Legal Blogger Challenges Recording Industry Claims That It's No Longer Filing New Cases in Antipiracy Campaign
By Ross Todd
May 06, 2009
Back in December the recording industry announced that it was scrapping its controversial campaign of suing people who allegedly downloaded music illegally. In a letter to Congress that month, the chairman of the industry's trade group, the RIAA, wrote that record companies had "discontinued initiating new lawsuits in August [2008]." The RIAA's about-face was considered so significant--in the five years before the big announcement, the industry filed about 35,000 suits--that Law360 attributed the 11 percent drop in IP suits in 2008 to the decline in recording industry filings.But according to a longtime opponent of the RIAA, the industry is still filing "new" piracy suits against individuals. On Sunday, Ray Beckerman, who has defended clients in multiple suits brought by the RIAA, reported at his "Recording Industry vs. The People" blog that he had learned of three new RIAA cases filed in federal district courts in New York in April. The RIAA said Beckerman is wrong. "As we have said since December," a spokesperson told the Ars Technica blog, "no new cases are being filed."
What gives?
The controversy, it turns out, depends on the definition of "new." Technically, the RIAA is being truthful. It typically filed cases against groups of John Doe defendants, and says it is making "a diligent, good faith effort to settle existing cases" as it identifies the John Doe illegal downloaders. But in instances in which newly identified defendants refuse to settle, the RIAA continues to "move forward with the legal process," according to a spokesperson. That means ultimately naming the John Doe and refiling the case under the defendant's name.
Is that a new case? Beckerman says yes--and we bet the newly sued defendants do too.
