NewYorkCountryLawyer writes "The RIAA's motion to keep secret the record companies' 1999-to-date revenues for the copyrighted song files at the heart of the case has been denied, in the Boston case scheduled for trial July 27th, SONY BMG Music Entertainment v. Tenenbaum. The Judge had previously ordered the plaintiff record companies to produce a summary of the 1999-to-date revenues for the recordings, broken down into physical and digital sales. On the day the summary was due to be produced, instead of producing it, they produced a 'protective order motion' asking the Judge to rule that the information would have to be kept secret. The Judge rejected that motion: 'the Court does not comprehend how disclosure would impair the Plaintiffs' competitive business prospects when three of the four biggest record labels in the world — Warner Bros. Records, Sony BMG Music Entertainment, and UMG Recording, Inc. — are participating jointly in this lawsuit and, presumably, would have joint access to this information.'"
I will believe it when the smoke and mirrors are actually changed to some hard data. This seems more an Emperor's new clothes thing to me though. The RIAA does not wish to reveal that the hand they are playing is a busted flush
That would be pretty typical in show business. A major motion picture can have a HUGE box office and still mysteriously show no profit when it comes time to give out the money to the people with "points" in the movie. Peter Jackson had to sue New Line [nytimes.com] to get his fair share of the The Lord of the Rings movies, after they tried this with him (and he won).
I wonder if they told the artists one set of numbers and need more time to make sure what they give to the court matches that set.
Herein lies the issue. If they go with the artist numbers, then revenues might be small. Punitive and compensatory damages will likely be small as a result. However, if they want to claim higher numbers, then the artists will turn around and sue them for the stolen revenue. They're caught between a rock and a hard place, and that's good...
Herein lies the issue. If they go with the artist numbers, then revenues might be small. Punitive and compensatory damages will likely be small as a result. However, if they want to claim higher numbers, then the artists will turn around and sue them for the stolen revenue. They're caught between a rock and a hard place, and that's good...
You could expand that as well. If there is a *cough* significant difference between the two numbers, the disclosure could open the RIAA companies to accusations of conspiracy to defraud on a grand scale. Passing the hot potato between holding companies until fees eat up the value that would otherwise be distributed as profit is an old trick. A very old trick, and one that wouldn't be treated sympathetically by a court that enforced visibility of the transactions as a group. The term, I think, is "forensic accounting" and firms like KPMG (disclosure: once was employee, long ago) have practice groups that are used by prosecutors for just this purpose.
I don't think it would be the first time that the discovery part of a lawsuit triggered new proceedings. Sort of like "Well, I was just on my way to a burglary when the guy ran into me..."
It's not just the royalties/payments to the artists, it's the taxes, which could become an even bigger issue. While big corps might be able to get away with shady practises to hide their real profits, if they try to stick with a large penalty by announcing revenues of several times what was declared on their taxes they're likely going to be in deep trouble
Not only that, but showing huge profits is going to blow away their pleas of "piracy is killing the industry and we're losing money/profits/etc", which is probably the real point here....
because music copyright usually results in a monopoly situation there is not competition - no one else is publishing the same track in competition to them, so the information is not commercially sensitive
Cop: You know why I pulled you over? Fletcher: Depends on how long you were following me! Cop: Why don't we just take it from the top? Fletcher: Here goes: I sped. I followed too closely. I ran a stop sign. I almost hit a Chevy. I sped some more. I failed to yield at a crosswalk. I changed lanes at the intersection. I changed lanes without signaling while running a red light and *speeding*! Cop: Is that all? Fletcher: No... I have unpaid parking tickets. [groans] Fletcher:... be gentle.
Bum: Got any spare change? Fletcher: Absolutely! Bum: Could ya spare some? Fletcher: Yes I could! Bum: Will ya? Fletcher: HMM-MMM! Bum: How come? Fletcher: Because I believe you will buy booze with it! I just want to get from my car to the office without being confronted by the decay of western society!... Plus I'm cheap! AHHH!
