Sunday, September 16, 2007

RIAA Moves to Dismiss Complaint in Andersen v. Atlantic Class Action

A number of the defendants in Tanya Andersen's class action, Andersen v. Atlantic, have filed a motion to dismiss the complaint in that case. The moving defendants are the record companies, the RIAA, and Settlement Support Center LLC.

Interestingly, all of the defendants except MediaSentry are represented by the same law firm.

No response to the complaint has been filed yet by MediaSentry (now known as SafeNet).

Defendants' Memorandum of Law in Support of Motion to Dismiss Complaint*

* Document published online at Internet Law & Regulation

Commentary & discussion:

p2pnet



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




9 comments:

StephenH said...

Ray,

It seems that the RIAA is trying to dismiss mostly based on the Knorr-Pentagon doctorine. Can you define this for readers here. I am not asking for any type of legal advice here, but I just want a definition of the term RIAA is using.

Next, it seems that RIAA is trying to dismiss because they claim that Atlantic v Andersen is still active due to the initial counterclaims and that it is illegal to move them to this suit. I am not a laywer, but I think that "moving" them would not be a reason to dismiss.

I also feel that RIAA is trying to get this dismissed, because I have a feeling if this is not dismissed it could have the potential to open a big can of worms for the RIAA, potentially even changing or stopping this campaign.

There are clearly innocent users out there, and I beleive RIAA should pay the price for targeting them with unreliable investigation tactics.

I was curious Ray, what do you think RIAA will do if this case is NOT dismissed and then certified as a class action?

Stephen

Interested Observer said...

I wonder if any of the observations here:

Gellis, Catherine R., "RIAA Lawsuits and Noerr-Pennington Immunity" (December 21, 2004). Available at SSRN: http://ssrn.com/abstract=933121

might cast some doubts on their claims of Noerr-Pennington.

raybeckerman said...

Stephen, the RIAA has been trying to use Noerr-Pennington improperly. For a much more responsible discussion of Noerr-Pennington, take a look at the defendant's memorandum of law in opposition to the RIAA's motion to dismiss counterclaims in Lava v. Amurao.

AMD FanBoi said...

So according to the RIAA et. al., they can beat up on you all they want without evidence that would withstand a trial and may have been illegally gathered in the first place, trumpet the suing of you in press releases to terrorize other Americans with computers and ISP accounts, and because of Noerr-Pennington doctrine, nothing bad can ever happen to them in return. Does that about sum it all up?

Question: RIAA et. al. claims that Andersen II must be dismissed in large part because it's a duplicate of Anderson I counter-claims. Would the addition of a single additional plaintiff (I know she's going to Class Action certification, however, I don't believe she has it yet) to this suit differentiate it enough from Andersen I to shoot down all those arguments?

Btw, does Noerr-Pennington doctrine protect plaintiffs against "negligent" filing of lawsuits? The RIAA has sued a number of clearly wrong people due to their lack of due diligence before suing. And once they've picked out a target on little more than a screen snapshot and an IP address, they absolutely refuse to drop their pursuit of the given victim regardless of what early evidence might be presented. Pay, or go to court, are the only options. How can this be protected behavior?

One interesting point:

3. Andersen has not stated a claim for invasion of privacy through
public disclosure of private facts.


I don't know about you, but the contents of my hard drive are damn well private to me, and you accessing it for the purpose of printing out directories to all and sundry is a definite invasion of privacy!

derivative said...

Ray:

To this layman, the shenanigans pulled by the RIAA seem, on the surface, very similar to those pulled by DirecTV. In Sosa v. DirecTV, the appellate court upheld the Noerr-Pennington defense, and threw out the RICO claims.

Obviously, one difference is the RIAA is a cartel and DirecTV is a single company, but I will still be very interested to see how this plays out and whether the facts in this case can be usefully distinguished from those in Sosa.

Keep up the good work!

Regards,
Pat

StephenH said...

Ray,

Just what is noerr-pennigton anyway for those like me what don't understand it? Can you define it for me?

Additionally, the issue amd fanboi pointed out I also found interesting "

3. Andersen has not stated a claim for invasion of privacy through
public disclosure of private facts."

I beleive that she has done just that. I beleive that RIAA and MediaSentry trespassed by gathering data about what is on their computers for a purpose other than what someone intended KaZaa or LimeWire for. I beleive that this is an etiquette violation to say the least, and probably IS invasion of privacy and electronic trespassing. Especially gathering up IP addresses to do reverse log searches on when the consumers are only sharing file names and files. The other problem is that Tanya Andersen was an Innocent Victim, so they did do something that went too far to get her identity, and then falsely accused her of sharing when she was not. This is racketeeting and computer fraud.

Alter_Fritz said...

Off Topic;

Me wonders if the MediaSentry guys are ridiculing those well-known and respected record companies also behind their back in corporate internal mails? :P

"In one case, a Universal Music executive asked if there was any data showing the music industry's lawsuits were reducing file-sharing activity from addresses ending in .edu -- namely, colleges and universities. An email showed that Mr. Saaf forwarded the message to five employees with the note: "Take a moment to laugh to yourselves." A spokesman for Universal had no comment.

Some clients expressed frustration in emails that despite hiring MediaDefender, their property was widely available on the Web. One Sony BMG executive complained that he was able to download Beyonce's "Beautiful Liar" on the Soulseek site, despite MediaDefender's work to protect the song. "Can you please investigate the problem and ACTUALLY solve it (going on for months now)?" the executive writes. Sony BMG had no comment."
Source: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB118998414197229169.html?mod=hpp_us_whats_news via Slyck

raybeckerman said...

stephen...... read the papers in lava v. amurao......

alter.... i had to bend my comment policies to publish that one, it's way off topic......

AMD FanBoi said...

alter:

FYI, MediaDefender is separate and different from MediaSentry/SafeNet.