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New Attorneys Fee Decision Against RIAA
NewYorkCountryLawyer writes "The RIAA has gotten slammed again, this time in Oregon, as the Magistrate Judge in Atlantic v. Andersen has ruled that Tanya Andersen's motion for attorneys fees should be granted. The Magistrate, in his 15-page decision, noted that, despite extensive pretrial discovery proceedings, 'when plaintiffs dismissed their claims in June 2007, they apparently had no more material evidence to support their claims than they did when they first contacted defendant in February 2005.....' and concluded that 'Copyright holders generally, and these plaintiffs specifically, should be deterred from prosecuting infringement claims as plaintiffs did in this case.' This is the same case in which (a) the RIAA insisted on interrogating Ms. Andersen's 10-year-old girl at a face-to-face deposition, (b) the defendant filed RICO counterclaims against the record companies, and (c) the defendant recently converted her RICO case into a class action"
There are a lot of precedents being set against the RIAA lately, and it leads me to believe that maybe... just maybe... there's light at the end of this tunnel.
Tunnel indeed. Hopefully this legal diariaa will have this shit cleared out of the tubes quickly and regularity can be restored.
Be relentless!
when plaintiffs dismissed their claims in June 2007, they apparently had no more material evidence to support their claims than they did when they first contacted defendant in February 2005
You'd think it would take them a lot less than two years to fabricate the proper evidence. Maybe their "research" team is running a backlog of cases and this one fell through the cracks.
The theory of relativity doesn't work right in Arkansas.
Although I shouldn't respond to you - I will. This is nothing about Americans not paying their way. This is about cases being brought to court with inadequate evidence, or simply no significant evidence at all, in a hope that the case will either be settled by the defendants simply to avoid the expense of the case - but not as an admission of their guilt - or as a way of frightening others. If they had adequate evidence then the case should be in court, but they haven't. And recently we have learnt that MediaDefender, the company that collects evidence on behalf of many of these cases, are not beyond fabricating evidence or using very dubious tactics indeed in order to frame individuals.
Have a look at soylentnews.org for a different view
Copyright is a fairly recent notion, as it popped up only four hundred years ago or so, and in a small part of the world. Long before that--and today in places were copyright is not respected--culture and content continue to abound.
Think about all the great poets and philosophers of Greece and Rome. They didn't get a dime when copies were made of their work by amanuenses and sold in the marketplace, but they didn't complain. Indeed, the only time someone had issue with copying, the Roman poet Martial in his Epigrams , it was because another fellow was putting his name on those copies. And even then, Martial didn't demand legal penalties; he just lampooned the guy.
In Hong Kong, the film and music industries continue to flourish even though very few pay for content, as creators there have discovered other viable economic models. In the European Union especially, many forms of art couldn't generate a profit even if all copies were sold, but government subsidies ensure culture remains vibrant.
Because they can. Seriously.
See, the value of it is very very low. The asking price is considerably more than that. Therefore, most people wouldn't seriously consider buying it at the asking price, and will simply go without, or wait until it comes onto TV and then record it, or buy it second hand, or whatever.
Digital content provides another option, and one which is quite convenient for many people at that. It's so convenient that many people pay for fast internet connections specifically so they can download things; and many of these people also wear part of the cost of allowing other people to access the content too! Which just goes to show, the content does have some value, it's just much less than the content producers want to charge for it. Also, since the content producers aren't making it available in a convenient and affordable manner, the money is going to those who do: ISP's.
Previously, Big Media have been able to charge whatever they wanted, because it was impractical for anybody else to distribute it. Now, it's cheap and easy to distribute high-quality copies of the content to hundreds of thousands of people worldwide. Eventually, the content producers will have to accept that they can only charge what the market is willing to pay, but for now they're just throwing a tantrum and calling everyone who doesn't value their content as highly as they do "thieves".
Lower court decisions, such as this one, do not set precendents in any court other than their own. If the RIAA were to bring another similar case before this particular court, then this decision could be used to argue attorney fees against the RIAA. No other court is required to consider this result in its own decision.
If the decision is appealed and upheld, then a precendent has been set for the circuit in which it was appealed. All lower courts within that one circuit would be required to apply the appeals court's decision in all subsequent similar cases.
See this article for details.
2. But it is very very rare that any case is ever determined on the basis of an absolutely binding higher court authority. Almost invariably, where there is such authority available, the attorneys have figured that out long ago and there is no litigation to "decide".
3. Most briefs that are submitted cite plenty of non-binding judicial authorities, and even where they are citing binding higher authority, it is usually based on vastly different sets of facts.
