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RIAA Complaint Dismissed as "Boilerplate"
NewYorkCountryLawyer writes "The decision many lawyers had been expecting — that the RIAA's 'boilerplate' complaint fails to state a claim for relief under the Copyright Act — has indeed come down, but from an unlikely source. While the legal community has been looking towards a Manhattan case (Elektra v. Barker) for guidance, the decision instead came from Senior District Court Judge Rudi M. Brewster of the US District Court for the Southern District of California. The decision handed down denied a default judgment (i.e. the defendant had not even appeared in the action). Judge Brewster not only denied the default judgment motion but dismissed the complaint for failure to state a claim. Echoing the words of Judge Karas at the oral argument in Barker , Judge Brewster held (pdf) that 'Plaintiff here must present at least some facts to show the plausibility of their allegations of copyright infringement against the Defendant. However, other than the bare conclusory statement that on "information and belief" Defendant has downloaded, distributed and/or made available for distribution to the public copyrighted works, Plaintiffs have presented no facts that would indicate that this allegation is anything more than speculation.'"
Shocking.
you can't change reality with a lawsuit
reality: your business model is history
think up a new business model, and stop trying to prop up the dead one with the court system
a new business model means less money? too bad. the golden age is over. fucking deal with it and stop sending your barking dogs to terrorize little people in your rage and frustration and denial
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
What is the deal with this RIAA/MPAA situation? Are these organizations run by total morons? I'm not trolling, but it seems like they aren't putting one iota of serious effort into this. Are they so cynical, moneyed, and jaded, that they think nothing of suing mothers and teenagers apparently just for the hell of it? How can they do such a lousy effort this yet be one of the largest sectors of industry?
The longer I live, the more I am in a state of sheer awe that society doesn't come apart like Britney Spears fan on youtube.
Computers are useless. They can only give you answers.
-- Pablo Picasso
The penalties are not fair and way excessive. The Mpaa has records of all P2p filesharing transactions throught 3rd parties who monitor. Penalties should be spread around to everyone and no a few. $10-20 fine would be good.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copyright_infringement
Many people object to the application of copyright to not for profit (or at a loss) distribution or redistribution of copyrighted works. When copyright was created, it was to prevent book publishers from taking an author's work, publishing it, and making profits from the sales of that work without giving a cent back to the author. However, when financial gain isn't involved, as in peer-to-peer file sharing, many feel that copyright is absurd, as no one is truly gaining from the distribution, because ideas, which copyright "protects", are naturally free, just as speech is naturally free--unless the creator of the ideas chooses to keep them secret and outside of public knowledge and distribution. In a similar vein, some argue that since sharing a copy of their data costs nothing, it would be unethical to not share when someone else asks for a copy.
Is it over yet?
The most merciful thing in the world is the inability of the human mind to correlate its contents.
"Plaintiffs have presented no facts." This is exactly right, and can likely be far more broadly applied than just this case. I think the best argument most folks have is that it is very hard to tie an IP address to a specific user. And they think that just because they provide a screenshot with a list of songs on it that that is damning evidence. Hooray for this judge who has seen through the rhetoric.
Screenshot? could be photoshopped.
Text Log? could be edited.
If instead of that, you have a text log, verified by the ISP and with a signed statement asserting that this text log effectively shows that the given binary conversation took place at the given time, and that the receiving end has a given MAC address, and if that MAC address can be certainly confirmed as belonging to the accused, now THAT's a completely different story.
This internet thing blows their monopoly apart - there's a new method of distribution that's cheaper, faster, and out of the control of the music companies. This presents a problem to them: their "money for nothing" gravy train is threatened. It's no surprise that they're using every tool they can to stop reality from sending them to the realm of the irrelevant.
But since they haven't worked for their money for years, when it comes to taking legal action they don't seem to be willing to put forth an effort there either. This latest decision is an interesting one; significant enough by itself, but it'll cause some big changes for a lot of people...
The RIAA is using time machines now to go forward in time and file complaints in the future? Now that's just not fair...
harder for the RIAA. Must they now provide solid evidence of a crime verses their word that one occurred? Does this me there must be a burden of proof and not just speculation, lies and innuendo? Film at 11.
