RIAA Complaint Dismissed as "Boilerplate"

NewYorkCountryLawyer writes "The decision many lawyers had been expecting — that the RIAA's 'boilerplate' complaint fails to state a claim for relief under the Copyright Act — has indeed come down, but from an unlikely source. While the legal community has been looking towards a Manhattan case (Elektra v. Barker) for guidance, the decision instead came from Senior District Court Judge Rudi M. Brewster of the US District Court for the Southern District of California. The decision handed down denied a default judgment (i.e. the defendant had not even appeared in the action). Judge Brewster not only denied the default judgment motion but dismissed the complaint for failure to state a claim. Echoing the words of Judge Karas at the oral argument in Barker , Judge Brewster held (pdf) that 'Plaintiff here must present at least some facts to show the plausibility of their allegations of copyright infringement against the Defendant. However, other than the bare conclusory statement that on "information and belief" Defendant has downloaded, distributed and/or made available for distribution to the public copyrighted works, Plaintiffs have presented no facts that would indicate that this allegation is anything more than speculation.'"

Unfair time-travel tacticts

[saveourskyline]

FTA [p2pnet.net]:

II. BACKGROUND

Plaintiffs filed a complaint against Defendant on November 14, 2007, alleging copyright infringement. According to the complaint, Defendant used and continued to use an online media distribution system...

The RIAA is using time machines now to go forward in time and file complaints in the future? Now that's just not fair...

Note to RIAA Legal

[Greyfox]

Remove "INSERT NAME HERE" from boilerplate when filling in the forms to sue people.

Hmm. Someone should write a perl script to help them. Snag a baby naming database and write a perl script to randomize the names, files shared and IP addresses to output an official-sounding C&D&Pay-us Email. Kinda like foggy, but for a legal document. Yeah. That'd be cool. And probably as accurate and effective as the system they're using now...

Re:Copyright infringement penalties are excessive!

[RockModeNick]

I've always found that argument silly, let me tell you, if a girl is a wonder in the sack, even if she's not particularly great looking and comes with baggage, she can sure lure me into a relationship by giving me some free milk.

re: music industry vs. self storage

[djdavetrouble]

damn them both, the profiteers! I spend thousands of dollars on vinyl records each year, and have been forced to house the better part of my collection (about 100 crates last time I moved them)
in a self storage unit (small manhattan apartment). I think they are actually in cahoots !!!!

Re:Boilerplate legal documents?

[linuxguy1454]

Not shocking. More like they're steamed by this ruling!

Re:Bizarre? No. Logical

[ascendant]

>And I think that was one of the longest and most incomprehensible sentences I ever wrote.

That tends to happen when you talk about stuff relating to the legal system.

Re:Are these people morons?

[greenbird]

Total music industry revenue is about $40 billion worldwide, and about $12 billion in the United States, per year.

But you see, that's because they're losing $1.4 trillion due to piracy. There have been studies done proving this. For every song downloaded they are losing the $20 dollars the downloader would have payed for the CD. And don't get me started on the massive losses those leach radio stations are causing. They've got dozens of studies back this stuff up. Just ask them.

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion