Saturday, July 29, 2006

RIAA Tries to Get Brooklyn Judge to Follow Texas and Arizona Cases Where Judges Said They Have "Incomplete Understanding" of Technology

In Maverick v. Goldshteyn, in Brooklyn federal court, where a motion to dismiss the complaint has been pending for about 7 months, the RIAA suddenly -- on Friday, July 28th -- sent the judge a letter enclosing 3 decisions, 1 from Arizona, 1 from Waco, Texas, and 1 from Abilene, Texas, all of which declined to rule on the RIAA's "making available" argument on the ground that the judges had "incomplete understanding" of Kazaa technology to decide the motion.

On July 29th Ms. Goldshteyn's lawyer (the undersigned) sent his own letter to the judge indicating why those decisions were bad authority:

July 28, 2006, Letter of Richard Gabriel to Judge Trager*
July 29, 2006, Letter of Ray Beckerman to Judge Trager*



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

6 comments:

eclectica said...

You would think not understanding the evidence would mean that the evidence is not convincing enough to go to trial. That should be enough to dismiss the case. Or maybe they should just send all cases straight to the Supreme Court because they can't handle it themselves as members of an inferior court.

As Forrest Gump said: "stupid is as stupid does", so we'll see if the current judge affirms the precedent of stupidity by rubber stamping the John Doe suit.

raybeckerman said...

I would say that (a) understanding the technology was irrelevant to the motion, and (b) if anything, it should have led to the courts' granting, not denying, the motion -- it's the RIAA's burden to make a coherent complaint.

Probably the courts were confused by the RIAA lawyers' doubletalk.

eclectica said...

Oh, I see now that in this case it was a motion to dismiss by the plaintiffs, not a John Doe suit as I thought.

raybeckerman said...

You mean motion to dismiss by defendant.

eclectica said...

Yes thanks for the correction again.

I think I've got it right now on the 3 post here.

CodeWarrior said...

Could the judge understand that the toadies who got the IP addresses from Kazaa violated the User agreement of Sharman networks on multiple counts...or does it take an expert to explain that to him as well?

~Code