The Magistrate has denied the RIAA's motion, in UMG v. Lindor, to compel Ms. Lindor's son to turn over his desktop computer, reasoning that
Plaintiffs have offered little more than speculation to support their request for an inspection of Mr. Raymond's desktop computer, based on than his family relationship to the defendant, the proximity of his house to the defendant's house, and his determined defense of his mother in this case. That is not enough. On the record before me, plaintiffs have provided scant basis to authorize an inspection of Mr. Raymond's desktop computer.The Court did, however, provide that the RIAA could take a limited deposition of Mr. Raymond to ascertain whether he had any other devices in his custody, possession, or control at the time the screenshot was taken, and whether he'd hooked them up to his mother's internet connection:
March 30, 2007, Order Denying RIAA Motion to Compel*
* Document published online at Internet Law & Regulation
Mr. Raymond is represented by Richard A. Altman.
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21 comments:
This is awesome news, especially the Judge admitting that it could have been anyone else's computer at the house (if the assumption that ip to account to house was 100% accurate), including a guest. It doesn't take much to stretch that to open wifi hot-spots, (I don't know if she had a wireless router or not) or the fact that their ONLY evidence has no way to link it to her outside circumstance at best.
"If we search enough computers, we'll find one infringing work even if it isn't among those listed. At that point, we'll sue everyone for 'contributing to infringement'."
It seems that the RIAA lawyers and I have something in common here. When I go fishing, I prefer the sitting on the boat time to the actually catching anything as well.
To quote the most widely used Tag on Slashdot: Haha.
" This is awesome news, especially the Judge admitting that it could have been anyone else's computer at the house"
If that be the case, then why the heck are these judges not just throwing the riaa cases out the window???
Can someone clarify this:
If Ms. Lindor suceedes in proving her innocence, and wins without prejudice. Then will this nullify any cases against her children since at the point in time the events occured they were minors under her supervision?
It just seems like this is double jeopardy since she is the only adult involved ( looking at it from the time the lawsuit was filed )
RIAA next tactic: File DSS reports claiming that parents who let their kids use the computer and allegedly pirate music are unfit to be parents.
anonymous2
You are confusing lindor with santangelo. in Santangelo RIAA got a default against the (at time of alledged infringement) ca. 16 year old daughter Michelle.
In Lindor there are no minors (or other familymembers) named in the suit
I don't know about your laws if a non infringer judgement against person A renders seperate judgements against Persons B,C ect. nill. if those others are offspring of A. I doubt that, but Ray will correct me if i'm wrong, no doubt about that! :-)
ryan, where do you read about "the Judge admitting that it could have been anyone else's computer at the house"? I don't find any indication for such a thing. I only read that he thinks its unlikely that non-party Mr. R. brought his desktop over to Lindor.
to be accurate:
I haven't "read" what I said, I only interpreted that this is what he meant.
what I have read from the judge was: "On the record
before me, I find that the inspection of Mr. Raymond's computer is not reasonably calculated to lead to
the discovery of admissible evidence and is not relevant to a claim or defense of any party. See FRCP
Rule 26(b)1)."
The fact that there is some documents on the computer in question pretained to attorney-client privliege, the judge should have denied the motion in the first place, Alter, heck Ms Lindor's son shouldn't even been involved in the case. The RIAA was just going fishing and ended up catching minnows!
Can someone explain to me what is meant by "limited deposition"? Or what it allows for?
jadeic, don't be so lazy. read the order and you'll know what i meant by "limited deposition"
it's one click
Comment policy:
1.no comment spam
2.no profanity
3.no RIAA trolls masquerading as something else (if RIAA PR flacks present themselves for who they are, they are welcome to participate)
4.no unsupported accusations
5.no defamation
6.no threats
7.no unsupported anti-lawyer or anti-judge insults (if you know of something specific that a lawyer or judge did, with which you disagree, and you want to comment fairly upon it fine, but I don't want people here denigrating the legal profession with undocumented insults; I think that is a tactic used by RIAA trolls and some other big corporations who are trying to discourage ordinary people from talking to lawyers and learning about their legal rights, or from going to court to fight for their rights, thinking the system is stacked against them; lawyers and judges are the cornerstone of the rule of law, which is the cornerstone of our democracy, and they are the closest thing we have to an equalizer in our society)
8.nothing to detract from the dignity of "Recording Industry vs. The People" as a forum for the discussion of very important issues.
Why hasn't someone also told the judge that if the dial-up account in question shares a username and password that might be used (sniffed) elsewhere on the internet that someone could have used the account while her computer was not connected?
Hey anonymous (the one wanting to copy Ray's blog). First, I think Ray would welcome you copying his blog...more publicity for him.
Second, the point of the blog is that RIAA sues people who DON'T steal music. They accuse people of stealing based really really bad science. They cannot prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the accused violated their copyright. No one is advocating stealing music, in fact Ray has said many times not to do it. And you should buy the music you own. However, if the RIAA accused a person of violating the DMCA and sues them for it, they better a) have proof of the violation b) meet the elements required...which they DON'T.
They sue people who don't own computers, are sick, crippled or dead way too frequently and refuse to admit their mistakes. More than several times ISPs have misidentified people. RIAA knew this and yet for months, if not years, refused to dismiss the law suits against innocent people. If you want to vent, get your facts straight.
So anonymous...stealing is wrong...but knowingly falsely accusing someone of stealing is also WRONG.
But anyway, you are a coward for not registering and posting as anonymous. It's very easy to be inflammatory under the cloak of anonymity.
Also, no one is forcing you to use the shitty Apple's or Ipods. I don't get how they are relevant to the rest of your rant. If you don't Itunes, how do you steal your music? Err, I mean buy.
the most interesting thing about anonymous's rant is his suggestion that i write this for the benefit of the riaa, since it should be pretty obvious that they are not my intended audience....
but the funny thing is, the riaa spends a lot of time reading my blog and richard gabriel constantly refers to it in court papers and at court appearances....
just the other day, on march 26th, at the oral argument of the motion to compel, mr. gabriel referred to my blog, complaining to the judge that mr. altman's speech would wind up on my blog....
so i think that somewhere deep inside mr. gabriel really likes my blog, because he reads it all the time, and he's constantly trying to get judge levy to read it too....
i was actually planning not to delete that loser's comment, until i reread it and realized he'd blatantly violated the no-profanity rule....
heh...in my reply I meant preponderance of the evidence not reasonable doubt (lesser burden of proof in civil cases). :)
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