Friday, March 14, 2008

In new North Carolina State "John Doe" case, Arista v. Does 1-34, four defendants move to dismiss or sever for improper joinder

Once again the RIAA has commenced a "John Doe" case targeting North Carolina State University students, this one entitled Arista v. Does 1-34, 07-CV-00405.

As in LaFace v. Does 1-38, which preceded it, a number of defendants -- this time four of them known only as John Does #13, 16, 17, and 19 -- have joined together and moved to dismiss or sever due to the absence of any basis for joinder.

In LaFace the Court dismissed as to all defendants other than John Doe #2.

The students' brief in Arista cites LaFace.

As they were in LaFace, the Arista defendants are represented by Stephen Robertson of Robertson & Medlin in Greensboro, North Carolina.

Brief of John Does 13, 16, 17, and 19 in support of motion to dismiss or sever*

* Document published online at Internet Law & Regulation



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1 comment:

Anonymous said...

The RIAA continues not to learn from its defeats. I'd like to think judges would be insulted that they continue to do what they've very clearly been told NOT to do, and punish them accordingly in every higher amounts until they DO learn.

I like the drunk driver analogy as concise, accurate, and to the point, even if it forgot to include that they all got drunk on different drinks, but at the same or similar bar.

the date of Plaintiffs’ intrusion into the Does’ respective systems was two months apart.

Intrusion it most certainly was, and unwanted intrusion at that. But of interest here is the two months allegation. If ISP's quite keeping logs for insanely and unnecessarily long lengths of time, EVERYBODY's lives would be simpler. There is no rule, law, or reason for this university to have logs going back months, but the moment they exist they get dug up and pried into in the courts.

In this case, the confusion resulting from the improper joinder of 36 unrelated defendants has two effects: it prejudices the defendants, and it impedes the effective and efficient administration of justice.

If the Plaintiffs were honest, which we know they're not since they're trying to enforce laws that don't exist, they'd simply tell the court: None of that is of any real concern since we have no intent of actually bringing this case to trial in this form anyway. We are simply using the courts and the sham of a trial to force out private information otherwise protected by law so that we can extort most of the victims without another case, and sue those who dare defy us causing them to pay far more in legal bills over a situation where the law doesn't support our position yet. And we believe, despite our fifty thousand or so previous cases virtually identical to this one, that you're dumb enough to go along with it and let us do exactly that.

-DM