Recording Industry vs The People: The Recording Industry vs The People

Tuesday, August 16, 2005

The Recording Industry vs The People

I am a lawyer in New York City. I am a member of Beldock Levine & Hoffman LLP.

Through the Electronic Frontier Foundation I and my firm have undertaken to represent people in our area who have been sued by the Recording Industry of American (RIAA) for having computers whose internet accounts were used to open up peer-to-peer file sharing accounts.

I find these cases to be oppressive and unfair, as large law firms financed by the recording industry sue ordinary working people for thousands of dollars.

I have set up this blog in order to collect evidence and input about these oppressive lawsuits.

I hope you will find it useful.

Sincerely yours,

-Ray Beckerman

www.blhny.com

12 comments:

Geoff said...: Thank you for taking this case on - Its about time someone made a stand against the RIAA's strong arm tactics; August 28, 2005 at 2:20:00 PM EDT
Anonymous said...: Thank you and good luck. Don't back down from their scare tactics and propaganda. This is a battle between the man and the consumer, and the consumer has been bending over for far too long.; August 28, 2005 at 10:48:00 PM EDT
Steamboat Lion said...: Keep up the good work. I promise that I'll never tell a lawyer joke again!; August 29, 2005 at 11:51:00 AM EDT
Anonymous said...: This is a great thing you are doing Ray. Know that you have widespread support that extends well outside the boundaries of the United States.; August 29, 2005 at 7:51:00 PM EDT
Anonymous said...: thank you and good luck. Your battle will be an example for people all over the world. I'm french...
bonne chance...; August 31, 2005 at 4:34:00 AM EDT
Anonymous said...: I pray that you win this case, as it will kick the legs out from under the RIAA.
When you do win, is there any chance of a class action lawsuit being filed on behalf of the individuals who've already settled with the RIAA?

- Sean; September 1, 2005 at 11:53:00 PM EDT
Anonymous said...: Thanks for being the kind of lawyer that defends people over money. There's alot wrong with the US right now, not to say there is a better place. But it takes determination and sacrifice by talents such as your own to make it a better place.

Attila Hooper; September 2, 2005 at 9:05:00 AM EDT
Anonymous said...: Best of luck in the case - I support you 100%; September 2, 2005 at 12:09:00 PM EDT
עופר said...: From the court transcript:
MS. SANTANGELO: Okay.
I think my biggest issue is, honestly, not with the record company as much as it is with this company called Kazaa that allowed them to do this in the first place...

And I think that "the biggest issue is with that organization called Congress that have allowed this lawsuit to take place..."

Well, what I think is that the law that set a pricetag of $150,000 per single infringement was meant to apply to commercial mass printing of books without consent of the copyright holder, i.e., for those who try to make a lot of money illegally, and this pricetag should not apply to files made accessible for download through a very narrow uplink connection of a "broadband" connection by individuals who are not asking for money. The amount of damage a single user can cause here is very little, and having thousands of files "available for download" is quite imaterial. Only a very few can be transfered at any time, and each takes a long time to upload because uplink connections are typically quite slow (and since home computers are often turned off, uploads often break). The original law is based on an assumption that the existence of a single printed book is sound enough proof that there was mass infringement involved (printing presses are used to mass produce books). The very high sum set in the law should be enough to understand that the legislator did not mean that the law should apply in a ny case other than when the single infringement proved is obviously part of mass infringement that makes money for the infringer.; September 2, 2005 at 6:13:00 PM EDT
Anonymous said...: If the RIAA has not actually physically downloaded one of the offending files, and validated that it is in fact a digital representation of a copyrighted work, how can they assert with absolute confidence that the listed file is actually an infringement? P2P sharing services have to operate either off of the filename or a 'tag' associated with a file, both of which could easily be 'incorrect'. I could readily share a number of garbage files with designators indicating that they were copyrighted work when they obviously were not. Doing so does not make me a copyright infringer (there might be other choice words used by members of the P2P community to describe me, however). It simply seems to me that the plaintiff has to provide more convincing evidence that the files that have been labeled as being copyrighted material are in fact copyrighted material. The cite for the library entering a listing into a catalog shouldn't really apply as a library has a certain obligation/responsibility to provide credible/factual depictions of what they are providing to the public. I can't see that same standard applying to a 'casual' file-sharer on the internet.; September 8, 2005 at 7:46:00 PM EDT
Nick HaC said...: Congratulations on your blog. Its great to see someone taking a stand.

