ACLU, EFF, & Others Fight RIAA for Debbie Foster

NewYorkCountryLawyer writes "In a landmark legal document, the Electronic Frontier Foundation, the American Civil Liberties Union, Public Citizen, the ACLU of Oklahoma Foundation, and the American Association of Law Libraries have submitted an amicus curiae brief in support of the motion for attorneys fees that has been made by Deborah Foster in Capitol Records v. Debbie Foster, in federal court in Oklahoma. This brief is mandatory reading for every person who is interested in the RIAA litigation campaign against consumers."

Comments

Brief Summary

[billstewart]

• RIAA sues lots of people for copyright infringement, often for allegedly using P2P to share copyrighted music.
• Sometimes their evidence is dubious, e.g. only an IP address, which might be dynamic, or used by multiple people, such as your kid or the neighbor piggybacking on your wireless.
• Defending yourself against them is really expensive, so some people settle.
• ... PROFIT!! (For RIAA.)
• Debbie Foster claims to be innocent, defends herself in court (I can't tell if she paid for her attorney herself, or got pro bono help), RIAA keeps up lawsuits.
• Eventually her kid owns up to file sharing, but RIAA doesn't drop their suit against her, keeps it going for another year, cranking up Debbie's legal costs, before dropping it.
• If somebody sues you and loses, in the US, sometimes you can get awarded your attorney's costs, especially if their suit was bogus, but you can't always win that. (It's easier to get awarded costs if you're the plaintiff and win.)
• EFF, ACLU, other good guys filed amicus brief encouraging the court to side with Debbie Foster and pay her legal costs, asserting bogusness and nastiness of RIAA's suit.

Secondary liability

[Anonymous Coward]

When the RIAA learned that the person they sued was probably innocent, they switched their claim. They now claimed that she was liable because she owned the internet connection over which the infringement occured.

So, I have a wife and two adult university students living at home. The RIAA asserts that I am responsible for their online activities. That means that I have to read all their posts and emails. I don't think so.

The RIAA has already lost their case. What we are arguing about here is that they should pay the defendant's legal fees. What we need is for the court to decide that the RIAA's theory about secondary liability never had a basis in law and that their case is essentially frivolous.

On Groklaw there has been some discussion of frivolous cases. There are punishments for lawyers who bring frivolous cases. If the RIAA's lawyers were sanctioned for cases like this, that would really make them think twice before going after the obviously innocent.

Re:AMICUS and attorney's fees

[frankie]

You (and all the moderators, and most of the repliers) either missed the line saying "amicus curiae brief" or more likely didn't understand what it means. The ACLU, EFF, et al, are *not* Ms Foster's lawyers. They are outside parties with no direct financial stake in the outcome.

However, they do want a particular outcome: sticking it hard to the RIAA. Therefore they have filed their own legal statement trying to aid Ms Foster (and her lawyers, whoever they are). Whether they succeed or not, they don't get any money from anyone in the case.