RIAA Wants to Include Song Files it Can't Produce

NewYorkCountryLawyer writes "In UMG v. Lindor the RIAA is trying to include song files it doesn't have copies of as part of its 'distribution' argument. The defendant Marie Lindor is asking the Court to preclude them from doing that. She points to the RIAA's own interrogatory response in which the record companies swore that their case was based upon their investigator seeing a screenshot and then downloading 'perfect digital copies'. They produced eleven (11) copies of song files, but want to be able to prove twenty seven (27) other songs for which they can't produce the files."

Comments

stupid court system

[JeremyALogan]

If I were them I'd really like to beat my hands against my chest and cry "innocent until proven guilty, mother-fuckers", however this is civil, so they basically don't have to prove anything. We have a broken legal system.

Re:WTF? Copies? Files?

[larry bagina]

The lady was using eDonkey or whatever. The RIAA downloaded 11 songs from her and filed a lawsuit. They have a screenshot showing that she was sharing 27 songs and want all them included in their lawsuit, even though they didn't actually download/verify 16 of the songs. That's my understanding, at least.

Re:Sounds like....

[cpt kangarooski]

When you're trying to prove someone is guilty of a CRIME, you need to go the extra mile and make sure it's air-tight

Well, this is a civil case, so as it happens no one is trying to prove anyone guilty of any crime. I guess they dodged a bullet there.

Who's to say that the file called "Enter Sandman" wasn't really an audio clip from Aunt Milly's piano recital?

Sure. And a jury can decide which of the two possibilities is most likely to them (since that, and not the stricter 'beyond a reasonable doubt,' is the standard here), and then whichever possibility they find to be most likely is true, for the purposes of the case.

So if you were a juror, and you were being fair to both sides, and they asked you what you thought the file was based on the name, which do you think it probably would be, even if that probability was only a 51% likelihood?

Re:Sounds like....

[NewYorkCountryLawyer]

Yes they do flood the internet with junk files which look like song files but aren't. The only way to tell if it's a real song file is to listen to it from beginning to end. See Reply Memorandum of Law at pages 2-4. As you can see from the deposition testimony excerpted there, the company that 'investigates' for the lawsuits and the company that floods the internet with junk pseudo-song files is the same company.

Re:Sounds like....

[cpt kangarooski]

No. First, mens rea is not an element of copyright infringement. Infringement is a strict liability offense. At most, mens rea is only relevant in computing damages. Second, intent to infringe is not infringement or any other offense. There must have been actual infringement to support the case. So the contents of the file are crucial to the case. If the file contents were the plaintiff's copyrighted work, then that helps the plaintiff. If not, then that helps the defendant, since there is nothing wrong with sharing a misnamed file which is otherwise lawful to share, even if it's done unwittingly.

However, so far as we can discern what the contents were based on the name, which is a jury question, it's still possible to win a suit without actually showing what the contents are. But I wouldn't like to have to do that, since it's not a strong position.