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."

Comments

It doesn't matter when the defendant suffers from

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Irrelavence...

[mdobossy]

"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!

Re:Slight problem here

[NewYorkCountryLawyer]

Although it may be true that Interscope v. Rodriguez may be valid in the jurisdiction for which it was issued, there's no obligation upon any other jurisdiction to follow it..... Except that the Interscope decision is based on Bell Atlantic v. Twombly, which is a decision of the United States Supreme Court, and binding on every court. And it is clear that the RIAA's standard complaint does not satisfy the 'plausibility' standard of Twombly.

Re:It doesn't matter when the defendant suffers fr

[Anonymous Coward]

But the RIAA accused her of downloading "You Can Learn to Breakdance" volumes 1-5.

Read TFA

[NewYorkCountryLawyer]

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.