Nick HaC
http://nickhac.com; September 14, 2005 at 11:50:00 AM EDT
Anonymous said...: I just found out today that I am one of the Several hundred people who are being sued in the RIAA's new law suit. And I can't express how much relief i have found knowing that I'm not alone.
Mr. Beckermen, could you please help me, I am only 22 years old and worring out of my mind that I am being sued.
Janine Oleksy
JAN857@aol.com

Anyone else who feels they might be able to help or is willing to help me become knowledgable on this Topic can email me at the above email address.
Thank you so much!; September 30, 2005 at 9:54:00 PM EDT

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JUDICIAL QUOTATIONS

"[T]he Court is concerned about the lack of facts establishing that Defendant was using that IP address at that particular time. Indeed, the [complaint] does not explain what link, if any, there is between Defendant and the IP address. It is possible that Plaintiff sued Defendant because he is the subscriber to IP address .... As recognized by many courts, just because an IP address is registered to an individual does not mean that he or she is guilty of infringement when that IP address is used to commit infringing activity." -Hon. Barry Ted Moskowitz, Chief Judge, S.D. California. January 29, 2013, AF Holdings v. Rogers
"The complaints assert that the defendants – identified only by IP address – were the individuals who downloaded the subject “work” and participated in the BitTorrent swarm. However, the assumption that the person who pays for Internet access at a given location is the same individual who allegedly downloaded a single sexually explicit film is tenuous, and one that has grown more so over time." - Hon. Gary R. Brown, Magistrate Judge, E.D.N.Y. May 1, 2012, K-Beech v. Does 1-37
"The concern of this Court is that in these lawsuits, potentially meritorious legal and factual defenses are not being litigated, and instead, the federal judiciary is being used as a hammer by a small group of plaintiffs to pound settlements out of unrepresented defendants."
-Hon. S. James Otero, Dist. Judge, Central Dist. California, March 2, 2007, Elektra v. O'Brien, 2007 ILRWeb (P&F) 1555
"The University has adequately demonstrated that it is not able to identify the alleged infringers with a reasonable degree of technical certainty...[C]ompliance with the subpoena as to the IP addresses represented by these Defendants would expose innocent parties to intrusive discovery....[T]he Court declines to authorize discovery and quashes the subpoena as to Does # 8, 9, and 14" -Hon. Nancy Gertner, Dist. Judge, Dist. Massachusetts, November 24, 2008, London-Sire Records v. Does 1-4
"[C]ounsel representing the record companies have an ethical obligation to fully understand that they are fighting people without lawyers... that the formalities of this are basically bankrupting people, and it's terribly critical that you stop it...." -Hon. Nancy Gertner, Dist. Judge, Dist. Massachusetts, June 17, 2008, London-Sire v. Does 1-4
"Rule 11(b)(3) requires that a representation in a pleading have evidentiary support and one wonders if the Plaintiffs are intentionally flouting that requirement in order to make their discovery efforts more convenient or to avoid paying the proper filing fees. In my view, the Court would be well within its power to direct the Plaintiffs to show cause why they have not violated Rule 11(b) with their allegations respecting joinder. [I]t is difficult to ignore the kind of gamesmanship that is going on here.....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." -Hon. Margaret J. Kravchuk, Magistrate Judge, District of Maine, January 25, 2008, Arista v. Does 1-27, 2008 WL 222283, modified Oct. 29, 2008
"[N]either the parties' submissions nor the Court's own research has revealed any case holding the mere owner of an internet account contributorily or vicariously liable for the infringing activities of third persons.....In addition to the weakness of the secondary copyright infringement claims against Ms. Foster, there is a question of the plaintiffs' motivations in pursuing them..... [T]here is an appearance that the plaintiffs initiated the secondary infringement claims to press Ms. Foster into settlement after they had ceased to believe she was a direct or "primary" infringer." -Hon. Lee R. West, District Judge, Western District of Oklahoma, February 6, 2007, Capitol v. Foster, 2007 WL 1028532
"[A]n overwhelming majority of cases brought by recording companies against individuals are resolved without so much as an appearance by the defendant, usually through default judgment or stipulated dismissal.....The Defendant Does cannot question the propriety of joinder if they do not set foot in the courthouse." -Hon. S. James Otero, Central District of California, August 29, 2007, SONY BMG v. Does 1-5, 2007 ILRWeb (P&F) 2535