They'd have to show what they actually gain from "honest" business and have that compared to their extortion schemes. It could even show that the "claimed losses" exceed what one person could possibly cause in damages.
And that in turn could mean that their insane claims (and the verdicts that ensued) could be up for review, they could end up with far more sane sentences and that in turn would make the whole "shock and awe" deterrent a joke.
haha! well, maybe now their hollywood accounting [wikipedia.org] will come back to bite them in the ass as they struggle to show that the songs are now worth massive damages, when they were worth nothing or less as they computed royalties for the artists they were screwing.
Sony, EMI, Warner Bros, and Universal are in real trouble. Make sure you check http://riaaradar.com/ [riaaradar.com] to make sure when you purchase music you don't buy anything from these companies that fund the RIAA.
Sony, EMI, Warner Bros, and Universal are in real trouble. Make sure you check http://riaaradar.com/ [riaaradar.com] [riaaradar.com] to make sure when you purchase music you don't buy anything from these companies that fund the RIAA.
Well most of their recordings are sold under their affiliate labels, with different names. But so long as you check it out at http://riaaradar.com/ [riaaradar.com] if they say it's cool, it's cool. If they say it's RIAA-tainted, stay away.
But so long as you check it out at http://riaaradar.com/ [riaaradar.com] if they say it's cool, it's cool. If they say it's RIAA-tainted, stay away.
Yeah, not falling for that one again after I was hanging out with an riaaradar.com maintainer and they kept trying to tell me that my pants were RIAA-tainted.
If their sales/profits are low, then they can claim the illegal copying is to blame. If their sales/profits are high, then they claim it would be even higher without the copying.
The only issue could be that they are not consistent with regards to their demands.
MAFIAA: You have to take into account everyone that downloaded them.
JUDGE: Ok so lets say 10 people downloaded each one, that's about so that's about $4800 right?
By definition, the average participant in a peer sharing network uploads one copy. There's no way around that. If the actual number of uploads is unknown, the only remotely reasonable assumption for damage calculations is 1.0000000000000000000000000.
MAFIAA: You have to take into account everyone that downloaded them.
JUDGE: Ok so lets say 10 people downloaded each one, that's about so that's about $4800 right?
By definition, the average participant in a peer sharing network uploads one copy. There's no way around that. If the actual number of uploads is unknown, the only remotely reasonable assumption for damage calculations is 1.0000000000000000000000000.
I know the defendant in this case wasn't using bittorrent, but is there actually any way to prove a person has uploaded one entire, complete, copy to anyone? I expect it's more like 30% to that person, 40% to another, 30% to a third, but since people are connected to multiple uploaders, how can you tell?
Infringement isn't about sharing a complete copy. If you shared half a song with two people, that could be interpreted (and would be, I expect) of two infringements.
Taken to an (absurd IMO) extreme, that could be taken to mean that if you shared 1/N of a song with N people, that would be N infringements... meaning one could easily "infringe" several hundred thousand times while uploading to someone over p2p. This seems absolutely absurd to us, but until someone answers "what fraction of a copyrighted wor
by Anonymous Coward
on Thursday July 16, @02:16PM (#28721123)
Ray--if I was ordered by a judge to produce a detailed breakdown of my accounting (say a trial for tax evasion) practices over the past years by 7/31, and on the 31st I came to court with just a "protective order motion" asking that my accounting practices be kept secret...
Wouldn't I be held in contempt?
I mean...I can see producing the motion *with* the information...or...before it...but... tell me why it is these guys appear to have rights in the legal system that everyone else doesn't... More importantly, what piece of paperwork do I have to file so I can ignore court orders like they do and get off scott free?
Ray--if I was ordered by a judge to produce a detailed breakdown of my accounting (say a trial for tax evasion) practices over the past years by 7/31, and on the 31st I came to court with just a "protective order motion" asking that my accounting practices be kept secret...
