Rochester Judge Holds RIAA Evidence Insufficient

NewYorkCountryLawyer writes "Judge David G. Larimer, presiding in Rochester, New York, has denied an RIAA application for default judgment on the ground that the RIAA's evidence was insufficient, in that it contained no details of actual downloads or distributions, and no sufficient evidence that defendant was in fact Kazaa user 'heavyjeffmc@KaZaA.' The decision (PDF) concluded that 'there are significant issues of fact regarding the identification of the defendant from his alleged "online media distribution system" username.' (In case you're unfamiliar with the term 'online media distribution system,' that's because it is a term the RIAA coined 4 years ago to describe p2p file sharing accounts in its lawsuits; the term is not known to have been used by anyone else anywhere else.) In August a similar RIAA default judgment motion was denied on the ground that the pleadings failed to allege sufficient factual details supporting a claim of copyright infringement, in a San Diego, California, case, Interscope v. Rodriguez."

Comments

Good news for the defendant

[DrXym]

Heavy Jeff is said to be delighted at the ruling.

Re:Good news for the defendant

[Timesprout]

He aint heavy, he's my filesharer.

Re:Good news for the defendant

[Anonymous Coward]

There's an 85.7% correspondence between your reply and a 1969 song title.
Expect to be contacted by our lawyers shortly.

The RIAA.

Re:Good news for the defendant

[multipartmixed]

Bah.

The road is long, with many a winding turn.. that leads to who knows where. I mean, to the MAFIAA actually winning that.

Re:Semantics

[JamesRose]

RTFA, The RIAA uses it all the time.

Communists!

[clarkkent09]

Damn, another one gets away on a technicality. I can just imagine heavyjeffmc, sitting in his mother's basement, overflowing his chair, enjoying his loot of stolen south park episodes and van halen songs, surrounded by candy bar wrappers and empty soda cans, laughing at his victory. Some people get it all for free while the poor pop singers and movie stars have to bust their asses earning a living. There is no justice in this world, I tell ya...

My hourly rate on Slashdot

[NewYorkCountryLawyer]

So the defendant has in effect managed to get himself a free legal defence, of the very highest quality: the judge himself. It's a risky strategy, but at least he isn't getting reamed by some guy who makes $300 an hour for playing a lawyer on Slashdot. kdawson, are you reading this?

I didn't know I was supposed to get paid for this.

Please tell Cmdr Taco to send me my check, I could really use the money.

Thanks. If I had known, I would have been much nicer to you guys.

You're not a Slashdot reader playing a lawyer

[patio11]

You're a lawyer playing a Slashdot reader. Same difference -- we can tell you don't belong here. Probably work out, have friends of the opposite sex, use a Windows box and think Perl is an abomination. And you're right, Perl *IS* an abomination, but you still don't belong here. :)

Re:You're not a Slashdot reader playing a lawyer

[NewYorkCountryLawyer]

You're a lawyer playing a Slashdot reader. Same difference -- we can tell you don't belong here. Probably work out, have friends of the opposite sex, use a Windows box and think Perl is an abomination. And you're right, Perl *IS* an abomination, but you still don't belong here. :) Guilty on all counts except about Perl.... I don't know enough about Perl to form an opinion.

Does it help that (a) I don't like Windows (b) I went to Bronx High School of Science, and (c) I used to have pocket protectors until I misplaced them after graduating from high school?