticize the bad guys. When someone does the right thing, recognize it, and applaud it. In this case, Marilyn Barringer-Thompson has fought a valiant fight against a giant cartel for which I can assure you she has received little or no money. In doing so she is carrying out the highest tradition in our profession, and in our country's history. We should all be sending her a thank you note.
Ray Beckerman +5 Insightful
Dear "Anonymous Coward" The RIAA complaints (19,000 or so) allege that defendant "downloaded, distributed, and/or made available for distribution". They don't actually particularize any incidents of "downloading" or "distributing", just of "making available" (which, the last time I looked, wasn't a copyright infringement at all).
Ray Beckerman +5 Insightful
1. The daughter is not a minor. 2. The mother would not be responsible.
Ray Beckerman +5 Insightful
An important precedent has been established. The RIAA can't tie someone up in court for a year and a half, with a frivolous case, and then avoid exposure for attorneys fees by withdrawing the case at the eleventh hour. This puts a wrinkle in the RIAA's play book, and it will encourage more people to fight back, and more lawyers to take on their cases.
Ray Beckerman +5 Insightful
I think it's ok that the Court let them withdraw their claim, so long as they're required to pay the legal fees.
Ray Beckerman +5 Insightful