Slashdot Mirror
First New Dismissal Motion Against RIAA Complaint
NewYorkCountryLawyer writes "Several weeks ago it was discovered that a California federal judge, in rejecting an RIAA application for default judgment, had dismissed the RIAA's standard complaint for failure to state a claim, calling it "conclusory" "boilerplate" "speculation" in Interscope v. Rodriguez. In the wake of that decision a New York woman being sued in Brooklyn federal court, Rae J Schwartz, has told the Court that she is making a motion to dismiss the complaint in her case, Elektra v. Schwartz. This is the first post-Interscope challenge to the RIAA's boilerplate, of which we are aware. This is the same case in which the RIAA had sent a letter to the Judge falsely indicating that AOL had 'confirmed that defendant owned an internet access account through which copyrighted sound recordings were downloaded and distributed'. Ms. Schwartz suffers from Multiple Sclerosis, but the RIAA has pressed the case against her."
Ms. Schwartz suffers from Multiple Sclerosis
So what? It doesn't pertain to the case at all. If I suffered from MS and I killed someone chances are I'm going to jail. The validity of the the RIAA claims against her aside, just because you have a disorder doesn't give you a free pass to do whatever you want.
"Ms. Schwartz suffers from Multiple Sclerosis, but the RIAA has pressed the case against her."
Does anyone else get tired of all the "Joe Schmoe is 72 years old, has a goiter and an infected big toenail, but the RIAA still presses on!" sensationalism?
It seems as if every defendant in these cases has to be painted as a victim not only of the RIAA, but life itself. How about focusing on the fact that the RIAA has no proof, or legal grounds, and leave it at that!
The write up is good up until the last line. The respondent having MS says nothing about the case nor does having MS prevent her from using a computer or downloading music or provide immunity from civil prosecution.
The fact that she has MS is irrelevant.
There is no "-1 offended" or "-1 you don't agree with me" mod options for a reason.
Is there no common law or statutory cause of action in barratry (or otherwise, e.g. RICO Act) that could be brought against the RIAA in a class action? While not a defence, and certainly adventurous, barratry et. al. ought to be available as a counterclaim.
I imagine it would be more judicially efficient to resolve all these cases as a class action. It would also give access to justice to those who would otherwise be unable to properly defend (or counterclaim in) their action.
Finally, and less adventurous, do the relevant statutes address classes of defendants? This would seem to be, if the boilerplate accusation is correct, a quintessential case for judicial efficiency by way of a defendants' class.
The USA is a Socialist state and the state has a duty to protect the old, the young and infirm. The US has Social Security and many other socialist programs and the judiciary is the teeth of the system. The RIAA is casting such a big drag net, that they are bound to snare many cases that deserve sympathy, which then weakens their overall strategy. So it makes sense for lawyers to use these cases to hit back at the RIAA since they have a better chance of winning.
Excuse me, but please get off my Pennisetum Clandestinum, eh!
Quite right. But it makes for excellent news copy, particularly if she's innocent and the RIAA have hit the wrong person with their scattergun approach to lawsuits.
Ray Beckerman +5 Insightful
Stress accelerate the development of this disease.
But of course insensitive clods like you don't care about quality of life.
ID: the nose did not occur naturally, how would we wear glasses otherwise? (apologies to Voltaire)
Meanwhile, this is a person who never even heard of, let alone participated in, file sharing, let alone used file sharing to infringe plaintiffs' copyrights.
Ray Beckerman +5 Insightful
It's a variant on Missing White Woman Syndrome. The important point is that, in trying to explain to the general public that music downloaders are not evil criminals then using this case to point out that the RIAA also chase MS victims may help sway opinion. It's not logical but it's how it works.
init 11 - for when you need that edge.
But the RIAA accused her of downloading "You Can Learn to Breakdance" volumes 1-5.
I won't debate Interscope being based on Bell Atlantic v. Twombly; however, whether or not the RIAA's boilerplate meets the plausibility standard of Twombly is a matter subject to adjudication in the various jurisdictions. It will provide lots of opportunities to have the RIAA complaints dismissed, and that's something I think both of us can agree would be a Good Thing(tm).
Thank you for the discussion and the opportunity to improve the argument that I'm trying to make - I apologize for being a little less than clear in the GP post.