Si vis pacem, para bellum! For evil to succeed good men need only do nothing!
Is that this blabber of legalese is now legitimate tech news.
Any guest worker system is indistinguishable from indentured servitude.
By frightening people, they are successfully slowing down the business model change which is a consequence of the IT revolution (or Industrial Revolution III).
My guess is that they know it is dying - they just want a little bit more money before discarding the RIAA as "the evil force that forced us to force the old model - but we have a new one now, and we became good and nice).
Looks like they've neglected to apply the appropriate rules from Dr. Dan Streetmentioner's Time Traveller's Handbook of 1001 Tense Formations as well.
Indeed!
The laws governing copyright infringement need to be updated. The laws on the books today (or at least their ideologies) were written in a pre-internet era. Back then, pirating large amounts of media in the fashion that we easily can today WAS a serious crime because it actually took a criminal to do it. using the laws of then to govern today is like using an early 20th century speed limit to fine somebody driving a ferrari, or other ultra-high-performance race car.
NewslilySocial News. No lolcats allowed.
I'd be interested in seeing exactly what constitutes their 'boilerplate' level of evidence. A third parties recorded snooping? Whatever it is, hasn't it been sufficient enough for most settlements and court proceedings, making this judgement a fluke, and not a new precedent?
"mafihaha"
Hmm. Someone should write a perl script to help them. Snag a baby naming database and write a perl script to randomize the names, files shared and IP addresses to output an official-sounding C&D&Pay-us Email. Kinda like foggy, but for a legal document. Yeah. That'd be cool. And probably as accurate and effective as the system they're using now...
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
They call themselves the RIAA, but really, they represent companies like Sony, UMG, Time-Warner, etc... The RIAA moniker is used to keep their activities from reflecting poorly on the sponsoring companies.
You know what's interesting? When I was younger, I had heard things about pop music being evil, then rock music being evil, and certainly, gangsta rap was evil. I just kind of dismissed them, thinking, how could listening to music be evil?
Turns out, I was asking the wrong question. The problem wasn't in listening to the music, so much as it was that my paying for music was funding evil things, directly and indirectly. Sure, rappers talking about killing cops isn't a good thing, but it wasn't as nearly as bad as what music purchasers were doing by feeding the record companies:
I can't remember the last time I bought a CD. In fact, I'm probably one of those lost sales the RIAA blames on piracy. The thought that someone might not buy their music because they object to their lack of morality and common decency doesn't even occur to them. They think everyone else is just like them - greedy, money grubbers who can't stand the notion of actually paying for music. (After all, the RIAA member companies do their best to avoid paying the musicians).
You don't need to explain why you don't patronize the RIAA member companies like Sony, etc... Instead, ask the question, "What good has the RIAA done for music, musicians, and society in general?"
The silence will be deafening.
The society for a thought-free internet welcomes you.
It fits in many more cases. It fits in every case where some monopolist or a company that has some sort of a more or less monopoly position for some reason (because of patents or because there's only so many provider of a certain good or service) wants to continue milking his customers, knowing well that there are better and (for the customer) more favorable products available and most of the time even within his reach, but the outdated product or business model means more money for him.
And I think that was one of the longest and most incomprehensible sentences I ever wrote.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Let's say they do, somehow, manage to use a prove-nothing Boilerplate get Joe Downloader into court. He argues that their evidence means nothing. They then put him on the stand, and ask "Did you download these mp3s?"
Let's say Joe actually did. Is the RIAA allowed to ask a broad, point-blank question like this? If he says "No", he's perjuring himself. Can he refuse to answer on the grounds that they should do their own damn evidence gathering, and not expect him to implicate himself?
UTF-8: There and Back Again
I think (though IANAL) this is exactly why lawyers are reluctant to put their clients on the stand. They most definitely will be asked inconvenient questions. If Joe did in fact download the music then it's in his interest to stay away from the fight and let his lawyer to do the work - such as to attack the accusation, prove that Joe couldn't do it, and so on. But Joe can't be compelled to testify against himself.
Don't show up! WooHoo!
