Friday, February 06, 2009

RIAA withdraws motion to enforce judgment, needs to sort out 'factual inacurracies' in its motion papers

You may recall that we recently reported that the record companies assigned a default judgment they'd obtained to the RIAA, and that the RIAA had made a motion to enforce the judgment, in RIAA v. Buckley in Massachusetts.

We've just learned that the RIAA's collection lawyer has withdrawn the motion because the motion "contained factual inaccuracies to which plaintiff needs to sort out".

Motion to Withdraw Motion to Enforce Judgment

[Ed. note. Hmmm. "Factual inaccuracies"? That never bothered them before. This attorney, Simon Mann, must be new around here. He's not going to have the RIAA as a client for long if he's going to be finicky about getting his facts right. He wouldn't fit in with Matthew Oppenheim and the Holme Roberts & Owen crowd.

By the way, here's a pointer for you law students out there: you're supposed to "sort out" the facts before, not after, you sue somebody. You might not have picked that up if you've been following the RIAA cases.

-R.B.
]

Commentary & discussion:

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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

8 comments:

Anonymous said...

Hey Ray,
I wouldn't complain too much if the RIAA accidentally fouled up (like that is a rarity) and hired a competent, ethical lawyer.

It's honestly a refreshing change.

MDT

eZee.se said...

I like this "Ed note.." sounds like you are having a nice day ;)

Guess this guy may be replaced soon by Mr.BS (who kind-of-OT we just did a post on http://ezee.se/articles-blog/2009/02/06/load-mr-bs/
I think he was a bit upset we referenced this blog as well as p2pnet)

Either this collection lawyer is new, or they must have made quite a major boo boo for them not to go after every penny they can squeeze out of some more poor souls, I'm sure RvP will have the skinny on the news sooner rather than later so will be back ;)

Cheers!
ryan
www.eZee.se

raybeckerman said...

On the contrary, by linking to his blog you're doing just what he hoped you would do.

eZee.se said...

Fixed it..
Users can still click and go to his blog but the link is useless to search engines and his link popularity.

We created the eZee URL program just for that, if RvP needs to use it at any time just give me a shout and I'll email you the address where you can make these 'secret redirective' URLs

Cheers!
R

Jadeic said...

I think we can now add 'factual inaccuracies' to the RIAA lexicon of gross understatement.

In short, although this has taken me some digging through the morass that is PACER when it comes to the filing of consolidated RIAA cases in Massachusetts the key elements of the assertions made by newbie Mann are plain & simply wrong.

03-CV-1161-NG is in fact a consolidation of dozens of cases and, as far as the filing is concerned, this is the root of the problem and paragraphs 4 & 5 of the Plaintiff's Post-Judgement Motion To Enforce Judgement are the key.

It is a factual inaccuracy to state in paragraph 4 that judgement was entered against the defendant ... [O]n December 1, 2004 considering that the first appearance of Monica Buckley as a defendant appears in the (pre-consolidation) case 07-CV-10340-NG Docket 1 filed 21 February 2007.

It is a factual inaccuracy to state in paragraph 4
that judgement was entered against the defendant in the amount of $4,340.22 when docket 453 of the consolidated 03-CV-1161-NG filed on 15 August 2007 shows that the default judgement was for $3,750 plus $420 costs.

As a point of information there were three default judgements filed on 1 December 2004 in 03-CV-1161-NG, none were for the defendant Monica Buckley and none for the amount $4,340.22 - it makes you wonder where they got that figure from.

It seems from all the court papers that do relate to Monica Buckley that she has not responded at all to any of the allegations - hence the default judgement - although the plaintiff alleges that she has been 'very evasive in her answers' regarding settlement which implies some contact. That said they may have been talking to someone else entirely - who knows?

Even if they do sort this out I for one would check very carefully the date that they intend to use for accrued interest...

Dave

Alter_Fritz said...

Unglaublich! Einfach unglaublich was für eine Schlamperei bei der Truppe herrscht!
Haben noch nicht mal Ihre Urteile richtig sortiert!
Die gehören alle gefeuert!


*SCNR*
a little play in reference to my comparing RIAA with some german guys...
Thanks Dave "Jadeic" for that digging!

eZee.se said...

Was just too curious as to what that meant... online translation cleared it up a little:

Unbelievable! Simply amazing what a sloppiness in the Force there!
Did not even your sentences properly sorted!
They are all fired!


Cant help it, was born hyper curious :))

Alter_Fritz said...

sorry Ezee, my fault. the "Ihre Urteile" should have not been capitalized. Because of that onlinetranslation gave you "Your" instead of "Their" judgements/sentences.

Mea Culpa