Florida Judge Smacks Down RIAA

NewYorkCountryLawyer writes "The RIAA is going to have to face the music in Tampa, Florida, and answer the charges of extortion, trespass, conspiracy, unlicensed investigation, and computer fraud and abuse that have been leveled against them there. And the judge delivered his ruling against them in in pretty unceremonious fashion — receiving their dismissal motion last night, and denying the motion this morning. The RIAA's unvarying M.O., when hit with counterclaims, is to make a motion to dismiss them. It did just that in one Tampa case, UMG v. Del Cid, but the judge upheld 5 of the 6 counterclaims. The RIAA quickly settled that one. When a new case came up in the same Tampa courthouse before the very same judge, and the same 5 counterclaims were leveled against the record companies, I opined that 'it is highly unlikely that the RIAA will make a motion to dismiss counterclaims,' since I knew they'd be risking sanctions if they did. Well I guess I underestimated the chutzpah — or the propensity for frivolous motion practice — of the RIAA lawyers, as they in essence thumbed their nose at the judge, making the dismissal motion anyway, telling District Judge Richard A. Lazzara that his earlier decision had been wrong. The judge wasted no time telling the record companies that he did not agree (PDF)."

Comments

Pfft...

[geminidomino]

Call me when Boyer refuses to settle and we finally get a decision on this.

Until then, BFD.

Re:Pfft...

[Nullav]

131.247.210.* - Guilty by association!

Re:Pfft...

[Hyppy]

24 significant bits does not a class B make

Opps

[Ceiynt]

Hi. I'm the judge in this courtroom. I told your ass to get out of here once. you didn't listen. You came back with the same complaint. Guess what happens. I deny any and all settlement offers you offer to the counter-claimer. I will make it pretty damn clear this time your crap will not be welcome in this courtroom again. Prepare for contempt processes. Oh ya, I'm gonna make sure they put you in the same cell as a guy who likes to steal car steroes.

Re:Opps

[infonography]

"...a guy who likes to steal car stereos?"

This is the RIAA, they will have much to talk about. Maybe they will;

a. Offer him a job.

b. Sue him for music related violations (stereo = music = more then one user = ???? = lawsuit)

I'm curious

[Tanman]

I'd like to see a statement by the judge or other qualified individuals detailing why they didn't get sanctioned for this (mostly for curiosity -- the legal process is obtuse and interesting). It seems like the RIAA lawyers took a big risk in submitting the same info to the same court.

Re:I'm curious

[Anonymous Coward]

I've known some lawyers who talked about the degree of animosity that exists between lawyers and judges.

A lawyer spends several decades suffering various forms of abuse and condescension at the hands of the judges he/she faces with every case ... then by the time their turn comes to sit on the bench, they are so thoroughly bitter and full of spite they simply can't wait to unload gallons of the same kind of poison on the next batch of lawyers who come in front of them.

Re:I'm curious

[Ungrounded Lightning]

IANAL but I'll take a guess.

The two items - ruling on the motion and imposing sanctions - though fallout from the same act by the plaintiff lawyers, are separate. I'd bet the judge issued the ruling quickly in the interest of justice, to spare the defendant additional delays and lawyer costs. Rule 11 sanctions, if the distinguished jurist decides to impose them, may be along later.

Given that there was a change in one of the counterclaims and an extra pleading by the RIAA, perhaps the judge doesn't think the motion was TOTALLY out-of-line. Or perhaps, now that he's given them some more rope, he's sitting back quietly while the RIAA's lawyers continue to demonstrate a pattern of abuse of process, in case they come up with some clearer examples. Since that's one of the counterclaims, perhaps the judge thinks a better sanction than spanking them early with Rule 11 (and perhaps deter their activities in THIS trial) is to add this (and any future frivolity) to the list of misdeeds when considering the amount to award on that claim.

Wouldn't justice be better served if they have to pay the price of their bullying to the defendant? B-)

Re:I'm curious

[KutuluWare]

NYCL's optimism not withstanding, lawyers getting sanctioned for misbehavior isn't nearly as commonplace as you would hope, or as the summary would suggest. It takes a lot for a judge to decide that a lawyer's behavior was so blatently illegal that they need to be sanctioned. Overall, I think that's a good thing, otherwise lawyers may be too concerned about sanctions and potentially ignore possible legal avenues that may benefit their client. In this case, the RIAA's lawyer's supporting memorandum is pretty ballsy to flat out tell the judge he was wrong, but lawyers do that kind of thing all the time. For example, that's basically the definition of an appeal -- "Judge, you screwed up, let me show you how with sufficient evidence to change your mind." If the law firm really did, in what passes for "good faith" in civil law, believe that the judge's prior ruling was flawed, they had every right to submit a motion saying so, with evidence, which they did.

I mean, look for much crap the SCO legal team has gotten away with without so much as a slap on the wrist (yet). And look how long it took Jack Thompson to get sanctioned for acting like a blatant lunatic.

--K

Re:I'm curious

[NewYorkCountryLawyer]

lawyers do that kind of thing all the time I disagree. Lawyers will occasionally, and very rarely, delicately 'respectfully take exception' to a ruling or respectfully call to the judge's attention something they feel he or she might have 'overlooked', but I have never seen a brief which simply tells a judge that the decision -- which he himself decided -- was "wrongly decided". Take a look at pages 28-30 of the brief, where they tell Judge Lazzara, that his prior decision was "wrongly decided", and tell me if you've ever seen anything so insulting to a judge.

Re:I'm curious

[NewYorkCountryLawyer]

And it was crazy to waste the judge's time with 28 pages of repetition from the prior motion papers. If they wanted to preserve their arguments legally, they should have put in 1 sentence 'incorporating by reference' the arguments which they'd made, and which the judge had rejected, in the earlier case. What they did here was flagrantly incompetent.