Support the 30 Hour Work Week!!!
damn them both, the profiteers! I spend thousands of dollars on vinyl records each year, and have been forced to house the better part of my collection (about 100 crates last time I moved them)
in a self storage unit (small manhattan apartment). I think they are actually in cahoots !!!!
music lover since 1969
Well, in America you have a right not to testify against yourself. They can't put you on the stand in your own trial. Of course, if you're stupid enough to take the stand voluntarily...
Falken: I never could get Joshua to learn the most important lesson.
Lightman: What's that?
Falken: Futility. That there's a time when you should just give up.
Circumcision is child abuse.
Pirates are using self storage to hide all of the millions of pirates CDs and DVDs that the Music and Movie industry have been claiming as losses, thus giving a huge boost to the self storage industry.
(but really, thank you for pointing out how small the music industry really is). I'd also like to mention that more new books are published each year than music CDs. There are around 3 million authors in the US alone. (sorry I don't have the data to back it up, I read it somewhere and couldn't find any info to prove/disprove it in 60 seconds of googling)
“Common sense is not so common.” — Voltaire
"downloading music/movies is in fact not moral or just. It's just a side effect of the industry being too stupid and slow to react to the Internet and adapt its business models to it."
Neither is the way the musician is screwed by record companies.
I'm not saying two wrongs make a right. But it's hard to appeal to people's morality when you have none yourself.
It's like Brittany Spears saying girls shouldn't screw around and have babies until they're adults. You would laugh. Kids would laugh. She would be right. But she has no moral standing to make the recommendation.
do you mean that the initial complaint should list information like the song, artist, copyright holder, date, and time of infringement? If so, then I agree, but doubt it will be that hard for them to comply.
I wouldn't get too enthusiastic about this being a way out from under these lawsuits. It's a good win, but it's on very technical grounds and easy for the RIAA to deal with if they have even a shred of a tenuous case.
It's mainly about the technical requirements for a filing. Let's take the hypothetical case of me suing you for having stolen a car from my car lot. All I state in my complaint is that on information and belief I think you stole a car from me, and I attach a long list of cars (make, model, VIN, plate number, etc.). The problems with this complaint at this level are:
- I haven't specified a crime. I've made an accusation, but where in there do I say what car was stolen, when it was stolen or where it was stolen from? Essentially the complaint can't say "You stole a car." but has to say "You stole this car.". And what's that list? I never say in the complaint whether it's a list of cars I allege you stole, a list of all the cars I have of which the one you stole is one. It could even be a list of all the cars left on my lot after the theft. Without some mention of what the list is, it's meaningless.
- Even assuming the above is corrected, there are no facts alleged connecting you to the incident. The bar here is low. I don't have to offer enough to prove my case. I don't have to offer anything credible enough to survive even a cursory response from you. But I have to offer some speck of evidence that, if believed completely and not responded to at all by you, could possibly be grounds for finding in my favor.
That's basically what the judge found here: the RIAA had failed on those two points. The bad news is that it's fairly easy for the RIAA to fix this. Name a song, name a file on the list that contained it, and allege that you were offering it for download to them and the first part's dealt with. As for the second, alleging the files were offered by a particular IP address along with a statement by the ISP that that IP address was assigned to a particular person's account at the time in question suffices. There's lots of technical problems with it, but it meets the minimal bar involved. The good news is that even those minor fixes give the defendant more places to attack the RIAA's complaint. For instance, if they allege a particular file contains some specific song, the defendant can respond by asserting that that file contains something that'd justify it's name but isn't the song in question.I suspect the RIAA got tripped up here because they never intended these cases to go to court. The filings were supposed to be merely clubs to wave at people to get them to settle, they were never supposed to actually be looked at as real lawsuits. We're going to see a lot of these for a while, but we're going to see a second round from the RIAA with these sorts of obvious errors fixed as they react to people actually fighting back. I'm not a lawyer, but I think one piece of advice is warranted: don't pick questionable defendants to fight this second wave. Pick ones that really are clean and can prove it and fight the RIAA on those. It's much easier to win judges over when you can present solid evidence in your favor, and much easier to fight the questionable defendants when you've got previous clean wins to cite.
I don't buy a lot of CD's and the only ones I have bought this year have been direct from the bands involved. Most of my expenditure on music is paying to go to dances where live music is played by musicians who get paid.