Wouldn't I be held in contempt?
I mean...I can see producing the motion *with* the information...or...before it...but... tell me why it is these guys appear to have rights in the legal system that everyone else doesn't... More importantly, what piece of paperwork do I have to file so I can ignore court orders like they do and get off scott free?
If I were the Judge I probably wouldn't have held them in contempt, but I probably would have issued a discovery sanction. Since in this case the material is needed to assess the fair use defense, which would be a complete bar to the action, I would have issued an order striking their complaint, dismissing the case.
Ray, correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't think cases are normally dismissed as a result of discovery sanctions for a single missing document.
If you're 2 weeks away from the trial, and one side deliberately flaunts an order directing them to produce something which is key to a total defense; you bet it is.
The way most things work in court is that your response is due based on the order from the judge. If you are ordered to provide tax information by 7/31, you have a number of options. Only one of them is actually providing that information. You can also respond by challenging the order, requesting a limitation on the order, showing cause why you can't comply with the order, and depending on the situation, other options.
The deadline is the due date for the responsive filing. As long as the response isn't completely devoid of rationality or some support, the court will review the response and then either adjust the original order or respond by saying, "nice try, but now do what I said". It's not contempt to push back in civil litigation unless you're doing it solely for the sake of wasting time or money.
In this case, because a protective order was issued, it obviously wasn't devoid of a real issue.
Now, sometimes, an order is an order and the only permitted responses are (a) compliance or (b) a request for more time to comply (which may or may not be granted, especially if dropped on the court at the last minute). This is rarely the case.
Moreover, the summary is again biased and sensationalized, part of a pattern that shows increasingly unprofessional conduct on the part of the submitter. The RIAA offered a proposed order that was greater in scope than what they had argued for. Had the judge and her clerks read only the moving papers and then just signed the order, the RIAA would have had that order amended upon discovery of the inconsistency. The RIAA actually got the protective order it had argued for--it just didn't get the overbroad proposal they submitted.
You could automatically bounce back to "the RIAA is evil and incompetent", which no one would disagree with, but there's almost no chance that this would have ever worked--it's not like the judge is powerless upon discovery of the problem, which is almost inevitable unless opposing counsel is beyond incompetent, and attempting to slip an expanded order in intentionally opens them up to all kinds of sanctions. The thing is, you rarely get more than what you ask in a proposed order attached to a motion--so it's not uncommon to "shoot for the moon" and then the court writes a narrower order based on how much it's willing to give you. In most cases, it's not a plot. It's just the way the game is played.
Moreover, the summary is again biased and sensationalized, part of a pattern that shows increasingly unprofessional conduct on the part of the submitter. The RIAA offered a proposed order that was greater in scope than what they had argued for. Had the judge and her clerks read only the moving papers and then just signed the order, the RIAA would have had that order amended upon discovery of the inconsistency. The RIAA actually got the protective order it had argued for--it just didn't get the overbroad proposal they submitted.
Be nice. NYCL has a viewpoint and he likes to express it loud and clear, but accusations regarding professionality are uncalled for. He's not representing anyone in the case or publishing information that one couldn't get through PACER.
It isn't any use arguing what the RIAA would have done had the judge signed off on their prosed protective order. They should have vetted it before submitting it to avoid any appearance of deceptive behavior. Since they didn't, then they deserve a little nose tweaking.
And no, they did not get everything they wanted. The judge refused to protect the revenue information of the plaintiffs. They did seem to get what they wanted with regards to the non-revenue information.
Gertner's ruling states that "[the Court] will, however, order the second set of documents, which implicate the business interests of third-party artist-owned companies, shielded from disclosure."
What are these documents, and who are these "third-party artist-owned companies?"
Gertner's ruling states that "[the Court] will, however, order the second set of documents, which implicate the business interests of third-party artist-owned companies, shielded from disclosure."