So what? It doesn't pertain to the case at all. If I suffered from MS and I killed someone chances are I'm going to jail. The validity of the the RIAA claims against her aside, just because you have a disorder doesn't give you a free pass to do whatever you want. As to the Letter of the law, you are right. And the fact that one of the defendants was dead, or a grandmother, or a single mother of three is also meaningless as far as the law is concerned.
However, considering the tactics and FUD the RIAA is using in the cases they've filed, and that the general public doesn't respond to what is legal, it responds to what the media feeds them, I have no problem with it being pointed out.
Or, to put it another way, it makes no difference what Race a person is, when they are arrested for a crime, yet you will almost always have it pointed out. You can find similar examples involving religion, sex (Female Murder suspects are really big news in my area), or a host of other things that are not directly pertinent to the case itself. Commenting about these things increases the attention the case gets, and, although not directly relevant, it is a true comment.
A positive attitude may not solve all your problems, but it will annoy enough people to make it worth the effort.
If the RIAA can claim that pirates are helping terrorists in their press releases, why can't their victims play the pity card? Turnabout is fair play.
Those of you who are suggesting that the focus of the article is the defendant's Multiple Sclerosis haven't read the article very carefully. The mention to MS is in the very last sentence.
The last two sentences of the article have nothing to do with the main point of the story, which is defendant's attack on the insufficiency of the RIAA's boilerplate complaint, which is the first such attack of which I am aware since the Interscope decision was handed down. Those last two sentences are merely background to give you a point of reference to which of the RIAA's 30,000 cases this happens to be. The next to last sentence describes a lie the RIAA told last year in this case to the Judge -- that, too, has nothing to do with the sufficiency of the RIAA's complaint, but none of you have singled that out or suggested that the article emphasizes that.
So it's baloney to say the author is relying on the defendant's MS for anything. I.e., it's intellectually dishonest to suggest that this article emphasizes the defendant's MS.
******************
Now a digression.
Had I chosen to emphasize her disease, as I might have, I don't see that there would have been anything wrong with that. And to those of you who think it's okay to bring nonsensical litigation like this against children, stroke victims, hurricane victims, MS sufferers, disabled people on welfare, and others.... to you I can only say that your value system is not unlike that of my opponents, who likewise see nothing wrong with what they are doing.
As I have previously mentioned, I use the "friends" and "foes" feature in Slashdot for the purpose of managing my reading load. Although I haven't in the past, going forward I am going to mark as a "foe" -- and therefore be spared reading the comments of -- any user ID who says that it is irrelevant that the defendant is disabled, or impoverished, or a child, or one of the other categories of disadvantaged and/or defenseless victims. Anyone who feels that way is not my kind of people.
Ray Beckerman +5 Insightful
As a legally blind computer user, I find your proposed defense somewhere between amusing and offensive.
Also, while MS can cause legal blindness, in many people it doesn't. I know an MS patient whose vision briefly became impaired then returned to "normal". Equating MS to vision impairment is an error.
On to the more valid part of your post:
I agree that it was mentioned because it fits a pattern in the RIAA's lawsuits. But, I also think it feels out of place the way it's wedged into the article summary. Bottom line: If, on the one hand, the RIAA believes in their case, they shouldn't be expected to cede their perceived rights to anybody with a health problem. If they know (as many suspect they do) that their legal actions are bogus, and if they are trying to intimidate people and extort money wherever they can, then their choice of target in this case makes their behavior marginally worse -- but only marginally compared to the underlying premise that they're knowingly bullying innocent people.
I propose a sliding scale of crimes you can get away with given a certain disease
You've forgotten the most popular one for this group: real or imagined Asperger's or ADHD etc: license to troll and flame on Slashdot, AND right to take Highly Theatrical Umbrage when someone questions whether or not perhaps you're just annoying, instead.
Don't disappoint your bird dog. Go to the range.
If this is also true, then it could also be used to help drive up any damages due!
Eclectic beats from Leeds, UK
handmadehands.co.uk
As a person with a disability, I agree with you. Here a few more points about a disability being pertinent to a court case:
Lawyers fees, court costs, travel and other expenses to fight back can affect the persons ability to get treatment and/or medication for the condition.
Have to go to court can take time away from getting needed treatment (think dialysis).
