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RIAA Balks At Complying With Document Order
NewYorkCountryLawyer writes "When the RIAA was ordered to turn over its attorneys' billing records to the defendant's lawyer in Capitol v. Foster, there was speculation that they would never comply with the order. As it turns out they have indeed balked at compliance, saying that they are preparing a motion for a protective order seeking confidentiality (something they could have asked for, but didn't, in their opposition papers to the initial motion). Having none of that, Ms. Foster's lawyer has now made a motion to compel their compliance with the Court's March 15th order."
Is about as exciting as watching Bobby Fischer put away his chess sets at the end of the day.
I don't need no instructions to know how to rock!!!!
This is something I don't understand about the US judicial system, and maybe NYCL can help explain it. If a judge orders someone to do something, and they refuse, isn't it then the justice department's responsibility to enforce that judge's order? Why do we so often see a judge's orders ignored, challenged, appealed, ad nauseum?
As an example, I heard on NPR yesterday President Bush's counsel inform the reporter that, should the House vote to subpoena Rove et. al., the White House would be refusing that order. He flat out told them, "No, we will not comply with a judge's order." Now, I understand there is a stickler here with Executive Privilege, but this seems to me to be a growing trend. What happened to the good old days when a judge would give an order, a person would refuse, and they would be thrown in jail for contempt until a) they complied, or b) an appeals court overruled the judge? Am I just naive in my belief that the judicial system was supposed to, I don't know, be able to actually enforce their decisions?
Public use of any portable music system is a virtually guaranteed indicator of sociopathic tendencies. -- Zoso
Contempt of court, anyone?
I think that they are afraid because its such an embarrassingly big amount of money.
I don't know how much they were trying to get, but if they spent more then they were after, then thats a problem.
Especially because it went so far. But I'm sure that they could sue other people to make the money, or even drop out of litigation and get a paper route. I'm sure that someones Mom might be able to cover the court costs, until they can pay her back.
Sweeeeeeeeeet!
I have mod points and I am not afraid to use them.
a) Why does the defendent care about the plaintiff's billing hours?
b) Why does the plaintiff care if the defendent finds out?
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
IF they must pay fees based upon their expenditures,
so be it. Hiding from the public record should be a
death penalty offense for all officers of the
corporation. A corporation is merely a documented
conspiracy. END CORPORATE CITIZENSHIP - It never existed.
IANAL, but I wonder when the class of people harassed by RIAA will grow so large as to constitute a class for suing the organization. If RIAA is indeed making extortionate use of barratry, then falsely-accused consumers would seem to have just cause for legal action.
Of course, if they do win, RIAA will probably try to offer an in-kind compensation -- discounts for music downloads.
Two wrongs don't make a right, but three lefts do.
a) Because the plaintiff complained that the defendant's billing hours weren't reasonable. Apparently when you are suing for attorney's fees, if the other side claims they are not reasonable, it is apparently allowable to take the defendent's billing hours and hold them up against the plaintiff's billing hours to see if they are reasonable. If the plaintiff spent 3 hours on a case, but the defendent spent 3000, then that would probably be considered "unreasonable". But if the plaintiff spent 3000 hours and the defendent 4000, it would probably be considered reasonable.
Basically, the RIAA lawyers sued a lady and was rejected (or whatever) with prejudice. She then sued them for attorney's fees (since it was thrown out with prejudice, this is allowable). The RIAA then claimed the attorney's fees were unreasonable. It is apparently common practice for the courts to judge the reasonableness of a defense by the amount of hours the (former)plaintiffs had put in, so the judge ordered the billing records turned over.
b) Because either the plaintiff DID spend 3 hours on the case, making it look like they weren't doing due diligence, or they spent 3000, which makes them look crazy (and not like a fox). So they probably don't want this getting out - and it will, becoming part of the public record. Which means their anti-RIAA foes will have a field day with their spending on these law suits.
- - - - -
Keep in mind, most of this I gathered from *seemingly* respectible slashdot posts. On the one hand, it could all be right. On the other, it could all just sound right, but be horribly, horribly wrong. So take it with a grain of salt. Or an entire salt shaker.
The RIAA's argument against paying "attorney's fees" boils down to this-
The defendant should've just let the RIAA win. She didn't *have* to go to court, and hire a lawyer. And so, they shouldn't have to pay her fees. Even though the judge said they *did* have to pay her fees.
