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U.Maine Law Clinic Is First To Fight RIAA
Posted by
kdawson
on Sat Dec 22, 2007 03:33 PM
from the lawyers-guns-and-money dept.
from the lawyers-guns-and-money dept.
NewYorkCountryLawyer writes "'A student law clinic is about to cause a revolution' says p2pnet. For the first time in the history of the RIAA's ex parte litigation campaign against college students, a university law school's legal aid clinic has taken up the fight against the RIAA in defense of the university's students. Student attorneys at the University of Maine School of Law's Cumberland Legal Aid Clinic, under the supervision of law school prof Deirdre M. Smith, have moved to dismiss the RIAA's complaint in a Portland, Maine, case, Arista v. Does 1-27, on behalf of two University of Maine undergrads. Their recently filed reply brief (PDF) points to the US Supreme Court decision in Bell Atlantic v. Twombly, and the subsequent California decision following Twombly, Interscope v. Rodriguez, which dismissed the RIAA's 'making available' complaint as mere 'conclusory,' 'boilerplate' 'speculation.'"
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RIAA Complaint Dismissed as "Boilerplate" 197 comments
NewYorkCountryLawyer writes "The decision many lawyers had been expecting — that the RIAA's 'boilerplate' complaint fails to state a claim for relief under the Copyright Act — has indeed come down, but from an unlikely source. While the legal community has been looking towards a Manhattan case (Elektra v. Barker) for guidance, the decision instead came from Senior District Court Judge Rudi M. Brewster of the US District Court for the Southern District of California. The decision handed down denied a default judgment (i.e. the defendant had not even appeared in the action). Judge Brewster not only denied the default judgment motion but dismissed the complaint for failure to state a claim. Echoing the words of Judge Karas at the oral argument in Barker , Judge Brewster held (pdf) that 'Plaintiff here must present at least some facts to show the plausibility of their allegations of copyright infringement against the Defendant. However, other than the bare conclusory statement that on "information and belief" Defendant has downloaded, distributed and/or made available for distribution to the public copyrighted works, Plaintiffs have presented no facts that would indicate that this allegation is anything more than speculation.'"
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RIAA-fighting Maine Law Professor Speaks Out 129 comments
NewYorkCountryLawyer writes "In an interview with Jon Newton of p2pnet, Prof. Deirdre Smith of the University of Maine says that 'our students are enthusiastic about being directly connected to a case with a national scope and significance'. The UM Cumberland Legal Aid Clinic is the first law school legal clinic in the U.S. to have taken on the RIAA, to have the opportunity for hands-on experience fighting the RIAA's effort to rewrite copyright law. Smith went on to say that the case is probably one of the first intellectual property cases the clinic has ever taken on, and that if it proceeds further, she expects to also 'draw on the considerable expertise in IP among members of our faculty and the Maine Center for Law and Innovation, another program of the Law School'. "
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Magistrate Suggests Fining RIAA Lawyers 133 comments
NewYorkCountryLawyer writes "Angered at the RIAA's 'gamesmanship' in joining multiple 'John Does' in a single case without any basis for doing so, a Magistrate Judge in Maine has suggested to the presiding District Judge in Arista v. Does 1-27 that the record companies and/or their lawyers should be fined under Rule 11 of the Federal Rules, for misrepresenting the facts. In a lengthy footnote to her opinion recommending denial of a motion to dismiss the complaint (PDF, see footnote 5), Judge Kruvchak concluded that 'These plaintiffs have devised a clever scheme to obtain court-authorized discovery prior to the service of complaints, but it troubles me that they do so with impunity and at the expense of the requirements of Rule 11(b)(3) because they have no good faith evidentiary basis to believe the cases should be joined.' She noted that once the RIAA dismisses its 'John Doe' case it does not thereafter join the defendants when it sues them in their real names. Arista v. Does 1-27 is the same case in which student attorneys at the University of Maine Law School, "enthusiastic about being directly connected to a case with a national scope and significance", are representing undergrads targeted by the RIAA."
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University of San Francisco Law Clinic Joins Fight Against RIAA 106 comments
NewYorkCountryLawyer writes "The RIAA's litigation campaign has met resistance from the academic community before, but now it's been taken to a whole new level: the defense of RIAA victims who are not part of the college community. First the University of Oregon lashed out on behalf of its students, then it was the University of Maine's Cumberland Legal Aid Clinic on behalf of its undergrads. Now, the University of San Francisco School of Law has taken the fight a giant step further. Its Intellectual Property Law Clinic's attorneys-in-training, working under the supervision of law professors, are going to bat against the RIAA by helping outside lawyers to defend their clients, pro bono. They reached out 3000 miles to get involved in Elektra v. Torres and Maverick v. Chowdhury, two cases going on in Brooklyn, NY, against non-college defendants. Two of the law students in the USF's legal program assisted in the research and preparation of briefs in these cases, opposing the RIAA's motion to dismiss the defendants' counterclaims. Thousands of honor students throughout United States law schools, most of them digital natives who actually understand the legal fallacies and technological missteps the RIAA is taking, and who can't wait to expose them, make a pretty good resource for the poor and middle class people trying to defend these cases."
