Judge Orders RIAA to Show Cause in DC Case 104
NewYorkCountryLawyer writes "The RIAA's 'bumpy ride' in its 'ex parte' litigation campaign against college students just got a whole lot bumpier. After reading the motion to quash filed by a George Washington University student, the Judge took it upon herself to issue an order to show cause. The order now requires the plaintiffs to show cause, no later than November 29th, why the ex parte order she'd signed at the RIAA's request should not be vacated. She's also requested information showing why her ruling should not be applicable not only to John Doe #3, but to all the other John Does as well. p2pnet called this a 'potentially huge setback' for the recording companies."
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"Potentially huge setback" (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:"Potentially huge setback" (Score:5, Informative)
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Will this set a precedent that will affect any other districts or cases?
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We really appreciate everything that you do. I just think adding
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Re:"Potentially huge setback" (Score:5, Informative)
2. If the Judge grants the Does' motion, and does so with sound reasoning, the decision will reverberate throughout the country, and may lead to the end of the RIAA's John Doe litigations, which is where it all starts [blogspot.com].
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IANAL, and I don't know the details surounding this order. I can, however imagine this being a good thing on appeal (which is what I think the judge is thinking of). This wouldn't be a huge advantage for the RIAA, just one thing that could otherwise come back around to bite them later.
Again, this is my own ignorant opinion. Feel free to refute it.
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Orders to Show Cause are routine (Score:1, Informative)
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The problem is that NewYorkCountryLawyer (Ray Beckerman) is a publicity whore. This story is just more of his anti-IP FUD that will, in the end, mean nothing.
I didn't know Gene Simmons read slashdot.
Simplify this legal language (Score:4, Interesting)
I have trouble understanding legal lingua. I therefore ask somebody to explain the above quote. That is to say: What is it to "show cause?" Thanks.
Re:Simplify this legal language (Score:5, Informative)
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Re:Simplify this legal language (Score:5, Informative)
What's highly unusual is the judge issuing an order to show cause on her own.
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See, that, to me, is a sham (ex parte discovery). The RIAA doesn't know who specifically is infringing on their IP. Hence the John Doe lawsuits and the motions for ex parte discovery. But then the students who are the targets of these lawsuits don't know what may be used against them in court and help prepare their own defense because if they show up to the discovery proceedings, it actually strengthens the RIAA's case because now the RIAA knows
Re:Simplify this legal language (Score:5, Informative)
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Re:Simplify this legal language (Score:4, Insightful)
I must say that from reading your submissions I'm less cynical about the judicial system.
Re:Simplify this legal language (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Simplify this legal language (Score:5, Insightful)
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This is the way I see things, if you want free Airplay, one needs radio stations and DJ's. No Radio Stations, no DJ, no plug for your new tune!
That is an extraordinarily naive view of the situation.
The members of the "popular" culture are increasingly receiving their media via the internet. All the manufacturers of traditional popular entertainment media need to do in order to continue to hawk their crap is to get a significant mindshare on the 'net. Since we sell advertising here just like we do everywhere else, they can do that the same way they do it now - by spending money.
But even if you discount that argument, consider this: you really d
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They don't get free airplay at all. All that time is bought and paid for through payola and other schemes that are mostly off the books to evade taxes, and of course to avoid paying out royalties. This is why they hate the internet and are trying so hard to protect the gatekeepers. This is a criminal organization whose only purpose is to skim off a piece of the action. They do little more than hijack the trucks. And no
Re:RIAA does not represent artists (Score:1, Informative)
No, they represent the Recording Industry. The artist thinks up music, then signs a contract giving the recording copyright over to the recording company. The company makes money off the recording, and gives a few pennies to the artist in royalties. So they protect their own copyright and interests, not those of the artist.
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The catch is, if you're asking a judge to do something without giving the other side a chance to be heard, you have to be EXTRA SPECIAL fair in the way you present the arguments and evidence.
This judge granted an order trusting the RIAA had not misled her on the facts. But now, afte
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Not the case at all; I'm sure plenty of us read at 0 or -1 to get all the points of view. There is a bit of attrition involved, of course. :=) But it's the only way to go if an open mind has any meaning...
