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RIAA Wants Its $222,000 Verdict Back
Posted by
samzenpus
on Wed Oct 15, 2008 05:40 PM
from the be-careful-what-you-wish-for dept.
from the be-careful-what-you-wish-for dept.
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."
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RIAA's Request For Appeal Denied In Thomas Case 197 comments
NewYorkCountryLawyer writes "The RIAA's request for permission to appeal from the decision setting aside its $222,000 jury verdict has been denied by District Court Judge Michael J. Davis. In a brief, 6-page decision (PDF) the Judge dismissed the RIAA's arguments that there is a 'substantial ground for a difference of opinion' on the question of law presented, whether the Judge had erred in accepting the RIAA's proposed jury instruction that merely 'making files available' could constitute an infringement of the plaintiffs' distribution rights. He likewise dismissed their argument that granting permission for the appeal would 'materially advance the ultimate termination of the litigation,' since (a) depending on the outcome of the trial, plaintiffs might not wish to appeal from the judgment, and (b) no matter how the appeals court rules on the 'making available' issue, the case will still have to continue in the lower court, since even if the RIAA wins on the 'making available' issue, the Court will still have to address the constitutionality of the large jury verdict, which may result in a new trial."
[+]
Has RIAA Fired MediaSentry? 76 comments
NewYorkCountryLawyer writes "According to a tantalizing 'unconfirmed' report, it appears that the RIAA has jettisoned MediaSentry (now known as SafeNet) as its 'investigator.' MediaSentry has come under heat in a number of different states for the fact that it was 'investigating' without an investigator's license and invading people's privacy. Earlier this year it was found to have made diametrically conflicting written statements to two different tribunals within 30 days of each other, in one denying that it was an 'expert witness,' in another claiming that it was an 'expert witness.' If the report is accurate, the termination comes at an interesting time, since MediaSentry's investigator is the plaintiffs' only fact witness to prove copyright infringement in Capitol Records v. Thomas, which is now headed for a retrial on March 9th. If he does take the stand, the reasons for his company's termination will be fair game for cross examination. One also has to wonder if it's in any way connected to the puzzling enigma of the New York Attorney General's alleged involvement in the RIAA's recent Wall Street Journal announcement that it would be reducing its p2p file sharing cases to a trickle."
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It's not about the money (Score:5, Insightful)
It's NEVER been about the money. It's not about compensating the artists. (Ha!)
This is 100% about trying to keep control of an entire industry in the hands of a very rich, very corrupt few.
Re:It's not about the money (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
This has been proven over and over so many times, eventually someone in the courts should notice. SCO finally fell, unfortunately the RIAA has bigger war chests.
The entire legal system is set up on the assumption that everyone (with the possible exception of the defendant) is by and large fairly straight up.
Re:It's not about the money (Score:5, Insightful)
SCO had a huge warchest too. What killed them is that their targets were also rich, organized and motivated. RIAA targets almost always lack at least two of these qualities.
Parent
Re:It's not about the money (Score:5, Funny)
Man, why is everyone always trying to be keeping a group of old, rich, litigious men down? They're just trying to make a few more hundred million dollars by screwing over the entire country, give them a break! I bet when YOU manage to get a monopoly stealing artist's rights, YOU'RE going to want to prosecute every teen who doesn't pay you a 200% markup!
Parent
What we need is... (Score:3, Insightful)
... a standard sarcasm-calibration post. That way people can check their sarcasm detector is correctly aligned before moderating or commenting.
Re:What we need is... (Score:5, Funny)
Parent
Re:What we need is... (Score:5, Funny)
Somebody mod parent down. It obviously wouldn't work.
Parent
Technically, they are right. (Score:5, Funny)
The RIAA's claim that it's all about compensating the artists is indeed true.
What they aren't saying is that it's all about compensating the con-artists. :)
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
FWIW, Jack Thompson actually went as far as violating restraining orders. I'm not sure this is up there yet.
But, IANAL.
Re:It's not about the money (Score:5, Interesting)
I'm not sure this is up there yet.
