RIAA Caught in Tough Legal Situation 267
JeffreysTube writes "The RIAA's legal fight against a divorced mother has run into trouble, with the judge now telling the RIAA that its only two options are to proceed with a jury trial against Patty Santangelo or dismiss the case with prejudice. If the latter happens, Santangelo officially "wins" and could collect attorneys' fees. The judge is less than pleased with the RIAA, which is now trying to drop the case without giving Santangelo a chance to be declared guilty. 'This case is two years old,' wrote Judge McMahon. 'There has been extensive fact discovery. After taking this discovery, either plaintiffs want to make their case that Mrs. Santangelo is guilty of contributory copyright infringement or they do not.'"
Re:I know you hate the RIAA (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Is that your final comment? (Score:5, Informative)
Any sane person in a sane world probably thinks the same way, and of course the woman would not want to be found guilty. The RIAA sees that they are (probably) going to lose, and wants to try again from a different angle.
The key words are with or without prejudice. The RIAA right now is trying to have the case dismissed without prejudice, which basically is asking the judge to wipe out the last two years and allow them to start the process all over again.
If the case is dismissed with prejudice, it means the court will not entertain this and the woman can then (most likely) recoup her attorney's fees from the RIAA. Dismissed with prejudice is the next best thing to "Not Guilty".
This would set precedent that if the RIAA bullies you, and you win, you get to collect from them whatever costs you spent on your legal defense. The RIAA does not want this to happen.
So either they have to win the case on merit, or dismiss with prejudice. Its very (very) doubtful that they will win the case. If they lose (yep, you guessed it) the woman can sue to recoup legal expenses and will most likely win after long drawn out appeals and doors open to civil harassment suits.
Either way, precedent is about to be set that will help people fight off RIAA bullies, which of course they don't want to happen.
They need to stop harassing people who can't hope to match their legal resources. This woman basically just kicked them in the nuts, hard. Good for her. Just like a good old fashioned kick in the nuts, you don't feel the 'real' pain immediately, for the benefit of those without nuts or experience in having them kicked.
Re:I know you hate the RIAA (Score:3, Informative)
Witness:
"They have fought the War on Drugs with skill, so why not the War on Piracy?"
"I just shook my head, and tried to hold back the tears. 'I don't know, Jenny. I don't know.'"
And just take the time to read the final paragraph, for cryin' out loud! I've seen some pretty terrible attempts at sarcasm online (digg), but to see a truly clever showing get misconstrued is simply tragic.
That's why they want iTunes to sell 99 tracks (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Declared guilty? (Score:5, Informative)
What the Judge is telling the RIAA here is that, having completed discovery, they can either go to a jury trial and pursue a guilty verdict, or have the case dismissed with prejudice. See, the way everything has worked out for them in this case so far, they've got a snowball's cahnce in hell of winning, and they don't want to lose and set some nasty precedents (like the having to pay court fees for indiscriminately suing people with shitty evidence). What they want to do is back out of the case by dropping it and then suing her again for the same thing, in a different court with different tactics to try to get a better likelihood of winning. The Judge is telling them to either take it to a Jury and lose or be dismissed with prejudice and be unable to sue her again for the same thing. They're fucked either way.
Re:I know you hate the RIAA (Score:3, Informative)
Cut and paste post alert (Score:5, Informative)
Alert: The parent is a cut and paste post. This usually indicates a troll.
Other instances of this post are here [slashdot.org] and here [slashdot.org].
Re:I know you hate the RIAA (Score:2, Informative)
Re:I'd love to be buying albums again (Score:4, Informative)
Even with $40/CD the artist gets less than $0.10/CD
Critical Court procedural detail (Score:3, Informative)
The usual American solution is to cross-file, wherein defendant becomes cross-plantiff. Then plantiff might well withdraw their suit, but cross action proceeds. Most often, both are cleared in a settlement agreement.
Here, it appears the crossfile was not done, so the Judge has to unfortunately step in.
This is an OLD Troll (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Declared guilty? (Score:5, Informative)
This is a civil [wikipedia.org] suit (it's a poor reference, sorry). It is not 'guilt' in the criminal sense so much as factual and legal causation, on a "balance of probabilities" (i.e. 50%+1 chance), and unlike criminal law its purpose is not punishment. Rather, as I understand it, common law civil suits (less punitive damages for what's known as first-party breach of fiduciary duties) are compensatory, designed to put the person suing in one of three positions
1. as good a position as they were in before the wrong, had the wrong had not happened;
2. as good a position as they would have been in now, had the wrong had not happened;
3. the position of receiving the unjust benefit that has gone to the person who committed the wrong. (i.e. unjustly enriched [wikipedia.org])
I believe these are the three forms of damages generally arising in common law.
In the case of the RIAA, #1 means undoing the infringement and the intangible benefits arising from those having listened to it. This is hard, nigh impossible, to calculate and undo. Had the lady sold the songs, it'd be different.
Under #2, they can claim they lost income from the loss of sale, and demand that it be paid, now.
Under #3, they can claim that that the woman's benefits from the claim were unjust, but this is more an economic argument. (i.e. if she stole the song and re-sold it for $1 million- if it is not a sale the RIAA would ever have made then the RIAA cannot claim the $1 million under #1 or #2, but can under #3)
However, this is all modified by the copyright legislation, which essentially provides a statutory value to #2, and effectively at punitive rates (thus, in effect constructing the legal inference that an individual has a duty of utmost good faith to the copyright holder). Thus, when the RIAA sues under #1, they can sue at exorbitant, punitive rates, way beyond any actual loss. This is designed as a deterrent to copyright infringement (like criminal law's punitive damages), except it doesn't have the checks and balances of criminal law (insofar as they exist) because a private individual can bring a copyright infringement claim and the standard of proof is only 50%+1 (i.e. 'balance of probabilities'- best highlighted by OJ Simpson being not guilty of murder beyond a reasonable doubt, but guilty on a balance of probabilities, making him not-liable in punitive criminal law, but guilty in civil compensation).
However, in the end, this case isn't about damages. The issue in this case seems to have been the lack of evidence brought by the RIAA. In many (virtually all) jurisdictions, this results in an adverse 'cost' award, where you have to pay the fees of the defendant (a compensatory deterrent to frivolous actions, precisely like the RIAA barratry [wikipedia.org]).
Hope that's food for thought.
Re:Declared guilty? (Score:5, Informative)
It's not just attorneys fees, don't you get it?
If the judge awards the defendant $100k in legal fees on the most highly publicized RIAA case, that will
encourage lawyers to jump into the fight helping the defendants and
encourage defendants to fight back.
Plus the attorneys fees awards will wind up being a huge sum if more people are fighting back.
Re:I'd love to be buying albums again (Score:3, Informative)
Re:I know you hate the RIAA (Score:2, Informative)
Nah, i listen to a lot of spanish radio and at least in the western states and on XM it's the same quality as english radio. The same songs get played over and over, and it's controlled the same as any other radio station because they're all owned by the same company.
Re:Stopping the lawsuits... (Score:3, Informative)