02-06-2008, 08:37 PM
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#71 (permalink)
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... a sort of licensed troubleshooter.
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Quote:
Scoop: Label Must Pay P2P Defendent's Legal Fees
By Eliot Van Buskirk February 06, 2007 | 11:23:27 PMCategories: Digital Music News
Debbie Foster, the RIAA file sharing defendent who notoriously took on the organization after it went after her for copyright infringement, has won some amount of the legal fees [see update below] she seeks from the RIAA after having their case against her dismissed last summer.
This is a significant development; the landmark case could have dramatic repercussions for the RIAA's legal campaign against file sharers, since a precedent now exists for the RIAA to compensate wrongfully-sued defendants for their legal costs. (Capitol Records' mistake was to claim Debbie Foster was liable for any infringement occuring on her internet account, regardless of who actually downloaded and subsequently shared the files.)
Listening Post has obtained a copy of Judge Lee R. West's Order, issued today, in which the judge grants Foster an award of "reasonable attorney fees in this action under § 505 of the Copyright Act," but denies her "attorneys' fees under 28 U.S.C. § 1927."
I'm going to leave the full legal analysis for Listening Post's legal expert Stewart Rutledge, but wanted to post the news right away that Capitol will owe Foster some percentage of her legal fees, which totaled approximately $50,000 [see update below].
What a bad day for major labels... first Steve Jobs tells them he's had it with DRM, and now a judge says they're going to have to pay up if they sue people for sharing files, but then can't prove that the infringement happened. Stay tuned for exclusive analysis of the Order.
Update: I just spoke with Marilyn Barringer Thomson, Debbie Foster's attorney, who told me that she and her client are "pleased with the outcome," and explained that the judge granting attorneys' fees under the specific Copyright Act was preferable to him granting the fees under the more general 1927 statute (essentially, Thomson's main legal theory triumphed, and her back-up/alternate was denied). Finally, Thomson said that the label will likely owe Foster more than $50,000, since today's Order allows her to supplement the attorneys' fees total to include additional time spent on the case.
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http://blog.wired.com/music/2007/02/...label_mus.html
Quote:
RIAA Drops Open WiFi Case - Virgin v. Mars
In an earlier post I had noted that an open WiFi connection could act as an affirmative defense against the RIAA's IP-centric lawsuit tactics because anyone could have been using a defendant's open (ie: non-encrypted) WiFi connection to download P2P content. It appears the RIAA dropped a case on that exact basis back on January 24, 2006.
Dale's Update [Aug 4, 2006): The original reports about this case mentioned that Ms. Marson had an open WiFi and that was the basis of the dismissal. The later reports, see for instance the ars technica report, are now saying that Ms. Marson a cheerleader teacher that had hundreds of girls come to her house, anyone of which could have used her computer to download music. Some reports (eg: the register) say both defenses were used. The net result, however, still seems to be the same. When you can show evidence that someone other than the IP address owner/user had access to Internet connectivity through that IP address, that may very well be an affirmative defense - as would be the case with a computer with open WiFi. While ars technica is quite right that no judgment has yet turned on this point, it seems to me evidence of an open WiFi would be at least as compelling a defense. And who knows, the RIAA may already have dropped open-WiFi defense cases without disclosing this to the public.
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http://daledietrich.com/imedia/2006/...rgin-v-marson/
Oops! Time for some humble pie, because it looks like this "moron" is absolutely right.
Last edited by Willravel; 02-06-2008 at 08:40 PM..
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