Re:I'm curious

[evanbd]

Wouldn't justice be better served if they have to pay the price of their bullying to the defendant? B-)

No. Pleasant as it might be to watch the RIAA get smacked down harder, justice is always best served by putting a stop to injustice at the first possible opportunity.

Re:I'm curious

[lord sibn]

Yes, but they are lawyers. By definition, they not only deserve it, they have *earned* it. ;)

Re:I'm curious

[BoChen456]

I've known some lawyers who talked about the degree of animosity that exists between lawyers and judges. A lawyer spends several decades suffering various forms of abuse and condescension at the hands of the judges he/she faces with every case ... then by the time their turn comes to sit on the bench, they are so thoroughly bitter and full of spite they simply can't wait to unload gallons of the same kind of poison on the next batch of lawyers who come in front of them. You know, this is just like the all-male high school I went to. The older kids would intimidate, harass and be generally cruel to the younger kids, and eventually those younger would become the older kids and get their turn to do the same thing.

Re:I'm curious

[houstonbofh]

Or perhaps, now that he's given them some more rope, he's sitting back quietly while the RIAA's lawyers continue to demonstrate a pattern of abuse of process, in case they come up with some clearer examples.

I would kiss a goat, full on the lips, just to watch the RIAA be found to be a vexatious litigant! http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vexatious_litigation or just google it.

Re:I'm curious

[Anonymous Coward]

What they need to learn is that the judge, not the accuser, speaks the verdict

Yes, but their interpretation of that statement is what's getting them in trouble. The judge, in their view, is the lowest-level employee of the legal system, which they have spent good money on to ensure that it acts in their best interests. They're trying to treat the judge as one of their employees ... one who clearly hasn't gotten the memo that explains that any claims they make are by definition correct. They feel ripped off ... all that good lobbyist money, and they get treated like this ? ... I mean, I wouldn't tolerate that kind of behavior from any other type of 'service' employee. So they're being patient, repeating the truth over and over, until it finally sinks in ...

Re:I'm curious

[JosKarith]

"What they did here was flagrantly incompetent. This surprises you? ;)" Yeah - I expected them to be fragrantly incontinent. Talk about taking the pi55...

In the End, It Doesn't Matter

[CWRUisTakingMyMoney]

The problem is, the RIAA can get sued and convicted into oblivion, but all the RIAA is is a shell corp for the big record companies. The record companies themselves won't have to answer for this, and if RIAA is legally forced under, the record companies will just make another shell corp to cover their asses. This will only truly matter when someone sues the record companies themselves.

Re:In the End, It Doesn't Matter

[Orange Crush]

The plantiffs in this case are "Alantic Recording Group, etc. et al" so it looks like the actual RIAA member company/companies are on the hook for this.

Re:In the End, It Doesn't Matter

[Skye16]

Very much so wrong. Look at who brought the suit the first time: UMG.

The individual record companies have to sue; the RIAA just does the legwork for "finding" who "made files available" and hands it off.

Re:In the End, It Doesn't Matter

[Tenebrousedge]

This has been answered by others, but it's worth noting that the reason why this doesn't involve the RIAA is because the RIAA doesn't hold the copyrights involved. It's beginning to seem like copyright law is unenforceable...

Re:In the End, It Doesn't Matter

[Sancho]

Copyright appears to be largely unenforceable on pseudo-anonymous networks, due in part to the difficulty of gathering evidence on these networks. This will only lead to the members of the RIAA buying stronger laws which either allow a suit for weaker evidence, or allow seizure of computer equipment in order to gather evidence of copyright infringement. In the latter case, such a law is already making its way through the congressional process.

Re:In the End, It Doesn't Matter

[Stanislav_J]

Copyright appears to be largely unenforceable on pseudo-anonymous networks, due in part to the difficulty of gathering evidence on these networks. This will only lead to the members of the RIAA buying stronger laws which either allow a suit for weaker evidence, or allow seizure of computer equipment in order to gather evidence of copyright infringement. In the latter case, such a law is already making its way through the congressional process.

And who is going to do the actual "seizing" of the equipment? Feds? Local gendarmes? (I can imagine that will go over big in some jurisdictions.....devoting time and manpower to seizing some geek's equipment for sharing music...) What happens if no infringing material is found? (A real possibility given some of the RIAA's other faux pas in the past.) Can the victim turn around and sue them? Will this be like the seizure/forfeiture laws under the War on Drugs in which they take your assets on the merest suspicion, then if you are not guilty, you have to jump through 197 legal hoops to even have the remotest hope of getting your stuff back?

I'm waiting for someone in guvmint to start making the argument that sharing copyrighted music is a terrorist act intended to undermine the economy of the U.S. Then they'd also get to use the Patriot Act, warrantless wiretapping, and all those other fun tools to nail file sharers to the wall.....Yes, postulating that scenario should by all rights be a sign of disturbed paranoia, but the way things are going.....

Re:In the End, It Doesn't Matter

[dargon]

Please don't give them any more lousy ideas, they come up with enough of them on their own, they don't need your help.

Re:In the End, It Doesn't Matter

[Trailer Trash]

These cases always involve the individual record companies.

Re:In the End, It Doesn't Matter

[monxrtr]

This will only lead to the members of the RIAA buying stronger laws which either allow a suit for weaker evidence, or allow seizure of computer equipment in order to gather evidence of copyright infringement. Good, let 'em try and do that as it will only lead to a total legal systemic meltdown, playing right into the hands of total copyright abolitionists. Governments have computers connected to the internet too. So too do businesses like the RIAA.

