Wrong.
1. They did not want to drop the case against the mother.
2. They did not want to be exposed to an attorneys fees award.
3. They thought that by dropping the case against the mother they would eliminate their exposure to an attorneys fee award. They were wrong.
There is a precedent.
If the RIAA sues an innocent person, and doesn't immediately withdraw the lawsuit, they may be liable for attorneys fees even if they withdraw the case later on. I can assure you they are (a) quite surprised and (b) quite worried.
If you are being sued, and a lawyer protects you from the lawsuit, and the lawyer gets his or her fees paid for having accomplished something good, why is that a bad thing? I don't get it.
They have thousands of default judgments they haven't collected a nickel on, and never will collect a nickel on, and the default judgments cost them a lot of money to obtain.
So don't think they're making money on the default judgments.
They're only making money on the settlements.
Thank you, Michael, for your careful reading of both the decision itself and my initial post.
The important legal precedent in my view is that the judge has dispelled the RIAA's notion that by withdrawing its claim against an innocent party, after she'd incurred the expense of discovery and of preparing for a summary judgment motion, the RIAA had immunized itself from an attorneys fee award. From my experience in these cases, the RIAA won't drop cases even after they know the party they are suing is innocent, because they look upon the pendency of the case as a convenient foundation for their fishing expedition -- the very investigation they ought to have undertaken before, rather than after, commencing suit. Now they'll have to think twice about that vicious practice.
At the core of the RIAA lawsuit process, is its initial lawsuit against a group of "John Does".
Here is how it works:
A lawsuit is brought against a group of "John Does". The location of the lawsuit is where the corporate headquarters of the internet service provider (ISP) is located.
All the RIAA knows about the people it is suing is that they are the people who paid for an internet access acount for a particular dynamic IP address. (Incidentally, on the CBS Early Show with Harry Smith, on Tuesday, December 27th, Cary Sherman admitted on national television that the only thing the RIAA knows about the actual defendant is that he or she has an IP address.).
The "John Does" may live -- and usually do live -- hundreds or thousands of miles away, and are not even aware that they have been sued.
The case may drag on for months or even years, with the RIAA being the only party that has lawyers in court to talk to the judges and other judicial personnel.
The RIAA -- without notice to the defendants -- makes a motion for an "ex parte" order permitting immediate discovery. ("Ex parte" means that one side has communicated to the Court without the knowledge of the other parties to the suit. It is very rarely permitted, since the American system of justice is premised upon an open system in which, whenever one side wants to communicate with the Court, it has to give prior notice to the other side, so that they too will have an opportunity to be heard.).
The "ex parte" order would give the RIAA permission to take "immediate discovery" -- before the defendants have been served or given notice -- which authorizes the issuance of subpoenas to the ISP's asking for the names and addresses and other information about their subscribers, which is information that would otherwise be confidential.
In the United States the courts have been routinely granting these "ex parte" orders it appears. (Not so in other countries. Both Canada and the Netherlands have found the RIAA's investigation too flimsy to warrant the invasion of subscriber privacy. Indeed the Netherlands court questioned the investigation's legality.).
Once the ex parte order is granted, the RIAA issues a subpoena to the ISP, and gets the subscriber's name and address.
The RIAA then discontinues its "John Doe" "ex parte" case, and sues the defendant in his own name in the district where he or she lives.
Thus, at the core of the whole process are:
(1) the mass lawsuit against a large number of "John Does";
(2) the "ex parte" order of discovery; and
(3) the subpoenas demanding the names and addresses of the "John Does".
You don't know what you're talking about.
1. The John Doe suits are suits against individuals and seek money and injunctions.
2. They will sue the John Doe in his or her own name once they find it out; they will not first attempt to find out from that person who they should really be suing.
3. They do not have any evidence whatsoever of any transfer of any file other than their own copying of the file.
4. Your statement of the law is absurd.
Zi Mei is not the defendant. The defendant is John Doe #8. His name has not been divulged.