However, other than the bare conclusory statement that on "information and belief" Defendant has downloaded, distributed and/or made available for distribution to the public copyrighted works
Speaking as a lawyer who has used that term in complaints: anytime you see the words "upon information and belief", that means "ummm...theoretically this might have maybe could have happened".
Seriously. Not teh ghey. In fact, I wrote you love letters before. But not obviously. that would require me to have teh ghey. From all that you do, and all that you type. and all that you post, srlsy, ur th bom.
You fight the good fight, and even if no one hires you, you post the information for the rest of us to fight the good fight.
You won't see this because I post AC. But If someone else mods me up, then enjoy teh kudos. Kyudosh, congratulations. or more clearly, glory.
Drunk and trying to type. You deserve the glory.
For only a couple of dollars, it is possible to review the current case information using the PACER electronic file access system. Interscope Record, et al., filed an amended complaint on August 23, 2007. The amended complaint goes beyond stating that the plaintiffs were "informed and believe that the Defendant" pirated their works:
The plaintiffs had to serve the the defendant again (by mail), but was otherwise not inconvenienced in this suit. Denying a motion to enter default judgment is not the same as dismissing the case altogether. The order even said that the plaintiffs were granted leave to amend the complaint.
The Recording Industry vs The People blog makes too big a deal about the RIAA not disclosing the Interscope order in another case. This was a trial-level order. It doesn't create an interpretation of law that is binding on any other court (if even itself). Law briefs are already long enough without having to cite thousands (if not millions) of trial-level non-binding orders and decisions that show that other trial-judges might decide against the argument.
You misapprehend the nature of the court. Matters of law are decided previous to a jury trial. Getting to a jury trial in a civil case is a very big hurdle. I.e., the judge has decided that the situation merits the jury before you get to the jury, in a civil case.
C//
Not that I want to put extra value on the music industry, but I would hazard to guess that the garages are probably a little better in declaring their taxes too, which is likely where some of those numbers come from.
It helped of course, that she could prove she was innocent to the same extent that the RIAA could "prove" she was guilty.
BTW, Thanks for not only the work you do in this field (as Eivind said), but also a hearty thanks for you spending time on /. giving us your professional insight. It does make a difference to those of us that actually pay attention to this crap. (not to dis you, but this whole MPAA/RIAA extravaganza is crap a lot of the time-but not all)
/. , but you are (at least to me) the exception to the /. rule, and a credit to your profession.
Having worked in NYC, and having friends in Watertown, NY, I would not insult you inadvertently by abbreviating your UID as NYCLawyer!...instead I will use NY Country Lawyer if I feel the need to abbreviate.
Lawyers have a bad rep on
I've kept track of your posts over the past several years here, and feel good about the fact that you are on *our* side.
Down With Slashdot BETA!!! I've been around the corner and seen the oliphant; you can only abuse me from your perspecti
If the $40 billion per year figure is right then it is smaller than Dell's annual revenue and less than half HP's. Of course, selling high performance CD and DVD copying equipment is only a part of their business but you will find it hard to get a consumer PC that does not include at least the hardware you need for the unauthorised copying that ??AA like to call piracy. Looking up the financials, it looks as if the consumer PC hardware business for just those two is over $10 billion per year and there are quite a few other companies out there too. I don't have time to look up the size of the blank media business - what the ??AA probably think of as "piracy supplies" - but given the shelves full of the things I see in my local supermarket, I suspect we have a respectable sized business there too.
I suspect that if someone does the real numbers the economic argument will not be so favourable to ??AA.
This situation, more than any so far, blatantly exposes the true motives of the RIAA. They never intended for any of these cases to actually go to trial. The whole effort is a shakedown, a scare tactic to quickly extort some cash through intimidation and fear and hopefully provide a deterrent to others not to infringe. If they wanted to, they could build more solid cases with more convincing evidence, but that would take far more time, effort, and expense than they are willing to put into it. Believe it or not, their legal eagles are probably involved in far weightier and more important matters than suing a handful of file sharers. To build a case that will hold up in court for each and every one of these people would be extremely cost-ineffective.
