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Why the RIAA Doesn't Want Defendants Exonerated
RageAgainsttheBears writes "The RIAA is beginning to find itself in an awkward position. A few of its many, many lawsuits don't manage to end in success for the organization. Typically, when they decide a case isn't worth pursuing (due to targeting the wrong person or not having sufficient evidence), they simply move to drop the case. Counterclaims are usually dropped in turn, and everyone goes separate ways. But recently, judges have been deciding to allow the RIAA to drop the case, but still allowing the defendant's counterclaim through. According to the Ars Technica article: 'If Judge Miles-LaGrange issues a ruling exonerating Tallie Stubbs of infringement, it would be a worrisome trend for the RIAA. The music industry has become accustomed to having its way with those it accuses of file-sharing, quietly dropping cases it believes it can't win. It looks as though the courts may be ready to stop the record labels from just walking away from litigation when it doesn't like the direction it is taking and give defendants justice by fully exonerating them of any wrongdoing.'"
fucking extortionists
Our court system should punish frivolous lawsuits for how much it is costing the government.
Mod me up, mod me down, do your worst you modding clown.
IANAL, but it seems that if the court rules in favor of any one of the defendants, it would set a precedent that would pave the route for all previous defendants to come together and file a class action lawsuit for wrongful accusations.
The RIAA doesn't care if a few individuals keep them in court for whatever liability they open themselves up to.
Individuals won't have enough money to diminish the environment of fear the RIAA is trying to establish.
The goal is to establish an environment of fear, such that most users are afraid to anything other than what the media conglomerates say is okay. Better still, what's okay today can be wrong tomorrow.
The RIAA end game is good. Stories like this just help it along.
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This is an example of how corporate legal personhood is selectively interpreted to grant the positive benefits of being a person under the law while evading the negative consequences.
For example, if an actual person filed frivolous lawsuit after frivolous lawsuit, eventually a judge would tell them that they have to quit wasting the court system's time with any more nonsense. If the RIAA were a real person, rather than a legal "person", this would have happened to it long ago.
/. If the government wants us to respect the law, it should set a better example.
I'd be more inclined to believe that judges have long known that the RIAA are a bunch of bastards and are now acting in a manner that respects the general population's regard of the RIAA as a bunch of bastards.
First of all, a great number of politicians are lawyers. It's doubtful that they will willingly compromise their own profession's ability to make easy money. Keep in mind that after their term in office is up, or if they fail to get reelected, many get back into practicing law.
Second of all, such a system may make it quite difficult for smaller parties to participate in lawsuits. In the case of lawsuits that may not necessarily be frivolous, but that are near enough to that border line, lawyers may demand that the client cover any expenses if those lawyers are suspended or disbarred. This is something that a client without vast financial resources would likely not be able to afford. So soon enough the only people who will have the resources to sue are corporations or industry associations. We end up with the problem we have now, but without normal people having the ability to fight back.
It would seem as though the RIAA is getting quite a number of cases like this, IE: http://yro.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/02/07/23 25204
/. er's would see through this quite easily, but your average joe isn't as well informed. A good dose of media hype might earn them some political and legal victories they need to tighten thier grip.
On the surface, it seems like they're going down, and we may see an end to thier lawsuits
Or, it might be a set-up for a massive media parade.
They might continue the trend, but hold back evidence on purpose in a few cases. Then, BAM! hit back-to-back victories with careful planning, along with some careful media orchestration (particularly if you throw in words like "Prejudice" or "mistrial"), it could quickly sway public opinion back in thier favour.
Certainly, most
However, I sincerely hope that this isn't the case.
This policy would have the unfortunate effect of inhibiting high risk but valid cases against resourceful parties such as the first cases holding tobacco companies liable for their deception. You're trying to protect the innocent, but your policy just protects potential defendants. Not the same thing.
If the government isn't going to require accountability of prosecutors of wrongfully prosecuted and imprisoned people (or the families of those wrongfully executed), they're not going to do it for something as trivial as filesharing suits.
How about this - you file suit and lose, you pay the other parties cost to defend plus compensate them for their aggravation. Automatically.
While I have a natural aversion to lawyers as a physician... this kind of suggestion is about as useful as the idea of revoking the license of physicians who lose a malpractice lawsuit. It might seem like a way to prevent errors, but its not going to work out the way you think.
Doing so in either case will have a lot of consequences that we would all not like:
1) Other clients/patients of the guy who loses his licensure will suffer the loss of the relationship and professional services they get. You might think that no one would want to see a lawyer or doctor who had lost a malpractice case, but if that was the case the majority of physicians in the US would not be practicing today.
2) Every professional by virtue of being a human being will make honest mistakes. Punishing single mistakes by completely destroying that professional's ability to practice will lead to a shortage of people willing to enter that field as well as a shortage of people willing to take the difficult cases in that field. (I can tell you I would never have entered Emergency Medicine where I cannot choose who I will and won't see had this been the case.)
3) If you are defending your own ability to practice (and perhaps your children's livelihood) you are going to go to extremes in order to protect it. If I was under this kind of pressure the amount of defensive medicine I (and every other physician) practice would go through the roof meaning increased costs, unnecessary tests, unnecessary antibiotics, etc. I suspect the same would be the case for lawyers if you pressed them to that extreme.
So while it may seem like it would help to levy draconian punishments for medical or legal malpractice, if you have that sort of system, you won't be happy with the results.
