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Appeals Court Stays RIAA Subpoena Vs. Students
NewYorkCountryLawyer writes "The procedures used by the RIAA the past 5 years in suing 'John Does' without their knowing about it have never been subjected to scrutiny by an appeals court, since most of the 'John Does' never learn about the 'ex parte' proceeding until it's too late to do anything about it. That is about to change. In Arista Records v. Does 1-16, a case targeting students at the Albany Campus of the State University of New York, the US Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit has decided to put things on hold while it takes a careful look at what transpired in the lower court. The way it came to this is that a few 'John Does' filed a broad-based challenge to a number of the RIAA's procedures, citing the defendant's constitutional rights, the insufficiency of the complaint, the lack of personal jurisdiction over the defendants, improper misjoinder of the defendants, and the RIAA's illegal procurement of its 'evidence' through the use of an unlicensed investigator, MediaSentry. The lower court judges gave short shrift to 'John Doe #3,' but he promptly filed an appeal, and asked for a stay of the subpoena and lower court proceedings during the pendency of the appeal. The RIAA opposed the motion, arguing that John Doe's appeal had no chance of success. The Appeals Court disagreed and granted the motion, freezing the subpoena and putting the entire case on hold until the appeal is finally determined. As one commentator said, 'this news has been a long time coming, but is welcomed.'"
This is big. This will be the very first appellate scrutiny. By staying all lower court proceedings until the appeal is decided, the Court signalled that it's taking this very very seriously.
Ray Beckerman +5 Insightful
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-- The morphemes of your disquisition are ascertainable, but they have eschewed an ambit of transpicuous exposition.
The problem with threatening people at random, is that eventually you make the mistake of threatening someone who has the resources to take you all the way to the supreme court. The RIAA seems to have a pattern of targeting those least able to defend themselves (college students, single moms, seniors) but it look like now they have a ready, willing, and able opponent who wont just roll over. Let's all collective summon up our best Nelson Muntz impressions: "Ha-ha!"
I've abandoned my search for truth; now I'm just looking for some useful delusions.
Sorry for the tyopes, I'm posting this from my balckbrery.
I tried to insert a beer tehre, but the olny thing taht hapepned is i got beer all ovre my laptpo.
Perhpas it would have bene better to use $BEVERAGE insteda fo giving bad instrutcions?
"Trolls they were, but filled with the evil will of their master: a fell race..." -- J.R.R. Tolkien on Olog-hai
is finally going to start to treat the RIAA like the mobsters they mimic?
I really wish we could stop comparing the RIAA to the Mafia. It's an insult to the hard working men like Tony Soprano that strive to provide needed services like gambling, loan-sharking and prostitution to equate them with an organization that does nothing but sue college students and old people ;)
On a more serious note, it's still a stupid comparison. If you wind up on Tony Soprano's bad side you are going to get beaten up or in the worst case scenario murdered. The worst case scenario from a RIAA lawsuit is that you wind up filing bankruptcy. Bankruptcy != murder, IMHO.
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
Is this a sign that the judicial system is finally going to start to treat the RIAA like the mobsters they mimic?
That I don't know. But it certainly is a sign that the Second Circuit judges consider the issues raised by John Doe #3 in the lower court to be serious and important.
Ray Beckerman +5 Insightful
The procedures used by the RIAA the past 5 years in suing 'John Does' without their knowing about it have never been subjected to scrutiny by an appeals court, since most of the 'John Does' never learn about the 'ex parte' proceeding until it's too late to do anything about it.
Wait, I am missing something. In the US doesn't the prosecution have to have a defendent before they can start preceedings? They can investigate all they like but you can't prosecute without a defendent. What someone is going to knock on my door one day and say "BTW you have been found guilty of murder, your trial happened last month, your getting the chair"??
The RIAA opposed the motion, arguing that John Doe's appeal had no chance of success.
I enjoyed this one... "Your honor, don't grant the appeal, they have no chance of winning. It would be silly to even honor their request. BTW, if you do what we say they WILL have no chance of winning and that makes us right, so you need to do as we say because we are right and you would not want to be on the side of wrong, because we are right."
I do not support "The Man". I also do not support your irrational stupidity
First off, why would Somalis have US Constitutional protection? Second, why would the RIAA care?
I am constantly hearing on /. that mediasentry does not have an investigators license. I have to say I don't understand the process that well, but I figured it would be illegal to operate without a license. Shouldn't the cops or fbi be shutting down the company? I am glad to final hear that case evidence will final be forming for the RIAA's process. It will make future attempts by the RIAA much harder if the case is thrown out.
>>Sorry for the tyopes, I'm posting this from my balckbrery.
Obama, don't you have country to run or something?
By "short shrift" I meant the Magistrate Judge and the District Judge paid scant attention, and just blew it off without paying careful consideration to the law or to the paucity of evidence.
