Monday, November 16, 2009

Attorneys fee appeal in Lava v Amurao rejected by "summary order"

In Lava Records v. Amurao, the appeal by Rolando Amurao from a lower court order denying his attorneys fee motion, the Second Circuit has affirmed the order of the lower court by a "summary order" (an order having no precedential effect).

The Court relied in part upon

Amurao’s pre-suit written admission to the plaintiffs that “[w]e downloaded the songs [in question] through a program called Lime Wire,” Amurao’s subsequent less-than-candid responses to plaintiffs’ discovery requests, and the plaintiffs’ efforts to terminate this case quickly once it became clear through discovery that another member of Amurao’s household, rather than Amurao himself, had, in fact, downloaded the copyrighted materials.
November 16, 2009, Summary Order, USCtApp 2nd Cir

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

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

For those of us less skilled in the legal arts:

Why a summary order in this case? What would cause an appellate court not to issue a normal order?

How quickly is "quickly" when determining how fast the cartel moved to dismiss the case?

So, all innocent people being sued by the cartel may or may not get attorney's fees, depending on how many donuts the judge had that morning? Nice statute-writing there, if that's the case.

- Andrew

Anonymous said...

I wonder what evidence the judge relied upon when concluding that the "We downloaded ..." language persuaded plaintiffs to keep going in their case.

Also, is the judge not misconstruing Amurao's views on awarding fees? AFAIK the claim was never that fees /must/ be awarded in copyright cases like this. Rather, if attorneys don't get paid, they don't work, and that means innocent defendants are unjustly coerced into settling. For the system to be just, it seems judges should lean towards -- but not be forced to award -- attorneys fees in these cases.

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