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.'"

Comments

Copyright infringement penalties are excessive!

[zymano]

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.

Re:Are these people morons?

[Atario]

It's the same reason people continue to spam.

Even if it only works a vanishingly small percentage of the time, applying a tiny effort to loads of people still results in a net gain.

(Except, of course, when you factor in the damage to reputation, but that never stopped the unscrupulous before...)

Different day, same old stuff

[Whuffo]

The members of the RIAA have been enriching themselves as (essentially) statutory middlemen. For decades, any music you listened to came to you through their distribution system; there was no other option.

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 sad fact

[superwiz]

Is that this blabber of legalese is now legitimate tech news.

Re:magine that riaa

[Dynedain]

Bizarrely enough, your comment works equally well in the previous story regarding Verizon and the FCC radio spectrum auction.

Bizarre? No. Logical

[Opportunist]

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.

Re:Confessions of a convert

[swordgeek]

So let's see here...

I agree with you. I do. And yet, my brother is a professional musician, and most of the artists I like are barely making ends meet.

How can the artists make a living. The RIAA, for all of its dirty behaviour, at least provided _some_ income for artists--your method provides none.

This has always been the struggle for me: How can I actually support artists (which I will willingly do!) but not the RIAA (who screws the musicians worse than they screw the consumers)?

Any ideas? Without the artists being able to make a living, we'll end up with no dedicated artists at all.

Re:No facts? Exactly

[NewYorkCountryLawyer]

"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. You've hit it right on the head, Bonewalker. The Emperor wears no clothes. And Judge Brewster had the courage to make the call.

Re:Are these people morons?

[Eivind Eklund]

It's not clear that it is unprofitable. There's only a few boilerplate letters per "lawsuit", and most are settled at $3000 or so. That's a heck of a lot of money for a mailing few letters.

Eivind.

Re:Are these people morons?

[NewYorkCountryLawyer]

Ah, cool, I'm glad to hear that. Thanks! (And thanks for the work you do around this; even though it isn't in my country, it is appreciated.) Thanks for your kind words, Eivind.

I hope your country remains free of this plague, but I will tell you it's an international thing.... they're certainly persecuting people throughout Europe, except for the Netherlands, where the courts astutely saw through their scam from the outset.

Re:Don't get too enthusiastic

[NewYorkCountryLawyer]

Perhaps you can explain why they aren't using (and I hear dropping) the "made available" argument. I have a selfish interest as the Canada's Parliament keeps suggesting they will pass legislation implementing the "make available" sections of WIPO. BTW, really, thank you for these articles and posts. I always read NewYorkCountrylawyer posts/articles first! You're good.

I guess you read Canada's own p2pnet.net by Jon Newton.

Actually, I can only speculate what is going on in RIAA-land.

All I know is that, in the wake of the Interscope v. Rodriguez decision, which forced them to come up with an amended complaint, they filed an amended complaint which totally omitted the "making available" theory.

I'll be doing a post on the possible implications of this, but as to their reason, my guess is they did it because

1. they know that it's an invalid argument, having no basis in the statute, in caselaw, or in legal scholarship, and

2. the Bell Atlantic v. Twombly decision gives them a way to back down gracefully.

Eivind reminded me of my manners!

[rts008]

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)

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 /. , but you are (at least to me) the exception to the /. rule, and a credit to your profession.

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.

Who sells CD/DVD copiers? HP, Dell, etc.

[Shirotae]

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.

Re:Self-damning?

[NewYorkCountryLawyer]

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.) This was a default judgment case.

Ms. Rodriguez probably doesn't even know she's been sued.

Re:My thoughts

[cpt kangarooski]

Screenshot? could be photoshopped.
Text Log? could be edited.

Bear in mind that there is a difference between alleged facts and true facts. For example, imagine a murder trial where one witness says that the defendant was at the scene of the murder, and another witness says the defendant was at home. At least one of these witnesses has to be wrong, possibly both are. The testimony of both are alleged facts, and the trier of fact (often a jury) has to decide what is actually true or not for purposes of the trial.

So there's nothing wrong with submitting a screenshot and a text log that are of dubious accuracy. A jury will decide whether or not to believe it.

Frankly, these cases, even where the RIAA is 100% right in their allegations, are going to be considerably harder to start with the new plausibility rule. Even if they had the sort of evidence you suggest -- which merely goes to how likely it is to be true, as opposed to how plausible the allegations are overall, which is what's become important -- that probably wouldn't be enough. That is, what you suggest is likely to not be enough because it doesn't get in to all the issues that need to be in the complaint.

I'll be very interested to see how things play out.