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What is it to "show cause?"
As I(AmNotALawyer) understand it, "put up or shut up".
The bigger picture, Mr. Beckerman? (Score:4, Interesting)
Maybe it's easier to take an example outside of the music industry. For example, say that I write a creative text, and publish it online as a PDF file that I sell, and that I do not grant the right to redistribute my work. If I later discover that someone who legally obtained my work is now hosting it online for others to obtain, and even have evidence that an actual unauthorized redistribution has taken place (i.e. someone linking to it with a comment suggesting they've downloaded it), do I not have a right to protect my intellectual property? Even if all I have is a time and IP address, shouldn't I be able to seek appropriate civil action against the infringing party?
There are lots of cases of genuine copyright infringement occurring, and while I understand and support your campaign to make sure the RIAA plays by the rules and isn't overly broad in their accusations, I also don't think it's right to let infringers go unpunished. I think too many people see the endgame as one where the RIAA "folds" and can't protect its interests, and where IP holders have no recourse against digital infringement. But when I read into your work, I think the endgame is really one where the RIAA just has to work a bit harder to present its case in the right way, and infringers are punished.
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Educational microcontroller kits for the digital generation. [nerdkits.com]
Re:The bigger picture, Mr. Beckerman? (Score:5, Insightful)
No. Now, if you had me on camera downloading music and heard me listening to said tracks
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Re:The bigger picture, Mr. Beckerman? (Score:5, Insightful)
If you are assuming that someone is committing a crime, you have to also consider that they may be falsely laying the blame on someone else. Cracking the password on their router, spoofing packets, botting their machine, hacking their wireless, or even physically splicing a wire. After all, people have been physically splicing into other networks for decades (cable and telephone). Why assume that the relationship is a pristine one-to-one for IP addresses?
If you are going to burden someone with thousands of dollars in legal fees, you should have to have more than an IP address. Most people will simply fold under the weight of a lawsuit; that doesn't imply guilt, just poverty in the face of huge legal fees.
Re:The bigger picture, Mr. Beckerman? (Score:4, Insightful)
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"Update", in this context, being synonymous with "repeal", I'd say. I suppose that as a software developer with (ahem) "intellectual property" to protect I should be more sympathetic to the DMCA and those who invoke it but
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But trying to sue a college student into the poorhouse because they shared some tracks off of a Beyonce CD using the same scale of penalties is ridiculous. And the RIAA
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They do, and that's why I tell people like the original poster in this thread that nobody at that organization is about defending their copyrights from pirates ^H^H^H^H^H^Hpeer to peer users. So far as I know, the RIAA doesn't even own any copyright: the studios hold those. The RIAA is all about the projection of power, the projection of fear, and those large statutory damages fall right in line with the deterrent effect they're trying for. Doesn
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as I understand copyright law (as much as a non-lawyer can, I suppose) the penalties for copyright infringement were centered around large-scale pirate operations (those who illegally mass-copy protected works for sale) and that when applied to individual infringement don't really don't fit the crime.
I am also not a lawyer, but you should consider the way the feds do things before you make decisions like this. The federal government is engaged in an operation to fleece the citizenry of their money. You can see this exemplified in copyright law, drug law, the so-called war on terror, et cetera. Each of these undertakings is designed to be as expensive as possible.
The simple truth is that people with money have a lot to lose if copyright law is redesigned to serve the people. As we have seen, people ca
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Re:The bigger picture, Mr. Beckerman? (Score:5, Funny)
Well, I'm sure the sound of all those settlements rolling in is music to their ears. They probably copyrighted it too.
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So, I understand that the legal process that the RIAA is trying to use is questionable at best, with ex-parte discovery and merging of multiple unrelated acts of infringement. But I fear that too many people are reading into your fight against the RIAA that the music industry should not be entitled to protect their intellectual property rights.
I think you're largely correct here, the problem is that it isn't just a matter of protecting property whether real or virtual. It's a matter of filing questionable cases and asking to receive far more than the infringement may have cost because it sends a message.