Zi Mei is a computer programmer who is assisting John Doe #8 by acting as an expert witness.
I don't think you understand anything about what it is about.
I find your cynical attitude about lawyers to be most unfortunate.
1. We are like anybody else. We have to make a living somehow.
2. Every single lawyer who is representing the RIAA defendants is either (a) getting no money at all, or (b) getting a lot less money than he or she could otherwise get handling anything else.
Grow up, man.
Litigation is about right and wrong, about fairness and unfairness. Sometimes it works out wrong, as it does in life. Sometimes it works out right, as it does in life. You should have a lot of respect for any lawyer who's willing to fight for the underdog. If it wasn't for them, a lot of injustices would never have been touched.
Stop griping and see what you can do to help.
These are their attorneys:
http://www.shb.com/
They're a products liability firm.
Its claim to fame is its representation of big tobacco companies in cases brought by the widows and orphans of their lung cancer victims.
Can anyone tell me how to access the "FAQ" section of slashdot. For weeks I've been trying to read the answers to the "FAQ", and all I get is blank white screens. I took off my popup blocker, that didn't help.
An Oregon woman, Tanya Andersen, has countersued against the RIAA, in Atlantic v. Andersen. She has demanded a jury trial, and is suing for fraud, invasion of privacy, electronic process, Oregon RICO violations and other things.
I think you'll be pleased to learn that an Oregon woman has countersued the RIAA, under Oregon's RICO act, and numerous other laws. And she's demanded a jury trial. Recording Industry vs. The People
It's not about self promotion. It's about grassroots organizing on the internet.
It's about getting the word out to (a) other lawyers and (b) other filesharing lawsuit victims, that there are things they can do.
The RIAA is organized. All of its cases nationwide are handled by a single firm located in Kansas City, Missouri.
The people it is suing, and their lawyers, are scattered all over, and until my blog haven't had a way of getting centralized information to each other, or even of knowing of each other's existence.
If you think lawyers can get rich representing kids with file sharing accounts, or their moms, you are sadly mistaken.
I agree with you that getting victories (or sustaining defeats) will be the most important news, but until now there have been almost no contested cases, so there have been almost no victories or defeats, only giving up.
In that kind of world, the fact that people are fighting back -- and what they are fighting with -- does happen to be news.
Your statement that the motion "is not going to withstand the scrutiny of the courts" is curious, to say the least. I wonder what knowledge of copyright law you have, superior to that of the courts which we cited, that you are basing that on. In the Santangelo case the RIAA's 500+ lawyer firm could not find any authority that contradicted the arguments we have made. Interesting that you can.
They will care, because the grounds set forth in the motion are fully applicable to ALL the RIAA complaints, which are identical boilerplate. A dismissal will be a precedent that may force the RIAA to reconsider its whole strategy which has been to sue people right and left, without evidence of any copyright infringement having been committed by them.
Dear Hagrin,
Sorry we don't live up to your standards, but we're lawyers, not (1) models, (2) haberdashers, (3) web site designers, or (4) PR people.
We put up the blog to give information to people who are being sued, and to other lawyers who are willing to fight back against the RIAA.
By all accounts, people are finding our blog very helpful.
You can send a check to "Beldock Levine & Hoffman LLP, As Attorneys", to :
Ray Beckerman
Beldock Levine & Hoffman LLP
99 Park Avenue (16th Floor)
New York, NY 10016
Check should indicate it is for Patricia Santangelo defense costs.
It will be applied as Ms. Santangelo directs.
Another way to help is to view pay-per-click ads on our blog, http://recordingindustryvspeople.blogspot.com/ all revenues will be applied to help defray legal costs of RIAA victims being represented by our firm.
The second conference actually took place on August 5th.
I appeared for Ms. Santangelo.
The RIAA plaintiffs were represented by MaryAnn Penny of the Cowan Leibowitz firm in New York City and by Timothy Congrove, a partner in Shook Hardy & Bacon, in Kansas City, Missouri.
Mr. Congrove participated by telephone, rather than in person, and he spoke for the plaintiffs.
