Recording Industry vs The People: Tanya Andersen to get her attorneys fees against the RIAA

Thursday, January 17, 2008

Tanya Andersen to get her attorneys fees against the RIAA

The Magistrate Judge's decision (Westlaw cite: 2008 WL 185806) granting Tanya Andersen's motion for attorneys fees in Atlantic v. Andersen has now been affirmed by the District Judge, Hon. James A. Redden.

This means that Ms. Andersen will get her attorneys fees, and the only question remaining is how much.

January 16, 2008, Order and Opinion Affirming Magistrate's Recommendations and Granting Defendant's Motion for Attorneys Fees* (Westlaw cite: 2008 WL 185806)
September 21, 2007, Decision of Magistrate Judge Donald C. Ashmanskas Granting Attorneys Fees Motion* (Westlaw cite: 2008 WL 185806)

* Document published online at Internet Law & Regulation

Commentary & discussion:

p2pnet.net
Wired.com
Ars Technica
The Register
Digital Media Wire
Zataz.com (French)
Portal IT

Keywords: digital copyright law online internet 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 intellectual property

8 comments:

Hellslam said...: Were I a stockholder in Atlantic, or any other member of the RIAA, I would take careful note of this decision.; January 17, 2008 at 11:16:00 AM EST
Anonymous said...: There can be no serious dispute that the parties' legal relationship has been materially altered.

There can be no serious dispute that the plaintiffs have been thumped in every major regard.

Of course, the battle over what constitutes valid fees is only beginning.

-Dodge Magnum; January 17, 2008 at 12:05:00 PM EST
Anonymous said...: Game, set and match.

Of course, the RIAA never gives up, no matter weak their case is. Even when by all rights their case should be dead, buried and forgotten, their lawyers exhume the rotting corpse and attempt to dress it in a fresh suit so they can drag it back into court and pretend it is still alive.; January 17, 2008 at 9:54:00 PM EST
StephenH said...: This is a big blow to the RIAA. The RIAA should have know all along that Tanya was one tough lady, and so was her daughter Kylee. Next of all, the RIAA should have told Settlement Support Center to investigate serious claims of innocense, and paid attention to Gary Millin's testimony in BMG Canada v John Doe about MediaSentry's investigations being unreliable. Failure to do this should be an important lesson for the RIAA that spy bots are unreliable and this will cost them bigtime having to pay these fees (plus have to fight a counterclaim motion in the form of a class action). You go Tanya!; January 18, 2008 at 1:30:00 AM EST
Scott said...: In effect, the RIAA is going to end up financing part of the class action lawsuit against itself. This is way cool.; January 18, 2008 at 10:14:00 AM EST
Anonymous said...: Shane,

You remind me of the scene in the Monty Python movie where King Arthur has hacked the arms and legs off of the Black Knight, who is protesting, "Come back and fight you coward. It's only a flesh wound."

XK-E; January 18, 2008 at 10:15:00 AM EST
Anonymous said...: "You remind me of the scene in the Monty Python movie where King Arthur has hacked the arms and legs off of the Black Knight, who is protesting, "Come back and fight you coward. It's only a flesh wound.""

That sounds about right :-) I was thinking more "zombie movie meets Weekend at Bernie's"
--Except that the RIAA is far more ominous than the comedic comparison would suggest. They are willing to tenaciously sue people on the weakest of grounds and continue to sue them even after it becomes clear they are suing the wrong person. They can and do ruin people's lives emotionally and financially based on tenuous or even false allegations--and they fight and fight not to have to pay attorney's fees for reasonable defense of their baseless and ruinous charges.

IMO.; January 18, 2008 at 2:08:00 PM EST
Reluctant Raconteur said...: It wouldn't surprise me to see this as part of a Discworld story. Lawyers sue people so that is what they do.; January 18, 2008 at 8:34:00 PM EST

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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