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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.'"
Lets hope that the trend continues. I think the RIAA publicized their lawsuits so much (in an effort to scare "Pirates") that even the judges are aware of their shady tactics, and resent the RIAA for attempting to turn the court system into their own private extortionists.
It's only paranoia if your wrong...
After a while it will become sufficiently clear that the record industry is not willing to take anyone to court, that eventually enough people will end up challenging as to make this a prohibitively costly excercise. If they drop enough cases, there will probabyl be a few lawyers who will take virtually any case on, on the assumption that they will be able to claim their fees. Either the RIAA will stop doing this, or they will actually start to see a case through. At the moment though, getting a lawyer and challenging the evidence (which is pretty weak, consisting of an IP address, and a list of files that may or may not be what they claim) seems to be a pretty safe option.
If a frivolous lawsuit is filed, the filing attorney and any other attorneys who willfully worked on the case, get disbarred. Some permanently others for a few weeks (as a 6 month suspension is functionally equivalent to disbarment as it make s you unemployable and kills your practice).
There needs to be a sliding scale, as I don't want the 1st year associate who's boss told him "do this work" to have his career ruined. The 1st year (and mostly no one below partner) has no power in the firm, and has the only option of doing the work or quiting.
Whether or not this is a frivolous lawsuit is a question of fact; therefore the jury decides. Not the judge (unless they are acting as the trier of fact in that instance.)
You start threatening attorneys livelihood, especially when that livelihood is such a huge investment, you will see these cases go away.
That is mostly because if they were a real person they would live in a small fixed area and get the same judge (or a judge that has lunch with the previous judge) over and over again.
Here the RIAA is national and therefore can piss off one judge in one state and then move to another state and piss off a 2nd judge and so on. No one judge gets stuck with the RIAA all the time.
I think your point is wrong because these lawsuits aren't frivolous. Don't get me wrong, I've downloaded thousands of songs, and have never once purchased a CD. But doesn't the RIAA have some significant legal backing for what they are doing?
I understand that they've made some mistakes suing people who were not responsible, but I am betting a majority of the people sued were sharing copyrighted files. Are they making a large number of errors? I've only heard of a few. I'm sure it would be better if they made less mistakes.
Are you saying the lawsuits are frivolous because you believe people should just be able to share whatever they want on the internet? Maybe we should get the copyright laws changed if so many people think that is the case.
It's probably safe to presume that these new cases finding counterclaims allowed are of the same merit (or lack) as the ones that just totally dropped, and even found the defendants liable.
What has changed? The laws are the same. The actions are the same.
Maybe the judges are a little smarter now. Maybe the lawyers are a little smarter. But if I didn't get the same results as a defendant in the same circumstances a year or more ago, I'd want a new trial. It's not supposed to be my problem if the administrators of justice are too stupid to leave me alone with laws they don't understand.
That's the new development I want to see: a retrial on the basis that maybe the courts aren't as stupid as they were when they decided against me.
--
make install -not war
And while the defendants are at it, how long until someone calls the RIAA on their illegal joinder of John Doe defendants in the beginnings of these suits. Two years ago a judge told the RIAA to stop that, they they can't simply join unrelated defendants to save on their litigation costs, and the RIAA has blithely ignored that ruling and continued on their merry ways.
And did anyone see The Bay City Rollers (60's/70's band) lawsuit against Sony for not paying royalties today? Sony's excuse: We lost your contract and didn't know how much to pay you, so we've given you nothing! Puts to lie the claim that filesharers are ripping off the artists. The record companies appear to be doing that just fine on their own.
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
Slashdot and Groklaw analyses of RIAA "evidence" showed significant holes. It is unclear how much relevance the MediaSentry logs have, there are issues with time-stamping and dynamic IP addresses, shared (WiFi) networking, decoy mp3 files and last but not least no proof that the subscriber to the IP package was the one operating the sharing computer. The RIAA seems to ignore the possibility of remote control of a system. With so many holes in the evidence even the guilty can get out.
extern warranty;
main()
{
(void)warranty;
}
This is business at its worst. Someone should go after these guys with a class action suit or set up a fake file sharing site to lure them into a case they will lose.
"Never say Never."
The RIAA lawyers seem to be confused. Last week they were adamantly fighting for their withdrawal of the case to be "without prejudice" -- i.e. so that they could pursue it again. This week they're willing to "covenant not to sue". It seems to me that they are just flaking out.
Ray Beckerman +5 Insightful
Well, I wasn't really talking about this specific situation so much as responding to the parent's reference to actual guilt. Even in the civil arena, though, guilt exists as a concept, but the language is different. If you've broken the law (you filthy tortfeasor), you're actually guilty (of the tort) and may be found legally liable.
Still, I stand by the modified statement: Ideally, the accuser wouldn't accuse unless the accused were actually liable. Obviously, we can't achieve the ideal because, as you say, the full evidence may not be available until the process is begun. Still, litigants should have a pretty high degree of good faith belief that they are suing the right person before they initiate an action. It's often the case (or, more precisely, it seems often given the biased cross section presented on slashdot or on the news) that a wronged party takes the position that they're entitled to relief from somebody so they just go after someone who they think they can recover from. That covers **AA type lawsuits as well as a lot of others... If you're suing the wrong party more than very occasionally, odds are good that you're abusing the system.
I don't know about in other States but, in Texas and Florida in a criminal case, you can be judged guilty (they decided you did it) not guilty (they decided they don't know if you did it) or innocent (they decided you didn't do it). You are judged innocent if everyone unanimously agrees that you did not commit the crime you were accused of.
I would expect instead for the RIAA to push for a huge "blank media" tax, as have their similar organizations in other countries. After all, if they can tax every blank CD (see Canada) regardless of what you put on it, hard drives are next. And while they've been turned back in this quest, especially in regard to MP3 players, they never stop trying.
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."