stories filed under: "lawsuit"
Another Day, Another Smackdown By A Judge Against The RIAA
from the yet-again... dept
In the early days of the RIAA lawsuits, it seemed like judges just took the RIAA's word on things, but that's long since changed as lawyers defending those accused have become more sophisticated -- often realizing that the RIAA research tactics were questionable, the evidence they had was quite flimsy and the system was guaranteed to accuse all sorts of innocent people without much support. As this has happened, judges have become increasingly skeptical of these RIAA lawsuits and those who haven't done anything wrong actually (finally) have a decent chance of pointing out that the RIAA's evidence is wrong. And, in fact, judges are increasingly pushing the RIAA to pay the legal fees of the people they falsely accuse. In the latest such decision, a judge has smacked down the RIAA and ordered them to pay the legal fees in the case of Tanya Andersen. You may recall that the RIAA had accused Andersen of copyright infringement a few years ago -- and then continued to pressure and intimidate her long after it became quite obvious that Andersen clearly was not guilty of what the RIAA was accusing her of doing. The RIAA eventually dropped the case, but Andersen wanted her legal fees paid (separately, she's also suing the RIAA, claiming their investigation techniques are illegal).The ruling from the judge on paying the legal fees is well worth reading, as it suggests yet another judge is sick and tired of the RIAA assuming that it can just throw up some flimsy evidence and then bully people into paying:
Copyright holders generally, and these plaintiffs specifically, should be deterred from prosecuting infringement claims as plaintiffs did in this case. Plaintiffs exerted a significant amount of control over the course of discovery, repeatedly and successfully seeking the court's assistance through an unusually extended and contentious period of discovery disputes. Nonetheless, after ample opportunity to develop their claims, they dismissed them at the point they were required to produce evidence for the court's consideration of the merits..... this case provides too little assurance that a prosecuting party won't deem an infringement claim unsupportable until after the prevailing defendant has been forced to mount a considerable defense, and undergo all that entails, including the incurring of substantial attorney fees.
Filed Under: copyright, lawsuit, legal fees, riaa, tanya andersen
Companies: riaa
Judge Tosses Out RIAA Suit For Being Based On Nothing More Than Speculation
from the here-in-the-court-system,-we-rely-on-these-things-called-facts dept
Recently, we've seen the courts getting less and less willing to accept the RIAA's flimsy evidence as being enough to convict someone of breaking the law with file sharing applications. The latest such case is along those lines, as a judge dismissed a case noting that it was just a "boilerplate listing," lacking enough substance to make a case. Specifically, the judge found that: "Plaintiffs have presented no facts that would indicate that this allegation is anything more than speculation. The complaint is simply a boilerplate listing of the elements of copyright infringement without any facts pertaining specifically to the instant Defendant." It's about time that courts realized that the RIAA shouldn't be able to run around accusing all sorts of people without any real evidence.RIAA Ignores Court Ruling Over Bogus File Sharing Suit; Doesn't Pay Up Legal Fees
from the maybe-if-we-pretend... dept
In Capitol v. Foster, one of the many RIAA lawsuits where it was later determined that the record labels sued the wrong individual, the judge decided (reasonably) that the RIAA should be responsible for the defendant Debbie Foster's legal bills. This makes sense. She was incorrectly accused with flimsy evidence. It seems only reasonable that the wrongful accuser should pay the legal bills. Of course, as it always does, the RIAA asked the judge to reconsider, and the judge smacked the RIAA down with some pretty harsh words, chastising a number of RIAA practices. Apparently, this ruling stung so much that the RIAA simply decided to ignore it and not pay up Foster's legal bills. She's now asking the court for judgment, so she can go after the record labels for payment of the money owed. This seems doubly amusing (not to Ms. Foster, of course) when you consider the lack of leniency the RIAA provides to those it wants to pay up. Remember the MIT student who was told by the RIAA she should drop out of school and work in order to pay an RIAA fine? Perhaps it's time for the RIAA to get a real job as well, so it can afford to pay its fines.Filed Under: copyright, lawsuit, legal fees, riaa
Companies: riaa
RIAA Backs Down Slightly After Being Countersued For Trying To Shame Man Into Settling
from the yet-again dept
If you hadn't noticed by now, the RIAA will go to great lengths to get people they accuse of file sharing to "settle" a case before it ever goes to court -- especially when the evidence they have is especially flimsy. However, with the threat of much bigger fines as a possibility, many people feel compelled to simply pay up and move on. Luckily, some people fight back -- and the RIAA almost always ends up backing down when the facts are presented. The latest such case takes place in Tennessee, as pointed out by Ray Beckerman. A soldier was accused of unauthorized file sharing for six songs, but in the evidence filed with the court, the RIAA lawyers included screenshots showing 4,600 files from the guy's computer including pornographic content. The guy claims that this clearly has nothing to do with the case, but is a situation where the RIAA is abusing a copyright infringement claim to try to shame the guy into settling. He still insists he's innocent and that lots of other people had access to his computer at the time the charges refer to. After countersuing over this issue, the RIAA has now backed down from listing the 4,600 files and is now only showing 367 sound recordings that it believes are infringing. Rather than admitting that it was abusing the lawsuit to pressure the guy into settling (and this change is due to the countersuit), the RIAA's lawyers claim they've made this change as a "professional courtesy." How nice of them.Another Pointless Perfect 10 Suit Gets Shot Down
from the smacked dept
Porn publisher Perfect 10 has been something of a copyright gadfly. It sued Google, arguing that the thumbnail images showed in its Image Search -- of images posted online by other people -- of Perfect 10's copyrighted materials constituted copyright infringement. Despite earlier rulings that linking to images in such a way wasn't infringement, Perfect 10 won an injuction over Google, although another court later overturned it, emphasizing again that thumbnails fall under fair use. But Perfect 10 filed an even sillier suit, targeting companies that processed payments for porn sites it alleged were stealing its images. Again, like in the Google case, the payment companies had nothing to do with the act of copyright infringement, and now an appeals court has upheld a lower court's ruling that bounced the case out of court, nothing that the payment companies, indeed, had not contributed to any copyright infringement. Perfect 10's strategy of suing everybody but the actual copyright infringers looks like it's been resoundly defeated, but somehow it's hard to imagine we've heard the last of the company.Filed Under: copyright, lawsuit
Companies: google, perfect 10