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News: U. Maine Law Students Trying To Shut RIAA Down 229 comments
NewYorkCountryLawyer writes "Remember those pesky student attorneys from the University of Maine School of Law's Cumberland Legal Aid Clinic, who inspired the Magistrate Judge to suggest monetary fines against the RIAA lawyers? Well they're in the RIAA's face once again, and this time they're trying to shut down the RIAA's whole 'discovery' machine: the lawsuits it files against 'John Does' in order to find out their names and addresses. They've gone and filed a Rule 11 motion for sanctions (PDF), seeking — among other things — an injunction against all such 'John Doe' cases, arguing that the cases seek to circumvent the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act which protects student privacy rights, are brought for improper purposes of obtaining discovery, getting publicity, and intimidation, and are in flagrant violation of the joinder rules and numerous court orders. If the injunction is granted, the RIAA will have to go back to the drawing board to find another way of finding out the identities of college students, and the ruling — depending on its reasoning — might even be applicable to the non-college cases involving commercial ISPs."
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News: New Hampshire Law Students Take On RIAA 148 comments
NewYorkCountryLawyer writes "We have recently learned that another law school legal aid clinic has joined the fight against the RIAA. Student attorneys from the Consumer and Commercial Law Clinic
of the Franklin Pierce Law Center in Concord, New Hampshire, working under law school faculty supervision, are representing
a lady targeted by the RIAA in UMG Recording v. Roy in New Hampshire. The case is scheduled for trial next Fall. That makes at least 4 law schools providing anti-RIAA defense services: University of Maine,
University of San Francisco, Franklin Pierce, and, most recently, Harvard. Hopefully many
more will follow. One commentator theorizes that this news 'will ... [encourage] professors and students at other law schools to take on hitherto defenseless people being pilloried by the corporate music industry.'"
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I Always Assumed (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:The law school studen is as pragmatic as they c (Score:4, Insightful)
Parent
Except (Score:3, Insightful)
Say goodbye to student aid. (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Say goodbye to student aid. (Score:4, Informative)
Parent
Legal WAR! (Score:4, Insightful)
You see, the RIAA could focus their efforts on developing innovative ways to market music. What if they could come up with something even more convenient and irresistible to millions of consumers than Apple's iTunes store? What if this innovative marketing brought in so much money that piracy would represent only an immaterial portion of their bottom line? They would look like heroes and every company would flock to imitate them.
But, you see, they fell into the trap of thinking that lawyers and litigation could solve their problems. They declared legal war on an entire population. Whenever there's a war, whether a legal one or a physical one, everyone knows how it begins, but nobody knows how it will end. Nazi Germany started war on the entire world, thinking they were big, mighty, and unstoppable. And what happened? In the end, there was devastating destruction throughout Europe, tens of millions of lives destroyed, and the country in the worst shape of all was Germany. Why?
Re:Legal WAR! (Score:4, Funny)
I blame it all on the listeners. They should be the ones learning to like what the RIAA so graciously offers. They should know how hard it is for huge organizations to change. Really, the music industry shouldn't have had to go beyond vinyl records, but they were generous and gave us audio tapes and compact discs, all great advances in technology. And now the listeners won't accept the newest advances in digital technology that allow even fewer uses than previous formats. Lawyers are the only option they have left to make us like what they offer.
Parent
Harvard (Score:5, Informative)
Slightly off-topic, but I often see people mentioning Harvard hasn't been targetted by the RIAA.
It's not for legal reasons. If you use any P2P software, Harvard IT shuts off your access; you're blocked on a DHCP level. You get three "strikes" before this happens- unless you're on wireless, in which case, you're booted right away.
Re:Harvard (Score:4, Informative)
RIAA can subpoena the college IT and get real seeder IPs out of the P2P cache logs. From there on it is "game over". You show up on the cache log only if you have both offered a file and someone has used it. So armed with this log they should be able to prove what they have gone to prove. Check, Mate.
So if a college has deployed P2P Cache or DPI from there on they have no choice but to use it. It is actually in the interest of the students because the college IT dept can be made to provide much better evidence than the laughable junk supplied by MediaCentry.
Parent
Re:Harvard (Score:5, Interesting)
Even if you are downloading something that is legal, like Linux?
Yes; they're fully aware of Linux distributions and whatnot being preferably distributed via BT. If you let them know ahead of time, it's not a problem. Granted, that was in the context of staff- I don't know if this applies to students. Staff can also get semi-permanent authorization; students MIGHT be able to as well.
Also, I should mention- this may only apply to the medical school.
Parent
Are Universities common carriers? (Score:3, Interesting)
Wouldn't it be interesting if, a few years down the road, all this gets thrashed out in the court system, and the legal decisions are essentially that the university systems don't enjoy any of the protections of common carrier status, but commercial ISPs do? All carriers are equal, but some are more equal than others.
Before breaking out the champagne.... (Score:5, Interesting)
There is a world of difference between the law school and the law office.
How about we wait until we get definitive victories on appeal and in Congress?