"Plaintiffs are ordered to file any future cases of this nature against one defendant at a time, and may not join defendants for their convenience."
-Hon. Sam Sparks and Hon. Lee Yeakel, District Judges, Western District of Texas, November 17, 2004, Fonovisa v. Does 1-41, 2004 ILRWeb (P&F) 3053
"The Court is unaware of any other authority that authorizes the ex parte subpoena requested by plaintiffs."
-Hon. Walter D. Kelley, Jr., District Judge, Eastern District of Virginia, July 12, 2007, Interscope v. Does 1-7, 494 F. Supp. 2d 388, vacated on reconsideration 6/20/08
"Plaintiffs contend that unless the Court allows ex parte immediate discovery, they will be irreparably harmed. While the Court does not dispute that infringement of a copyright results in harm, it requires a Coleridgian "suspension of disbelief" to accept that the harm is irreparable, especially when monetary damages can cure any alleged violation. On the other hand, the harm related to disclosure of confidential information in a student or faculty member's Internet files can be equally harmful.....Moreover, ex parte proceedings should be the exception, not the rule."
-Hon. Lorenzo F. Garcia, Magistrate Judge, District of New Mexico, May 24, 2007, Capitol v. Does 1-16, 2007 WL 1893603
"'Statutory damages must still bear some relation to actual damages." Hon. Michael J. Davis, Dist. Judge, U.S.District Court, Dist. Minnesota, January 22, 2010, Capitol Records v. Thomas-Rasset
"[T]his court finds that defendants' use of the same ISP and P2P networks to allegedly commit copyright infringement is, without more, insufficient for permissive joinder under Rule 20. This court will sever not only the moving defendants from this action, but all other Doe defendants except Doe 2."
-Hon. W. Earl Britt, District Judge, Eastern District of North Carolina, February 27, 2008, LaFace v. Does 1-38, 2008 WL 544992
"[L]arge awards of statutory damages can raise due process concerns. Extending the reasoning of Gore and its progeny, a number of courts have recognized that an award of statutory damages may violate due process if the amount of the award is "out of all reasonable proportion" to the actual harm caused by a defendant's conduct.[T]hese cases are doubtlessly correct to note that a punitive and grossly excessive statutory damages award violates the Due Process Clause....."Hon. Marilyn Hall Patel, Dist. Judge, N.D. California, June 1, 2005, In re Napster, 2005 US DIST Lexis 11498, 2005 WL 1287611
"[P]laintiffs can cite to no case foreclosing the applicability of the due process clause to the aggregation of minimum statutory damages proscribed under the Copyright Act. On the other hand, Lindor cites to case law and to law review articles suggesting that, in a proper case, a court may extend its current due process jurisprudence prohibiting grossly excessive punitive jury awards to prohibit the award of statutory damages mandated under the Copyright Act if they are grossly in excess of the actual damages suffered....."-Hon. David G. Trager, Senior District Judge, Eastern Dist. New York, November 9, 2006, UMG v. Lindor, 2006 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 83486, 2006 WL 3335048
"'[S]tatutory damages should bear some relation to actual damages suffered'....(citations omitted) and 'cannot be divorced entirely from economic reality'". -Hon. Shira A. Scheindlin, Dist. Judge, Southern Dist. New York, August 19, 2008, Yurman v. Castaneda
"The Court would be remiss if it did not take this opportunity to implore Congress to amend the Copyright Act to address liability and damages in peer to peer network cases.... The defendant is an individual, a consumer. She is not a business. She sought no profit from her acts..... [T]he damages awarded in this case are wholly disproportionate to the damages suffered by Plaintiffs." -Hon. Michael J. Davis, District Judge, Dist. Minnesota, September 24, 2008, Capitol v. Thomas
"If there is an asymmetry in copyright, it is one that actually favors defendants. The successful assertion of a copyright confirms the plaintiff's possession of an exclusive, and sometimes very valuable, right, and thus gives it an incentive to spend heavily on litigation. In contrast, a successful defense against a copyright claim, when it throws the copyrighted work into the public domain, benefits all users of the public domain, not just the defendant; he obtains no exclusive right and so his incentive to spend on defense is reduced and he may be forced into an unfavorable settlement." US Court of Appeals, 7th Cir., July 9, 2008, Eagle Services Corp. v. H20 Industrial Services, Inc., 532 F.3d 620
"Customers who download music and movies for free would not necessarily spend money to acquire the same product.....RIAA’s request problematically assumes that every illegal download resulted in a lost sale."
-Hon. James P. Jones, Dist. Judge, Western Dist. Virginia, November 7, 2008, USA v. Dove