Remember, absolutely everything creative is copyrighted, and it would be extremely easy to open a floodgate of tens of millions of copyright trolls. This is why Congress will see the light sooner than later, because the RIAA business model mass adopted could and would literally shut down commerce in the US. Politicians will be exposed to the same liability as consumers.

The RIAA is *losing* because the laws are being fought with laws. And it's utter business suicide to be playing with $150,000 per violation statutory fines against 200,000,000 people who hate your guts.

You know how fucked the RIAA is going to be if they ever mistakenly copy somebody's critical commentary file and attempt to sue for that file? Or it will happen if one of their artists like Bob Dylan plagiarizes lyrics from a novel about the yakuza. All their computers are going to be seized and examined in countersuits. I'm surprised there isn't already a 20 year backlog on examination of RIAA computers from one defense to another. Hell, just routinely make countersuit motion for the seizure and examination of all computers used in the original gathering of evidence. Defense has a right to examine the programs for mistaken identity. And speedy trial requirement will eliminated 90% of the cases due to discovery backlogs on RIAA computer equipment. Governments copying the data of travelers entering the USA are going to have their computers seized for copyright infringement discovery purposes as well. Are you willing to let the US Government copy your files at $150,000 per file copied compensation?

Constitutional immunity for government agencies and businesses like the RIAA will be impossible. Congress will wise up and realize the more they attack the privacy of individual citizens the more they will be attacking their own privacy as well. And people like that have a helluva lot more dirty secrets and a helluva lot more assets to pay fines without declaring bankruptcy.

This is a matter of Civil Law which is already well beyond unconstitutional. Further strengthening unconstitutional law will just hasten the inevitable end, especially when every citizen can privately track isp addresses and embarrass politicians by exposing their children's downloading and internet surfing activities. At that time, such RIAA investigative practices will be shut down faster than you can say how to catch a pedofile.

The internet is a giant P2P program. Nothing can be seen, heard, tracked, or logged without by definition mass copying the entire internet. Allowing suits on weaker evidence will just open trillions and trillions and trillions of dollars of legal liability. The only way the RIAA could win is if the internet was shut down. And that's not going to happen when the GDP of business interests not the content industries dwarfs dying businesses like the RIAA.

Re:In the End, It Doesn't Matter

[marxmarv]

And who is going to do the actual "seizing" of the equipment? Feds? Local gendarmes? (I can imagine that will go over big in some jurisdictions.....devoting time and manpower to seizing some geek's equipment for sharing music...)

If the Miller case in Arizona is any guide, I imagine they'll just order you to bring your data in for imaging. An enabled secure delete facility may require some explanation, lest it be construed as destruction of evidence.

Your sig wins, by the way.

Re:In the End, It Doesn't Matter

[Eivind]

It is -certainly- unenforcable in a free state. (as in not a police state)

Copying a file is a utterly trivial operation with todays technology, to the point where Grandma will do it in a split-second without even thinking about it. It's -literally- something you can do (and typically do) by moving your fingers a few cm, pretty close to the smallest effort imaginable. Distributing a file, let's say by emailing it to a friend, is equally trivial and common.

Both are things you can do (and typically do) in your own home.

This single fact is (imho) the best argument against current copyright-legislation; by nessecity we need to EITHER accept that a huge part of copying is simply unenforcable (and undiscoverable), OR we need to enact a extreme police-state. (to the point where the state would -discover- that the file you email your girlfriend -today- is a picture that is copyright someone else whereas the one you sent yesterday was a photo you yourself took.)

This is -MUCH- to high a price to pay for an activity that causes no direct harm. It may cause -INDIRECT- harm in lessening intensives for creation of new works, the jury is still out on this, but it certainly causes no DIRECT harm. Nobody is any worse off 1 second -after- you email that mp3 to your girlfriend than they where 1 second -before- you did it.

We should stimulate creativity. We should even do it MORE than we do today. But the method currently employed, copyright, is simply obsolete.

Mass mailing don't work

[techpawn]

The same process you use to mass mail your legal complaints can not be used to file your legal responses. This is why fellas. This case is going to get messy *grabs popcorn*

Re:More pro-piracy bullshit

[DanWS6]

Agreed. The RIAA should be allowed to break the law and use illegal practices to bring all those horrible copyright infringer's to swift and brutal justice. The RIAA's clients are literally losing TRILLIONS of dollars to people who are worse than terrorists. Personally I think RIAA should be able to hire mercenaries to rid the earth of such scum.

Defendants not even asked!

[gnasher719]

That is fascinating. The judge got a motion from the RIAA to dismiss the defendant's counterclaims, and he didn't even bother to give the defendants a chance to reply! Instead he saved them the cost for their lawyers and rejected the RIAA's motion to dismiss without causing any work for the defendants. I just wonder how unusual that is.

Re:Defendants not even asked!

[LostCluster]

IANAL, but that almost defines "frivious." The judge didn't need to hear from the plantiffs (those targeted by the RIAA) because the motion to dismiss by the RIAA was so bad, and so close to one he's rejected already, he could supply the rejection logic himself.

As Keith Olbermann reminds viewers of "Countdown" regularly, the technical definition of "insanity" is trying the same thing repeatedly and expecting different results.

Re:Defendants not even asked!

[Wandering Wombat]

IANAT, but if that's really the definition of "frivious", my dictionary is missing a word.

Re:Defendants not even asked!

[RobBebop]

As Keith Olbermann reminds viewers of "Countdown" regularly, the technical definition of "insanity" is trying the same thing repeatedly and expecting different results.

I've seen that quote attributed to Ben Franklin, but I am sure that Olbermann could have very easily been the originator.

Re:Defendants not even asked!

[Anonymous Coward]

"...is trying the same thing repeatedly and expecting different results."