What are these documents, and who are these "third-party artist-owned companies?"
That's non-controversial. It refers to the agreements with recording artists, other record companies, etc.
the judge has corrected a MAJOR malfunction in your logic circuits. next time when you accuse someone of damaging your profits, you will remember to actually prove EVIDENCE to back up your case. that is, unless your leashholders are afraid of being proven wrong about all the shit you have been perpetrating. enjoy.
This could be the beginnings of an interesting new strategy against the RIAA. Forcing the RIAA to produce the verifiable truth about various things and to pull their skeletons from their closets and put them on display can likely act as quite a deterrent against RIAA actions.
Still. How is the judge taking their failure to produce the data? Does making a motion instead of producing the data result in an automatic extension somehow? Is this an unwritten part of due process now?
If it were you or I, we would likely be held in contempt. After all, we are a single person with no real power of any kind... a huge set of officers grab us and throw us in a cell. Now think about this in the context of 3 out of 4 of the music producing companies in the world... who do you throw in jail? Who was the one that actually made the decision to try and play the courts? You could argue that the lawyer is at fault... if they knew it was questionably legal, they should simply refuse, right? I don't believe it as cut and dry as that. Someone on the plaintiffs side who pays the check of said lawyer could fire him for doing so. We have no idea how this would affect said lawyer. Maybe he is on the hook for $2M in medical bills because his 6 year old daughter is dying of leukemia, therefore he can't afford to lose his job, even when he knows what the right actions would be.
Not that I'm saying that someone shouldn't be tarred, feathered, then gang raped in a max security prison, but who to throw in there isn't so clear.
What I'm wondering at this point is do they have to release this information publicly, or only to those participating in the case, or ? Betting next thing we see is for them to try to limit as much as possible who has access to this evidence.
I'm just asking, because the whole point of the motion was to prevent the records from becoming public. If they are presented in court as evidence they are, be default, public.
You do know that court records are public, right? They may not be exactly easy to just look up, but you can go see the court clerk for what ever court a case is held at and get a transcript of the records, most likely you'll have to pay a processing fee, but it would be minimal.
It takes a court order to seal records in a court case, which is what the RIAA tried to get. The judge said no.
Exactly, I wonder what their advertising says for new artists compared to what they say when they pull the "ZOMG OUR KIDS ARE GOING TO STARVE IF WE DON"T SUE YOU FOR $3.6 million per song!!!111!1!1".
While decreasing CD sales are being caused by increasing digital sales, overall cash is going down. But that's not anybody's fault. People don't want to buy the CD because it's overpriced and they only want the one or two good songs that are hyped on the radio. Why buy the rest of the trash?
Then add in Wal Mart is running independent music stores out of business and then turning around and only offering a fraction of the selection - the majority of it being the latest hype crap that everyone wants to buy si
Early 2000 I did a bit of research on the topic and found somewhere a document [...] that showed the RIAA's claim of loss of income to be fewer records released, not because people were downloading music for free
Show us the money! (Score:5, Interesting)
I wonder if ... (Score:5, Insightful)
I wonder if they told the artists one set of numbers and need more time to make sure what they give to the court matches that set.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
That part is standard practice, and I doubt they're worried about the artists finding out since they're the ones who draw up the contracts.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hollywood_accounting [wikipedia.org]
Re:I wonder if ... (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent
Re:I wonder if ... (Score:5, Interesting)
I wonder if they told the artists one set of numbers and need more time to make sure what they give to the court matches that set.
Herein lies the issue. If they go with the artist numbers, then revenues might be small. Punitive and compensatory damages will likely be small as a result. However, if they want to claim higher numbers, then the artists will turn around and sue them for the stolen revenue. They're caught between a rock and a hard place, and that's good...
Parent
Re:I wonder if ... (Score:5, Interesting)
Herein lies the issue. If they go with the artist numbers, then revenues might be small. Punitive and compensatory damages will likely be small as a result. However, if they want to claim higher numbers, then the artists will turn around and sue them for the stolen revenue. They're caught between a rock and a hard place, and that's good...