4. There are numerous issues in the RIAA cases that will be decided on the basis of the fact that the RIAA has both brought, and pressed, numerous frivolous cases, with no evidence that the defendant committed a copyright infringement, just as was done in the Andersen case. And in those cases it continues to try to extort a "settlement" from the defendant even though it knows it has no case against the defendant. And in those cases where the defendant hangs tough, and is willing to see the case through to its conclusion and a jury trial.... the RIAA drops the case, as it did here. See, e.g., Capitol v. Foster, Elektra v. Santangelo, and Elektra v. Wilke. This recurring phenomenon will be relevant to future attorneys fees decisions, to possible sanctions motions against the record companies and their attorneys, to the record companies' claims of a "Noerr Pennington" defense which is not applicable to "sham" litigations, to claims of copyright misuse, and numerous other issues, in all district courts across the country, and will be cited by appellate courts when these cases finally do get to the appellate courts -- an event the RIAA is trying to avoid.
So yes. This judge's recognition of the RIAA's tactics is a very important precedent.
Ray Beckerman +5 Insightful
2. They do not serve at anybody's "whim".
3. Magistrate decisions are ctied all the time.
4. There are many instances in which they have binding authority in the matter before them.
5. As the underlying article makes perfectly clear, this was not a binding authority, but awaits approval by the District Judge.
6. I'm not saying it doesn't happen, but in 34 years of working in the litigation field I cannot recall ever having seen a District Judge reject the Magistrate Judge's findings. Usually Magistrate's "recommendations" -- like this 15-page decision -- are extremely thorough.
Ray Beckerman +5 Insightful
It's not just that its too expensive. They are so used to the old system that in many cases I can't even buy what I want.
I'm the sort of person who buys what he likes.. I prefer to give money to people who provide me with entertainment. My usual MO is to download what I want and if I like it I will look for it on CD or DVD and purchase it. I have a strange collection of movies and many of them were downloaded before I bought them. I make good money and I'm more than willing to share some of it with people who make my life more enjoyable.
When it comes to TV shows I find I can't even buy what I want. It's just not available. My choices are to either download it or sit during the time they put it on the TV and watch it and there is my problem. My evenings are MINE to decide what to do with. I'm not going to give up hanging out with friends just so I can sit and watch TV. I'm not going to give up making extra money to sit and watch TV. I'm not going to give up weekly church events to sit and watch TV.
So I download and hope whoever ripped what I want didn't do too bad a job of it. But you know what? My time is expensive. I would happily pay someone to make sure that whatever I got was good quality. But they simply don't provide that service.
How did things get so completely backwards? What happened to customer convenience? The whole point of capitalism is to provide a SERVICE. When the customer wants a service the customer pays for it and gets what (s)he pays for. Give me what I want(entertainment) and I'll give you what you want(money). Instead we have an organization that expects me to make changes for them and do business at their convenience. And then they have the nerve to feel entitled to this arrangement.
They need to get over themselves and start providing a service again. Until they do that: I'm stuck downloading.
Ray Beckerman +5 Insightful
-leave too much to chance
-heighten unpredictability, and
-wreak havoc on our ability to plan our lives. I.e., it would be a step towards lawlessness.
Ray Beckerman +5 Insightful
2. Defendant's opposition papers in Lava v. Amurao and our opposition memorandum in UMG v. Lindor give you some others.
3. I can't here discuss with you all of the many reasons the RIAA's attempts to hide behind Noerr Pennington will fail, since the RIAA lawyers seem to read everything I write on the internet, but if you follow the legal documents filed on my blog you'll no doubt see more on the subject.
4. By the way, I doubt that they thought about Noerr Pennington when they started doing the illegal things they do; I think N-P is just an afterthought their lawyers came up with in hopes of preventing the Courts from finding out about their illegal conduct. But it will all come out. In the Napster case they lost their attorney client privilege by reason of the fact that their attorneys had lied to the US Department of Justice team investigating their digital music price fixing scheme. See "Court Finds Reasonable Cause to Believe that UMG and Capitol Deceived United States Dept of Justice", Recording Industry vs. The People, April 21, 2006.
Ray Beckerman +5 Insightful
That's the attitude the RIAA and MPAA have towards their customers-and they wonder why their customers are voting with their feet in droves! Yes, downloading has a small effect on their sales, but it's their complete lack of customer service that's their biggest problem! Look, if I go to a grocery store and time after time either can't find what I want or the it's packaged so I have to buy five pounds of hamburger or rice when I only want one pound of it, and/or am treated rudely by their staff, I'm simply going to say; "Hasta la Vista, baby!" and go to another store. Yet, that's EXACTLY the way the music and movie industries treat me. Big problem for them is there are OTHER things I can spend my money on that I get enjoyment from. Look at iTunes-they provide music in a user friendly way and provide a no hassle way for me to buy EXACTLY what I want-WHEN I want it! No wonder why they've sold over a billion songs in such a short time. If everyone was pirating content, they'd have NO business! The thing I can't understand is Congress' hard on to pass laws friendly to the music and movie industries. You don't see them passing laws requiring me to shop at Safeway, for example. Are they THAT corrupted?