Once Again (With Feeling): RIAA Told To Pay Tanya Andersen's Legal Fees

from the pay-up,-fellas dept

Despite suing the wrong person multiple times, the RIAA has always pushed back when asked to pay for the legal fees of those wrongfully sued. Tanya Andersen has fought back pretty hard on that claim (and then sued the RIAA separately on other charges as well). Despite multiple tries, the court has repeatedly sided with Andersen pointing out:

Copyright holders generally, and these plaintiffs specifically, should be deterred from prosecuting infringement claims as plaintiffs did in this case. Plaintiffs exerted a significant amount of control over the course of discovery, repeatedly and successfully seeking the court's assistance through an unusually extended and contentious period of discovery disputes. Nonetheless, after ample opportunity to develop their claims, they dismissed them at the point they were required to produce evidence for the court's consideration of the merits..... this case provides too little assurance that a prosecuting party won't deem an infringement claim unsupportable until after the prevailing defendant has been forced to mount a considerable defense, and undergo all that entails, including the incurring of substantial attorney fees.

Back in May, the court again sided with Andersen on the issue of legal fees, and has now entered its final ruling telling the RIAA to pay up nearly $108k to cover Andersen's legal fees in defending herself all these years.

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Rocket Docket Of East Texas Not Fast Enough For Lawsuit Against The Troll Tracker?

from the funny-how-that-works dept

Joe Mullin has all the latest details on the ongoing defamation lawsuit filed by some East Texas lawyers against Rick Frenkel (better known as the Patent Troll Tracker) and his employer Cisco. We covered the original lawsuit earlier this year, but things are getting more complicated. There are some arguments going on over the appropriate venue as well as some questions about legal fees. It seems that one of the lawyers has dropped the case against Frenkel directly to focus just on Cisco, and Frenkel would like his legal fees paid. The suing lawyer disagrees, suggesting that it was a gentlemanly move to drop Frenkel from the case in the first place.

However, perhaps the most amusing part of all of this is that the guy is trying his darndest to keep the lawsuit out of the East Texas district using the argument that the district is too slow because it's all filled up with pending lawsuits -- such as all the patent lawsuits being filed in the so-called "rocket docket." Just recently, a patent attorney who hangs out in the comments here insisted that (despite statistics showing that East Texas sided with patent holders at a much higher rate than in other districts) the real reason patent holders filed there was because of the speed with which it took care of cases. Funny how one of the patent attorneys who promotes that view is suddenly worried about just how slow those courts are.

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Bad Day For The RIAA: Two High Profile Cases Go Against RIAA

from the judges-getting-things-right dept

Well, well, well. The RIAA is not having a particularly good week. In the Tanya Andersen case (where the RIAA sued an innocent person), the court has awarded Andersen $108,000 in legal fees from the RIAA. You may recall that the RIAA had protested having to pay legal fees, which the judge smacked down. Note that this is entirely separate from Andersen's racketeering case against the RIAA.

However, the much bigger news concerns the infamous Jammie Thomas case. As you'll recall, the RIAA won that case, even though it now admits that it said false things under oath. Much of that decision hinged on the fact that the court said that "making available" was infringement, which is the opposite of what many other courts have been saying. In fact, it turns out that it went against the binding precedent in a different case within the same circuit. The judge has now admitted that he may have committed a "manifest error of law" in his jury instructions, and it sounds like he's going to order a new trial.

This is a big deal. The RIAA has been holding up the Thomas case over and over again as proof that (a) "making available" is infringement and (b) that courts will award huge fines for those caught file sharing. If that decision gets tossed out (not even by an appeals court, but by the judge who ruled in the first place), it will suddenly make the RIAA's claims relating to that case disappear completely.

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Another Day, Another Smackdown By A Judge Against The RIAA

from the yet-again... dept

In the early days of the RIAA lawsuits, it seemed like judges just took the RIAA's word on things, but that's long since changed as lawyers defending those accused have become more sophisticated -- often realizing that the RIAA research tactics were questionable, the evidence they had was quite flimsy and the system was guaranteed to accuse all sorts of innocent people without much support. As this has happened, judges have become increasingly skeptical of these RIAA lawsuits and those who haven't done anything wrong actually (finally) have a decent chance of pointing out that the RIAA's evidence is wrong. And, in fact, judges are increasingly pushing the RIAA to pay the legal fees of the people they falsely accuse. In the latest such decision, a judge has smacked down the RIAA and ordered them to pay the legal fees in the case of Tanya Andersen. You may recall that the RIAA had accused Andersen of copyright infringement a few years ago -- and then continued to pressure and intimidate her long after it became quite obvious that Andersen clearly was not guilty of what the RIAA was accusing her of doing. The RIAA eventually dropped the case, but Andersen wanted her legal fees paid (separately, she's also suing the RIAA, claiming their investigation techniques are illegal).

The ruling from the judge on paying the legal fees is well worth reading, as it suggests yet another judge is sick and tired of the RIAA assuming that it can just throw up some flimsy evidence and then bully people into paying:

Copyright holders generally, and these plaintiffs specifically, should be deterred from prosecuting infringement claims as plaintiffs did in this case. Plaintiffs exerted a significant amount of control over the course of discovery, repeatedly and successfully seeking the court's assistance through an unusually extended and contentious period of discovery disputes. Nonetheless, after ample opportunity to develop their claims, they dismissed them at the point they were required to produce evidence for the court's consideration of the merits..... this case provides too little assurance that a prosecuting party won't deem an infringement claim unsupportable until after the prevailing defendant has been forced to mount a considerable defense, and undergo all that entails, including the incurring of substantial attorney fees.

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RIAA Finally Pays Legal Fees On Mis-Filed Suit... But Manages To Screw That Up As Well

from the incompetent-or-just-arrogant? dept

Remember last month when the RIAA was simply ignoring a court order to pay up the legal fees for one of the people that they incorrectly sued for file sharing? Well, they've finally paid up... but even then they ignored both the interest they owed for being late and the instructions for how payment was to be delivered. At some point you have to wonder if they're just messing with people on purpose or if they're really this incompetent.

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RIAA Ignores Court Ruling Over Bogus File Sharing Suit; Doesn't Pay Up Legal Fees

from the maybe-if-we-pretend... dept

In Capitol v. Foster, one of the many RIAA lawsuits where it was later determined that the record labels sued the wrong individual, the judge decided (reasonably) that the RIAA should be responsible for the defendant Debbie Foster's legal bills. This makes sense. She was incorrectly accused with flimsy evidence. It seems only reasonable that the wrongful accuser should pay the legal bills. Of course, as it always does, the RIAA asked the judge to reconsider, and the judge smacked the RIAA down with some pretty harsh words, chastising a number of RIAA practices. Apparently, this ruling stung so much that the RIAA simply decided to ignore it and not pay up Foster's legal bills. She's now asking the court for judgment, so she can go after the record labels for payment of the money owed. This seems doubly amusing (not to Ms. Foster, of course) when you consider the lack of leniency the RIAA provides to those it wants to pay up. Remember the MIT student who was told by the RIAA she should drop out of school and work in order to pay an RIAA fine? Perhaps it's time for the RIAA to get a real job as well, so it can afford to pay its fines.

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