They are definitely working on it. Read the deposition NYCL gave their "Expert" witness. http://recordingindustryvspeople.blogspot.com/2007/03/deposition-of-riaas-expert-available.html [blogspot.com]
It's long, but it's awesome. I'm a programmer, not a lawyer, but after reading that deposition and all the stuff about "MediaDefender" I wonder why the RIAA has gotten as far as it has. If I were a judge my reaction to an RIAA lawsuit landing in my court would be more along the lines of uncontrolled laughter than anything else. I suppose that's why I'm a programmer, not a lawyer.
Their methods are unsound and sooner or later those RIAA lawyers are going to get Jack Thompsoned.
Parent
Re:It's not about the money (Score:5, Insightful)
...those RIAA lawyers are going to get Jack Thompsoned.
Best.
Verb.
Ever.
Parent
This is the end, beautiful friend? (Score:5, Interesting)
RAY BECKERMAN: Everything I saw told me that the RIAA has gone insane. The place was full of bodies: Napster, Limewire, young children, innocent grandmothers. If I was still alive, it was because they wanted me that way.
RIAA: Where are you from, Beckerman?
RB: New York, sir.
RIAA: I worked in New York back in the old days; we pressed vinyl there. It was like heaven on earth then. Have you ever considered any real freedoms? Freedoms - from the opinions of others, even the opinions of your 'clients'? You say why..., Beckerman, why you wanted to terminate my control of the music industry? What did they tell you?
RB: They told me that you had gone totally insane and that your methods were unsound.
RIAA: Are my methods unsound?
RB: I don't see any method at all, sir.
RIAA: I never expected anyone like you. Are you a pirate?
RB: I'm a lawyer.
RIAA: You're neither. You're a monkey wrench, wrecking the beautiful engine of my protection racket.
(brief court recess)
RIAA: We are the hollow men / We are the stuffed men
Leaning together / Headpiece filled with straw. Alas!
Our dried voices, when / We whisper together
Are quiet and meaningless
As wind in dry grass / Or rats' feet over broken glass
In our dry cellar / Shape without form, shade without colour,
Paralysed force, gesture without motion
I've seen horrors . . . extortion that you've seen. But you have no right to call me musical. You have a right to depose me. You have a right to do that . . . But you have no right to judge me. It's impossible for music to describe what is necessary to those who do not know what extortion means. Extortion. Extortion has a face . . . And you must make a friend of extortion. Extortion and financial terror are your friends. If they are not then they are enemies to be feared. They are truly enemies.
RB: They were going to make me a Digg Hero for this and I wasn't subscribed to their fucking RSS feed any more. Everybody wanted me to do it, everybody except those on the take of course. I felt like they were sitting there, dreading for me to take the gravy train away. They just apparently wanted to go out like douchebags, like poor, wasted, rag-assed dinosaurs. Even the musicians wanted them dead, not that they really took their orders from musicians anyway.
(The gavel falls.)
RIAA: The Extortion! The Extortion!
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Give them time.
Why is this news... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Why is this news... (Score:5, Insightful)
It's still news because they have the gall to even apply for it. The judges are clearly not on their side, even if the government is.
Parent
Re:Why is this news... (Score:5, Insightful)
They're lawyers. They'd have the gall to shoot your mother, have sexual intercourse with her corpse, chop off her ears and send them to you along with an invoice for services rendered.
Parent
Re:Why is this news... (Score:4, Insightful)
They're lawyers. They'd have the gall to shoot your mother, have sexual intercourse with her corpse, chop off her ears and send them to you along with an invoice for services rendered.
Well, let's not throw the baby out with the bathwater. Not all lawyers want to have sex with your mother, alive or otherwise. But yeah ... the RIAA's brand of law is pretty much in the gutter.
Parent
Re:Why is this news... (Score:4, Insightful)
... Not all lawyers want to have sex with your mother, alive or otherwise.
I'm not convinced. I believe the current approach in legal training and education is that -anything- in support of the client's position is permissable. And frankly that approach is equally applicable in politics these days (not a surprise when the majority of politicians are lawyers.)
