ABA Judges Get an Earful About RIAA Litigations

NewYorkCountryLawyer writes "I was afforded the opportunity to write for a slightly different audience — the judges who belong to the Judicial Division of the American Bar Association. I was invited by the The Judges Journal, their quarterly publication, to do a piece on the RIAA litigations for the ABA's Summer 2008 'Equal Access to Justice' issue. What I came up with was 'Large Recording Companies vs. The Defenseless: Some Common Sense Solutions to the Challenges of the RIAA Litigations,' in which I describe the unfairness of these cases and make 15 suggestions as to how the courts could level the playing field. I'm hoping the judges mod my article '+5 Insightful,' but I'd settle for '+3 Informative.' Here is the actual article (PDF). (If anyone out there can send me a decent HTML version of it, I'll run that one up the flagpole as well.)" Wired is helping to spread the word on Ray's article.

Comments

All that needs to be said

[Anonymous Coward]

You are a hero.

Re:All that needs to be said

[Maximalist]

Well, everybody has to make money. As a lawyer who has had a couple of RIAA cases referred my way, I can honestly say that there is no upside at all to taking the cases and doing any fighting in court. The costs of doing discovery and filing responses in the court will add up quickly enough that the defendants better option is just to pay the settlement and be done with it.

Even if there was a chance that the defendant would prevail, they'd be in a deeper hole than if they settled. And the RIAA has demonstrated that they'll fight an award of attorney's fees for a defendant, making any eventual payout years down the pike.

If I didn't have student loans that needed regular payments, and the ordinary costs of living, taking on one of these cases and fighting tooth and nail seems like a worthwhile thing to do. But I can't afford to do it.

We should be glad that NYCL is fighting this fight, and God bless whoever is paying him (or if he's been successful enough in his practice up to this point to be bankrolling it himself.)

Thank you for your efforts.

[jx100]

They are greatly appreciated.

Re:Thank you for your efforts.

[im_thatoneguy]

I would say the larger the settlement the less deterent it is.

If I were charged $50 per time getting caught I would probably be petrified. If I were charged $10,000,000,000 per time I would just view it like dieing "hopefully it won't happen but if it does it's pretty much over."

The lower the fine the more likely they are to be able to pass sweeping legislation which makes it easier to charge people. If downloading were like parking tickets and as easily enforceable then I think you see a much larger drop in piracy than threatening to sue millions of dollars.

It's like "disaster syndrome" your brain can't quantify the damages so it just gives up and ignores it all together. My brain can perfectly understand $50 and its effect on my wallet.

Re:Question for NYCL...

[NewYorkCountryLawyer]

My understanding is that the RIAA downloads from their victims, then sues them for making those files available.

That's exactly right. Pretty pathetic, isn't it?

Re:Well done

[mrchaotica]

Yeah, it's called "being a good attorney".

No, it's really fucking not! Attorneys are also "officers of the court," and have the responsibility and obligation to uphold proper court procedure. The RIAA's lawyers are absolutely failing in their duty to the court, and should be sanctioned for it!