U. Maine Law Students Trying To Shut RIAA Down

NewYorkCountryLawyer writes "Remember those pesky student attorneys from the University of Maine School of Law's Cumberland Legal Aid Clinic, who inspired the Magistrate Judge to suggest monetary fines against the RIAA lawyers? Well they're in the RIAA's face once again, and this time they're trying to shut down the RIAA's whole 'discovery' machine: the lawsuits it files against 'John Does' in order to find out their names and addresses. They've gone and filed a Rule 11 motion for sanctions (PDF), seeking — among other things — an injunction against all such 'John Doe' cases, arguing that the cases seek to circumvent the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act which protects student privacy rights, are brought for improper purposes of obtaining discovery, getting publicity, and intimidation, and are in flagrant violation of the joinder rules and numerous court orders. If the injunction is granted, the RIAA will have to go back to the drawing board to find another way of finding out the identities of college students, and the ruling — depending on its reasoning — might even be applicable to the non-college cases involving commercial ISPs."

Comments

Interesting problems for students

[adpsimpson]

When I was studying Engineering, the most interesting case studies were the real life cases - actual original research and current theories.

Similarly here, these students seem to have a deparment which values them enough to give them something interesting AND useful to work on.

Good on them all.

That's ridiculous

[evolvearth]

The only reason why we pay for art is to support the artist. If we see that the artist is either high on the hog or that the artist isn't making very much from the recorded music, then there is less incentive to buy. Artists will always make money from concerts and various things like t-shirts and such, so they people we're really supporting are the ones who are popularizing their music globally. Basically, it is the businessmen who we aren't supporting through downloads.

The problem businessmen have is that they can't figure out the solution to this problem. Perhaps by exposing a band to a wide market, they could collect x amount of dollars from the concerts they performed, as they're supposedly responsible for popularzing the band to begin with. So the contract would spell that out for as long as the band is signed up with a particular record label. Recording music would simply be to advertise for the band rather than a major means of profit. You simply can't reproduce live performances--it's a different experience. Start making shit that can't be downloaded! Add extra shit to those hard copy of albums to make them worthwhile to buy: extra art, neat case, raffle tickets to win apparel, dogtags with band member names on it, et cetera. It's time to be creative. The artist at this point seems to be supported, so now I want my art for free and I'll worry about the artist when necessary. After all, isn't art's main purpose to be enjoyed by both the creator and his of her fans? As long as the artist isn't broke, I'm not going to feel guilty for not supporting the business of uncreative suits.

Re:Hidden subject-You'd Think

[Nom du Keyboard]

a pre-action discovery proceeding [which is not authorized under the Federal Rules] masquerading as a copyright infringement proceeding.

You'd think the judge could put a stop to that -- or better yet a new Federal Rule -- mandating that any identities discovered could only be utilized in the current case. That way, if the plaintiffs lost, or never went to trial in the first place, that information couldn't be misused otherwise.

There was a non-RIAA non-Copyright case a couple years ago where a company sued to obtain the identity of a blogger, critical to that company, and believed to be an employee. While that company had no possibility of winning their case under the First Amendment, once they forced the internet site to cough up sufficient identifying information, they dropped their case and simply fired the employee. That should have never been allowed, and side-steps the whole intent that anonymous persons can be forced to be identified by the courts in virtually any case, no matter how lame, because it's necessary for the administration of justice to identify these defendants.

The whole idea that this will all come out in the wash so to speak, meaning at the actual trial exonerating innocent defendants and punishing overreaching plaintiffs totally misses the point of the damage already being done by the time identities have been revealed under the most flimsy of pretenses.

There should be an argument made that because the RIAA cannot win at trial with the illegally gathered evidence they already have, then identities shouldn't be revealed in the first place. Of course the RIAA will throw back the Jamie Thomas case were stupid juries, a less than bright defendant, and outright wrong jury instructions show that anything is possible if you throw enough b.s. at it.

Of course, my idea will only work if the penalties for actually misusing identity information outside of the trial itself are very VERY severe!