With almost limitless resources you can try the same tired old arguments with the hopes you will get a different result from someone asleep at the wheel -- the positive results of that one difference outweigh the penalties.

It's not insanity, it's strategy -- your resources beat the other's, it has nothing to do with the argument or strength thereof.

Re:Defendants not even asked!

[QMO]

. . .trying the same thing repeatedly and expecting different results That's also a very close approximation of the definition of chaos theory.

Re:Defendants not even asked!

[Chris Burke]

As Keith Olbermann reminds viewers of "Countdown" regularly, the technical definition of "insanity" is trying the same thing repeatedly and expecting different results.

That "definition" has always bothered me, as I would find those considered "sane" under that definition to be extremely crazy themselves.

How crazy would you have to be to think that your previous actions would have no impact on future attempts?

If you swung an axe at a door and made a small chip, which would be more insane: Thinking that the next or subsequent blow would put the blade entirely through the door, or thinking that you could swing the axe at the door all day and do nothing but make small cuts?

It is very rare in real life that a certain event has the "memoryless" property (i.e. the outcome is based only on that event, not on the outcome of any previous events). That's a special case, not the general rule.

Look at this case. They tried the same thing, and got a different result: Their motion was dismissed even more rapidly than before. If they keep trying this, it is highly unlikely that the outcome would be the same each time; eventually they would be found in contempt. Judges in particular do not often suffer from being "memoryless". :)

Re:Defendants not even asked!

[mlwmohawk]

As Keith Olbermann reminds viewers of "Countdown" regularly, the technical definition of "insanity" is trying the same thing repeatedly and expecting different results.

That isn't really a very good definition, unless everyone is insane. Even though coined by Benjamin Franklin, it completely defines many "normal" behaviors.

Rolling dice
Slot machines
Voting
Dating
Software Debugging
New Year's resolutions
Answering the phone

Re:Defendants not even asked!

[snowraver1]

Software Debugging - Where doing the same thing over and over gives you different answers. Leading cause of insanity.

Re:Defendants not even asked!

[DarkOx]

I don't know I do lots of those things expecting the same results.

Rolling dice -- I expect to get back some value between 1 and 6 randomly (usefull)

Slot machines -- I expect to lose a token (sometimes and surprised)

Voting -- I expect to cast a ballot and have an TINY impact on the election (usually works unless diebold manufactured the equipment)

Dating -- I expect to have a nice dinner and someone to talk too (hey I might even want to see her again)

Software Debugging -- I expect to get a headache ( and substantially reduce the proples with endcase in whatever code I was working on)

New Years resolutions -- I expect the people makeing them will fail ( I am certain mine are so unambious I can actually achive them)

Ansering the phone -- I expect on of my mates wants to do something fun this evening.

I have pretty reasonable expections for most of these things. I evaulate weather its worth doing any of them at any give time based on my expected outcome. Some like playing the slots I almost never to chose to do. Most of the others I do when I suits me, and I always expect the same outcome. Usualy I am right, sometime not. I would think most people who engague in these activites you mention have pretty good expecations of what will happen. They continue to do them because their is a precived gain in doing them.

Re:Defendants not even asked!

[Artifakt]

I'm perfectly trasmodic with antipipulation over 'frivious' myself. For a definition, how about "Frivious (Adj.): Any condition both frivolous and trivial.". Since those two words already have substantial but not complete overlap, frivious is very useful for excluding the borderline cases. Now if we just had a word, as the Germans do, for the overlap between sarcasm and irony. (Harlanellisonkeit).

Re:Defendants not even asked!

[mrbcs]

http://www.quotationspage.com/quote/26032.html Einstein... should've guessed that one ;-)

Re:Defendants not even asked!

[ikkonoishi]

If the door is chipped the state of the action is changed. You are no longer taking the same action, ie attacking an undamaged door. You are taking a new action attacking a damaged door.

Re:More pro-piracy bullshit

[houstonbofh]

(Quoted for when the OP is modded -1 Troll a few times...)
from your local friend of thieves always peddling his dubious services here at slashdot, where the people who make the movies we watch are scum, and the people who think the world owes them a living a welcome. Stop fucking stealing and you wont need the services of the ambulance chasing dick who submits all this biased bullshit.

I would submit that all the false positives that the RIAA has ensnared were not protected by being innocent. Defending yourself from a wrongful prosecution is very expensive in this country. A fact that the RIAA uses to its advantage.

I know it won't happen...

[hyades1]

...but if there's a supreme being out there somewhere, I'll agree to start praying to it or sacrificing cans of tuna on its altar or whatever the hell it wants (within reason, of course) if only, please, please, please, there's jail sentences for the bastards at the end of this affair.

Re:I know it won't happen...

[Adambomb]

...but if there's a supreme being out there somewhere, I'll agree to start praying to it or sacrificing cans of tuna on its altar or whatever the hell it wants I am already aware of such an entity, in its opinion.

Too bad it just sits there purring for the most part and is fuzzy, and not so big on the implementation side.

Re:I know it won't happen...

[D Ninja]

Queue: "I'm in ur courtrooms, denying ur lawyers."
Wish it was Caturday.

Re:More pro-piracy bullshit

[sm62704]

What's the matter, son, the judge upheld all the counterclaims against you? If you litigate as badly as you troll, you're in deep doo-doo.

Pop quiz for you litigation buffs out there

[NewYorkCountryLawyer]

For you litigation buffs out there, let's take a quiz.

The facts.

A lawyer just filed a 30-page brief in which he (a) devoted 28 pages to repeating the same arguments he had made in a motion that was decided less than 8 months earlier, and (b) devoted 3 pages to telling the judge that his previous ruling was "wrongly decided".

