Friday, June 06, 2008

Defendant "John Does" file reply papers in University of Maine case, Arista v. Does 1-27

In Arista v. Does 1-27, a case targeting University of Maine students, the "John Does" represented by Portland's Mittel Asen law firm have filed their reply memoranda in support of their motions to strike the Carlos Linares declaration, and to vacate the ex parte discovery order and quash the subpoena issued pursuant to that order, responding to the RIAA's opposition papers

Reply memo in support of motion to vacate and quash*
Reply memo in support of motion to strike*

* Document published online at Internet Law & Regulation



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:

Anonymous said...

Plaintiffs also suggest that the time to challenge the expertise of Mr. Linares will be “during discovery.” Opposition at 2. We are in discovery right now. Plaintiffs obtained an Order (Document 6) allowing them to engage in ex parte discovery.

Without a doubt the best putdown of the RIAA's arguments to date!

Jadeic said...

Perhaps, to save time, Ray, you could copy and paste the RIAA response to these two documents from elsewhere on the blog. I can see that you may argue that such copies may not address the specific points raised here by the defendant(s) but then IMHO they rarely have much relevance to the case in hand - usually relying on 'weight of paper' to win their argument.

Dave

raybeckerman said...

Dave, I'm not sure what you're referring to.

1. These are "reply" memos, so they're supposed to be the last word on these motions.

2. Why would you want me to copy and paste documents from somewhere else?

Jadeic said...

Since when have the RIAA lawyers ever played by the rules? If they think they can waste more of the court's time (and make more money) by challenging every utterance by the defence, challenging every 'misguided' decision by judges that fail to support the RIAA position, what makes you think that they will not 'respond' when they are not supposed to?

Dave

Alter_Fritz said...

I speculate he ment (probably because he is/was under the impression RIAA could counter that RE-Response of defendant again) that RIAA will (would have if ther were not this "3 strike rule how a motion is argued for) file something like

"congress and napster court said this and that, we are devestated, only one [or a few guys depending how many defendants they hae lumped together] are responsible singlehanded for all the billions of copies out there" and all the other non particular case- or oppositions argument answering specific stuff they fill their papers boilerplate like with.

Me waits for the day when one of their lawyers will start (similar to the argument they make in Lindor) to say: Sorry your Honour we can't counter argue those motions of defendants since we do it all the time the same way and that is highly proprietary and all that, so please deny defenants motions just because we say your honor to do so.

Jadeic said...

A_F - you got it in one.

raybeckerman said...

Well at least you guys understand each other.

I guess my problem is that I only speak Legalese.

Alter_Fritz said...

Ray wrote:
"I guess my problem is that I only speak Legalese"

Ray, don't feel too sad because of your monolingualism handicap. At least you probably got the meaning of Bob's footnote at first glance!


Doe 2 argued that much of what Mr. Linares said is hearsay and therefore inadmissible
even if based on personal knowledge.(1) Plaintiffs have said nothing about whether what Mr.
Linares said is hearsay nor did they say “it was hearsay but was admissible because it came
within an exception set out in F.R.Ev. 803 or 804.” The affidavit is hearsay and under F.R.Civ.
P. 43 is not admissible.

(1) By definition, most hearsay, “I heard it through the Grapevine,” is based on personal knowledge because the
witness did hear it through the Grapevine.



I thougth after first reading it "what the fu n is this lawyer talking about?" since so far I was not aware that it was/is also a proverb and not simply the english word for "Weintraube".
(Me always so far had pictures of a male and a female that stand in the mentioned grapevines on the lovely banks of the Mosel and the River Rhine in mind when I heard the eponymous song by The Temptations)

Little did I know that what "Lawyer Bob" was quoting means actually

http://www1.dict.cc/contribute/?action=audio-history&f=id-24334
and/or
http://www1.dict.cc/contribute/?action=audio-history&f=id-24319
and/or
http://www1.dict.cc/contribute/?action=audio-history&f=id-24326

Thank you Mr. Mittel.
Please don't refrain from using similar proverbs in the future. (only if they are an appropriate reaction to the RIAA bovine feces of course!)