Friday, March 06, 2009

Contested Philadelphia case involving U. Penn student, Motown v. Kovalcik; motion to dismiss counterclaims granted

We have recently gotten some of the key papers in a contested Philadelphia case involving a University of Pennsylvania student, Motown Record Company v. Kovalcik.

The RIAA made a motion to dismiss counterclaims which was granted. Defendant made a motion for judgment on the pleadings which was denied without prejudice to reinstitution after the close of discovery. A schedule has been set, with discovery to be concluded by July 15th, and dispositive motions to be filed by August 3rd.

Complaint
Answer
Plaintiffs' memo of law to dismiss counterclaims
Defendant's opposition
Plaintiff's reply memo
Decision granting motion to dismiss counterclaims
Defendant's memo in support of motion for judgment on pleadings
Plaintiffs' opposition memo
Order denying defendant's motion without prejudice, fixing discovery schedule



Keywords: lawyer 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 portable music player

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

The is a huge disappointment. The Plaintiffs bald-facedly assert that "The Infringement" has occurred for as long as the recordings "were available" on a P2P network regardless of whether they were ever downloaded even once.

They also assert that they need not show any actual instance of downloading because that's too hard to show. Oh those poor poor babies.

The bad news is that the judge apparently bought this garbage of an argument!

{The Common Man Speaking}

Anonymous said...

I find the Judge's logic in denying the Trespass to Chattels counterclaim a bit disturbing. See pages 6 and 7 of the decision.

"Essentially, the elements required for trespass to chattel are the same elements required for copyright infringement in a file sharing context."

The Judge then goes on to agree with this statement from another case

“These claims are preempted under 17 U.S.C, § 301(a).”

However, the counterclaim Plaintiff never alleged that damages were a result of either file sharing, or Copyright infringement.

Am I now supposed to think that the only way that information can be transferred to/from a computer is only covered by the Copyright Act?

The implication is that a DOS attack would be legal as long as it did not infringe any Copyrights.

just a biased observer