Question #1

What will happen?
(a) The lawyer will win the motion.
(b) The lawyer will lose the motion.
(c) The lawyer will have to find a new line of work.
(d) Both (b) and (c)

Question #2

If you are the client who pays lawyers to do things like that you are
(a) A smart businessperson
(b) A moron
(c) A fool
(d) Both (b) and (c)

Re:Pop quiz for you litigation buffs out there

[gnasher719]

You forgot:

Question #3: You bill your clients

(a) a small number of hours for the three new pages
(b) a huge number of hours for writing the same 28 pages again
(c) cost of copying 28 pages
(d) all of the above?

Re:Pop quiz for you litigation buffs out there

[Anonymous Coward]

Exactly. Judges, for the most part, are not idiots - and big city lawyers who roll into smaller jurisdictions often forget who runs the show.

Re:Pop quiz for you litigation buffs out there

[NewYorkCountryLawyer]

What are "Rule 11 Sanctions?" Rule 11 of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure prohibits "frivolous" conduct by attorneys. This was about as "frivolous" as it gets.

Re:Pop quiz for you litigation buffs out there

[slashname3]

It's a trick question!

The actual answer in all cases is (e).

(e) The lawyer gets to bill an excessive amount for generating some paper work and having lunch with the judge. He then goes to his $2.4 million dollar home in his brand new BMW and sleep with his trophy wife and later on in the week sleep with his mistress.

Lawyer's don't care if their motions are granted or not, they only care if they can bill for the time.

Re:Pop quiz for you litigation buffs out there

[Kjella]

(c) cost of copying 28 pages Billing at cost? Epic fail. And you gave away three pages for free, double epic fail. This also invalidates the best answer, so it should read:

(c) cost of copying 31 pages, if the copies had been scribed on gold leaves by tibetan monks

Re:Pop quiz for you litigation buffs out there

[NewYorkCountryLawyer]

This one made my day.
Thanks ! Don't thank me.

Thank this guy. He provides me with all my best material.

Re:Pop quiz for you litigation buffs out there

[hairykrishna]

You;re still thinking small. Where's the travel claim? Maybe if you were to hand deliver the to the monks...

Re:Pop quiz for you litigation buffs out there

[NewYorkCountryLawyer]

I do have the trophy wife, but she's been with me since long before I became a lawyer, since back in the days when I was just an argumentative amateur. So would you say you were arguing in your spare time? Yes, it's been a part of my personality since the earliest days, long before I ever went near a law school. I love a good argument. I trust argument more than I trust consensus; it's more likely to get us closer to the truth. Which is of course why I immediately felt at home on Slashdot.

Re:Pop quiz for you litigation buffs out there

[NewYorkCountryLawyer]

I trust argument more than I trust consensus; it's more likely to get us closer to the truth. No it isn't. Yes it is.

Re:Pop quiz for you litigation buffs out there

[Chris Burke]

Ding!

Good day!

Who?

[TubeSteak]

Does "ATLANTIC RECORDING CORP., etc., et al.," (the people being countersued) include the RIAA & RIAA member companies?

Or did you just use "RIAA" in the same (wrong) way that frequently happens around here.

Re:Who?

[NewYorkCountryLawyer]

The RIAA doesn't own any copyrights, the member companies do. So all legal filings have to come on behalf of the actual copyright holder (ie ATLANTIC RECORDING CORP). But it is the RIAA performing the investigations, making settlement offers, and (as I understand it) even employing the attorneys who litigate the cases, at least initially. So yes, as a matter of legal record, it is ATLANTIC RECORDING CORP being represented in court, but as a practical matter it is the RIAA doing so on behalf of all their member companies . Everything you said is correct except for the italicized portion. The RIAA has hundreds of member companies. The ONLY ones participating in the litigation campaign are the Big Four (EMI, Warner, SONY BMG, and Vivendi/Universal) a couple of dozen of their affiliates. None of the other RIAA members are participating. Which makes me wonder whether it's really just the Big Four using the RIAA as a front.

Will this judge get more cases?

[gnasher719]

Just wondering: Since this is Judge Lazzara's second case already, I would think that he now knows more about the subject than your average judge, so it would only make sense to let him handle whatever over similar cases come anywhere near his court. Does the judicial system work that way, giving judges similar cases where possible, or are the cases handled by a random judge?

Re:Will this judge get more cases?

[LostCluster]

IANAL, and this can vary from courthouse to courthouse, but the typical MO is for them to assign cases truely randomly... which means the odds are against the same judge getting the same plantiff twice, unless that plantiff happens to be lawsuit-happy and rolls the dice / spins the wheel / calls Rnd(0) so many times that they draw the same judge. Then, they better change up their legal plans or face their nonsense not working for a second time happened here.

Enough already!!!

[Anonymous Coward]

Every other article on any tech website is about the copyright abuse, especially by the *AA. How much will it take for people to actually stop buying CDs and stop feeding and outdated business model?
http://www.wired.com/entertainment/music/magazine/16-01/ff_byrne

Isn't that a reflex amongst corporate lawyers?

[91degrees]

It seems like an automated system. I think the RIAA's legal team has been replaced by a server farm.

Re:Isn't that a reflex amongst corporate lawyers?

[prockcore]

Maybe the RIAA could make the claim that it wasn't them that filed the papers, but a neighbor using their unsecured wifi?

Re:Isn't that a reflex amongst corporate lawyers?

[slashname3]

They have been using a specially modified version of Eliza to generate the motions. They had a team of lawyers file the first couple then simply started up the simulation and it is not filing all the paperwork. This is eventually going to cause a problem when they are asked where the programs law degree is from.

Re:Isn't that a reflex amongst corporate lawyers?

