Sunday, May 27, 2007

Magistrate Grants Motion for Alternate Manner of Service on Ms. Lindor's Nephew

In UMG v. Lindor, Magistrate Levy has granted the RIAA's motion for leave to serve a subpoena on Ms. Lindor's nephew by an alternative means of service, other than personal service:

Order entered May 25, 2007, Levy, M.J., Granting Leave to Serve Subpoena with Alternate Means of Service*

* Document published online at Internet Law & Regulation

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Keywords: digital copyright online download upload peer to peer p2p file sharing filesharing music movies indie label freeculture creative commons pop/rock artists riaa independent mp3 cd favorite songs

7 comments:

raybeckerman said...

Dear markbnj:

I'm sorry but I felt I had to delete your comment, since the RIAA frequently refers the judge to my blog.

If you want to draft a more carefully worded criticism of Judge Levy's ruling, giving the actual reasons for your disagreement with it, that would be fine.

jupiter said...

This comment refers to articles posted here on April 12 and 18 regarding RIAA's efforts to direct all cases to Judge Magistrate Levy.

The local rules for this court are posted at http://www.nyed.uscourts.gov/localrules.pdf

Rule 72.2 states in part, "In any courthouse in this District in which there is more than one magistrate judge such assignment shall be at random on a rotating basis."

There appear to be 16 magistrates in this court. So why is Levy catching all the RIAA cases?

Unknown said...

Thanks as usual for posting/linking to the actual filings. I enjoy reading them in their entirety.

If PACER doesn't have a complaint/filing/etc available for PDF download, is there a way for the public to request a printed/faxed copy of it? Who would you contact and is there a price per page fee? Payable by credit card, assuming?

Thanks

raybeckerman said...

Dear jupiter,

All the cases in this district are being referred to Judge Trager as the District Judge and Judge Levy as the Magistrate Judge because the RIAA designates each new case as "related" to its older cases against unrelated defendants.

If one wishes to challenge the "related case" designation, one must do so to Judge Trager. We have done so in Maverick v. Chowdhury and in Elektra v. Torres.

Unknown said...

Ray,

I just thought of another reason why you should request complete packet logs from Media Sentry for any given file.

If an agent of the RIAA such as Median Sentry gives you copyrighted works then you aren't violating DMCA because the copyright holder is freely giving you the files...right?

So a complete packet log may show that they didn't block uploading of the copyrighted files they were downloading and in fact were uploading themselves. If so, it may show that they were freely giving out the files and thus invalidating their claim. Moreover, this would make their entire packet log throughout their sting operation relevant since they may have "shared" a given song they are suing for at an earlier date. Also, they may have even uploaded to an IP address they are suing much earlier on in their operation (making the logs relevant).

They may even "claim" they weren't uploading or that uploading is turned off but then again the defendant is "claiming" that s/he is not liable either...this is why we have a trial and why we have discovery in the trial...

...I would think that if they no longer have the logs this would be similar to a defendant wiping their hard drive (since the RIAA knew these could be used in a potential law suit) and thus them erasing exculpating evidence and thus possibly grounds for dismissal?

Worts case scenario they give several hard drives worth of packet logs for us to sift through.

Sanji Himura said...

You could also say that the only relation to these RIAA cases in that district is the fact that the RIAA are the plantiffs.

They pull a similar stunt in the "John Doe" phase of the litigation procedure, and the well known Austin Severence Order has declared that practice illegal under the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure. The only reason I think why the RIAA doesn't ask for a joinder is because they know that the practice would not only be looked under a microscope by any judge(including Levy and Tager), but they would throw out any case that they bring, including the "John Doe" suits with prejudice.

I could, and probably be, dead wrong on this, but that is the way I see things.

Igor said...

Sorry, that last post under "iggy" was me...having two emails gets confusing sometimes :)...

It was nice to meet you at Berckman (just now), Ray :)