Wednesday, September 13, 2006

Case Against Georgia Man Discontinued by RIAA; Atlantic v. Zuleta

The RIAA's case against a Georgia man, Atlantic Recording v. Francisco Zuleta, in Atlanta, has been discontinued.

Mr. Zuleta had filed a counterclaim against the record companies for abusive litigation,. He also submitted a declaration in which he testified that he had never downloaded any music.

Mr. Zuleta testified in his declaration that he had a roommate with a computer and that he had an open wireless router. There had been downloads to a router. The name on the Kazaa! account was the roommate's first name.

The RIAA withdrew its claim, and Mr. Zuleta withdrew his counterclaim. Both dismissals were "without prejudice".

Declaration of Francisco Zuleta*
Amended Answer and Counterclaim of Francisco Zuleta*
Stipulation of Dismissal*
Evidence of filing of Stipulation of Dismissal*

* Document published online at Internet Law & Regulation

Table of Cases


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

4 comments:

BasicTek said...

Someone should start a tally of how much out of pocket expenses innocent people like this guy have to pay just to get a case dropped. It would probably be a good weapon in the extortion claims being wielded against the RIAA.

Maybe someday a class action that even the people that settled might be able to get a piece of...

Alter_Fritz said...

Complaint: As of time of this writing, second link does not work, please check.
Comment: IMO a bad move from him to drop his counterclaim. Since the RIAA has dropped against him without prejudice, I would dare to bet money that they will come again after him if they can't get their hands on the other person. He stated that he does not willfully made his wireless network connection availiable for copyrightinfringements, but how about "secondary liability" (not not sure about correct english legal wording!) if he did not secured it well enough?

raybeckerman said...


Alter_Fritz said...

Complaint: As of time of this writing, second link does not work, please check.

Thanks, alter-fritz. I had a devil of a time fixing it. Apparently use of "&" in file name screwed it up. Renamed it "answercounterclaim" from "answer&counterclaim".

StephenH said...

I think the RIAA may be afraid of a "Not Guilty" verdict, if this case did go in front of a jury, especially if the username is one of his roommates! That may be evidence there that the RIAA could lose, and they would rather withdraw than have a consumer set a precedent against them, and then it would mean "IP address is not equivalent to DNA"