[oahazmatt]

Can you imagine a Beowulf cluster of RIAA lawyers?

Re:chutzpah?

[nuzak]

> Could the lawyers involved be disbarred?

No.

> Could anybody actually see the inside of a cell over this?

No.

Not even sanctions. Really. Seriously, people, I know you've all been whipped into a frenzy and want to see the public executions of every spouse and child of every clerk and paralegal of every law firm who's ever done business with the RIAA, but all that happened was that the plaintiffs made a useless motion, and the judge gave it the due consideration it deserved, which was nothing. Trust me when I say that no baby seals were clubbed in the process.

If anything, UMG should be pissed that their legal team phoned it in when it came to this motion. These are pretty serious counterclaims and they don't appear to be taking them seriously. Hubris does that I guess.

Re:More pro-piracy bullshit

[slashname3]

You are correct. Innocence is no defense. While you may be presumed innocent until proven guilty the simple fact that you have been pulled into court before a judge and charged with a crime leaves a an indelible stench of guilt on you.

I recently listened to a defense attorney spend considerable time schooling potential members of a jury in the difference between innocence and not guilt. He apparently was going for the not guilty verdict even though his client participated in the car jacking willingly. Most amazing speech I had heard in a long time. I think he was actually going to argue that his client just went along due to peer pressure and wanted to fit in.

I learned a long time ago that in the court room the judge and attorneys involved are not interested in the truth, the facts, or with dispensing justice. They are there to tell a story and put on an act to convince the jury that their side is telling a better story than the other side.

It reminds me a lot of survivor at the end where the remaining contestants tell a story to convince everyone in the jury to vote them the money.

IANAL, but...

[jd]

(yeah, all posts are, so what's new?)

First, I think the RIAA lawyers are probably doing nothing different from any lawyer - trying to get as many suits dismissed as possible, so they only have to argue the smallest subset possible. I can understand such a philosophy, when time is money, there's a pressure to get quick results, judgements are worse publicity than accusations, and so on. That is probably more a function of the legal system and the American attitude to high-pressure living/working than the RIAA.

Second, if a motion is frivolous, the judge should be doing more than just wagging a finger. Abuse of legitimate procedures devalues those procedures for others, as it increases the likelihood of judges in future regarding all such motions in a more hostile light. The judicial system does not just have a responsibility for those who stand before it today, but a responsibility for all who may ever stand before it, which means that there should be subtle encouragement of motions which are plausible (even if they are ultimately dismissed) and an unsubtle discouragement of motions which cannot possibly be construed as reasonable.

It would be interesting if the courts had greater powers (within reasonable bounds) to deal with contempt of court and any other abuse of court procedures, and a greater willingness to use those powers when lawyers or clients go beyond mere over-enthusiasm to being out of control. It wouldn't need to be severe. A compulsary psychiatric evaluation would be interesting, as it conveys all kinds of messages (real and imagined) about those who try to twist things.

I also think that some sort of staggered system, where you have a first round of aggressive fact-finding that feeds into a second round trial system, would help avoid the problem, the idea being that dismissal or whatever doesn't have any meaning until after the facts have been established, and accusatory systems are not very good at establishing facts, they're too busy constructing theories, but fact-finding missions are very bad at establishing context. Hence the need for both in a way that doesn't lend one to distract from the other.

The SCO/IBM case demonstrates a lot of what I'm talking about - a lot of the hold-ups and confusion was caused by wild speculation and insinuation, a lot of the useful stuff was done by establishing the groundwork, and all of this was before any actual trial had taken place. It would seem to follow that tuning the system according to experiences of what has been effective is better than maintaining a multi-millenia-old method that has acquired a lot of cruft and could do with some refactoring and bugfixing.

Re:More pro-piracy bullshit

[n dot l]

Personally I think RIAA should be able to hire mercenaries to rid the earth of such scum. Are you kidding? Comparing them to terrorists? Mere terrorists?! You want us to use mercenaries?! Christ, next thing you'll be wanting us to liberate them from their evil P2P overlords, or reform them, or stop antagonizing them by meddling in their culture, or something.

No, these scum are far worse than terrorists; they are a plague, an infectious disease that destroys all it touches. Unrelenting, incurable. Even the courts are at their mercy. Mercenaries are not enough, here. Entire armies are insufficient. Not even the Spanish Inquisition (which nobody expects), could handle this. No, they must be wiped out from orbit, with nukes. It's the only way to be sure.

Signed,
The RIAA:
Creators of the Culture,
Bearers of the Truth,
Defenders of the Civilization,
Champions of Liberty,
Dearer than Life Itself,
Dread Rulers of the Abyss (in a good way, we assure you),
Awesome Enough to Have Many Many Titles,
Your Beloved Content-Owning Overlords.

Re:More pro-piracy bullshit

[spun]

You wouldn't perchance be that certain talentless hack of a lawyer that NYCL has humiliated before, would you? Maybe you weren't cut out to be a lawyer, you know I hear KFC is hiring.

Re:More pro-piracy bullshit

[snowraver1]

I learned a long time ago that in the court room the judge and attorneys involved are not interested in the truth, the facts, or with dispensing justice. They are there to tell a story and put on an act to convince the jury that their side is telling a better story than the other side.

Not quite, the Lawyer and Procecutor are each telling thier side. The prosecutor goes first and tries to make the defendant seem like the most vile person ever to walk the earth. Then it's the Lawyer's turn to make the defendant look like an angel and to make the procesutor look like he doesn't know anything.

Many people at this point would think that this is silly, and nothing more than a show. It was always put to me this way: It's not a lawyers job to determine if thier client is innocent or not, that is the judge/jury's job. The lawyers job is to put the defendant in the best possible light, and to ensure that a fair trial is being conducted.