"Misjoinder" is a legal term. In this case what it refers to is the fact that the RIAA sued 16 "John Does" in a single case, even though the federal rules clearly required them to bring 16 separate cases, and even though in 2004 they were ordered by two federal judges to cease and desist from that practice.
Ray Beckerman +5 Insightful
This is the first time an appeals court has examined whether or not having a court hearing without the presence of the defendant (ex parte preceding) is permissible given such little evidence, no real damages incurred by the plaintiff (insufficiency of complaint), whether or not the given court is even the right place to hear the complaint (lack of personal jurisdiction over the defendants), whether or not lumping all of these defendants together as a collective group is legitimate (improper misjoinder of the defendants), and whether or not it's complete BS that the RIAA is using a private group to invade individual's privacy to obtain information (illegal procurement of evidence).
That last description may be a little biased.
nsuficiency of the complaint? It seems to me it states clearly what/when.
How about "who?"
(a) The pirates deserve to be slammed for STEALING (Yes I said it, because that's what it is!)!
(b) The pirates ALSO deserve all the due process and constitutional protection that the US has to offer--and the RIAA assiduously tries to ignore! You can't slam the thieves until the thieves get a FULL and FAIR day in court.
The Pirates deserve to be hammered, but only after every last one of their constitutional rights is respected!
Assuming we're still talking about digital piracy here, it is NOT stealing, it is infringing. The two have separate legal meanings that have to do with a scarce good being taken away from another person/entity. Copying music does not take that original away, ergo it cannot be stealing, it is infringing.
I disagree ... lawsuits are the modern equivalent of physical violence, and taking all of someone's assets is the modern murder. Just because we now have a system that allows pillaging and plundering without bloodshed doesn't decrease the devastation that this causes to people and their families.
Lastly, people who lose it all often end it all, completing the 'murder'.
If you think imaginary property and real property are the same, when does your house become public domain?
your appeal has no chance of success
make your time ...
HA HA HA HA
For great justice indeed.
I'm no fan of the MAFIAA at all... However...
Troll alert.
Ray Beckerman +5 Insightful
Unlicensed investigator?
An unlicensed investigator is not allowed to investigate at all. You can ask a friend to check what your wife is doing when you're not at home, you can ask a licensed investigator, but if you hire an unlicensed investigator, he or she is breaking the law. In other words, the so-called "evidence" was found by someone who was breaking the law in doing so. That on its own is not the problem, if the evidence can be checked independently of how it was found. If an unlicensed investigator finds physical evidence, calls the police and the police checks the physical evidence, that's fine. But here, the evidence is the investigator saying "I downloaded this music from this computer". Since the investigator was already breaking the law, clearly anything he or she says cannot be trusted.
Hiring unlicensed investigators also means that the person suing cannot be trusted. In a civil court case, the judge goes by the weight of the evidence. If I can show that I am sued by a person who used illegal means to find evidence, that makes it more likely that the same person will be lying about other things as well.
In the Plaintiff's Motion to Quash, they state in footnote 1, "Defendants rely on the same arguments Mr. Beckerman has raised and lost in other cases." Strangely enough, they fail to cite the actual cases in which these arguments have been "raised and lost." Are there actual legal precedents in which Mr. Beckerman's arguments have been found lacking, or are the RIAA lawyers just blatantly lying?
There are some motions we have made which we have lost in the lower courts, however we prevailed on the portion of our motions which was directed to the "making available" theory, and most other lawyers have prevailed on the misjoinder issue.
In the appeals court, all of that is basically academic. The appeals court is here to give the district courts direction, not the other way around.
Ray Beckerman +5 Insightful
It isn't stealing, as stealing means something was taken. In the case of downloading, it's copied not removed from the source.
Taking a CD from a shop is stealing and a criminal act. Downloading a CD is infringement of copyright and therefore a civil matter.
All your analogies involve removing a physical item and that constitutes theft.
"If anyone needs me, I'm in the angry dome."
How about you bring suit based on your friend reporting whatever. Should the judge basically say "your friend is not a license investigator, you thereby have no argument whatsoever"? I realize the weakness of the analogy, but shouldn't the validity of the argument be discussed rather than dismissed without examining?
There is a difference. My friend is not a licensed investigator, but he can have a look around things if I ask him to, as long as he is not investigating for hire. Perfectly legal. If he goes to court, the judge can ask him questions to find out whether he is a reliable witness, and his evidence would be treated accordingly. The unlicensed investigator, on the other hand, has already broken the law just by taking money for investigating when he didn't have a license. We don't even need to examine what he says in court, he can't be trusted anyway.
You also miss that this unlicensed, illegal investigators testimony is used to breach the privacy of presumably innocent people. You have to have a very good reason to do that. For example, if my friend, he is just an ordinary and presumably honest person, claims that he saw you stealing something, then this may be enough for the police to get a search warrant and then breach your privacy. If that unlicensed, illegal investigator claims that he saw you stealing a car, then this is most likely not enough for the police to get a search warrant. And what the RIAA wanted was the equivalent of a search warrant.