On both sides of the case I've been involved with, I've seen the lawyers say outrageous things, because there's NO CONSEQUENCES for doing so.
dave
p.s. tell your mother I'm sorry :-)
Parent
Re:Why is this news... (Score:4, Insightful)
With all due respect, what is your experience with "the current approach?" How many lawyers do you personally know?
I ask because I'm a lawyer and while I do represent my client as zealously as I can, I am bound by ethical and personal standards that I cannot, and will not breach. And I feel 99% of the people I work with are the same.
What actual experience do you have with "legal training and education" that prompted your theory?
Parent
Re:Why is this news... (Score:5, Funny)
HEY!
My dad's a lawyer and my mom's dead..... Oh.
Parent
Re:Why is this news... (Score:5, Funny)
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
So how much was the bill?
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
$222K for the murder, $222K for the necrophilia, $222K for the dismemberment, $222K for the invoice, and $222K for postage and handling.
So $1,110,000.00
Re:Why is this news... (Score:5, Informative)
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
Parent
Re:Why is this news... (Score:4, Informative)
Some plugins (like noscript) will prevent you from running scripts unless explicitly allowed. Allow slashdot.org and post away!
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Because NYCL submitted it.
Let the punishment fit the crime. (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Let the punishment fit the crime. (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent
Re:Let the punishment fit the crime. (Score:5, Funny)
You'd think anybody with half a conscience would move on at this point.
See, you just answered your own question.
... well, really really bad things happen.
... well, now you know. It was a simple clerical error, really.
This particular batch of attorneys only came preloaded with a fifth of one standard conscience at the factory (50% is the normal setting.) Basically, if you're buying them in quantity, they come a lot cheaper that way: consciences are expensive items, after all. In practice, it's been found that if you install more conscience than that, they start exhibiting undesirable characteristics such as "honesty" and "business ethic". Not a good thing, if you're a soulless, money-grubbing oligopoly. If you don't buy any conscience at all
Most people don't know this, but some time ago a group of attorneys was ordered for special-purpose use in Congressional and major banking applications. Unfortunately, while the order specified a 75% conscience load, they were accidentally shipped without any. Company personnel colloquially refer to these jobs as the "Manson line" because they have all the personality traits of a typical advanced sociopath. Corporate hatchetmen are frequently M-series, for example.
If anyone was wondering what caused the recent worldwide financial crisis
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
I will repeat this again, for the slow among you. The cost to purchase the files has no bearing on the case. The people are not being sued for downloading the files. They are being sued for distributing them (or trying to, or nothing at all if the attempt to distribute doesn't stand up). What this means is that the cost is not what it would cost to purchase the files for your private use, but what they would charge someone if they wanted to distribute the songs. If I called the RIAA and said "I want to
A little OT, but I have to say it (Score:5, Insightful)
Thompson seemed to enjoy throwing around frivolous lawsuits as well.
It hadn't really hit me until I saw this sentence with the word 'seem' in the past tense.
Damn but that just looks beautiful. Thompson...seemed.
It just hadn't hit me until right now that he's history. Jeez, but I hope I live long enough to say the same about the RIAA. "The RIAA seemed to like to file frivolous lawsuits."
Ah, that's going to be great. Can't wait.
Parent
I love this excerpt: (Score:5, Interesting)
The parties agree that the only evidence of actual dissemination of
copyrighted works was that Plaintiffs' agent, MediaSentry, copied songs.
Plaintiffs argue that even if distribution requires an actual transfer, the trial
evidence established transfers of copyrighted works to MediaSentry. Thomas
retorts that dissemination to an investigator acting as an agent for the copyright
owner cannot constitute infringement.
"It is well–established that the lawful owner of a copyright cannot infringe
its own copyright."
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
"Intent to infringe copyright" is not a crime nor is it civilly actionable, thus they cannot sue over it. Drug procession and procession with intent to distribute are both crimes.
Hail Mary (Score:5, Interesting)
Run that by again: they're going to persuade the Court that the Court was not only wrong, but waaaay wrong (abuse of discretion) when the Court decided it had made an error by trusting them.