I do think that the RIAA folding and giving up on protecting its copyrights would be a positive move for everybody. And I do include the labels in that as well. Where things got screwed up was when they expected to sell crap albums to people, bec
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Just wanted to respond to this, I agree with most of your post but you're off on this figure by about two orders of magnitude. Professional recording on the level done for a major label release along with professional mixing and mastering is easily $50k-100k if you want a top tier sound.
For smaller label or independent releases it can be done for much less of course, primarily because engineers and producers are paid less and production processes are more str
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No amount of audio engineering
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as an individual who has worked with multiple independant music labels I can tell you that 10 grand gets you closer than necessary to the "super fidelity sound". Just need to use the money smart. People just want the expensive things to make crappy artists sound good...so yes, you are correct in some ways, but I find it hard to agree with your amounts on the recording.
I see neumann u87's for 3 grand. How many of those suckers you think you need? 30? You don't need much more than that and a well se
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Maybe it's easier to take an example outside of the music industry. For example, say that I write a creative text, and publish it online as a PDF file that I sell, and that I do not grant the right to redistribute my work. If I later discover that someone who legally obtained my work is now hosting it online for others to obtain, and even have evidence that an actual unauthorized redistribution has taken place (i.e. someone linking to it with a comment suggesting they've downloaded it), do I not have a right to protect my intellectual property? Even if all I have is a time and IP address, shouldn't I be able to seek appropriate civil action against the infringing party?
No. Legally yes, you have the right to. But morally? Ethically? No, I would say probably not. The problem is you don't have any control over it once it is published in a reproduce-able format. And especially after it goes online. Practically speaking, suing one person does nothing to prevent another form doing the same or downloading it. So it doesn't protect your intellectual property. I even have a problem with the idea that it is yours to begin with: a copyright is all well and good, but I have a probl
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The problem is you don't have any control over it once it is published in a reproduce-able format. And especially after it goes online.
Practically speaking, suing one person does nothing to prevent another form doing the same or downloading it.
So it doesn't protect your intellectual property.
I even have a problem with the idea that it is yours to begin with: a copyright is all well and good, but I have a problem with the idea that you own something that I have already bought.
I'm not leasing the pdf, I own it.
It's mine, and I'll do what I want with it. Copyright isn't going to change it.
It's a piece of paper somewhere that I may or may not agree with. And in any case there's nothing you can do about it except try to sue me, which won't prevent anyone else from doing the same, and is certainly not going to encourage me to cooperate with you.
Besides, I own the pdf. I have direct control over the file and can do whatever I like to it. Copy it, Modify it, send it to Tajikistan, whatever.
Litigation doesn't prevent it and then,after the fact, doesn't even discourage it.
You don't have the same right with non-digital formats... You can't legally take a copyrighted VHS videotape (analog) and make lots of copies of it and give them away. You can't legally take a copyrighted paper book and photocopy it and give the copies to ten people. In each case, you'd be violating the author's rights to control distribution. Of course, there are some things you're allowed to do, like make a copy for personal backup purposes, or to sell your copy. But the physical instance is just th
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I hate DRM, but I've never heard a good argument for why we should just throw all of intellectual property rights out the window.
Because they don't work. It is an illusion of control. An illusion. I do not think that intellectual property rights should be thrown out, But in certain areas, with certain things, they should be changed. Utility patents expire after 10 years. That's a patent, for some great invention or piece of engineering or whatever. But copyrights for sound recordings last 50 years from the date of recording. For films it's even more absurd: 70 years from the date of the last major player(director, producer,screenpla
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Well, part of it is the approach. With a book the author's rights to control what you do with it are limited to copying and distributing to others. You can make copies of pages, or favorite passages, to tack up on your wall. That's not infringement. You can show your book to others. You can loan your book to others. You can sell your book to a used-book store. None of those are infringement, and the author's got no right to tell you you can't. But with digital formats, the authors (or in this case the RIAA)
Rich girl, poor boy (Score:2)
Diamonds on the soles of her shoes.
He was a poor boy, empty as a pocket.
Empty as a pocket, with nothing to lose
Sing tananaaa... tananana.
Downloads were the source of her blues.
Downloads were the source of her blues.