Re:More pro-piracy bullshit

[Spy der Mann]

I learned a long time ago that in the court room the judge and attorneys involved are not interested in the truth, the facts, or with dispensing justice. They are there to tell a story and put on an act to convince the jury that their side is telling a better story than the other side.

One movie that describes this perfectly, is "my cousin vinny". In the movie, Ralph Macchio of Karate Kid interprets a teenager who just happened to buy something at a store where 5 minutes later the clerk was shot.

The district attorney hired a wonderful lawyer that moved the hearts and minds of everyone. Fortunately, the kid's cousin, Vinny, the most inefficient lawyer on earth, happened to save the day by presenting the facts to the jury (and add a lot of fun with his irreverence).

One of my favorite movies, btw.

Preaching to the Choir

[grahamd0]

We on Slashdot already quit buying CDs.

The masses don't read tech sites, nor are they aware of the RIAA, nor would most of them care if they did.

Re:Preaching to the Choir

[UncleTogie]

The masses don't read tech sites, nor are they aware of the RIAA, nor would most of them care if they did.

All the more reason for we geeks to give 'em the answers in a format they can understand. I do it all the time here at the shop. They go away informed, a certain RIAA member loses PC sales over it, and life is good!

Re:More pro-piracy bullshit

[Mr Abstracto]

Why does a deaf guy need headphones?

Re:More pro-piracy bullshit

[Anonymous Coward]

How about one better. There are probably dozens of ways to do this, I would do with with Windows Vista Premium / Ultimate 64bit and an xbox 360. But you can do it with Apple TV, myth et al. I would like to load all of my DVDs onto 1 server and just stream that shit to my tv. Fuck opening DVD cases. It would be much better to leisurely watch all of MASH, or Dead Like Me, or whatever 1 or two episodes when the mood strikes, and not having to remember which episode/disc I was on. And while I'm at it, the NFL doesn't provide a DVD yearbook for each team (apparently they hate money), but think of the possiblity of that, a whole lifes worth of passive entertainment and slice of culture really on one server at the touch of a remote. The RI/MPAA says that's illegal and I should be punished. For using technology that already not only exists but is trivial to setup (aside from the nusiance of DVD ripping, which itself could be far less of a mess) my livelyhood, my future should be in jeopardy? This is how market forces are supposed to work? To prevent the embracing of wealth and progress, largely for sake of the poor math skills and emotional convenience of people who obviously don't know how to manage their businesses?

The only just, sanction as far as I'm concerned, when such entities as the media companies overstep their bounds is to have the disputed properties placed in the public domain. The use of the works can still be tracked, and the companies that lost their rights to control the works can still be on the hook for all the royalty payments. If they're going to endanger people's livelyhood with their mistakes, it's only fair that their own hangs in the balance.

Re:chutzpah?

[Anonymous Coward]

Disbarred, NO

Sanctioned, Yes

Actual misbehavior by lawyers and their clients is decidedly unfunny. That is the message of Rule 11, Federal Rules of Civil Procedure. This is the law that obligates the federal courts to impose sanctions on lawyers and clients who file and pursue lawsuits in unreasonable ways. Rule 11 breaks with precedent that required proof of bad faith to trigger sanctions. Unreasonableness is a lighter trigger that has proven beneficial to persons burdened by lawyer and client misbehavior. By the way, sanctions is legal terminology for getting your expenses back in some degree from an attorney or party who did you wrong in a lawsuit.

WHAT REMEDY RULE 11 PROVIDES

Rule 11 prescribes sanctions for certain basic misdeeds: (1) the filing of a frivolous suit or document; (2) the filing of a document or lawsuit for an improper purpose; (3) actions that needlessly increase the cost or length of litigation.

Relevant parts of the rule are these:

The signature of an attorney or party constitutes a certificate by the signer that the signer has read the pleading, motion, or other paper; that to the best of the signer's knowledge, information, and belief formed after reasonable inquiry it is well grounded in fact and is warranted by existing law or a good faith argument for the extension, modification, or reversal of existing law, and that it is not interposed for any improper purpose, such as to harass or to cause unnecessary delay or needless increase in the cost of litigation... If a pleading, motion, or other paper is signed in violation of this rule, the court, upon motion or upon its own initiative, shall impose upon the person who signed it, a represented party, or both, an appropriate sanction, which may include an order to pay the other party or parties the amount of the reasonable expenses incurred because of the filing of the pleading, motion, or other paper, including a reasonable attorney's fee (emphasis added).

Sanctions may apply against an attorney, the client, or both; therefore, we have adopted the collective convention, attorney/client.

Re:More pro-piracy bullshit

[Lumpy]

You missed the update. The RIAA and poor recording artists are losing Quadrillions of dollars a second. In fact it's so bad that bands are now resorting to cannibalism. Metallica Ate DEO's drummer and bass guitarist. and Nobody has seen Robert Palmer for a few weeks.

Re:More pro-piracy bullshit

[Eudial]

You wouldn't steal a handbag!
You wouldn't steal a car!
You wouldn't steal a baby!
You wouldn't shoot a policeman, and then steal his helmet!
You wouldn't go to the toilet in his helmet, and send it to the policeman's grieving widow, and then steal it again!

The IT crowd is funneh

Re:Not unsual at all.

[NewYorkCountryLawyer]

If PACER is at one end of objectivity, NYCL has raced past Groklaw to reside at the other. Guilty as charged. I have never professed or pretended to have "objectivity" towards the RIAA's litigation campaign. I hate the ground they walk upon. My blog is called "Recording Industry vs. The People", it starts off "About the RIAA's attempt to monopolize digital music by redefining copyright law, through the commencement of tens of thousands of extortionate lawsuits against ordinary working people.", and later on states "We established this site to collect and share information about the wave of sham "copyright infringement" lawsuits brought by four large record companies to abuse the American judicial system, distort copyright law, and frighten ordinary working people and their children." Does that sound some like someone trying to pass himself off as "objective"?