Boggle.
And what's at stake? A retrial, with most of the motion practice and pretrial preparation already complete. Somehow I don't see the Court agreeing that this is so profound and urgent that it can't wait for the trial to be decided on its merits and a final judgment rendered.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Except that the current trial is scheduled for a jury, at which point it can all go to appeal together. Since the first jury trial (that the RIAA wants to stand) is already done, all that the appellate court would have to do after both are done is choose :-) It's called judicial efficiency, a
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Interlocutory appeals are indeed rarely granted; IIRC it's usually when the rest of the case hinges on a point of law and there will be a boatload of work down the drain if the case goes down the wrong track. In this case, the Plaintiffs are going to try to convince the Court that it made an error of discretion in deciding that they (plaintiffs) had played fast and loose with their pleadings. Run that by again: they're going to persuade the Court that the Court was not only wrong, but waaaay wrong (abuse of discretion) when the Court decided it had made an error by trusting them. Boggle. And what's at stake? A retrial, with most of the motion practice and pretrial preparation already complete. Somehow I don't see the Court agreeing that this is so profound and urgent that it can't wait for the trial to be decided on its merits and a final judgment rendered.
. We have a word for it where I come from.
Chutzpah.
Don't see much wrong (Score:4, Insightful)
I agree that it would be unusual for the appeal to be granted. But, it does make some sense -- if, on retrial, Thomas wins with the new instruction, then the RIAA will appeal to the 8th circuit on the jury instruction. And, if the 8th circuit agrees with the "Making Available" theory, then the case would go back to the district court where a new jury would have to, again, decide if she made the works available. (Once the second trial has started, I don't think you can go back to the outcome of the first.)
How many juries do we need?
Re:Don't see much wrong (Score:5, Interesting)
How many juries do we need?
If you can afford them, keep running through juries till you get one that gives you the answer you want.
Parent
The real reason they're doing this (Score:5, Interesting)
This has nothing to do with expecting to win, and everything to do with attempting to run up the defendant's legal bills.
A successful motion response to a similarly silly motion (at least in the State of New Hampshire), was the following letter:
Honorable Justice ____:
Plaintiff has got to be kidding.
Respectfully submitted,
________ ________, Esq
Re:The real reason they're doing this (Score:5, Informative)
http://www.texasbar.com/saywhat/weblog/2007/02/may-1996-all-purpose-brief-in.html [texasbar.com]
Parent
Re:The real reason they're doing this (Score:5, Insightful)
This has nothing to do with expecting to win, and everything to do with attempting to run up the defendant's legal bills.
Yes. That is the one consistent theme in their strategy.
Parent
Well the jerk store called (Score:3, Funny)
They want them back.
Why they're worried (Score:5, Insightful)
Worried about Precedents on Punishments? (Score:4, Interesting)
But they would have to admit that they are using corporate-punishments on non-corporate people.
Somehow, I think that is their worst fear.
Why WOULD the artists get this money? (Score:3, Interesting)
Ok, I need an explanation. The artists signed a contract to the label to produce a record. The label holds the copyright to the material and the artist is paid for this. Then the record is promoted, and either sells or it doesn't.
If there's a suit for copyright infringement and there's money awarded, why WOULD the artist get any of it? It's the label's copyright that's been infringed. Any damages SHOULD go to them. If I'm hired to write some program for Adobe, it's pirated, and Adobe sues someone--why would I see any money? It's not my program. I wrote it, but it belongs to Adobe. Any lost income is theirs not mine.
It can be argued that these record contracts are pretty lopsided and go against the artist. But they are the ones that signed it. Just because they are in a bad contract doesn't mean they should get money from these suits which are for copyrights they aren't the holders to.
Re:Why WOULD the artists get this money? (Score:5, Informative)
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.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Actually, the artist usually keeps the copyrights, or transfers them to a publishing company (generally wholly owned by the artist/artists, after what happened with Lennon/McCartney and the whole Northern Songs clusterfuck).
You're doing it wrong (Score:5, Funny)
The joke goes: "The RIAA called. They want their $222,000 verdict back."