RIAA Accepts $300 Offer of Judgement In Carolina

NewYorkCountryLawyer writes "In a North Carolina case, Capitol v. Frye, the RIAA has accepted a $300 offer of judgment made by the defendant. This is the first known use, in the RIAA v. Consumer cases, of the formal offer of judgment procedure which provides that if the plaintiff doesn't accept the offer, and doesn't later get a judgment for a larger amount, the plaintiff is responsible for all of the court costs from that point on in the case. The accepted judgment in the Frye case (PDF) also contains an injunction — much more limited than the RIAA's typical 'settlement' injunction (PDF) — under which defendant agreed not to infringe plaintiffs' copyrights."

Re:Decent Resolution

[Darundal]

I would be willing to bet they excepted not to be reasonable, but because they probably realized that they didn't have enough for a case with someone who would fight and they believed that she would. I would be willing to bet that this is actually a sign that at this point, if you make it clear you will fight, the RIAA will try to back down and save as much face as possible as opposed to going through having another botch on their end show up all over the web and on newspapers nationwide.

Re:Decent Resolution

[dattaway]

No. A reasonable resolution would be compensation for time and money to respond to a poor case with awful "evidence" and absolutely no detective work. $3,000 for the defense perhaps?

Re:Sorry for being picky, but...

[Kalriath]

For no known reason, both words mean the same thing. Judgment sounds like an Americanism though, as judgement is how it's spelled in countries that still speak English.

Re:I'm no lawyer, but

[GizmoToy]

True, but on the other hand it's entirely possible she was guilty, knew she was guilty, and thus saw this as the cheapest way out. Which is not to say that the RIAA could have proved it to the satisfaction of the judge, but rather that the defendant knew she was wrong and owned up to her mistake.

Re:ha

[NewYorkCountryLawyer]

The really funny thing is it cost them $350 to actually file the lawsuit...

They lost many thousands of dollars on this case.

Re:I'm no lawyer, but

[Daychilde]

I believe it was a hypothesis, not a conclusion, and I'd expect everyone to have figured out that the courts aren't always able to determine truth... Or do you think someone is only guilty or innocent after the findings of a court, regardless of what actually happened in real life? Put another way - if courts are able to reach accurate verdicts 100% of the time, no matter the nature of the case, why is there so much unsolved crime? The Justice System is pretty good, all things considered; but it's not at all like television. You don't always get fingerprints; you can send stuff off to the lab and get a clearcut answer all the time...

Offer of Judgement

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't know about cash, but I'd be willing to offer to fill up a hard drive full of mp3s for them. That ought to be worth millions from their perspective!

Re:I'm no lawyer, but

[QuantumG]

I love the way people keep throwing around this word "guilty". Like this is a criminal case. The longer people apply criminal law terminology like "guilty" and "innocent" and "theft" the easier it will be for the copyright owners to get new criminal laws passed.

Stop playing their game.

Re:I'm no lawyer, but

[ari_j]

Not really. First off, you don't plead guilty in civil cases such as this. Second, courts have held (see, e.g., Scosche v. Visor Gear [georgetown.edu]) that Rule 68 judgments do not have a preclusive effect on litigating issues they dispose of. Therefore, the RIAA probably cannot take the Rule 68-based judgment and use it against this defendant in a future case to avoid actually litigating the issues in the future case. Numerous sources indicate that Rule 68 has the sole purpose of encouraging settlement.

Finally, the real issue that was raised and to which I responded: There is no precedential effect, no matter how you take the Rule 68-based judgment. Legal precedents are only as to issues of law. It seems that no interpretation of law was made here, and any issues that were disposed of by the judgment are factual in nature. There is no such thing as a legally binding factual precedent.

Re:I'm no lawyer, but

[ari_j]

Even if the RIAA took it all the way to trial and won a judgment of $8 billion dollars, it would likely still have next to no precedential effect. It's not like you can go to another court with a different defendant and say "See! We over there against that chick, so, Your Honor, you have to give us money from this guy too!" Thankfully, whatever faults it does have, the American legal system doesn't work quite like that.

Re:I'm no lawyer, but

[Anonymous Coward]

In simple terms her offer was "Okay I'm willing to plead guilty and pay you $300 inclusive of everything"

Correct, except for the "plead guilty" part. That's only in criminal cases.

Re:I'm no lawyer, but

[NewYorkCountryLawyer]

There are other definitions of the term 'guilty' than merely the legal definitions. You'll notice the sentence doesn't even make sense using 'liable.'

I disagree. I think it would have made perfect sense to use the civil litigation language, instead of criminal terms:

it's entirely possible she was liable, knew she was liable, and thus saw this as the cheapest way out

Re:I'm no lawyer, but

[Dun Malg]

There are other definitions of the term 'guilty' than merely the legal definitions. You'll notice the sentence doesn't even make sense using 'liable.'

"True, but on the other hand it's entirely possible she was liable, knew she was liable, and thus saw this as the cheapest way out."

WTF are you talking about? It makes perfect sense.

Re:I'm no lawyer, but

[QuantumG]

I don't doubt that was her thought process... specially, she was probably thinking about it as a matter of guilt, because that's the RIAA wants her to think about it. "I did something wrong" not "I caused significant damages to a music company". The first is easy to plant in people's minds, the second isn't.

Which is why I was saying that you shouldn't help them do that.

Re:Isn't the minimum judgment $750?

[ktappe]

Why not offer a judgment of $1 and no injunction?

Because the RIAA, much like a 3rd world strongman dictator, is trying to save face. The defendant probably told her attorney "make this go away" and $1 wasn't going to accomplish that. A $1 judgment would raise more eyebrows and get more publicity than a $300 one. Anyone can tell that a $1 win for the RIAA is really a loss, but $300 will make a notable percentage of the public think the RIAA won. Thus, everyone involved on both sides knew $1 wasn't going to be accepted under any circumstances and would therefore have been a waste of time. It's all about appearances for the RIAA. Their whole campaign is to give the public the impression they are not only going after violators but are winning, and not just winning $1.

And yet, never any sanctions against RIAA lawyers

[Anonymous Coward]

the defendant's lawyer should be sanctioned, based on several things he had done that irked the judge.

Irking the judge has defensible standing in law?

If it does, how come that the RIAA's lawyers bringing meritless suits based on an almost total absence of evidence against a sizeable proportion of the young population has not yet irked any judge, and sent their lawyers packing?