NYCL's postings all drip with snarky schadenfreude On that I can't answer you. I don't what "snarky" means and I don't know what "schadenfreude" is. But I can tell you, with a fair amount of certainty, that my postings rarely, if ever, "drip".

And thank you for mentioning me in the same breath as PACER and Groklaw.

Re:More pro-piracy bullshit

[Capt.DrumkenBum]

In the words of the great philosopher, "Nuke 'em till they glow. Then shoot 'em in the dark."
Words to live by.

Re:More pro-piracy bullshit

[DJProtoss]

Metallica Ate DEO's drummer and bass guitarist. and Nobody has seen Robert Palmer for a few weeks. You make these sound like bad things

Re:More pro-piracy bullshit

[ehrichweiss]

I know you're being funny but FYI, Robert Palmer, who sang "Addicted to Love", died in 2003.

Re:More pro-piracy bullshit

[Aranykai]

My mom always called that "selective hearing". Apparently, all the men in the family suffer from it severely.

Re:Not unsual at all.

[man_ls]

He means your posts exude smug epicaricacy. I don't necessarily agree, but that's the gist of it.

Re:More pro-piracy bullshit

[houstonbofh]

A friend of mine (yes he is an attorney, but I like him anyway) described our legal system accurately. You line up both sides and through money at each other until one side gives up. He is amazing at his job...

Re:More pro-piracy bullshit

[sconeu]

Given that Gwynne died in 1993, I'd guess he wasn't immortal.

Re:Not unsual at all.

[NewYorkCountryLawyer]

He means your posts exude smug epicaricacy. I don't necessarily agree, but that's the gist of it. Thanks for the clarification. I don't know why he couldn't say it in plain English like you did.

Well if I'm accused of feeling pleasure over the RIAA's misfortune, I am guilty as charged.

Re:Oops

[el americano]

"Consequently, because the Court has previously resolved all of the issues raised in Plaintiffs' motion to dismiss, and because the Court is not convinced that its prior decision was wrong, the Court needs no response from Defendant and the motion is due to be denied."

Translation: Not this shit again.

Re:More pro-piracy bullshit

[Anonymous Coward]

I'd really like to see a version of that 'commercial' where it goes like this:

You wouldn't steal a handbag! (Show guy grabing handbag, women freaking out)

You wouldn't steal a dvd (show guy stealing dvd, shop owner freaking out)

You wouldn't steal a car (etc)
...BUT if you could duplicate them for free without anyone losing anything... you WOULD! (show guy pulling 'magic duplicator' from pocket, point it at car, ::poof::, second car appears. Guy gets into duplicate, drives off. Car dealer starts to run after him, then notices he's not missing any cars.)

(repeat similar with the other items, in reverse order- dvd, handbag. In each case, the person who was pissed off before is no longer,because they aren't missing anything.)

Re:More pro-piracy bullshit

[Gewalt]

It takes years of training to master that skill.

Re:More pro-piracy bullshit

[Kingrames]

Well, there can be only one.

Oh, come on

[commodoresloat]

"Frivious" is a perfectly cromulent word!

Re:More pro-piracy bullshit

[scatters]

That's a coincidence because Peter Gabriel also had his servers stolen :) Since he's not exactly a favourite child of the RIAA, I suspect their hand in it.

"I would say to artists at the beginning of their career in this business: own your name, own your website, own your rights. There's a future with a record business, which I think does a great job sometimes, but as a service industry and not as owners of creative talent. But it's only if artists are smart enough, which traditionally we've never been, to act together and to work together that we're going to see that sort of future." (Peter Gabriel speaking at the BT Digital Music Awards in 2006)

Re:Oops

[Eivind]

It's hardly a smart move to annoy the judge. This is a pretty accurately aimed footbullet.

Re:Oops

[MacWiz]

"Hardly a smart move" could be the RIAA's secret motto.

Re:More pro-piracy bullshit

[hey!]

The problem is that the analogy is fundamentally broken. One way or the other, it only addresses the superficial consequences of making copies.

Imagine you did have a 'magic duplicator'. It's not true that use of this would be harmless.

It wouldn't harm the owner of the car. It would harm the people who make a living assembling the car from its design, who make a living advertising, promoting and selling the car. They'd have to find other jobs.

It would also remove the current structure which pays the designers of the car. And so, in absence of an alternative method of paying, it harms them too. Granted when we talk about music, most people in this position don't make any money out of the system. And even if the system could be reformed so that they all can eke out aliving, it is so fabulously expensive with respect to the amount it pays them it's very nearly indefensible.

The morality of copying depends on whether you think that the market will provide alternatives for creators in the absence of selling copies.

Re:More pro-piracy bullshit

[paving-slab]

...It would harm the people who make a living assembling the car...

Why the hell would people be assembling the car if there was a magic duplicator?

Do you imagine a band records each cd seperately?

...who make a living advertising, promoting and selling the car. They'd have to find other jobs...

Your right, that wouldn't be fair. Obviously even though their jobs are redundant progress should be halted so they can continue to make a living without the hassle of retraining.

Re:More pro-piracy bullshit

[Duhavid]

But if such a duplicator existed, there would be far fewer people making a living assembling a car from a design. Most of them would still have to find another job.

The designers would probably move upscale, providing more unique cars, creating one real model, then duplicating a small ( or large, depending on his/her/its tastes, etc ) number of duplicates, selling them relatively cheaply, depending on the requirements of the duplicator.

Good points, though.