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If I understand correctly, your argument is that because you (a) paid money, (b) are physically capable, and (c) are not dismayed by penalties imposed on other people, you have a moral and ethical right to proceed as you will. But this is clearly broken reasoning: all the same elements appear in taking out a contract to have someone killed, and I sincerely hope that you do not believe this gives you a moral and ethical basis to kill someone.
'Rights', it is true, are not inherent things; they are ideas deve
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If I understand correctly, your argument is that because you (a) paid money, (b) are physically capable, and (c) are not dismayed by penalties imposed on other people, you have a moral and ethical right to proceed as you will. But this is clearly broken reasoning: all the same elements appear in taking out a contract to have someone killed, and I sincerely hope that you do not believe this gives you a moral and ethical basis to kill someone.
You do not understand correctly. A correct understanding would be that because I paid money, and a sale took place, it is my property, not theirs. Metalica could not legally come in to my house and demand that I give them my Cd (if I owned a Metalica CD). Also Under current copyright law, the law is clear: to "distribute"(in a legal sense[required in cases like this to allege copyright infringement]) one has to do so for commercial gain. P2P networks are free. It is not a violation of copyright law to use
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Re:The bigger picture, Mr. Beckerman? (Score:5, Insightful)
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Now if Congress so wishes, it may introduce new law whereby 'making available' (via P2P or other means) becomes copyright infringement (despite the
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A date and IP address, and affidavit that the investigator believed he found copyrighted works on a computer at that IP address at that time, is sufficient to get a subpoena to ID the person associated with that account, so *further* discovery can be had, such as asking that person who had access to their IP address, do they have a wireless router, and examining their hard drive for the infringing works. Depending on the answers to those additional facts, the person may or may not be subject to liability. But date and IP address alone is not enough to win the case.
There likely isn't a single computer in the universe that doesn't have "copyrighted works" on it. Aren't the operating systems copyrighted (even linux has GPL fine print). Any material viewed over the internet is COPIED. This means there will be "copyrighted" material on the computer in its RAM. That a computer may have "copyrighted" material on it doesn't PROVE how that material got there. The RIAA could claim investigators drive by houses and sign affidavits that they heard copyrighted sounds emanating f
Re:The bigger picture, Mr. Beckerman? (Score:5, Insightful)
Secondly, even before I went into the legal profession, I was raised to believe in fairness and decency and courtesy and humaneness.
I have never once suggested to anyone that the laws regarding protection of intellectual property rights should not be followed. I have been working in the copyright field for 34 years, and I have never once said anything like the bogus points you are trying to attribute to me.
Yes the RIAA has to work a "little bit harder".... small details like
(A) identifying the right people, who
(B) actually did infringe their copyrights, and then
(C) handling the matter in a lawyerlike manner instead of an extortionate gangsterlike manner.
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Most people given the choice between keelhauling and a 222,000 settlement would take the keelhauling. The injuries are likely to heal in a few weeks time unlike an RIAA settlement.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keelhauling [wikipedia.org]
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Oh but a good portion of Slashdot users don't believe in copyrights... How can you copyright numbers, letters, words, sounds, bits, bytes, and math? How can anybody charge for it? Of course, a large portion of Slashdot users have no problem protecting, and charging their employers for, those same items that they feel should not be copyrightable by others...
Speak up, AC! There needs to be some balance brought to this debate... people aren't clearly understanding what these cases are about. They're not about free music. They're about the RIAA not pursuing these cases in a legally sound way. That's all.
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Educational microcontroller kits for the digital generation. [nerdkits.com]
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Based on your post I'm thinking that in addition to the "Post Anonymously" checkbox there should be a "Post as Straw Man" checkbox.
Contact Information (Score:2)
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Yeah, that's all this poor lady needs is millions of e-mails from /.ers. I wouldn't be surprised if it did more damage than good. heh.
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I guarantee you that it would.
Everyone who is qualified to make an intelligent comment to her probably already knows who she is and how to reach her. Hint: Most of them aren't [primarily*] slashdotters.