The judge concentrated on the dismissal motion and asked Mr. Congrove to justify his position. Mr. Congrove said he would be citing cases in his brief on August 8th, but the judge wanted him to cite his cases then and there.
The first case he cited was a case we had ourselves cited as a reason for dismissing the complaint.
He made his arguments, and I made mine, and the judge had many piercing questions.
She indicated that she would decide the motion after all the papers had been submitted.
I am the author of the blog "Recording Industry vs. The People", and one of the lawyers representing Patti Santangelo and other victims of the RIAA lawsuits in the New York City metropolitan area.
There is, rightly, a lot of concern on how regular people can handle the economic imbalance in these lawsuits.
And there are in existence certain tools: (a) the copyright law's fee-shifting provisions, (b) Federal Rule 11, which bars lawyers from signing frivolous litigation documents, and (c) the willingness of some lawyers to take reduced fees, or to do some work without a fee at all.
My reading on the internet over the last several weeks, and especially of this thread on slashdot last night and this morning, gave me an idea for another possible tool.
I decided to try something a little innovative this morning, and added 'pay-per-click' advertising to our blog, http://recordingindustryvspeople.blogspot.com, and to its companion site hosting the litigation documents, http://info.riaalawsuits.us , with all proceeds from the ads to be used to help defray legal fees and disbursements of our clients defending the RIAA litigations.
I've never seen or done anything like this before, so I don't know how it will work out, but just thought you guys -- who have been fabulous in your passionate, thoughtful, and sometimes even scholarly exegesis of the Elektra v. Santangelo litigation documents -- would like to know.
Slashdot Mirror
Wrong. 1. They did not want to drop the case against the mother. 2. They did not want to be exposed to an attorneys fees award. 3. They thought that by dropping the case against the mother they would eliminate their exposure to an attorneys fee award. They were wrong.
There is a precedent. If the RIAA sues an innocent person, and doesn't immediately withdraw the lawsuit, they may be liable for attorneys fees even if they withdraw the case later on. I can assure you they are (a) quite surprised and (b) quite worried.
If you are being sued, and a lawyer protects you from the lawsuit, and the lawyer gets his or her fees paid for having accomplished something good, why is that a bad thing? I don't get it.
You are absolutely right. Once the judges start granting the attorneys fee awards, it will act as a deterrent.
They have thousands of default judgments they haven't collected a nickel on, and never will collect a nickel on, and the default judgments cost them a lot of money to obtain. So don't think they're making money on the default judgments. They're only making money on the settlements.
Thank you, Michael, for your careful reading of both the decision itself and my initial post. The important legal precedent in my view is that the judge has dispelled the RIAA's notion that by withdrawing its claim against an innocent party, after she'd incurred the expense of discovery and of preparing for a summary judgment motion, the RIAA had immunized itself from an attorneys fee award. From my experience in these cases, the RIAA won't drop cases even after they know the party they are suing is innocent, because they look upon the pendency of the case as a convenient foundation for their fishing expedition -- the very investigation they ought to have undertaken before, rather than after, commencing suit. Now they'll have to think twice about that vicious practice.
OK, sorry if I overreacted.
At the core of the RIAA lawsuit process, is its initial lawsuit against a group of "John Does".
Here is how it works:
A lawsuit is brought against a group of "John Does". The location of the lawsuit is where the corporate headquarters of the internet service provider (ISP) is located.
All the RIAA knows about the people it is suing is that they are the people who paid for an internet access acount for a particular dynamic IP address. (Incidentally, on the CBS Early Show with Harry Smith, on Tuesday, December 27th, Cary Sherman admitted on national television that the only thing the RIAA knows about the actual defendant is that he or she has an IP address.).
The "John Does" may live -- and usually do live -- hundreds or thousands of miles away, and are not even aware that they have been sued.
The case may drag on for months or even years, with the RIAA being the only party that has lawyers in court to talk to the judges and other judicial personnel.