You could expand that as well. If there is a *cough* significant difference between the two numbers, the disclosure could open the RIAA companies to accusations of conspiracy to defraud on a grand scale. Passing the hot potato between holding companies until fees eat up the value that would otherwise be distributed as profit is an old trick. A very old trick, and one that wouldn't be treated sympathetically by a court that enforced visibility of the transactions as a group. The term, I think, is "forensic accounting" and firms like KPMG (disclosure: once was employee, long ago) have practice groups that are used by prosecutors for just this purpose.
I don't think it would be the first time that the discovery part of a lawsuit triggered new proceedings. Sort of like "Well, I was just on my way to a burglary when the guy ran into me..."
Parent
Taxes too (Score:4, Interesting)
It's not just the royalties/payments to the artists, it's the taxes, which could become an even bigger issue.
While big corps might be able to get away with shady practises to hide their real profits, if they try to stick with a large penalty by announcing revenues of several times what was declared on their taxes they're likely going to be in deep trouble
Not only that, but showing huge profits is going to blow away their pleas of "piracy is killing the industry and we're losing money/profits/etc", which is probably the real point here....
Parent
There is no reason to be quiet about that, ... (Score:3)
...when you publicly state that you want the 3.5% that the artists get, to get down to 2.8%, while still expecting them to pay the studio from that.
Because that is exactly what they tried to do.
Those that they told another set of numbers are us. To justify the "piracy" inquisition. (Occam's razor!)
Not only that ... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Not only that ... (Score:5, Insightful)
It is commercially sensitive, but not in a direct manner.
"They only made how much? I'm not going to sign with you for that"
Parent
Re:Not only that ... (Score:5, Insightful)
It would allow the artists to see what someone else got and then go...
They only had xxx unit of sales and got $$$, but, we sold more units and got less... Lets talk and please explain to us why!
Parent
I object! (Score:5, Funny)
Reede: Your honor, I object!
Judge: Why?
Reede: Because it's devastating to my case!
Judge: Overruled.
Reede: Good call!
Re:I object! (Score:5, Funny)
Cop: You know why I pulled you over? ... be gentle.
Fletcher: Depends on how long you were following me!
Cop: Why don't we just take it from the top?
Fletcher: Here goes: I sped. I followed too closely. I ran a stop sign. I almost hit a Chevy. I sped some more. I failed to yield at a crosswalk. I changed lanes at the intersection. I changed lanes without signaling while running a red light and *speeding*!
Cop: Is that all?
Fletcher: No... I have unpaid parking tickets.
[groans]
Fletcher:
Bum: Got any spare change?
Fletcher: Absolutely!
Bum: Could ya spare some?
Fletcher: Yes I could!
Bum: Will ya?
Fletcher: HMM-MMM!
Bum: How come?
Fletcher: Because I believe you will buy booze with it! I just want to get from my car to the office without being confronted by the decay of western society!... Plus I'm cheap! AHHH!
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
I'm an asshole. It says so on my character sheet.
Ain't that obvious? (Score:5, Insightful)
They'd have to show what they actually gain from "honest" business and have that compared to their extortion schemes. It could even show that the "claimed losses" exceed what one person could possibly cause in damages.
And that in turn could mean that their insane claims (and the verdicts that ensued) could be up for review, they could end up with far more sane sentences and that in turn would make the whole "shock and awe" deterrent a joke.
hollywood accounting (Score:5, Insightful)
cracks in the dam (Score:5, Informative)
Re:cracks in the dam (Score:4, Informative)
Sony, EMI, Warner Bros, and Universal are in real trouble. Make sure you check http://riaaradar.com/ [riaaradar.com] [riaaradar.com] to make sure when you purchase music you don't buy anything from these companies that fund the RIAA.
