RIAA Accepts $300 Offer of Judgement In Carolina

NewYorkCountryLawyer writes "In a North Carolina case, Capitol v. Frye, the RIAA has accepted a $300 offer of judgment made by the defendant. This is the first known use, in the RIAA v. Consumer cases, of the formal offer of judgment procedure which provides that if the plaintiff doesn't accept the offer, and doesn't later get a judgment for a larger amount, the plaintiff is responsible for all of the court costs from that point on in the case. The accepted judgment in the Frye case (PDF) also contains an injunction — much more limited than the RIAA's typical 'settlement' injunction (PDF) — under which defendant agreed not to infringe plaintiffs' copyrights."

Comments

Decent Resolution

[GizmoToy]

Seems like a reasonable resolution for the defendant. $300 to make a lawsuit like this go away could be worth it if you don't really have the financial means to mount a decent defense and there's no way the RIAA had spent less than $300 to that point, so they lost money on the deal. This a very low settlement amount for the RIAA, so it's possible others may be able to utilize this.

It'll be interesting to see if the RIAA accepts it if anyone else tries it.

Re:I'm no lawyer, but

[Nefarious Wheel]

The blog said no precedent was being set, that it was clear it was the best the RIAA could expect from the case given that the subject was not likely to give much return on the collection effort, and another high-handed collection effort from a penniless mum would work against them. There was very little that could be taken from her, being another single mother receiving housing and income assistance. I'd say that that $300 was a pretty big whallop out of her budget though, and will make the RIAA look even worse as a result.

Providing that's possible, of course...

Re:Sanctions?

[NewYorkCountryLawyer]

I notice that the settlement offer explicitly excludes any claims for sanctions that the defendant has already requested. Can you give more information on possible sanctions against the RIAA and/or their lawyers? Those of us who believe the RIAA's litigation tactics are frivolous would like to move for sanctions under Rule 11 (c), but the rule is quite limited, providing the offending party with a "safe harbor", and many judges are reluctant to invoke it altogether, as the consequences of a Rule 11 sanction against an attorney are very severe. So it is invoked rarely. I am not aware of any successful invocation of Rule 11 in the RIAA cases by a defendant. I am aware of one instance in which the judge disagreed with the defendant's lawyer on the merits of the underlying motion, found the Rule 11 motion to itself be frivolous, and has held that the defendant's lawyer should be sanctioned, based on several things he had done that irked the judge.

Re:Sorry for being picky, but...

[The One and Only]

Since most written languages in the Western world were standardized by their translation of the Bible, the Bible is a great source for this information.

I had a offer of judgment procedure

[t0qer]

One of the dot coms I worked for imploded. During the implosion there was a lot of confusion over who owned what, at the center of all this controversy was a little sun box that contained the source code for the company product.

At the time I was the IT guy for this company. I took my orders from the CEO because the CTO was just psycho. In one of the meetings between me, the CEO and CTO the CTO accused me of being on "Mind Altering drugs" at work because I had a can of get this.. Jolt Cola on my desk (This CTO was a devout mormon)

The CEO fired the CTO, then decided to pack up our office and head north from Sunnyvale to Alameda. Being the IT guy, it was my job to make sure the computers made it up there safely. A few months later the company completely imploded, everyone went off to work for different companies, and that was that or so I thought.

About a year later I got a court summons. The CTO was suing me for $15 million dollars. I was being accused of "Stealing his source code" because apparently the company didn't own that little sun box I moved. After a few initial rounds in pre-trial we were all set to go to trial.

My lawyer and I were sitting out in front of the courtroom when we got a surprise. The judges assistant came up to us and started telling us the CTO was willing to settle for $1500. He explained it like this..

"You know toq, we're really sick of this asshole. Me, the judge, the other lawyers all think he's a cocksucker, but you already know that. Just take the settlement"

Me, "But I didn't do anything wrong"

Assitant, "Well let me put it to you another way. If you don't take this settlement, it's going to mean a trial, which is going to mean jurors, and a whole bunch of menusha I don't want to get into, but it's going to cost ALOT of money. The judge is going to look at the fact that you didn't take this $1500 settlement, and wonder why you costed all these people time and money"

Me: "So the judge just wants this out of his hair, is that what you're saying?"

Assistant: "Yes"

So I took the settlement, nothing went down on my record.

I'm guessing this $300 RIAA case is the same deal. The judge probably got sick of the team of lawyers that represent the RIAA tying up his courtroom with petty bullshit, and i'm guessing the person taking the settlement got the same speech I did.