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

No Easy Way Out

[AllParadox]

If they had just looked at the case, and dismissed it when they realized it had no merit, they would have been fine. Dismiss much, much later, and the harassing nature shows through. No one but themselves to blame.

Corporate Bullying

[lennart78]

The RIAA lawsuits indicate an underlying problem with this legal system. A lot of cases, not only regarding copyright infringement, are being settled out of court, because a defendent hasn't got the capabilities to fight back. Any company with sufficiently deep pockets could launch any bogus case, and leave any defendant powerless to react.

For instance: How many people are presently incarcerated without having had a fair trial (not counting any Guantanamo Bay style prisoners of course, that's a different story).

How many people have ponied up cash to SCO because of their outrageous claims about Linux IP? This sounds a lot like the bullyboy who takes your lunch money.

Yhe RIAA can't honestly think they will stop filesharing because they will have to sue millions for this message to effectively be driven home to Joe User. And the few thousand quid they win on each case will barely cover the administrative and investigative costs they make, so there's a /very/ slim chance any artists will see a penny from that money. It's corporate bullying. Why won't US senators and pressure groups worry about that instead of a computer game (http://games.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=06/08/11 /000227)?

Why didn't this happen before?

[Don_dumb]

Didn't anyone else realise that to prevent an organisation bullying the defenceless, one must group together. Just like a Workers Union (in their original form), the only way to defend yourself is safety in numbers. Lets not forget that the RIAA is essentially a union for the already powerful music companies, they become more powerful by uniting.
By uniting the elements opposed to them the RIAA loses some of its advantage, even more so by breaking the back of one of it's most pointy sticks, the dodgy litigation techniques, so far no one has had the knowledge or money to attack this but lets hope this is the beginning of an effective counter-attack.

Re:Of Course

[kfg]

In a fair legal system, an innocent man should not feel the need to pay a fee for something he didn't do.

In England they bill people falsely imprisoned for their room and board. Commit a crime, get free room and board. Have the state commit a crime against you, get a bill for 100K pounds.

Things actually could be worse here; and I'm sure they will be -- soon.

KFG

Alternate Brief Summary...

[jkrise]

1. The **AA has filed suit against more than 18,000 individuals for copyright violation.
2. The amicus curae is only for award of legal fees to one of the defendants, who was declared not guilty.
3. A lot of lawyers are going to get rich, since a big proportion of the 18,000+ will win.
4. The legal system allows a single rich entiry, the **AA to go after thousands of individuals... many of whom often settle despite being not guilty, because of the costs involved.
5. It is illegal for a large group of individuals to join together and engage in disruptive activities.
6. This brief does nothing to set right points 4 and 5.
7. And so, while lots of lawyers might probably get rich, nothing else significant is likely to happen.

Re:The flip side of that injustice

[crosbie]

Yup: don't permit corporation to sue citizen, but permit corp vs corp and citizen vs citizen.

If citizen wants to sue a corporation, they simply form their own corporattion and capitalise it with sufficient funds to litigate.

NB This doesn't mean citizens get to break the windows of the corporate HQ with impunity (the corp reports them to the police), just that corporations can't force citizens to submit to the gross inequity of their litigation budget.

The other thing to do, of course, is to abolish copyright.

Wreaking havoc in people's lives

[NewYorkCountryLawyer]

Recently, when I appeared in court in Warner v. Does 1-149 in Manhattan, Judge Owen said, in words or substance, "so they want to find out this person's name and address so they can take his deposition, what's wrong that?" I responded, in words or substance, "No, judge, that's not what they're going to do. They don't want to take this person's deposition. They are going to sue these people, bring lawsuits that wreck people's lives." The judge then said to me "what are you talking about, wreck people's lives?" I proceeded to tell him how these lawsuits affect the poor people that are targeted, and he cut me off, did not allow me to finish, and said that because I used the term "wreck people's lives" he wouldn't believe anything further I could say.

It was therefore quite gratifying to me personally to read the following passage in the amicus brief:

This is an important case. While it may appear to many as just one woman defending herself against several large corporate copyright plaintiffs, as the court is undoubtedly aware, this lawsuit is but one battle in the broader war the RIAA is waging against unauthorized internet copying. As a result of this war, the RIAA has wrought havoc on the lives of many innocent Americans who, like Deborah Foster, have been wrongfully prosecuted for illegal acts they did not commit for over a year despite their clear innocence and persistent denials. Using questionable methods and suspect evidence, the RIAA has targeted thousands of ordinary people around the country, including grandmothers, grandfathers, single mothers, and teenagers. In its broad dragnet of litigation, the RIAA has knowingly entangled the innocent along with the guilty, dragging them through an expensive and emotionally draining process of trying to clear their names.

Terrifying

[Mateo_LeFou]

I've always wondered what would happen if you saved yourself the money for attorneys' fees etc. by just showing up in court and telling your side of the story in 100% not-fancy language.

Say you're the JMRI guy, being sued for patent infringement. If you were allowed to speak in plain English, the case would last 5 minutes and cost nothing:

"Your honor, you can see that my software was released before their patent was even filed..."
"Hmm, that seems about right. KAM is pretty-much owned and should pay $100,000 in punitive damages.

I know; the team of lawyers buries you under a mountain of papers, discovery motions, etc. Why can't you say:

"Your honor, they're burying me in discovery motions, etc. to intimidate me into settling. Please make them

stop."

And so on. Just wondering.