Ranting to /dev/null

Fantastic legal footwork

In the course of filing its indiscriminate lawsuits against consumers, the RIAA may have bitten off more than it can chew. Here we have Arista v. Greubel. The RIAA alleges he downloaded songs off the internet using Kazaa. Okay.

Most defendants choose to settle at this point, as the complaint against them can easily run into hundreds of thousands of dollars. Greubel decided to throw the book at them, and his attorneys are to be applauded for mounting a truly fascinating defense.

The answer to the complaint can be found here. Most of it is simply making the proper pleadings and allegations to preserve options on appeal, and on the majority, the defendant has no hope of winning. There isn't any way of defeating jurisdiction of the court in whose territory you live. Sorry, nice try.

Doesn't matter. The key thing to look at here is the first affirmative defense offered, namely that by suing Shaman Networks, the creator of Kazaa, and failing to join any Kazaa users in that lawsuit, the RIAA and associated plaintiffs have already received satisfaction for their complaint, and are barred from seeking further damages. Stunning, really.

The argument goes, and I quote, "any recovery from Defendant Greubel for alleged copyright infringement arising from the use of KaZaA would be duplicative of the damages obtained from Sharman Networks." Which it clearly would. And courts tend not to like double-dipping. They're arguably attempting recovery twice from different parties.

If this is sustained, it will probably put an immediate end to any and all lawsuits against consumers. This is what we call "strategic miscalculation" on the part of the recording industry.

Sweet.

Posted by ryan at November 17, 2006 05:38 PM | TrackBack