Friday, September 02, 2005

Litigation Documents in Elektra v. Santangelo

The following are the litigation documents, in *.pdf format, for the defendant's motion to dismiss complaint in Elektra v. Santangelo:

Notice of Motion to dismiss complaint
(Alternate link)
Memorandum of Law in support of motion to dismiss complaint
(Alternate link)
Affidavit of Morlan Ty Rogers in support of motion to dismiss complaint
Exhibit A (Complaint)
Exhibit A of Complaint
Exhibit B of Complaint, first part
Exhibit B of Complaint, cont'd
Exhibit B of Complaint, cont'd)

Plaintiff's Memorandum of Law in opposition to motion to dismiss complaint

Reply Memorandum of Law in support of motion to dismiss complaint
Revised Reply Memorandum of Law in support of motion to dismiss complaint

Letter of plaintiff's counsel requesting second oral argument and permission to submit additional papers

The motion has been fully briefed and argued, and the parties are awaiting the Court's decision.

8 comments:

LilBambi said...

Well stated case. Good luck. It's about time someone fought this instead of just buckling under them because it is expensive to oppose them. I have great respect for anyone who stands up for their rights when they are apparently in the right despite the odds and big money.

Anonymous said...

I would just like to say that I have a profound feeling of respect for your law firm. Protecting those who are at odds against big business and their bullying.

Anonymous said...

Well done, Mr. Beckerman. Generally, I have a rather low opinion of the legal profession: for the most part, I think lawyers and lawfirms work to generate more revenue, not to help their clients. The two aren't always mutually exclusive, but I think they often are.

In this case, however, it really looks as if you and your firm are trying to work in the best interest of the defendent. I would like to see the "terror" and bullying tactics of organizations like the RIAA and their associates revealed for what they are: unfair, unrealistic, and not supportive of the rights of both the copyright owner and the purchaser of usage rights.

Because contrary to what the RIAA and its friends think, when someone pays for music or video usage, they *do* have rights. I don't think the protections afforded to copyright holders in the laws as orignally drafted were ever intended force a consumer to pay seperately for every device upon which they (personally) partake of that media. And that's the way the copyright owners really want things to work: they want us to pay seperately when we listen to to a song on our computer, and again when we listen in our car, and again when we listen on our home stereo.

It may be "legal" for them to enforce particular copyrights in this fashion, but in many cases I am confident that they are stretching legal definitions to the breaking point to make it so.

Anonymous said...

I am just a layman curiously wondering: The plaintiff states, "[the] defendant...has used...an online media distribution system...to distribute Copyrighted Recordings to the public, and/or to make the Copyrighted Recordings[under (Exhibit A)] available for distribution to others. ...Defendent has violated Plaintiff's exclusive rights of reproduction and duplication." I do take for granted the absence of time and date's from this evidence of distribution invalidates it. But, why is this infringement stated not a "specific" infringement? I don't know if I am exposing my extreme ignorance of the law, but I was just wondering.
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Izrath said...

Rob,

I'm not a scholar of law either, but I think it isn't "specific" because there is no specific "copying" or "distributing" of the material.

If they had recorded "x username from y ip address sent 14000kb of file1 in exhibit a to such and such ip address/username" then this would have been sufficient grounds to show "infringement"

Does that make sense?

Anonymous said...

And about bloody time too.

Anonymous said...

If they had recorded "x username from y ip address sent 14000kb of file1 in exhibit a to such and such ip address/username" then this would have been sufficient grounds to show "infringement"

I'd say that that is insufficient evidance to prove copyright infringment.

Give me ten mins with a computer and i can prove that the file distributed was mearly an alternate encoding of the bible.

Anonymous said...

I have a question. in none of those exhibits do I find where this person is actually downloading or having the file downloaded. What actual basis does the RIAA have for this case? The fact that you find titles like "Albumart_{string of numbers}" shows that this person had just shared where they extract their CD's to for personal use. The titles of the mp3's all appear to follow a pretty common default setting in Windows Media Player of artist_name_Song_title.mp3. This would lead me to believe that again these are all albums that the defendent owns or has owned in the past and had copied to their library. Correct me if I am wrong but does kazza as a default search your computer for media files to share? Does it not also set itself up to start up at computer bootup? So in all fairness could this computer have done this sharing without the defendants knowledge? There appear to be lots of holes in this case.