To me, this is very much like credit card companies or other creditors who threaten to sue for collection of very small debts. They don't want to actually go to court to get that couple of thousand bucks you owe -- they know that the expenses of doing so would far outweigh the debt. (And getting a judgement is one thing -- actually collecting the money is another.) They merely hope that having a deputy show up at your front door with some scary looking legal papers in hand will be intimidating enough to motivate you to somehow scrape up some dough to settle the case.
"Every great cause begins as a movement, becomes a business, and eventually degenerates into a racket." -- Eric Hoffer
How can they lose money when their whole purpose is to do the legal dirty work for the record labels. They started out as a sort of scam by some record industry lawyers to bilk retainer fees out of wealthy but clueless clients but when the industry started to tank they got caught in this lawsuit game. Sharing & Downloading wasn't even dreamed of when the RIAA was formed. They had been planning for legal battles against the dumbass christers "Rock & Roll is the Devil's Work" crowd not real threats to the bottom line.
Sorry about the writing. Robot fingers, you know? Cliff Steele in DOOM PATROL #23
You misapprehend the nature of the court. Matters of law are decided previous to a jury trial. Getting to a jury trial in a civil case is a very big hurdle. I.e., the judge has decided that the situation merits the jury before you get to the jury, in a civil case.
You also have to have a case against the named defendant(s). Here the judge was unable to find that the plaintiff had anything meriting any kind of hearing or trial. (Which probably gives the defendant good standing to file a counter suit, if they have not already done so.)
They already tried this against the disabled mother who is now in the class action suit. They tried to get the woman's daughter to testify against her and the courts slapped them down pretty hard.
Probably didn't help their case that her daughter is a minor and there are often strict rules concering minors testifying in court.
>> Well, in America you have a right not to testify against yourself. They can't put you on the stand in your own trial. Of course, if you're stupid enough to take the stand voluntarily...
That is for criminal cases. This is not a criminal case. If you are asked things in discovery, and you refuse to answer, the court will assume that the answer would have gone against you. So if I asked you "did you download any of this list of 1000 songs onto your computer, and if so, which ones" and you don't reply, the court will assume that you copied all of them, which is why you didn't answer. That's why disappearing emails are a big problem, because if you are asked to produce emails and they are gone, chances are the court assumes that their contents was against you.
Ms. Rodriguez probably doesn't even know she's been sued.
Ray Beckerman +5 Insightful
"Won't Someone Think of the Children??"
My first Journal Entry ever, in 8 years! http://slashdot.org/journal/365947/aphelion-scifi-fantasy-horror-poetry-webzine
The original complaint had two exhibits
A: A list of copyright holders and songs
B: Some kind of log file, apparently mentioning the songs listed in A.
The complaint made no attempt whatsoever to explain what exhibit B was, just that it was a listing of songs owned by RIAA clients.
For a default judgment, I suspect all they had needed to do would be to claim that exhibit B was a log from a file transfer server not belonging the the defendant, and that the IP number in the log file at the time was associated with the client. They probably wouldn't need to prove it, as it would be uncontested by the defendant. But they didn't even made the claim it.
One would have thought RIAA could afford better lawyers.
From TFA,
:0
:-)
II. BACKGROUND
Plaintiffs filed a complaint against Defendant on November 14, 2007, alleging copyright infringement. According to the complaint, Defendant used and continued to use an online media distribution system to download Plaintiffs' copyrighted recordings and distribute and/or make them available for distribution to the public. Defendant was served with the summons and complaint by personal service on December 14, 2006. Plaintiff did not file a responsive pleading and on April 13, 2007, the Clerk entered default. Notice of entry of default was served on Defendant by mail on April
18, 2007. Plaintiffs then filed the instant motion for entry of default judgment on July 19, 2007.
So, how did the file a complaint on November 14, 2007?? Did I miss something
Someone has been watching the movie "Time Machine" once too many times
Has Comcast disconnected your Internet account? Same here. You can read about it at http://comcastissue.blogspot.com
Nice Patrician's Scorn there!
You had better have already played a white spell, or you better tap that mana!
Hopefully this judgement has destroyed the "enchantment" the RIAA found with these lawsuits!
I only look human.
My mother is a halfling and my dad is an ogre, so that makes me an Ogreling
Take that RIAA!