The RIAA's days of getting guilty verdicts rubber stamped is at an end. (Source: images.jupiterimages.com)
The RIAA loses a precedent-setting case, Interscope v. Rodriguez, in Southern California.
A judge in Southern California made no friends in the RIAA
when she handed down a precedent-setting verdict that cleared the defendant all charges in the case Interscope v. Rodriguez.
Since the early days of P2P file-sharing the RIAA has made a questionable name
for itself as a legal bulldog, issuing thousands of lawsuits against
individuals each year.
Typically the RIAA accused these individuals of downloading and/or distributing copyrighted works.
These statements often were followed by little evidence and sometimes came
against people that had no apparent access to a computer.
One such case occurred in 2005 when the RIAA took up a case against 83-year-old deceased great-grandmother in West
Virginia. The RIAA was unaware that the woman had passed away in
December, 2004. Ironically, her daughter testified that her mother
did not ever own a computer, and had no access to one.
After the case gained national attention, the RIAA issued the foot-in-mouth reply,
"Our evidence gathering and our subsequent legal actions all were
initiated weeks and even months ago. We will now, of course, obviously
dismiss this case."
Since then the RIAA has continued to take individuals to court, many of whom
settled out of court privately, for thousands of dollars.
The Interscope v. Rodriguez was considered a typical RIAA case
“boilerplate” complaint. The RIAA accused the defendant, Yolanda Rodriguez, of downloading and distributing
copyrighted works, but did
not offer any specific evidence or proof of its claims.
As the defendant did not present himself in court, a default judgment ruling
was held. The presiding judge, Judge Brewster, shocked the RIAA by not
only denying a default monetary judgment, but also completing dismissing
the case for failure to state a claim.
Judge Brewster is on record as stating:
"Plaintiff here must present at least some facts to
show the plausibility of their allegations of copyright infringement against
the Defendant.
However,
other than the bare conclusory statement that on “information and belief”
defendant has downloaded, distributed and/or made available for distribution to
the public copyrighted works, plaintiffs have presented no facts that would
indicate this allegation is anything more than speculation.
The
complaint is simply a boilerplate listing of the elements of copyright
infringement without any facts pertaining specifically to the instant
Defendant.
The Court
therefore finds that the complaint fails to sufficiently state a claim upon
which relief can be granted and entry of default judgment is not
warranted."
This is a landmark ruling, as new
defendants will now have some legal precedent and successful framework to
challenge the RIAA in court.
The RIAA has made a name for itself by continually coming up with creative new
ways of trying to make money of music listeners, via litigation and marketing
gimmicks. It has tried everything from lawsuits, to "ringles"
its new ringtone-single campaign, to make up for
falling record sales.
“So far we have not seen a single Android device that does not infringe on our patents." -- Microsoft General Counsel Brad Smith
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