The RIAA -- without notice to the defendants -- makes a motion for an "ex parte" order permitting immediate discovery. ("Ex parte" means that one side has communicated to the Court without the knowledge of the other parties to the suit. It is very rarely permitted, since the American system of justice is premised upon an open system in which, whenever one side wants to communicate with the Court, it has to give prior notice to the other side, so that they too will have an opportunity to be heard.).
The "ex parte" order would give the RIAA permission to take "immediate discovery" -- before the defendants have been served or given notice -- which authorizes the issuance of subpoenas to the ISP's asking for the names and addresses and other information about their subscribers, which is information that would otherwise be confidential.
In the United States the courts have been routinely granting these "ex parte" orders it appears. (Not so in other countries. Both Canada and the Netherlands have found the RIAA's investigation too flimsy to warrant the invasion of subscriber privacy. Indeed the Netherlands court questioned the investigation's legality.).
Once the ex parte order is granted, the RIAA issues a subpoena to the ISP, and gets the subscriber's name and address.
The RIAA then discontinues its "John Doe" "ex parte" case, and sues the defendant in his own name in the district where he or she lives.
Thus, at the core of the whole process are: (1) the mass lawsuit against a large number of "John Does"; (2) the "ex parte" order of discovery; and (3) the subpoenas demanding the names and addresses of the "John Does".
You don't know what you're talking about. 1. The John Doe suits are suits against individuals and seek money and injunctions. 2. They will sue the John Doe in his or her own name once they find it out; they will not first attempt to find out from that person who they should really be suing. 3. They do not have any evidence whatsoever of any transfer of any file other than their own copying of the file. 4. Your statement of the law is absurd.
What's unreasonable is suing someone without any evidence that they committed a copyright violation.
Correct. Zi Mei is not the defendant, he is an expert witness.
Zi Mei is not the defendant. The defendant is John Doe #8. His name has not been divulged. Zi Mei is a computer programmer who is assisting John Doe #8 by acting as an expert witness.
I don't think you understand anything about what it is about. I find your cynical attitude about lawyers to be most unfortunate. 1. We are like anybody else. We have to make a living somehow. 2. Every single lawyer who is representing the RIAA defendants is either (a) getting no money at all, or (b) getting a lot less money than he or she could otherwise get handling anything else. Grow up, man. Litigation is about right and wrong, about fairness and unfairness. Sometimes it works out wrong, as it does in life. Sometimes it works out right, as it does in life. You should have a lot of respect for any lawyer who's willing to fight for the underdog. If it wasn't for them, a lot of injustices would never have been touched. Stop griping and see what you can do to help.
These are their attorneys: http://www.shb.com/ They're a products liability firm. Its claim to fame is its representation of big tobacco companies in cases brought by the widows and orphans of their lung cancer victims.
Can anyone tell me how to access the "FAQ" section of slashdot. For weeks I've been trying to read the answers to the "FAQ", and all I get is blank white screens. I took off my popup blocker, that didn't help.
The lawyers representing the RIAA, Shook Hardy & Bacon, ARE the lawyers representing the tobacco companies: http://www.bizjournals.com/kansascity/stories/2005 /07/25/focus1.html
An Oregon woman, Tanya Andersen, has countersued against the RIAA, in Atlantic v. Andersen. She has demanded a jury trial, and is suing for fraud, invasion of privacy, electronic process, Oregon RICO violations and other things.
I think you'll be pleased to learn that an Oregon woman has countersued the RIAA, under Oregon's RICO act, and numerous other laws. And she's demanded a jury trial. Recording Industry vs. The People
It's about getting the word out to (a) other lawyers and (b) other filesharing lawsuit victims, that there are things they can do.
The RIAA is organized. All of its cases nationwide are handled by a single firm located in Kansas City, Missouri.
The people it is suing, and their lawyers, are scattered all over, and until my blog haven't had a way of getting centralized information to each other, or even of knowing of each other's existence.
If you think lawyers can get rich representing kids with file sharing accounts, or their moms, you are sadly mistaken.
