Saturday, July 18, 2009

Plaintiffs file pretrial memo & motion to exclude Palfrey, deft files opposition to fair use sum judg motion, in Tenenbaum

Plaintiffs have filed their pretrial memo and a motion to exclude John Palfrey as an expert, and defendant has filed his opposition to plaintiffs' motion for partial summary judgment on fair use, in SONY BMG Music Entertainment v. Tenenbaum.

Plaintiffs' motion to exclude John Palfrey
Plaintiffs' Pretrial Memorandum
Exhibit A juror questions
Exhibit B witness list
Exhibit C exhibit list
Exhibit D proposed jury instructions
Exhibit E proposed verdict form
Defendant's opposition to plaintiffs' motion for partial summary judgment on fair use

[Ed. note. Once again the RIAA lawyers seek damages of up to $150,000 per 99-cent song file, and an incorrect instruction on the distribution right. I guess reading the statute which describes the distribution right, and reading the caselaw on statutory damages, would be too easy for them : there's not enough billable hours in getting it right, there's much more money to be made getting it wrong. Maybe they can milk this case for 3 trials, too. -R.B.]



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

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

"Placing the plaintiffs' copyrighted sound recordings in a shared folder on an online media distribution system without authorization from the plaintiffs also violates the plaintiffs’ exclusive right to distribute their sound recordings."

Once again back to Making Available for distribution claim.

Eric said...

"PLAINTIFFS' PROPOSED INSTRUCTION NO. 26

A distribution of a copyrighted sound recording to MediaSentry on a peer-to-peer network violates the copyright owner’s exclusive distribution right."

Ummm... wait... what? So that's at least 18k illegal downloads made by Media Sentry? Unless they are going to somehow claim that sending the bits to MS ( an agent ) is illegal, but MS saving those bits is magically legal.

"PLAINTIFFS’ PROPOSED JURY INSTRUCTION NO. 27

An inference that a distribution actually took place may be made where a defendant has completed all the necessary steps for the distribution of copyrighted sound recordings to other users on a peer-to-peer network, without license from the copyright owners."

How is this not the "making available" claim in some fancy new dress? It's the identical argument.

With respect for instruction No 28, wouldn't that qualify for rule 11 sanctions since they already know that that is untrue and has not withstood review? They also did not disclose the overturning of that jury instruction in the footnotes.

"PLAINTIFFS’ PROPOSED INSTRUCTION NO. 31

Reckless disregard can be inferred from continuous infringement, a past pattern of infringement, continuing infringement despite warnings, or other circumstances."

Not to be satisfied with a kings ransom from vanilla infringement we will also redefine reckless disregard to give ourselves and advantage?

skeeter said...

"there's not enough billable hours in getting it right, there's much more money to be made getting it wrong. Maybe they can milk this case for 3 trials, too." Ray, you haven't spoke more truthful words than these. The RIAA lawyers have found some deep pockets in their client's trousers and they are not afraid to dig deep into them.

The Common Man Speaking said...

This man believes that John Palfrey's testimony would certainly be relevant towards an Innocent Infringer defense, and therefore relevant to this trial.