Also, the RIAA seems to be targeting people that they believe can't or won't fight back; I find it appalling that they seem to be going after people with disabilities, senior citizens, children and students (for the most part).
If "disco" means "I learn" in Latin, does "discothèque" mean "I learn technology"?
At least be honest with what is going on as you know as well as i, that 90% of the cases really are legit. Perhaps their techniques for gathering 'evidence' is questionable, but people really ARE downloading/sharing files that don't have permission to do so. These sorts of cases really are different then the 90%: 'woman never owned a PC', 'didn't have service during the time period' etc.
Now, personally i don't have a problem with the downloading/sharing, but currently the law does. I also don't feel that it effects their profits ( other then a net increase due to people getting to listen to a lesser quality copy, 'hey, i want the real thing now' ) but i cant prove that with hard numbers.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
> By saying it is worse to bring a suit like this against an MS sufferer, we feel you are implicitly stating that it is not so bad to bring it against someone who is not an MS sufferer, and that is something we find objectionable.
Well, it is. Now hear me out.
As has been reported many times, stress is a factor in MS. By bringing this lawsuit, they can worsen her condition. In other words, it's like the RIAA is helping kill her. Add to that the fact that the disease is very expensive and that means that MS sufferers have limited means to defend themselves. So now they'll have a hard time affording medicine AND a hard time affording legal representation. Thus, the circumstances make it worse. After all, you KNOW they're not going to make any money off this case, even if they win.
Honestly, I do think it more objectionable to pick on the weak and the sick who have a hard time fighting back. Not because they have or should have more legal rights than anyone else, but because it is so dastardly of the RIAA to do this to begin with. There's absolutely nothing stopping the RIAA from dropping cases. They can be as discriminatory in bringing them as they want to be, so far as I know, without giving up any legal rights.
In other words, the heartless bastards just don't care. And they wonder why people cheer when MediaDefender got owned. At least that was a company that should've been able to defend itself against one lousy torrent with all their dirty secrets in it. I mean, that was their job, and they couldn't do it to save their own skin.
See the difference? It's the difference between only picking on those who cannot fight back and standing up to a bully. People boo one and cheer the other, even though all people are equal under law.
It doesn't matter that it is a true comment. It's not "not directly relevant," it is completely irrelevant. It doesn't fit into the standard background facts that people generally mention (e.g. many people have preconceived notions about people of particular races or genders, and so it piques people's interest when a white mother of 4 is accused of dismembering a vagrant, yet it doesn't when an MS sufferer commits copyright infringement). It is the kind of comment that might be used to sway the public into thinking, "Oh no! What meanies the RIAA are!" and disregard the issues entirely, and as such, I feel sick supporting people who would use such a tactic. It is the kind of tactic that, when I see it used, I have to ask myself, "Is their case really that weak that they would resort to this?".
Besides, the battle we want to win is not with this particular case, but rather something on a much larger front. If we win public opinion here only because of the MS issue, then we gain no actual ground. In fact, if people start to think, "I support the RIAA except with the exceptions of sick people and grandmothers," it will be much harder to sway them later. It is much like the DMCA which, due to the additions of exemptions, went from "really bad" to "mildly bad but not bad enough to spend effort on to repeal" for many people.
So yes, bring up MS with the most ham-handed sentence construction ever, if you wish, but remember that even if it helps the individual in the public's eye, it hurts the cause.
Actually, I'm guessing the RIAA wants all the "bad" publicity it can get on cases like this.
It's been said before that there's a reason the individual record labels file suit through the RIAA: The RIAA as a group is INTENDED to appear scary and evil. They sue little old ladies, twelve-year-old girls, the terminally ill and handicapped - ANYONE who "screws with them." They even (IIRC) make press releases about how kids who they accuse should drop out of college and get a low-wage job to make their settlement payments.
What does Joe Public hear? The RIAA is a bunch of hardasses who'll jump all over me if I even THINK about downloading Limewire. But not those groovin' guys at Virgin Records or wherever; they're still cool.
In other words... by helping to villify the RIAA, Slashdot may actually be HELPING their PR push.
I did say that their method of getting evidence is questionable, and i agree it will be hard to make stick in court..
However, my point was that the sharing is actally taking place in most of the cases. The original poster seemed to think that the violations wernet really taking place, just because the methods/tactics for detection/ID are bogus.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
Ray Beckerman +5 Insightful