Lawsuits & Judgments

Last week we reported that the RIAA (Recording Industry Association of America) was itself the victim of a lawsuit. With another setback this week, it would seem that the legal problems are beginning to mount for the industry group known for its generic lawsuits against alleged music downloaders. Yesterday, according to an article on the Ars Technica website, District Court Judge Rudi Brewster of the US District Court for Southern California refused to grant relief to the RIAA because they did not provide enough evidence of wrongdoing.

The RIAA is known for its generic or boilerplate lawsuits, they have even gone so far as to file “John Doe” suits when they have not been able to identify a defendant in hopes of forcing colleges or ISPs to divulge actual names. This one must have seen like a slam dunk for the industry group as the defendant Yolana Rodriguez didn’t respond to her suit at all. The court clerk filed a routine claim for summary relief (automatic ruling for the plaintiff) for $4,170. However, Judge Rudi rejected the claim for relief based on the fact that the RIAA did not provide sufficient evidence.

In his ruling the judge stated:

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. The complaint is simply a boilerplate listing of the elements of copyright infringement without any facts pertaining specifically to the instant Defendant.

In the ruling, Judge Rudi cited a recent Supreme Court decision on a telephone price fixing case, Bell Atlantic v. Twombly. While we would not normally expect a decision in anti trust case to be relevant in a copyright case, that suit was also dismissed based on the lack of evidence of specific wrong doing.

This could be a significant set back for the RIAA. If they have to abandon their boilerplate approach to their lawsuits we have to wonder if they can continue at all. In isolation, this development seems bad enough but when taken in combination with other recent events, this could be the beginning of the end for this particular lawsuit factory. Consider this combination of events

1- As a result of this ruling, the RIAA has to more completely investigate and document each of the claims it makes against alleged downlaoders.

2- The class action suit against the RIAA, which we posted about on the Sept 1,  alleges that RIAA investigators are using flawed investigative tactics, and could force the organization to use stricter standards in gathering evidence.

This could be a crippling (but not probably not lethal) combination. We would normally expect an organization to fight adverse rulings, but since the RIAA tries to stay out of court, we wonder how hard they will be willing to fight back in these cases. They seem to prefer the FUD (Fear, Uncertainty, Doubt) effect the suits have on the defendants over actual case law and they have been known to dismiss suits (without prejudice) rather than lose in court. Even if this decision and the earlier lawsuit don’t force the RIAA to change their ways, we would expect anyone currently fighting a suit from the RIAA to cite both this ruling and Bell Atlantic v. Twombly to highlight the weakness in the RIAA efforts.

Correction- It seems wee were mistaken when we reported in a post on September 1st, that “very few” of the lawsuits filed by the RIAA ever come to trial. Apparently we gave the RIAA too much credit; another article yesterday on the Ars Technica website states that none of the suits have come before a jury yet.