Unbelievable. If that isn't enough to get the Feds to start investigating the RIAA for RICO violations, I don't know what is. They really *are* trying to blackmail people.
A link to a Slashdot article that was referred to. A link to a list of PDFs for all the motions and whatnot. And a link to the pdf for the specific motion. Are you complaining that they didn't link to a biased news story?
http://www.skullsecurity.org/blog/
Don't you know it is now both immoral and criminal to think beyond the next quarterly report?
Shouldn't file lawsuits against the people unless they them selves are willing to accept the verdict of the court.
Wonder what it would have cost to stop me from dubbing cassette tapes in my youth?
There are only two steps in the gathering of ultimate knowledge. Open your eyes and, RTFM!
In a chess game, you don't get that thrilling sensation of witnessing evil bastards getting their just desserts.
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
Yea, pay up. The Association of Servo Engineers want royalties.
Reasonable only $0.0001 per seek of your disk drive.
Pay up!
Nothing is foolproof, fools are too ingenious. - Murphy
Sounds to me like this is being funded as a giant fishing expedition. I gather all RIAA's counsel has to do is say "We spent X man-hours today on Y cases." Doesn't matter how many cases or how many hours, just that there's X and Y. Based on what the RIAA is claiming, they don't even have any way of actually verifying their counsel's hours or case volume is accurate even since they're not getting itemized receipts.
I'd figure with all the money problems the RIAA has, they'd want accurate records that someone can be held accountable to. This is like just throwing money to the four winds.
In the last article on this I said very clearly they would claim confidentiality and that this activist judge's order would never stand. You said there was no way to get out of it, and no confidentiality would apply. Just wanted to say TOLD YOU SO. Time to take your lumps, sir.
No, as I stated above, it means until you comply with the order OR until you can appeal. My understanding is that, except in extreme cases of contempt (see the NY Times reporter / Plame incident) people who have an arguably valid reason for their contempt can be ordered released by the appellate court pending the results of that appeal.
Of course, the majority of my legal expertise comes from Steve Martini, John Grisham, and the mass media, so I could very well be engaging in anal elocution.
Public use of any portable music system is a virtually guaranteed indicator of sociopathic tendencies. -- Zoso
I wonder how credible the RIAA think "motions for a protective order seeking confidentiality" are if all the people they wrongfully charge filed them.
They get 10% of whatever they keep out of the hands of the artists.
-there was 1 link, not 2, to the original article
-why do you refer to the collection of litigation documents as a "link farm"? some people actually have the brains to want to read the documents so they can know first hand what is going on...
-the whole article and all of the links relate to the title
so all i can ask is: who do you work for?
Ray Beckerman +5 Insightful
what do they call it when they offer the universites a hold harmless payment to universitys for cash?
every day http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Random
The issue is that the RIAA objected to the defendant's costs, and said they were excessive. There is a court precedence that if the plaintiff spent oodles for their lawyers, then the defense is entitled to have spent a similar amount. The defendant now what to know how much the RIAA spent. The only reason this came about is because the RIAA didn't pay and instead said the defendant's costs were outrageous. Frankly, it looks like the RIAA was out-lawyered.
Has anyone noticed that the more the MAFIAA litigates and implements DRM the lower their sales drop? I think it's simple to understand, litigation pisses off their customers (bad idea in business I thought) and DRM makes it damn near impossible for Joe Schmoe to figure out how to use the media that he "liscensed" so he talks to his /. savvy buddy and gets the DRM gone or just pirates what he wants to avoid paying for unusable media.
"Some books contain the machinery required to create and sustain universes."-Tycho
Yes, I think the Parent was trolling. He's complaining because the links were to first-hand information. Glad you pointed it out, iago-vL.
Ray Beckerman +5 Insightful
Maybe you don't have an axe to grind, and maybe you do understand how judicial power works in this country, but for those that don't a simple explanation follows:
The Judicial branch interprets the laws and their application to actual human events. Their humans appointed for political reasons, so their is some, but not much consistency in their interpretations.
They don't enforce laws, they don't make laws so their powers are limited. There really is no need to _challenge_ the courts. Change the law the courts enforce and the courts have no choice but to follow.
This process has been abused by a few people trying to circumvent the law-making process because it's more expedient to change the way a rule is enforced than it is to actually change the law. In the same way, the RIAA can hold off the lower-courts almost indefinitely because they will exploit holes in the judicial process or the other party will run out of money.