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* that is, in terms of webforum usage
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Momentum running out... (Score:1)
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Commerical Copies (Score:5, Insightful)
The two most strong points for me are:
a) they can't lump all the Does together; that wouldn't hinder the RIAA much but still having to file 25 or 100 or 1000 or 50000 cases, each one with filing fees, would have some effect but as Doe #3 claims, it would also serve and advance the interest of justice for each of the Does to be treated on a case by case basis, with their own juries, lawyers, etc. [A Doe who actually illegally sold copies of music wouldn't get lumped in with someone who had their ID stolen or their IP address spoofed].
b) that for someone to violate the copyright law, one of the major tests is you have to do it for a) commerical gain and b) merely offering to sell a copy isn't a violation (you have to actually sell it). It's clear that the P2P system is anything but a commerical sales system; everyone admits the copies are free; it's also fairly clear, to anyone who wants to really research the matter, the only party that gets commerical gain out of the P2P sharing of media is the copyright holders.
PS.
Many decades of radio station play of records as well as song "play" on MTV, VH1, etc. has shown that when people are exposed to new sounds/songs, etc. they buy them; this was the novelity of MTV, kids started buying songs that didn't get played on the local radio.
So even if there wasn't any evidence that P2P directly boosts sales of songs, CDs, etc, 50+ years of radio play has proven that point; listening to a song boosts its sales.
It has proven it to the point that many members of the RIAA have illegally (in the past and in the present) used a system called Payola, which pays radio stations to play songs by a particular artist repeatedly more than other artists for commerical gain; they do this because they believe the more their songs are played the more $$ they will make.
Copyright holders spend 100's of thousands to mulitple millions of dollars to produce "music videos", engage in Payola, advertise to DJs and radio station programmers, etc. all for the purpose of allowing the music to be played on the air or on TV/Cable all in the hope that people will buy the music. Clearly they could save those $$, let P2P do it's work, and accrue the savings in production, Payola, etc. to any lost of royalities.
In fairness not deserved by the RIAA, their is a difference between listening to a song on the radio and making a copy of it via P2P but in fairness to the public, owning a physical copy of a song is not the same as having a 3rd rate digital copy, that may or may not be 100% as the artist intended.
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Where did you get that silly idea? Comercial gain has nothing to do with copyright. Copyright allows the owner to control distribution of the work, whether for fee or for free.
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Doe #3 quotes a fair amount of case law so while their maybe other issues at stake, and other law(s) that apply, commercial gain is one of the major tests (as per Doe #3's filing).
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Copyright holders spend 100's of thousands to mulitple millions of dollars to produce "music videos", engage in Payola, advertise to DJs and radio station programmers, etc. all for the purpose of allowing the music to be played on the air or on TV/Cable all in the hope that people will buy the music. Clearly they could save those $$, let P2P do it's work, and accrue the savings in production, Payola, etc. to any lost of royalities.
Actually, the problem the RIAA members have is that they don't control what gets played this way. RIAA members believe (wrongly) that they can manufacture demand for particular music, no matter what its quality is. They, also, believe (correctly) that if this new distribution/exposure system takes over, they will no longer be able to justify the large share of the profit from music distribution that they take.
Under the old, established music distribution system (brick and mortar stores, exposure on radio
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Artists are starting to realize they can have all the profits, that the studios just really aren't all that relevant anymore. For that matter, they're starting to realize the sale of their music can actually have profits, if they just don't contract out to a major studio. Radiohead's recent efforts in this regard have certainly pointed the way to self-publishing on the Web as a way to make serious money.
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and so artists are starting to realize that the artist should get a larger share of the profit
Artists are starting to realize they can have all the profits, that the studios just really aren't all that relevant anymore. For that matter, they're starting to realize the sale of their music can actually have profits, if they just don't contract out to a major studio. Radiohead's recent efforts in this regard have certainly pointed the way to self-publishing on the Web as a way to make serious money.
However, in the long run, most artists will discover that they need to pay a publicist, a promoter, and a record producer (probably a couple of other roles of which I am not thinking at the moment) to maximize their profit. The best of those that do those three jobs will get a cut of the profit, not just a flat rate. Therefore the artist that wants ALL of the profit will not make as much as the one who shares it intelligently.