That doesn't mean that you should not use those kind of extreme punishments against professionals who are habitual douchebags. It also doesn't mean you should not levy punishments for errors. But it does mean that you shouldn't punish people innocent of any wrongdoing (the lawyer's other clients) and you should not extract unreasonable punishments for common mistakes.
Nick
By promising not to pursue further litigation, does this mean that the defendants would be free to music share and download without fear?
It's not a "justice system", it's a "legal system". That should make it clear who the system really serves.
Use 'slashdot stuff' in the subject line in any email you send me if you want to get past the spam filter.
No, making it harder to start a lawsuit is definitely worse than alternative solutions. You've got your heart in the right place, no doubt, but all you're going to get is less lawsuits, period. Not just less frivolous lawsuits, less lawsuits, which means more people suffering who could have sued but didn't, because of the price just to start.
I'd rather have the plaintiff pay all legal expenses if he loses. NOt the defendant, just the plaintiff. The defendant has to respond or he gets summary judgement against him. Then, people who really want to fight can theoretically find a lawyer willing to take the case (assuming they have a case to begin with).
It's not as good as the goal you want, but if there's anything I've learned programming, it's that incremental change is the path to success, not sweeping change. Make little changes and test them.
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... You are confusing "malpractice" with "frivolous lawsuits" Not the same thing at all!
... malpractice. Under this scheme no disbarment (well legal malpractice always includes a bar complaint, but ...)
You are confusing "malpractice" with "frivolous lawsuits" Not the same thing at all!
I repeat
An attorney can get sued for malpractice (i.e. negligence). However, a frivolous lawsuit is not negligence, it is willful. We already have laws against this type of things when dealing with SLAPP suits (frivolous suits by corp's against people who protest the corp).
You miss a bar date, file the wrong form, etc.
You do everything "right" but you have brought a suit with no merit and wasted the court's, the defendant's the juries time, you have brought a frivolous lawsuit and you get suspended (disbarred if it is really overkill). To bring a frivolous suit you have to engae not in negligent conduct but willful conduct.
The analogy of demanding that your patient have a surgery which you fully know is grossly unneeded and expensive is the correct analogy. We aren't talking about forgetting a sponge inside the patient. We are talking about performing hysterectomies (sp?) because you get a hell of a lot of money for them, even though the patient is fine (I picked a surgery at random there).
SO to answer your points.
#1) We are not disbarring the firm, only the supervising attorney. Your work (especially as a corp) was spread out among all the associates of the firm. Maybe you don't go out to lunch with Jack (Now Jill manages your account) but the firm still represents you.
As a doctor you have a 1-to-1 relationship with the patient. As a firm you have a 1-to-many-many relationship. Taking 1 guy out doesn't end that.
#2) Once again, your point is directed to malpractice. This isn't negligence it is an intention "tort"
#3) The frivolous only comes into play when you file the law suit. You don't have to win, just not file the suit for harassment purposes (yes if I was writing the law I'd have a full blown definition to "frivolous" but I am not not going to corner-case the definition for a blog forum)
So, I am not asking the attorney's to constantly worry about disbarment (more than the already do F'ing bar association). The only increased costs is a better evaluation of your case before you file. And maybe you don't just ask for $1 trillion dollars (which just looks bogus).
The $1 trillion brings up the needed reform of PUNITIVE (not COMPENSATORY) damages. Short-answer tax them at a very high rate. So, it punishes the wrongdoer but is no longer an incentive to file law suits. You should be made whole from your loss (viz. the reason you sued) not rich.
The big issue is a slippery slope of indications. Its not totally unneeded surgery that is the issue, but 'not quite so needed' surgery. And that's something you can't really regulate (or even detect) easily. The decision to get a procedure is a risk/benefit calculation and its dependent on where the balance of the scale is. Some guy who is really doing flat out non-indicated procedures is an easy mark, but those are pretty rare compared with the ones who shift the balance just slightly.
But then part of that very problem is the malpractice system in the first place. Why do you think so many women get C-sections? Because no one ever sues you for the C-section you do. But if you are more conservative, the one time the baby does badly and you don't do a section, you are fucked. Same thing with a cardiologist: say you have a patient with chest pain that has really weak indications for doing an angiogram. If you do one and its clean that's great. The patient incurs a slight risk from the cath, and it costs several thousand dollars, but you wont be faulted for being 'careful'. However if you don't do one, eventually you are going to send someone away and they will have a heart attack the next week, at which point you are again, fucked. The system is set up for people to me more aggressive, send too many tests, do too many procedures, and prescribe too many antibiotics. In the US we are set up to not reward the avoidance of false positives but we severely punish getting a single false negative. So its no wonder cardiologists are loose with the caths and gynecologists with the sections.
You want an easier target that is both readily regulated and will seriously decrease unnecessary treatments? Outlaw physician drug detailing and advertisement for drugs in the popular media. More people are harmed with unnecessary drugs than with unnecessary surgery. Yet we allow some of the most dangerous drugs (those most recently approved) to be advertised like they are Taco Bell or an iPod.
Nick
Because more people are getting sued by them all the time.
What is your basis for this?
The sad fact is, you're making the wrong argument here. That they have bought the legal rights to these songs is completely irrelevant to them suing people who have never used a computer, people who are dead, people who don't know what filesharing is, and people who maybe have shared files, but not the ones they're talking about -- and of course, innocent but tech-savvy people.
They have the right to go after people that they know are stealing their stuff. They do not have the right to just arbitrarily pick a target and sue them for filesharing, and see what happens when they scan the person's hard drive. Even if everyone in the world was sharing files, the RIAA would not have that right.
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