RIAA Wants Its $222,000 Verdict Back

NewYorkCountryLawyer writes "The RIAA, unhappy with the Court's decision setting aside its $222,000 jury verdict over $23.76 worth of song files, and throwing out the legal theory on which it was based, has made a motion for permission to file an appeal from the Judge's order, in Capitol v. Thomas. Normally, only final judgments are appealable, and appeals are not permissible in federal court from 'interlocutory' orders of that nature."

Comments

Re:Why is this news...

[Anonymous Coward]

Not so much. You should see the sorts of motions that are filed on a daily basis. If their attorneys did not file for such appeal, its not only bad strategy but missing such opportunities is the foundation of malpractice. That being said, the appellate courts have a rule (FRAP 37) that grants the courts power to sanction attorneys for frivolous appeals. Up to the point of FRAP 37 sanctions, it is normal to file as many motions as one has time to in major cases.

Further - exhaustive motion practice is a legitimate strategy where Repeat Players (RIAA is regularly involved in litigation, and needs to be careful to "control" precedent) are up against One-Shot players (individuals who will only be involved in this sort of litigation once). The Repeat Player has extra incentive to invest in the litigation, and may overwhelm the incentive the One-Shot player has. It is for this reason that sanctions exist - courts may order attorney's fees awarded to a winning party where the losing party's conduct was vexatious or in bad faith.

by the way - why on /. can i not post in firefox? seriously

Re:The real reason they're doing this

[againjj]

New Mexico, actually:
http://www.texasbar.com/saywhat/weblog/2007/02/may-1996-all-purpose-brief-in.html

Re:Why WOULD the artists get this money?

[FSWKU]

That would be because the RIAA have been shouting from the mountaintops since the dawn of time that it's all about the artist. They want to stop filesharing because, according to them, it directly takes money away from the artists in the form of lost sales. Every single anti-P2P campaign you see from them is preaching the same thing. "Please don't hurt the poor artists."

But in reality, they're just trying to line their own coffers. When someone settles for some outrageous fee, not a damned cent of that goes to "making the artist whole" or making up for their lost sales. Nope, it goes directly into either the lawyer's wallets or the legal war-chest. The artist continues to get screwed to the tune of pennies per album sold, and tough shit about those lost sales killing your already paltry (unless you're Metallica or some other hyper-famous act) royalty payments.