I agree with you that getting victories (or sustaining defeats) will be the most important news, but until now there have been almost no contested cases, so there have been almost no victories or defeats, only giving up.
In that kind of world, the fact that people are fighting back -- and what they are fighting with -- does happen to be news.
Your statement that the motion "is not going to withstand the scrutiny of the courts" is curious, to say the least. I wonder what knowledge of copyright law you have, superior to that of the courts which we cited, that you are basing that on. In the Santangelo case the RIAA's 500+ lawyer firm could not find any authority that contradicted the arguments we have made. Interesting that you can.
Wrong, their lawyers are anything but lazy. They don't HAVE evidence of specific activities, that's why their cases are improper.
Dear WebHosting Guy: You're missing the point. They don't HAVE "more information" with which to file a "restated complaint".
They will care, because the grounds set forth in the motion are fully applicable to ALL the RIAA complaints, which are identical boilerplate. A dismissal will be a precedent that may force the RIAA to reconsider its whole strategy which has been to sue people right and left, without evidence of any copyright infringement having been committed by them.
Dear Hagrin, Sorry we don't live up to your standards, but we're lawyers, not (1) models, (2) haberdashers, (3) web site designers, or (4) PR people. We put up the blog to give information to people who are being sued, and to other lawyers who are willing to fight back against the RIAA. By all accounts, people are finding our blog very helpful.
Ray Beckerman
Beldock Levine & Hoffman LLP
99 Park Avenue (16th Floor)
New York, NY 10016
Check should indicate it is for Patricia Santangelo defense costs.
It will be applied as Ms. Santangelo directs.
Another way to help is to view pay-per-click ads on our blog, http://recordingindustryvspeople.blogspot.com/ all revenues will be applied to help defray legal costs of RIAA victims being represented by our firm.
Thanks for your interest.
The second conference actually took place on August 5th.
I appeared for Ms. Santangelo.
The RIAA plaintiffs were represented by MaryAnn Penny of the Cowan Leibowitz firm in New York City and by Timothy Congrove, a partner in Shook Hardy & Bacon, in Kansas City, Missouri.
Mr. Congrove participated by telephone, rather than in person, and he spoke for the plaintiffs.
The judge concentrated on the dismissal motion and asked Mr. Congrove to justify his position. Mr. Congrove said he would be citing cases in his brief on August 8th, but the judge wanted him to cite his cases then and there.
The first case he cited was a case we had ourselves cited as a reason for dismissing the complaint.
He made his arguments, and I made mine, and the judge had many piercing questions.
She indicated that she would decide the motion after all the papers had been submitted.
I am attempting to obtain a transcript of the proceedings, and when I do will post it at http://recordingindustryvspeople.blogspot.com./
Thanks for your interest.
Best regards,
Ray Beckerman
I am the author of the blog "Recording Industry vs. The People", and one of the lawyers representing Patti Santangelo and other victims of the RIAA lawsuits in the New York City metropolitan area.
There is, rightly, a lot of concern on how regular people can handle the economic imbalance in these lawsuits.
And there are in existence certain tools: (a) the copyright law's fee-shifting provisions, (b) Federal Rule 11, which bars lawyers from signing frivolous litigation documents, and (c) the willingness of some lawyers to take reduced fees, or to do some work without a fee at all.
My reading on the internet over the last several weeks, and especially of this thread on slashdot last night and this morning, gave me an idea for another possible tool.
I decided to try something a little innovative this morning, and added 'pay-per-click' advertising to our blog, http://recordingindustryvspeople.blogspot.com, and to its companion site hosting the litigation documents, http://info.riaalawsuits.us , with all proceeds from the ads to be used to help defray legal fees and disbursements of our clients defending the RIAA litigations.
I've never seen or done anything like this before, so I don't know how it will work out, but just thought you guys -- who have been fabulous in your passionate, thoughtful, and sometimes even scholarly exegesis of the Elektra v. Santangelo litigation documents -- would like to know.
Best regards,
Ray Beckerman