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Oregon Judge Says RIAA Made 'Honest Mistake,' Allows Subpoena
NewYorkCountryLawyer writes "In Arista v. Does 1-17, the RIAA's case targeting students at the University of Oregon, the Oregon Attorney General's motion to quash the RIAA's subpoena — pending for about a year — has reached a perplexing conclusion. The Court agreed with the University that the subpoena, as worded, imposed an undue burden on the University by requiring it to produce 'sufficient information to identify alleged infringers,' which would have required the University to 'conduct an investigation,' but then allowed the RIAA to subpoena the identities of 'persons associated by dorm room occupancy or username with the 17 IP addresses listed' even though those people may be completely innocent. In his 8-page decision (PDF), the Judge also 'presumed' the RIAA lawyers' misrepresentations were an 'honest mistake,' made no reference at all to the fact, pointed out by the Attorney General, that the RIAA investigators (Safenet, formerly MediaSentry) were not licensed, rejected all of the AG's privacy arguments under both state and federal law, and rejected the AG's request for discovery into the RIAA's investigative tactics."
Defending a lawsuit is never innocent. Even if you don't owe them anything, you actually have to prove it. The RIAA will trot our "experts" who will testify that their "evidence" shows you are likely to have infringed copyright. To fight this you at the very least need to pay a good lawyer, and will probably need some experts of your own. Even if you have the skills to represent yourself, you can't recover the cost of your own time spent on this [IANAL but I think that the lawyer's guild got a law passed so that people who represent themselves can't collect attorney's fees if they win]. Now add to this the emotional stress of fighting a deep-pocketed corporation and dealing with the judicial system, and you'll see that there's nothing "easy" about being sued.
Do you know if this is this an appealable order? Can they go anywhere from here, or are they stuck with this judge?
Is there any way to point out to this judge that there's a pattern of conduct here? Or was that in the brief and ignored by the judge? (I think I read these papers, but it was quite a while ago.)
I'm just curious, because it seems like the judge has decided that, whatever the law says, this matter is a waste of their time so they'll give the RIAA whatever they want and ignore the law to get it off their desk, which is truly disheartening.
I wish this judge would have a change of heart and realize what's going on here like the one who set aside the $222k verdict had.
I had exactly the same thought. Either the judge isn't mentally in this century, or he's been paid some amount or favor to come to this conclusion.
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> or is it hard to believe that this and other judges are highly influenced by their own prejudices, to the point that they issue rulings that are legally unsound?
It's just you. The other day, there was a Supreme Court decision that said there was 'consensus' in the law that child rape not be punishable by death. Then someone pointed out that there was, in fact such a law. They did not reconsider their decision and the dissenters pointed out that they didn't believe that the decision had been based on any such consensus in the first place, so it was pointless to reconsider.
A while back, we had the $222k verdict set aside because the judge realized that he had, in fact, ignored important precedents (which the RIAA failed to notify him of).
In this case, if I had to guess, the judge doesn't understand why the discovery orders are so important to the defense and simply wants to get through this preliminary crap and to the 'real' case. Not knowing the RIAA, he apparently doesn't realize that they plan to drop their case once they have this discovery and send out settlement letters.
We on Slashdot know the RIAA better than most judges do because we hear about all their cases. Most judges are meeting the RIAA for the first time.
How many times has SCO been given the benefit of the doubt, after all? While we were reading dozens of ridiculous proclamations from them every day, Judge Kimball was busy with real work and it took him a while to catch on to the fact that they were shysters. And once he caught on, they fled his court to get bankruptcy protection. It's been what? Four years? Five? And SCO's case is STILL going on!
So no, it's not hard for me to believe that a judge would presume that a party was acting in good faith, contrary to all evidence, until it was personally demonstrated to them what kind of cock-smoking teabaggers the RIAA employs. After all, remember how many times SCO claimed that IBM was acting underhanded early on? I'm glad the judge didn't just take SCO's word for things. The judge waited to figure out for himself that SCO was, in fact, the cock-smoking teabagger so that he could deal with things appropriately.
The annoying part is that it usually takes the judges a while to realize this, and shysters like SCO & the RIAA make sure they're in a different court by then, whether they have to drop & refile their case or seek bankruptcy protection.
The University is moving to quash the subpoena; it is not a party to the action. As such, I don't believe that it has standing to make a motion regarding the substance of the litigation itself. In short, the University is watching out for its own interests, but that's because the rules prevent it from watching out for the interests of others.
A NYC lawyer blogs. http://www.chuangblog.com/
Can this be appealed at all? Obviously innocent people are going to be thrown under the RIAA bus. When so much damage can be done by a subpoena, and many important factors aren't being considered, this can't be left to just the discretion of one clueless judge.
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
The decision was issued by a federal judge, who is appointed for life. That's a pretty sweet gig and I doubt they would be swayed by only money, as the penalty for bribery is very severe.
The long and the short of it is that the decision addressed the University's motion to quash the subpoena. The Judge granted the motion to quash, and allowed the plaintiff to file a more limited subpoena. There was no harm and no foul (aside from legal fees) from the overly-broad initial subpoena.
If there was a violation of law regarding private investigators, that's a matter for the state Attorney General to prosecute. A federal judge cannot enforce state law by himself in a lawsuit involving private individuals. Perhaps the state has an interest in not pursuing the claim that would be frustrated if a federal court asserted a state right (the prerogative to enforce its own laws) on the state's behalf.
You may be surprised to know that illegally-obtained evidence can be used in civil trials. The evidence can be admitted, and it's up to the defendants to file counterclaims for the violation of laws. That's when the state AG will get involved, hopefully, and make the RIAA machine responsible for its illegal investigators.
The decision was limited to a very narrow issue regarding a subpoena. RIAA made admissions that limited the scope of the subpoena. The judge found the reduced scope acceptable, so he dismissed the initial subpoena and invited RIAA to file a subpoena of proper scope.
A NYC lawyer blogs. http://www.chuangblog.com/
How much did this judge get paid for his decision? Because there's no way an honest man could've come to such a conclusion.
The judge likely got paid nothing. Bribes are too obvious and easy to trace. Don't forget, the RIAA/Media Sentry do investigations for a living. They also had, what, a year? A lot of dirt can be dug up in a year. It's quite possible that the RIAA/Media Sentry lawyers and/or private investigators pretexted or pressured sources to obtain the judges' internet and phone records, copies of his credit card charges, and even taken a look at his family too.
Maybe they found one of the judges' children or grandchildren had used P2P to illegally share copyrighted material without permission. Maybe the judge had some charges on his plastic at a strip club. Bribed people will flip on the briber if pressured. Those acting to keep secret their own or loved ones' indiscretions are much more reliable and likely to keep quiet, and that kind of pressure much harder to prove.
Cheers!
Strat
Progressivism (aka US 'Liberalism'): Ideas so good they need a police/surveillance-state to enforce.
I'm sorry if I offended you. I totally understand that you are not an apologist for the entire legal system. I just marvel at your tenacity. As for my disheatened state being a luxury, as a citizen of another country, I can do very little to influence outcomes in the US (other than offer opinions in forums like this). At home (in Australia) however, I am slightly more involved in issues that I believe in.
Good luck to you and all like you.
I don't know about anyone else, but in the dorms where I go to college, you're assigned a different IP address every single time you log on. Is there anything I'm missing that would actually give them enough information to identify someone with?
The tenor of the motion was that they were looking out for the University's interests rather than those of the students.
Unfortunate, but not surprising given the relatively low value that many universities place upon their undergraduates in general these days (and especially individual undergraduates...just another brick in the wall to them when they have 20K+ attending their school). They may care about undergraduates in the aggregate, as in what percentage of the brightest and most promising freshmen they are attracting, but undergraduates don't generally donate large sums of money to the university endowment or help research professors secure grant money or publish lots of peer reviewed academic papers (how can they? they are only undergraduates). Individual undergraduates might get better treatment depending upon how wealthy or famous their family is and whether or not they are members of the corporate elite or the political class, but if you are not the scion of a wealthy or powerful family then forget about the university going out of its way to assist you (particularly in legal matters that might cost the university lots of money). They would rather throw you to the wolves than pony up money and resources to protect you from litigation. At least, this is how it seems these days. Everyone is so afraid of getting sued that if it doesn't protect their own skin they just roll over and do what the opposing attorneys want in exchange for not getting sued...its the lawsuit society and seems like it is only getting worse. I suppose that will end this rant for now, but surely I cannot be alone here and other people have experienced similar things or drawn similar conclusions based upon what we read in the news.
I just wanted to make it clear that I'm neither unaware of, nor afraid to criticize, the failings of a system that could allow a decision like that to be generated
You could not be so unafraid to criticize a judge in Australia. Just check this response on one of the Brisbane Times blogs http://blogs.brisbanetimes.com.au/bluntinstrument/archives/2008/07/post_1.html JB: Actually yr right about me forgetting to unload on the majesty of the Law. I should have. Although, without a First Amendment we are much more constrained in the criticism we can make of the bench. Contempt of Court applies swiftly and mercilessly.
You can also be given jail time here for refusing to answer questions from the Australian Building and Construction Commissioner
If you refuse to attend an ABCC interview, or if you refuse to answer questions, you face six months' jail.
There is no right to silence.
Nor right to bear arms. I do wonder about my fellow Australians, most of whom seem not to notice these things.
http://marriedmansexlife.com/
Looks like the RIAA bought themselves a judge.