First New Dismissal Motion Against RIAA Complaint

NewYorkCountryLawyer writes "Several weeks ago it was discovered that a California federal judge, in rejecting an RIAA application for default judgment, had dismissed the RIAA's standard complaint for failure to state a claim, calling it "conclusory" "boilerplate" "speculation" in Interscope v. Rodriguez. In the wake of that decision a New York woman being sued in Brooklyn federal court, Rae J Schwartz, has told the Court that she is making a motion to dismiss the complaint in her case, Elektra v. Schwartz. This is the first post-Interscope challenge to the RIAA's boilerplate, of which we are aware. This is the same case in which the RIAA had sent a letter to the Judge falsely indicating that AOL had 'confirmed that defendant owned an internet access account through which copyrighted sound recordings were downloaded and distributed'. Ms. Schwartz suffers from Multiple Sclerosis, but the RIAA has pressed the case against her."

Re:Slight problem here

[NewYorkCountryLawyer]

Although it may be true that Interscope v. Rodriguez may be valid in the jurisdiction for which it was issued, there's no obligation upon any other jurisdiction to follow it.....

Except that the Interscope decision is based on Bell Atlantic v. Twombly [cornell.edu], which is a decision of the United States Supreme Court, and binding on every court. And it is clear that the RIAA's standard complaint does not satisfy the 'plausibility' standard of Twombly.

Re:It doesn't matter when the defendant suffers fr

[bidule]

Stress accelerate the development of this disease.

But of course insensitive clods like you don't care about quality of life.

More than ad misercordiam...

[Xenographic]

> By saying it is worse to bring a suit like this against an MS sufferer, we feel you are implicitly stating that it is not so bad to bring it against someone who is not an MS sufferer, and that is something we find objectionable.

Well, it is. Now hear me out.

As has been reported many times, stress is a factor in MS. By bringing this lawsuit, they can worsen her condition. In other words, it's like the RIAA is helping kill her. Add to that the fact that the disease is very expensive and that means that MS sufferers have limited means to defend themselves. So now they'll have a hard time affording medicine AND a hard time affording legal representation. Thus, the circumstances make it worse. After all, you KNOW they're not going to make any money off this case, even if they win.

Honestly, I do think it more objectionable to pick on the weak and the sick who have a hard time fighting back. Not because they have or should have more legal rights than anyone else, but because it is so dastardly of the RIAA to do this to begin with. There's absolutely nothing stopping the RIAA from dropping cases. They can be as discriminatory in bringing them as they want to be, so far as I know, without giving up any legal rights.

In other words, the heartless bastards just don't care. And they wonder why people cheer when MediaDefender got owned. At least that was a company that should've been able to defend itself against one lousy torrent with all their dirty secrets in it. I mean, that was their job, and they couldn't do it to save their own skin.

See the difference? It's the difference between only picking on those who cannot fight back and standing up to a bully. People boo one and cheer the other, even though all people are equal under law.

Re:That's a good way to start the weekend!

[NewYorkCountryLawyer]

I'd guess they have a 95+% accuracy on determining the offending ip. As for offending computer, I'd put it at 50% and offending person even lower. The number of wireless access points and NAT devices out there really calls into question their ability to bring a case against an individual. From my house, I have 8 different wireless access points I can use. I highly doubt that the people using these access points are always using their own.

On what basis do you guess that they have 95% accuracy on determining the "offending IP address" (whatever that is)? They themselves have stated that they are getting incorrect information from the ISP's [blogspot.com].

Re:Irrelavence...

[NewYorkCountryLawyer]

Keep in mind that in most cases the RIAA is suing an IP address with no knowledge of the person.

How sure is anyone of that?

Uh. The RIAA's own expert witness [blogspot.com] was pretty sure [ilrweb.com].