Source: http://recordingindustryvspeople.blogspot.com/2009/05/
Timestamp: 2019-04-19 23:37:54+00:00

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According to this report in TechDirt, the Obama Administration's Solicitor General has submitted a brief arguing that the Supreme Court ought not to disturb the holding of the US Court of Appeals for the 2nd Circuit in Cartoon Networks v. CSC Holdings.
The Cartoon Networks case holds that the cable companies' online storage for its customers did not invoke the reproduction right in the Copyright Act since the files were "transitory", having been buffered for only 1.2 seconds.
The Government's brief argued, among other things, that the peculiar procedural posture of the case militated against Supreme Court review, since the plaintiffs had waived their contributory liability line of attack, and the defendant had waived its fair use defense.
"MPAA loses in case against Cablevision, Cartoon Network v. CSC Holdings"
"Editorial comment on Cartoon Network v. CSC and Capitol v. Thomas"
"My article in "Journal of Internet Law""
In SONY BMG Music Entertainment v. Cloud, a Philadelphia case, the Court deferred ruling on the constitutionality question, under the doctrine of "constitutional avoidance", and denied the defendant's motion to dismiss the complaint.
In SONY BMG Music Entertainment v. Tenenbaum, the Court has set a July 20th trial date.
The order states that the schedule is contingent upon: (1) the plaintiffs' motion to dismiss counterclaims being granted, thus eliminating the need for additional discovery, and (2) denial, or deferral until after trial, of the defendant's constitutional challenge until after trial.
The order fixes the close of discovery as May 30th (this coming Saturday) and leaves June 5th at 2:30 PM as the scheduled date and time for the argument of the various non-discovery motions.
The Electronic Frontier Foundation is planning a campaign of its own to counter a misleading propaganda campaign launched by the RIAA to spread its false views of copyright law to school children. The EFF program is named "Teach Copyright Right".
According to this report in Gizmodo, Judge Sotomayor is a "nerd" and is very knowledgeable about computers, the internet, and copyright law.
For obvious reasons, that is not the kind of judge the RIAA lawyers like to find on the bench.
The appellant's brief filed yesterday in the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit in Arista Records v. Does 1-16, a case targeting 16 students at the State University of New York in Albany, attacks the RIAA litigation process.
This is one of an estimated 30,000 cases brought since 2003 in federal district courts around the nation by members of the Recording Industry Association of America (“RIAA”), alleging copyright infringement by the downloading and filesharing of recorded music over the internet. Although the cases are always brought in the names of record company plaintiffs who allege that they are the owners or proprietors of the copyrights involved, it is undisputed that the RIAA is the real party in interest, and that it controls and determines the course and strategy of the litigation, and references to the RIAA herein should be understood in this light.
This flood of litigation has been brought supposedly to stem the detrimental effect on sales of compact disks caused by the availability of recorded music on the internet, although the extent of that effect has been vigorously disputed by disinterested scholars, see infra at 7 n. 3. This appeal appears to raise issues of first impression in the Second Circuit arising from this campaign.
The RIAA’s theory in these cases is that anyone who downloads song files from the internet and makes them available to anyone by way of so-called peer-to-peer software (which enables users to exchange files directly between their computers without intermediate servers) has violated both the copyright owner’s right to make copies, contained in 17 U.S.C. § 106(1), and the distribution right of § 106(3). Its position, moreover, is that the distribution right is violated whether or not any copies have actually been distributed, and that merely making song files available to others is an infringement of that right.
However, the right to make a personal copy of copyrighted material may be protected as fair use, 17 U.S.C. § 107; Sony Corp. of America, Inc. v. Universal City Studios, Inc., 464 U.S. 417 (1984). Moreover, as will be shown, infringement of the distribution right requires the actual distribution of copies, and merely making copies available without more does not violate the distribution right. In other words, the attempted distribution of copyrighted material–which is all that plaintiffs-appellees allege–is not infringement and is not actionable.
abusive litigation tactics against individuals, many of whom are completely innocent, and none of whom should reasonably expect to find themselves forced to defend their personal use of computers in federal courts.
