Friday, March 07, 2008

RIAA files reply papers in Elektra v. Torres and Maverick v. Chowdhury

In Maverick v. Chowdhury and Elektra v. Torres, the RIAA has filed its reply papers in further support of its motion to dismiss counterclaims, and responding to the defendants' opposition papers.

RIAA reply memorandum of law (Maverick v. Chowdhury)*
RIAA reply memorandum of law (Elektra v. Torres)*

* Document published online at Internet Law & Regulation



Keywords: digital copyright law online internet law legal download upload peer to peer p2p file sharing filesharing music movies indie independent label freeculture creative commons pop/rock artists riaa independent mp3 cd favorite songs intellectual property






1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Why should Plaintiffs fear a counter-claim of a declaration of non-infringement, and try to strike it as duplicative and unnecessary? If this is not a "sham" case and it goes to trial as all proper, non-settled, cases should to be tried on the merits, this will all come out in the wash anyway. The RIAA clearly tips their hand here that they have no intention of proceeding with this case in any proper manner at all. The counter-claim should be allowed to stand, and the judge should strongly question the RIAA's motives. The claim must be allowed to stand to ensure that the Defendant is allowed vindication by the legal system against a Plaintiff with a known pattern of dismissing cases without prejudice after expenses are racked up, and fighting by every possible method to avoid paying for abandoning a case they never could have won in the first place.

As for the RIAA argument that Noerr-Pennington doctrine protects precisely Plaintiffs in these circumstances, if that is true than there is no justice in America, and you can be bullied as much as the Plaintiffs wish, while they hide behind presumed First Amendment skirts. The litigation became a "sham" the moment the RIAA started releasing Press Releases about their campaign, and dismissing cases that they knew from the beginning were too weak to actually go to trial with. It's also a "sham", since the RIAA is suing the ISP account holder instead of the actual infringer, in an attempt to "force" the person being sued to throw somebody else under the bus. That should never be a permitted use of the legal process, and all of the RIAA's "substantial evidence" has been unable to guide them in to suing the proper person from the beginning. That worse than a sham. That's truly objectively baseless. That's like suing the guy standing on the street during a bank robbery on the basis that we can identify the guy on the street, and he should be able to guide us to the bank robber that we couldn't identify otherwise. It's also anti-competitive since it is intended to drive people away from P2P systems altogether, despite their many non-infringing uses. Unless Noerr-Pennington protects extortionists, it doesn't protect the RIAA.

Copyright Misuse is an affirmative claim for relief the moment it is allowed for the first time to be pursued. No affirmative claim for relief ever existed until it was allowed for the first time. After that, it became precedent, unless denied at a higher court level. The RIAA is unpersuasive here in their arguments against it.

The RIAA intriguingly claims that every case that has gone against them was wrongly decided. Those numbers are slowly mounting over time as these rantings of theirs receive closer scrutiny. Especially the part where the RIAA maintains that it is pure "speculation" on the Defendant's part that the RIAA might dismiss its claim against him in the future and he needs protection against that DESPITE THE FACT THAT THE RIAA HAS DONE THIS MANY MANY TIMES ALREADY BY NOW! Far more times than they've actually gone to trial (once only) .

Of course the RIAA spits out the usual lies that the Defendant was caught by "substantial evidence" of "distributing" 1,737 sound recordings, despite no unauthorized distribution ever being shown, nor nearly all of files in question ever having been inspected and proven to be copyrighted sound records owned by the Plaintiffs. In this regard, unless the Plaintiffs of record include every owner of even one of these alleged 1,737 copyrighted recordings, then these Plaintiffs are appearing to sue over recordings THEY DON'T EVEN OWN. They should immediately be required to reduce the number of recordings claimed to only those they can PROVE are owned by the current Plaintiffs.

These RIAA clowns just go on and on and on…

-DM