Well most of their recordings are sold under their affiliate labels, with different names. But so long as you check it out at http://riaaradar.com/ [riaaradar.com] if they say it's cool, it's cool. If they say it's RIAA-tainted, stay away.
Parent
Re:cracks in the dam (Score:5, Funny)
But so long as you check it out at http://riaaradar.com/ [riaaradar.com] if they say it's cool, it's cool. If they say it's RIAA-tainted, stay away.
Yeah, not falling for that one again after I was hanging out with an riaaradar.com maintainer and they kept trying to tell me that my pants were RIAA-tainted.
Parent
I wonder what they are hiding (Score:4, Insightful)
The only issue could be that they are not consistent with regards to their demands.
But Sir (Score:5, Funny)
MAFIAA: But sir we sold 4 million digital downloads and made 2 million in revenue from those downloads.
JUDGE: So your are saying you made about 50 cents each download right?
MAFIAA: Yes sir.
JUDGE: So we can roughly say the value of each download is 50 cents right?
MAFIAA: Yes sir.
JUDGE: So even if we get "Biblical" in damages of 40 fold we are looking at about $20 a track right?
MAFIAA: Errr well....
JUDGE: So for 24 tracks at $20 bucks each Jammie owes you about $480 bucks right?
MAFIAA: You have to take into account everyone that downloaded them.
JUDGE: Ok so lets say 10 people downloaded each one, that's about so that's about $4800 right?
MAFIAA: Sir that isn't enough!
JUDGE: How much is enough?
MAFIAA: IT'S NEVER ENOUGH!!! (Rips off the mask to reveal he's infact a tenticle demon!!)
Re:But Sir (Score:5, Insightful)
MAFIAA: You have to take into account everyone that downloaded them.
JUDGE: Ok so lets say 10 people downloaded each one, that's about so that's about $4800 right?
By definition, the average participant in a peer sharing network uploads one copy. There's no way around that. If the actual number of uploads is unknown, the only remotely reasonable assumption for damage calculations is 1.0000000000000000000000000.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
MAFIAA: You have to take into account everyone that downloaded them.
JUDGE: Ok so lets say 10 people downloaded each one, that's about so that's about $4800 right?
By definition, the average participant in a peer sharing network uploads one copy. There's no way around that. If the actual number of uploads is unknown, the only remotely reasonable assumption for damage calculations is 1.0000000000000000000000000.
I know the defendant in this case wasn't using bittorrent, but is there actually any way to prove a person has uploaded one entire, complete, copy to anyone? I expect it's more like 30% to that person, 40% to another, 30% to a third, but since people are connected to multiple uploaders, how can you tell?
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Infringement isn't about sharing a complete copy. If you shared half a song with two people, that could be interpreted (and would be, I expect) of two infringements.
Taken to an (absurd IMO) extreme, that could be taken to mean that if you shared 1/N of a song with N people, that would be N infringements ... meaning one could easily "infringe" several hundred thousand times while uploading to someone over p2p. This seems absolutely absurd to us, but until someone answers "what fraction of a copyrighted wor
Re:But Sir (Score:4, Funny)
wait, is that what people mean by knowing someone "in the biblical sense?"
Parent
Is this Legit, or Contempt? (Score:5, Interesting)
Ray--if I was ordered by a judge to produce a detailed breakdown of my accounting (say a trial for tax evasion) practices over the past years by 7/31, and on the 31st I came to court with just a "protective order motion" asking that my accounting practices be kept secret...
Wouldn't I be held in contempt?
I mean...I can see producing the motion *with* the information...or...before it...but... tell me why it is these guys appear to have rights in the legal system that everyone else doesn't... More importantly, what piece of paperwork do I have to file so I can ignore court orders like they do and get off scott free?
