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Copyright Law

: Recording Industry vs The People

Practice tip: Rule 11 and the RIAA's new boilerplate

By Ty Rogers and Ray Beckerman

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In its new boilerplate complaint (you know, the one it started using when Judge Brewster dismissed the old one in Interscope v. Rodriguez, 2007 WL 2408484) the RIAA makes the following allegation:

Plaintiffs identified an individual using LimeWire on the P2P network Gnutella at IP address 68.105.100.130 on October 2, 2005 at 05:21:57 distributing 330 audio files over the Internet. (emphasis added)

(Quotation from amended complaint in Interscope v. Rodriguez).

Meanwhile the RIAA's expert witness has conceded that plaintiffs did not identify an individual. See, e.g., transcript of February 23, 2007, deposition of Dr. Doug Jacobson in UMG v. Lindor, at

p 59 li 9 - p 60 li 12

p 85 ll 8-23

p 85 li 24 - p. 87 li 11

p 104 ll 6-11

p 145 ll 15-17

According to news accounts (no transcript has been prepared yet!) the same concession was made by Jennifer Pariser, SONY BMG's litigation chief, in her testimony during the Capitol v. Thomas trial.

So I have 2 questions:

1. Can someone out there give me a good reason why the allegation in the new complaint that plaintiffs "identified an individual", which the plaintiffs and their counsel have repeated in thousands of complaints since October 2007, and which their witnesses have admitted is untrue, is not a flagrant violation of Fed. R. Civ. P. 11?

2. Can someone out there give me a good reason why a Rule 11 motion should not be one of the first things on the "to do" list of a defendant's lawyer in a new RIAA case?

-R.B.

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

Full post as published by Recording Industry vs The People on March 17, 2008 (boomark / email).