The federal criminal code was revised to remove any doubt that an infringer could be prosecuted even when there was no financial gain.
The statues could be just as easily revised so that "making files available" to the P2P nets becomes sufficient to establish infringement as a matter of law.
Re:still stealing music? (Score:4, Insightful)
Still don't know what you're talking about? Fucking RIAA executives.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
But, all I gotta say to this is, I wish I were this brave (I'm just a lowly boycotter). If you can get away with it, more power to you!
My wife wants me to steal music for her so she can figure out what to buy, (although she bought ten times more CDs than I have). I have been reluctant to help (I have static IPs at home that would be easy to trace and don't have the time to spend time keeping updated a TOR router).
Should I spend the effor
Re:still stealing music? (Score:5, Interesting)
In my opinion, I don't think you should for two reasons. First, don't risk it. Yes, we'd all like for people to take a stand against the RIAA, but it's a lot easier to back when someone else is doing it. Second, they'll use those numbers to prove that anti-piracy legislation needs to be strengthened. I don't believe that mass-downloading and mass-not-purchasing can bleed the RIAA fast enough to prevent them from sinking ridiculous amounts of money into the pockets of politicians. To me, that's a no-win scenario.
I have an alternative, though. You could try a music subscription service. For $10 a month, you could get Rhapsody. You'll have instant access to all of their music. You don't get to keep it, but for less than the cost of a new CD a month you have something like 4 million songs. If you pay an extra $5 a month, they'll sync up with certain MP3 players, so you can take care of your mobile needs, too. I am a Rhapsody subscriber, so if you have questions about specifics about it, feel free to ask. I'm reluctant to say too much initially, though, for fear of being branded a Rhapsody shill. I don't know much about the other services like Napster so I cannot tell you which is the 'best'.
I think this suggestion might be a solution to both your problems. One of my main attractions to Rhapsody (besides not having gigs of MP3s to try to keep synced across all my machines....) is that I've broadened my tastes in music. That sounds like something your wife is looking for. It also proves the point to the RIAA that you actually are willing to spend money on music, but that you need their business model to be modernized. I could save a few bucks and just go download a bunch of MP3s. But I don't because I'm happy with the service I'm getting. If money's being made this way, they're more likely to be open to alternatives. But if money is being 'lost' (by lost I mean their silly definition of it... like billions of dollars evaporating into kazaa smelling vapour even though their sales are higher than the previous year's) they're more likely to fight back via lawyers. It's the carrot vs. the stick. Tempt them with the possiblity of generating revenue instead of scaring them with the threat of losing it.
But, that's just my opinion. Other suggestions would include purchases of DRM-free music that's starting to appear. Purchases towards indie labels are potentially a win, too. If indies make money and the RIAA isn't, it's hard for them to claim that losses are due to piracy as opposed to boycotting. I don't personally back this option, though, simply because I haven't been all that impressed with indie offerings. Still, though, I'm at least a year or two overdue for re-examining that option so I really don't want to state that opinion too strongly.
Cheers and have a good weekend.
Parent
Re:still stealing music? (Score:4, Interesting)
Parent
Re:still stealing music? (Score:5, Funny)
But don't think I'm ALL bad...if you buy a C and an E, I'll toss in a G for free. Same octave only, no exchanges if you decide to change key.
Parent
How bands are formed? (Score:4, Funny)
{Later, on Flyer}
"New Band starting. We have the C, E, G set, the D,F,A set, and some of the flats. We're looking for a fresh new talent who specializes in B, Minors, and Sevenths. The local law firm has sponsored us with a left over "Treble" from a Treble Damages suit. We can't afford a Bass Clef, so we're using the open source version 'Atlantic Bass'.
We have purchased Octaves 3 and 4. We use Pitch Altering software when someone wants us to perform the US National Anthem. However, we're in a squabble from the owner of Octaves 2 and 5, who says our shifted notes sound exactly like theirs, and they want us to stop."
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Re:From a Mainer's perspective... (Score:5, Insightful)
And that is their biggest obstacle. They are protecting their bottom line and nothing else. However, if you listen to them, they consistently cry that they are trying to protect the artists, despite the fact that historically more money has been withheld or denied by record labels [wikipedia.org] than by our downloading. No matter how relevant the RIAA's claims may be, a campaign built upon deceit [arstechnica.com] only makes them look less deserving. A rock-solid way we can compensate the artists directly (and the labels reduced to being recording studios and nothing more) is the best outlook for the future, IMHO.
Parent
Re:From a Mainer's perspective... (Score:4, Interesting)
Parent
Re:From a Mainer's perspective... (Score:4, Insightful)
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Re:From a Mainer's perspective... (Score:4, Insightful)
Anyway, it's not absolutely true that people will buy that which they can't get for free, thus the AC was deliberately lying (or stupid, take your pick), thus trolling. Thus, your original indignation was kinda pointless.
Parent
Re:This is not groundbreaking... (Score:4, Insightful)
Parent
Re:hmm (Score:5, Insightful)
There is a reason why no amount of amending can cure the RIAA's problem. It is that the RIAA simply does not have evidence of a copyright infringement by the defendant.
Parent