Bullies not tolerated
A new ruling from New York in one of the RIAA cases is good news for the targets of it’s litigation strategy in deterring illegal file-sharing (for which there appears to be no evidence of effectiveness in the several year long campaign). As spotted and reported here, the judge in Atlantic v. Andersen has ruled that the RIAA must pay attorney fess incurred by the defendant after a two year long discovery process failed to yield any material evidence of infringement.
I believe that copyright infringement suits are valid and justifiable ways to protect the rights of copyright holders. But the RIAA has engaged in a campaign of infringement lawsuits that are often merely a tool to engage in a fishing expedition for evidence of wrongdoing. Because those sued usually bear a significant financial burden in defending themselves, the lawsuits, while technically not the least bit unfair, usually are unfair in reality. The reality of our civil justice system is that most lawsuits are between parties of roughly equal financial means. Big companies sue other big companies, husbands sue wives, etc. And since strategy decisions by an attorney about how much discovery to do and how many motions to file are usually based on the financial means of the client, when the clients have roughly equal financial means, the system - while expensive - is not unfair by virtue of being lopsided. But occasionally, a mismatch will occur, and the public always perceives those matchups as unfair, usually with the phrase “bullying tactics” attached. And in truth, they are unfair, even though it is because of a systemic problem and is not really the fault of the party bringing the lawsuit. And that is the case with the RIAA suits. The attorney fee ruling is the judge’s way of saying to the RIAA that they better not take advantage of the systemic imbalance to bully their targets into submission.
That’s all I’m saying.
October 24th, 2007 at 7:36 am
[...] raid was done by one of the affiliate organizations associated with the RIAA. According to these officials, the raid was the culmination of a two year investigation on Oink. I [...]