Re:Is this Legit, or Contempt? (Score:5, Interesting)
Ray--if I was ordered by a judge to produce a detailed breakdown of my accounting (say a trial for tax evasion) practices over the past years by 7/31, and on the 31st I came to court with just a "protective order motion" asking that my accounting practices be kept secret... Wouldn't I be held in contempt? I mean...I can see producing the motion *with* the information...or...before it...but... tell me why it is these guys appear to have rights in the legal system that everyone else doesn't... More importantly, what piece of paperwork do I have to file so I can ignore court orders like they do and get off scott free?
If I were the Judge I probably wouldn't have held them in contempt, but I probably would have issued a discovery sanction. Since in this case the material is needed to assess the fair use defense, which would be a complete bar to the action, I would have issued an order striking their complaint, dismissing the case.
Parent
Re:Is this Legit, or Contempt? (Score:4, Interesting)
I would have issued an order striking their complaint, dismissing the case.
But then, we wouldn't see the records, right? Maybe the judge is as curious as you and I regarding what they're trying to hide?
Parent
Re:Is this Legit, or Contempt? (Score:4, Interesting)
Ray, correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't think cases are normally dismissed as a result of discovery sanctions for a single missing document.
If you're 2 weeks away from the trial, and one side deliberately flaunts an order directing them to produce something which is key to a total defense; you bet it is.
Parent
Re:Is this Legit, or Contempt? (Score:4, Interesting)
The way most things work in court is that your response is due based on the order from the judge. If you are ordered to provide tax information by 7/31, you have a number of options. Only one of them is actually providing that information. You can also respond by challenging the order, requesting a limitation on the order, showing cause why you can't comply with the order, and depending on the situation, other options.
The deadline is the due date for the responsive filing. As long as the response isn't completely devoid of rationality or some support, the court will review the response and then either adjust the original order or respond by saying, "nice try, but now do what I said". It's not contempt to push back in civil litigation unless you're doing it solely for the sake of wasting time or money.
In this case, because a protective order was issued, it obviously wasn't devoid of a real issue.
Now, sometimes, an order is an order and the only permitted responses are (a) compliance or (b) a request for more time to comply (which may or may not be granted, especially if dropped on the court at the last minute). This is rarely the case.
Moreover, the summary is again biased and sensationalized, part of a pattern that shows increasingly unprofessional conduct on the part of the submitter. The RIAA offered a proposed order that was greater in scope than what they had argued for. Had the judge and her clerks read only the moving papers and then just signed the order, the RIAA would have had that order amended upon discovery of the inconsistency. The RIAA actually got the protective order it had argued for--it just didn't get the overbroad proposal they submitted.
You could automatically bounce back to "the RIAA is evil and incompetent", which no one would disagree with, but there's almost no chance that this would have ever worked--it's not like the judge is powerless upon discovery of the problem, which is almost inevitable unless opposing counsel is beyond incompetent, and attempting to slip an expanded order in intentionally opens them up to all kinds of sanctions. The thing is, you rarely get more than what you ask in a proposed order attached to a motion--so it's not uncommon to "shoot for the moon" and then the court writes a narrower order based on how much it's willing to give you. In most cases, it's not a plot. It's just the way the game is played.
Parent
Re:Is this Legit, or Contempt? (Score:5, Informative)
Be nice. NYCL has a viewpoint and he likes to express it loud and clear, but accusations regarding professionality are uncalled for. He's not representing anyone in the case or publishing information that one couldn't get through PACER.
It isn't any use arguing what the RIAA would have done had the judge signed off on their prosed protective order. They should have vetted it before submitting it to avoid any appearance of deceptive behavior. Since they didn't, then they deserve a little nose tweaking.
And no, they did not get everything they wanted. The judge refused to protect the revenue information of the plaintiffs. They did seem to get what they wanted with regards to the non-revenue information.
Parent
What are these other documents? (Score:5, Interesting)
Gertner's ruling states that "[the Court] will, however, order the second set of documents, which implicate the business interests of third-party artist-owned companies, shielded from disclosure."
What are these documents, and who are these "third-party artist-owned companies?"
