Thursday, April 12, 2007

In New Contested Cases in Brooklyn Federal Court, Defendants Challenge Status of RIAA Cases as "Related"

In two new cases brought in Brooklyn federal court, against different Queens men, the defendants have challenged the RIAA's practice of designating each case it brings in Brooklyn federal court as "related" to all the other cases it has brought, thus ensuring that all of the cases will be assigned to District Judge David G. Trager and Magistrate Judge Robert M. Levy.

The names of the cases are Elektra v. Torres and Maverick v. Chowhdhury.

The defendants' letters pointed out to the Court that

-the defendants are unrelated

-the defendants have nothing to do with each other

-each case has its own factual matrix and

-the disposition of any one case has no effect on the disposition of any other case.

April 11, 2007, Letter of Ray Beckerman in Elektra v. Torrres*
RIAA Cover Sheet and Rule 7.1 Statement in Elektra v. Torrres*

April 12, 2007, Letter of Ray Beckerman in Maverick v. Chowdhury*
RIAA Cover Sheet and Rule 7.1 Statement in Maverick v. Chowdhury*

* Document published online at Internet Law & Regulation

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

6 comments:

AMD FanBoi said...

Any way to go back and challenge the revealing of these defendant's identities as part of an illegal joinder at the John Doe/ex parte phase?

AMD FanBoi said...

Ray, you've got 2 bad links here again. Don't know why you're having so much trouble with them of late.

Alter_Fritz said...

because the "&" is an forbidden letter in URL's ;-)

Alter_Fritz said...

if you mask the "&" with the caracter code that is according to google th %26 you can grab his letters

http://www.ilrweb.com/ILRPDFs/elektra_torres_070411RBtoJudge%26MagisRelatedCases.pdf

and

http://www.ilrweb.com/ILRPDFs/maverick_chowdhury_070412RBtoJudge%26MagisRelated.pdf

AMD FanBoi said...

I presume there's either a benefit to the Defendant, or a burden on the Plaintiffs, to have different cases heard by different judges. Perhaps the RIAA will now have to replace their Xerox machine with a word processor capable of Find & Replace functionality.

raybeckerman said...

Dear amd and alter

Thanks very much for bringing the bad links to my attention.

alter hit it right on the head, it was my use of the "&" in the file name that was creating the problem.