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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.'"
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.
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.
Not really. The RIAA would certainly like to create an environment of fear, however if they lose cases and have to pay the defendants legal fees, more people will be willing to go to court. They can only maintain their environment of fear if they're winning their cases or getting settlements.
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
The RIAA aren't issuing any lawsuits.
Question - the lawsuit against the 7 year old girl, is it:
A. RIAA -v- Andersen
or
B. Atlantic Records -v- Andersen
I think you'll find the latter. The record companies themselves are doing the suing. If you want to hate someone for spamming the courts with lawsuits, hate the record companies themselves. They love it that the RIAA is catching all the shit (because the RIAA doesn't sell to the public so it doesn't matter if the RIAA has a horrible reputation amongst the public). However, if people understand that the record companies are the ones spamming the courts, maybe the right people will be the object of vilification.
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