In both cases the winner-takes-all at the expense of the principals that keep a society relatively transparent and stable.
http://www.maxineudall.com/2010/02/should-economists-be-sued-for-malpractice.html
I read your post and thought, "well that can't be right! It's desserts, you know, like the dessert that you deserve to get!" So I googled it, and sure enough, you are right although I think very few people know that. Deserts like deserve, got it.
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
Oh please please please let them find these guys in contempt of court and hand them some time in a jail cell.
If they knew they couldn't produce the billing records, then they were stupid to put up the objection in the first place.
If they didn't know that the judge could force them to produce their bills, then they're incompetent. If I was the RIAA, I'd fire them and hire someone who appeared to know what they're doing.
Failing all that, they should just pay the woman's bills and be done with it. All they're doing now is thrashing around and hurting themselves in the process.
The RIAA lawyers have said the amount of defendent's lawyer's fees were unreasonable, but by delaying and defying the judge, aren't they setting themselves up for even larger fines?
All ideas^H^H^H^H^Hprocesses in this post are Patent Pending. (as well as the process of patenting all postings)
I'm not the person who posted that, but I just followed the link to the prior Slashdot article, the link to the page of primary sources, and now have come to this comment thread looking for a concise summary of the issues in the case and why we care that RIAA is fighting an obscure court motion. I'm interested, but don't have time to dig through PDFs of court documents and untangle the legalese.
Often, people who want other people to be interested in their cause will summarize the legalese for them. It lowers the barriers to giving a damn, you know?
Heaven forbid that the President's aides should be concerned that what advice they give to the man elected President of the United States ought to leak out into the public.
...unless, of course, I was giving advice that I would be ashamed for the public to know...
I mean, as members of the Executive Branch, shouldn't they be, like, upholding the Constitution, and stuff? Why are they worried about their advice getting out? I would be PROUD to be an aide to the President, and I would tell everyone "Hey, yeah, that thing that he said? Yeah, that was my idea...."
:(){
No, I don't want hack reporters with a grudge to spread details.
However, hack reporters != Congressional subpoenas.
I do want the President and his executive branch officials to be held accountable by Congress if they believe something was wrong.
Especially since those same people keep changing the story they tell Congress. I mean, if you don't have to tell the truth...what's the point?
:(){
If the RIAA keeps with the filing on this that may keep them from claiming ANY attorney's fees on ANY future claim. They are saying that they can't break out what the attorney's fees are; therefore they can't ask for them if they ever prevail on a copyright claim. This is incredibly bad for them.
The rules are not evenly applied.
It really depends on the judge. In the SCO v IBM case, BSF, has flouted many court orders without any punishment what so ever.
RIAA is claiming that their counsel never tells them "we spent X man-hours".
Quite likely the "alternative billing arrangements" are a (possibly sliding-scale) percentage of the settlement dollars and case awards.
Usually its only cash-poor individuals who hire representation on a no-fee-unless-we-win basis.
http://www.skullsecurity.org/blog/
I don't doubt for a moment that that argument is frivolous, but isn't it interesting that it's a rather direct admission that they lose money on these cases? And if this sets enough of a precedent, well, I can definitely see your point in how that changes the economics of the situation. They're going to be out big money if they don't change tactics.
But did you see the article the other day about how they're now trying to get ISPs & Universities to send settlement letters directly? It looks like they want to keep this away from the courts, so they can start making money again.
Honestly, it tempts me to make up some posters or something and post them around the local campus, pointing them to your site if they receive any such letters / urging them to contact a lawyer. Of course, maybe I had better not. Even if it wasn't an authorized ad, I know that NY has that weird, vague attorney advertising rule now. However, I do know that they've sued various people from my old university before, so I suppose it's just not making news now because they agreed to pass the settlement letters along.
After all, I remember pointing out that our AUP for the campus network used to forbid downloading anything copyrighted. That's right, it said nothing about *unauthorized* downloading of copyrighted works, it just forbade them outright. Never mind that everything is automatically copyrighted... (They did fix it after my email, though.)
He wants line item veto.
Which gives him even more control over Congress.
Is this your case? So your bill is enough to make even the RIAA choke and you show up on Slashdot saying it was "dirt cheap"?
So, is it more or less than they sued AllOfMp3 for?