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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.
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.
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.
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.