In a Pittsburgh case targeting Carnegie Mellon Students which has previously been known as Fonovisa Records 1-9, in which the Court dismissed as to John Does 1-2 and 4-9 due to improper joinder, the RIAA has many months later amended its complaint to pursue "John Doe #3", a Carnegie Mellon student, in her own name.
The caption in the amended complaint reads LaFace Records v. Maddox.
From a review of the docket, it is not clear that the plaintiffs' filing of an amended complaint is timely.
The amended complaint is in the new form which doesn't mention MediaSentry at all, but falsely states that "Plaintiffs identified an individual".
Amended complaint
Keywords: lawyer 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 portable music player
Saturday, March 07, 2009
In case against former Carnegie Mellon student, RIAA files amended complaint; new caption is LaFace Records v. Maddox
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8 comments:
"The amended complaint is in the new form which doesn't mention MediaSentry at all, but falsely states that "Plaintiffs identified an individual"."
"They" are doing it in ALL the recent cases now as far as I have seen.
I guess this is their new tactic: Now the judges can throw a dice which one is not only a technical misrepresentation [detecting of an individual when they only identify an IP address] but NOW clearly a fully consciously done lie [btw, are those complains stated under penalty of perjury?].
But on the other hand again take note that they say "identified" instead of "detected", which is a tiny difference in meaning non the less.
Now that plaintiffs say they've identified an individual, does this change discovery? In the past we saw Linares writing about what MediaSentry purportedly observed, but now we see plaintiffs claiming *they* detected an individual, so do they have any way to keep the person who did the detecting from being deposed?
XYZZY
You got it wrong. The court dismissed as to Does 1-2 and 4-9, not Does 2-9. This defendant is Doe 3.
Thank you for catching my error, Anonymous Anonymous.
I've made the correction.
Apologies, folks.
This is a case of naked judicial misconduct and revenge. If joinder is improper than all Does above #1 should be severed from the case and dismissed without prejudice. To single out the Doe who pointed this fact out and keep only them in the case while severing and dismissing cases against all other Does including Doe #1 is blatant injustice and leads this man to call for this judge's removal from the bench for obvious bias against defendants in whom he/she has chosen to "punish". There is no acceptable explanation for such behavior!
{The Common Man Speaking}
Users of P2P networks who distribute files over a network can be identified by using Internet Protocol ("IP") addresses because the unique IP address of the computer offering the files for distribution can be captured by another user during a search or file transfer.
A blatant lie that goes to the entire foundation of the Plaintiff's case. That IP address both is not unique at all to the Internet at large, and can have been changed any number of times along its path between two computers by routers, proxies, and other Internet devices. There may be routers involved by the ISP of which the Defendant isn't even aware of. All that has to happen is that each device which changed the IP address going in one direction change it back properly when sending the reply in the other direction. What this means is that what IP address the Plaintiff's unlicensed investigators may have seen may well not be what the infringing computer actually sent. Even the ISP who fingered an "individual" given an IP address and timestamp (note that the amended complaint says nothing about how a timestamp is as necessary as an IP address because IP addresses change all the time) doesn't know whose, or how many, computers were using that IP address at the moment it was logged by the illegal investigators.
Since it is trivial to show many computers all displaying the very same IP address to the Internet, Plaintiff's case fails here in its most basic assumption that an individual computer or user can actually be identified by a unique IP address. The Internet was designed and built to facilitate communications between many different users in a robust manner – not facilitate accurate identification of just who those users all are!
And they outright bare-faced lie to the judge in this case when they claim this is true because by now even they know better!
{The Common Man Outraged}
Whereas before plaintiffs might have been able to claim they didn't know MediaSentry needed a license (in places where it needs one), it's harder for them now, because they don't readily allow for a 3rd party scapegoat. They'd have to introduce information about the data gathering entity and also about how "identifying an individual" was somehow not meant to be read literally...
XYZZY
The timeliness argument is almost meaningless, what with the strong presumption that cases should be decided on the merits. I doubt that Maddox can convince the Judge that the RIAA was being intentionally dilatory, and that is just about the only thing that will make the filing 'untimely' in the Court's eyes.
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