District Judges and commentators have often criticized the RIAA’s tactics and the legal theories behind them , but the litigation continues, with seemingly little effect on the public’s unflagging desire and intention to download music from the internet.
-the defendant should be awarded a reasonable attorneys fee.
The RIAA's subpoena, and all lower court proceedings, have been stayed during the pendency of the appeal.
The RIAA's responsive brief is due June 25th; appellant's reply brief is due July 6th; argument will be August 10th or later.
According to this report in p2pnet.net, MediaSentry is operating now in Australia.
According to this article in C/Net News, the MPAA has taken the position that making a personal backup copy of a DVD is a copyright infringement.
In a pro se Georgia case, SONY BMG Music Entertainment v. Simms, the defendant has filed an amended answer.
In Capitol Records v. Thomas, the Court entered orders indicating that there are pretrial motions scheduled for June 10th, the trial continues to be scheduled to begin June 15th, and the caption is amended to reflect Ms. Thomas's new married name, Jammie Thomas-Rasset.
The scheduling order provides that the defendant herself is required to appear at the June 10th hearing. There is no similar provision requiring the plaintiffs to appear at that hearing.
The motion for substitution of attorneys in Capitol Records v. Thomas has been granted.
The Court also issued an amended Trial Notice, which retains the June 15th trial date.
A few hours ago Chief United States Court District Judge granted Brian Toder’s motion to withdraw as defendant’s counsel and to substitute in his stead K.A.D. Camara of Camara & Sibley of Houston, Texas with local counsel Garrett Blanchfield of Reinhardt, Wendorf & Blanchfield of St. Paul, Minnesota. The trial date of June 15th in Duluth, Minnesota remains unchanged.
I have met with my partners and am pleased to announce that our firm will never seek any additional payment from Jammie Thomas for the considerable work we have done in her case. If we are to receive any funds from this case, it will be solely from plaintiffs if Ms. Thomas-Rasset ultimately becomes the prevailing party which we believe is highly possible given the caliber of the counsel and amici on her side.
I would like to thank Ray Beckerman, personally, for the help he gave us in acquiring local counsel, the help he has and continues to give others, but mainly for his tireless and noble efforts championing the cause against the destructive course of action taken by the RIAA.
Finally, I hope we are remembered not for withdrawing, but for the considerable time and expense we provided before we could no longer afford to stay in Jammie’s fight. Her interests are now well served, and we wish her well.
the Examining Expert shall be required to disclose both the methods employed to inspect the hard drive and any instruction or guidance received from the Plaintiffs.
To date, in the hundreds of consolidated RIAA cases assigned to her, Judge Gertner has rendered thousands of rulings based upon so-called evidence procured by MediaSentry, without ever asking for that same type of disclosure.
In fact, the RIAA and MediaSentry have steadfastly maintained that their methods are secret and "proprietary". While they are permitted to have whatever "proprietary" "secrets" they want, it is contrary to Federal law to maintain a federal litigation based upon such material.
Although it is routine in federal litigation to mandate such disclosure for any scientific or computer-based evidence, it is novel in RIAA litigation, since the courts have generally bent the rules for the RIAA, in view of the weak or nonexistent legal representation of defendants.
Let us hope that that era is coming to an end, and that the RIAA will have to prove its cases just like any other plaintiff in a federal litigation has to prove its case.
And let us hope that Judge Gertner will apply the same standards to the "evidence" submitted to her from MediaSentry, Doug Jacobson, and any other RIAA "expert".
We have learned of a new contested case in the Northern District of Ohio, UMG Recordings v. English.
The case was filed on March 11, 2009, 6 1/2 months after the date on which the RIAA told Congress it had stopped initiating new lawsuits.
The attorneys for the defendant are Camara & Sibley, the same Houston, Texas, based firm that has stepped in to represent Jammie Thomas, and Cohen Rosenthal & Kramer, based in Cleveland, Ohio.

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