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Gertner's ruling states that "[the Court] will, however, order the second set of documents, which implicate the business interests of third-party artist-owned companies, shielded from disclosure." What are these documents, and who are these "third-party artist-owned companies?"
That's non-controversial. It refers to the agreements with recording artists, other record companies, etc.
There, RIAA shit. (Score:5, Interesting)
the judge has corrected a MAJOR malfunction in your logic circuits. next time when you accuse someone of damaging your profits, you will remember to actually prove EVIDENCE to back up your case. that is, unless your leashholders are afraid of being proven wrong about all the shit you have been perpetrating. enjoy.
Forcing them to show their hands (Score:5, Interesting)
This could be the beginnings of an interesting new strategy against the RIAA. Forcing the RIAA to produce the verifiable truth about various things and to pull their skeletons from their closets and put them on display can likely act as quite a deterrent against RIAA actions.
Still. How is the judge taking their failure to produce the data? Does making a motion instead of producing the data result in an automatic extension somehow? Is this an unwritten part of due process now?
Re:Forcing them to show their hands (Score:4, Insightful)
Not that I'm saying that someone shouldn't be tarred, feathered, then gang raped in a max security prison, but who to throw in there isn't so clear.
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Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
It sounds like they haven't produced the numbers, only a motion saying they shouldn't have to produce the numbers.
Re:Come on Ray! (Score:5, Funny)
Spill the beans already, how much are we talking? Anyone down for taking bets?
It's obviously $23,148,855,308,184,500.00
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Re:Come on Ray! (Score:5, Funny)
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Re:Come on Ray! (Score:5, Funny)
Oh, then just pay for it with a Visa card.
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Re:Come on Ray! (Score:4, Interesting)
What I'm wondering at this point is do they have to release this information publicly, or only to those participating in the case, or ? Betting next thing we see is for them to try to limit as much as possible who has access to this evidence.
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Re:Come on Ray! (Score:4, Insightful)
Er, you do read right?
I'm just asking, because the whole point of the motion was to prevent the records from becoming public. If they are presented in court as evidence they are, be default, public.
You do know that court records are public, right? They may not be exactly easy to just look up, but you can go see the court clerk for what ever court a case is held at and get a transcript of the records, most likely you'll have to pay a processing fee, but it would be minimal.
It takes a court order to seal records in a court case, which is what the RIAA tried to get. The judge said no.
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Re:Come on Ray! (Score:5, Interesting)
I'm putting my money on "case is dropped, RIAA gets to keep things secret"
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Re:Come on Ray! (Score:5, Interesting)
I'm putting my money on "case is dropped, RIAA gets to keep things secret"
That's an interesting thought. Hard for me to imagine them doing that, though.
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Re:Come on Ray! (Score:5, Insightful)
Yeah, but they do a lot of things that are hard for me to imagine until they do them.
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Re:Come on Ray! (Score:4, Insightful)
Hasn't that been their MO all along?
RIAA: "We're suing for ONE MILLION DOLLARS (pinky-to-mouth)"
Defense: [Some action that could cause the RIAA embarrassment]
RIAA: "We're dropping the suit without prejudice".
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Re:Come on Ray! (Score:4, Informative)
So far they have dropped them with prejudice.
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Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
While decreasing CD sales are being caused by increasing digital sales, overall cash is going down. But that's not anybody's fault. People don't want to buy the CD because it's overpriced and they only want the one or two good songs that are hyped on the radio. Why buy the rest of the trash?
Then add in Wal Mart is running independent music stores out of business and then turning around and only offering a fraction of the selection - the majority of it being the latest hype crap that everyone wants to buy si
Re:Finally we will get the truth... maybe... (Score:4, Interesting)
Early 2000 I did a bit of research on the topic and found somewhere a document [...] that showed the RIAA's claim of loss of income to be fewer records released, not because people were downloading music for free
Is this [azoz.com] what you're referring to?
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