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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."
I wonder when they'll play the "we don't pay our lawyers because pirates stole all of our money" card.
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
The court has ordered the RIAA to pay the defendant's attourney fees in this case. They want the RIAA's documents so that they can determine what "reasonable attourney fees" are.
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a) Why does the defendent care about the plaintiff's billing hours?
i tol_foster_070221MotReconsider , page 4)
The defendent doesn't care, the judge does.
One of the arguments the RIAA is using to say they don't need to pay Foster's legal fees is that the cost of their legal team would have exceeded the amount Foster would have needed to pay them if the RIAA won. ( http://www.ilrweb.com/viewILRPDF.asp?filename=cap
The judge is now saying "put up or shut up."
b) Why does the plaintiff care if the defendent finds out?
Two possible ideas I can come up with...(disclaimer, IANAL, so these may not even matter)
1, it's a disgustingly high amount which is now released into the public record, which could bode badly in future cases
2, it's a stall tactic, plain and simple.
Shortly after the "well, after a 25% packaging deduction, minus tax, as a percentage of the wholesale price, after returns, shrinkage and overstock, minus proptional copies and production expenses, hire of session lawyers to overdub documents, and advertising/video expenses etc. ... our lawyers have failed to recoup and don't actually get paid anything" card, if the way they treat artists is anything to go by.
A pizza of radius z and thickness a has a volume of pi z z a
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.
Is about as exciting as watching Bobby Fischer put away his chess sets at the end of the day
I disagree... when RIAA litigation starts to show unexpected financial consequences is when it really begins to get interesting. The "seeing who wins" portion of most of these cases are nice and all, but in the end, the RIAA spends whatever their budget says they should spend on litigating, and the defendant goes broke. Maybe they settle and go broke that way, maybe they lose and have to pay the RIAA, maybe they win a Pyhrric victory but spent their life savings on legal bills. When all is said and done, the RIAA manages to send the message that once they come after you, you are in for financial ruin.
Where things get interesting is when they begin not to go according the the RIAA's plan. You get situations like the Santangelo case (the case is no longer furthering their interests, but they don't have the option to fold) and this one. There could be a lot more light shed on the financing of these RIAA witch hunts than they would like to see. They would much rather leave things at "We have enough money to drive you into bankruptcy if you cross us, that is all you need to know". They might not get to do that this time, which makes it more interesting to follow.
> The Plaintiff(the riaa), was found to have no case.
>
> The defendant was allowed to get the legal costs.
The defendant asked to get legal costs, but the plaintiff said the defendent's costs were unreasonable. The judge ordered the plaintiff to reveal *their* legal costs to see what the plaintiff considers reasonable.
Then the plaintiff replied with, "Um,...what?"