NewYorkCountryLawyer's Journal: Defendants Move to Dismiss RIAA Complaints

The Interscope v. Rodriguez decision dismissing the RIAA's boilerplate complaint, and the $9250-per-song-file verdict in Capitol v. Thomas, have inspired some new dismissal motions in RIAA cases. In Charleston, South Carolina, Catherine Njuguna has moved to dismiss on the basis of the legal insufficiency of the RIAA's complaint and on constitutional grounds due to the excessive damages sought by the RIAA, while in Brooklyn, New York, MS victim Rae J Schwartz has moved to dismiss based solely on the complaint's failure to state a claim under Rodriguez and the Supreme Court decision, Bell Atlantic v. Twombly.

Does the punishment fit the "crime?"

[kimvette]

On what basis do they claim the $9,250 damages per song? Were all songs downloaded the same number of times from the defendant? What is each song valued? Let's say albums average 13 tracks each, and retail at $17.00 per CD. $17/13= $1.31 per song. Now, figuring treble damages per unauthorised distribution of the copyrighted work, let's say that each download is worth $3.93.

Now, some uploading is within Fair Use (in fact much of it is, as you know). This means we'll exclude partial file transfers for sake of

Re:

[NewYorkCountryLawyer]

No basis at all.