Appeals Court Stays RIAA Subpoena 78
NewYorkCountryLawyer writes "The United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit has stepped in and issued a temporary stay of the RIAA's subpoena for the identity of a student at the State University of New York in Albany. The student, 'John Doe #3,' had filed an appeal and motion for stay pending appeal, arguing that the appeal 'raises significant issues, some of first impression' (PDF), such as the standards for the use of ex parte procedures for expedited discovery, the scope of the First Amendment right of anonymity over the internet, the scope of the distribution right in copyright law, and the pleading requirements for infringement of such right."
Re:This could be big (Score:5, Interesting)
When and how did you get involved in the RIAA?
Late 2004 or early 2005. I heard about these RIAA cases from the Electronic Frontier Foundation, knew they were BS procedurally and substantively, thought to myself 'I'm a litigator, I'm a copyright lawyer, and I hate bullies... maybe I can help some of these folks.' Next thing I knew I was up to my neck in it.
Re:This could be big (Score:2, Interesting)
Do you think there's any chance at all the 2nd Circuit Appeals court will actually rule on some of the other issues at hand, such as the scope of the distribution right in copyright law?
For example, I personally think the RIAA's interpretation of the law being that every copy is a distribution is really very harmful to fair use. IMHO, if I purchase content, then it is my right to convert that content to any convenient medium of my choosing -- IOW, if I buy a CD at a music store, then I also believe that I have the right to rip that CD so that I can listen to it on my portable MP3 player. Seems like the recording industry would beg to differ.
And that only scratches the surface of the scope problems. Can I loan my CD to a friend? What if the friend wants to rip it to listen on his MP3 player?
To my knowledge, mone of these issues have ever been substantially resolved in court.
Re:This could be big (Score:5, Interesting)
Do you think there's any chance at all the 2nd Circuit Appeals court will actually rule on some of the other issues at hand
And why wouldn't they?
-The issues are squarely presented.
-After 40,000 cases, there is ZERO appellate authority.
-The 2nd Circuit is considered by many to be the leading copyright court in the country.
Re:This could be big (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:This could be big (Score:5, Interesting)
Mr. Beckerman: I'm a law student (graduating this year, economy be damned). I still cant figure out how exactly the Doe D's are able to respond if the initial pleading doesn't identify them. Is it up to the service provider to pass through notice to the Does? Once a Doe receives notice, assuming he does before default judgment is entered, how does the Doe respond without identifying himself or entering an "appearance" and basically waiving jurisdiction? I'm sure I'm missing something procedurally here, hope you can point me in the right direction.
You're not missing anything. The RIAA lawyers have been missing something. And unfortunately many of the judges have been missing something.
As you have learned in law school, it is of the essence of the American judicial system that BEFORE JUDICIAL ACTION IS TAKEN AGAINST SOMEONE THEY MUST BE GIVEN NOTICE, AND AN OPPORTUNITY TO BE HEARD.
Re:Slashdot, then and now (Score:5, Interesting)
Yeah, that one slashdot guy is a total hypocrit!
What they *should* have done is bought napster, kept it running as was, promoted the hell out of it, and made buckets of money with advertising and promotion. Imagine radio, but with the ad dollars going straight into the record labels pockets (with a small percentage going to the actual artists, as usual)
But since we're on the suing individual uploaders path, lets examine that:
1) laughable standards of evidence gathering. Infringement notices sent to network printers, or even people sharing their own work with a vaguely similar name to something else.
2) Arguably illegal methods of evidence gathering, certainly unlicenced investigators
3) abuse of due process to get default judgements before the defendent even knows they're being sued
4) going after innocent people when it's clear they're innocent; grannies sued for the use of windows software on her mac
5) going after people, no matter the method. Suing dead people, or after losing the case against the parent, refile against the under-age kids
6) extortion; pay a fine now to our settlement centre, or face huge court costs regardless of your innocence
7) blatant lies in court, with technical 'experts' not even considering alternative explanations (unsecured wireless etc), the misrepresentation of 'making available', etc etc
8) going after alleged infringers for huge fines; civil cases are supposedly about making good the plaintiff's losses, instead they want judgements running to hundreds of thousands times their actual losses
9) other abuses of the political and legal system, like root-kits, lobbying for the right to destroy alledged infringers computers remotely, or the three-strikes laws with no evidence required to cut people off the internet at will,
ever increasing retroactive copyright terms, destroying the public domain.
10) doing everything in their power to destroy or limit legitimate alternatives to their current system; hulu/boxee, raising the prices on itunes, DRM, massive rate hikes for online radio, the PRS and google music videos, the list goes on and on.
11) still treating the actual artists like crap, screwing them out of even the small amounts they're contracted to pay for say, online radio
The media cartels are actively damaging the public good, the artists, the legal and political systems with their witch-hunt. and for what?
'home taping is killing music'; 'don't copy that floppy'; 'The VCR is to the movie industry what the Boston Strangler was to a woman alone'; 'you wouldn't steal a car'.
Every time the copyright cartels have complained about new technology destroying their business model, and fighting it kicking and screaming for a few years, it turns round and becomes their new biggest way to make money. Good art is still hard to make; quality and convenience still have value. There's still money to be made, when the economy isn't in the crapper, anyway.
Re:This could be big (Score:4, Interesting)
.... its only been a few weeks and you seem to have forgotten a key reason why there is no need for these defendants to be heard before a judge. Come on Ray ... you know the RIAA aren't filing any more lawsuits, right? They told us so!!
Yes but you fail to take into account the Oppenheim theorem; I'm surprised at your lack of mathematical knowledge. The Oppenheim theorem, named after the RIAA's 'prince of darkness' Matthew Oppenheim, is as follows:
1. The opposite of anything said by an RIAA spokesman = the Truth.
2. An RIAA spokesman said to congressional committees "we discontinued initiating new lawsuits in August" [blogspot.com].
3. Therefore the Truth must be that hundreds of new cases have been commenced since August, and cases are even being commenced this month.
(I cheated and did some independent investigation, just to see if it does work. I am proud to say the theorem continues to serve its purpose, which is to enable us to learn the Truth. The real value of this theorem is its practical application which is to save time. Instead of looking things up, researching, investigating, doing depositions, etc., we can just find out the Truth with this simple equation. And its success rate is astounding.)