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Foster seeks $50,000 in legal fees

Posted Aug 22nd 2006 5:49PM by Grant Robertson

I've written about the RIAA's case against Debbie Foster several times recently. Ms. Foster is the Oklahoma mother who fought back against the RIAA, made a motion for summary judgment, and won.

When we last checked in on Ms. Foster and her case, she'd filed a brief with the court seeking attorney's fees in the amount of $200/hr but, I was unable to find any information on how many hours she might be seeking.

Ray Beckerman to the rescue (as usual). Over at Recording Industry vs. The People, Ray says that the attorney for Ms. Foster could be asking for as much as $50,000 in "fees and disbursements" from the RIAA.

I've never been so happy to see an attorney ask for a large amount of money.

Beckerman also has links to another filing from dendants counsel in relation to the requested fees. It's a long read but, sections of the document provide some real detail on the innerworkings of the RIAA legal team.
Source: digitalmusic.weblogsinc

In New Case In Oklahoma, Warner v. Stubbs, Defendant Counters-Sues Against RIAA and Its Lawyers for Attorneys Fees

see: recordingindustryvspeople.blogspot

I hope they win these cases against the RIAA Cartel.

Apple Pays $100 Million to End Dispute With Creative (Update4)

By Connie Guglielmo and Susan Decker

Aug. 23 (Bloomberg) -- Apple Computer Inc. will pay Creative Technology Ltd. $100 million to end lawsuits over technology needed to navigate through songs on Apple's popular iPod music player. Creative's shares soared.

The payment gives Apple a fully paid license to Creative's patent, which covers the technology to choose songs on hand-held devices. Creative will join Apple's ``Made for iPod'' program and will be announcing accessories for the music players, the companies said today in a joint statement.
Check out bloombergto read the whole article.

Main jailed for selling pirated music
23 August 2006

Music industry officials are praising a South Auckland judge who jailed a man for nine months for copying and selling pirated music.
It was believed to be the first time a music pirate had been jailed for stealing music copyright.
Seti Tofaeono appeared for sentencing in Manukau District Court today after a jury earlier found him guilty of copying the music of several artists.
Police raided the man's home and found more than 1800 compact music discs along with computers and CD burners.
Mark McCall from the Recording Industry Association of New Zealand, said today the man was making up to $50,000 a year from selling the pirated music at the Otara and Avondale markets.
He said Judge David Harvey, who jailed Tofaeono, understood that the commercial exploitation of people's copyright was very serious.
"He showed clear understanding of the impact copyright infringement has not only on the artist but also on the wider community."
source: stuff.co.nz

9 months he should've been giving a fine & or put on probation.

Cell in Theater Could Lead to a Cell in Prison

Sometimes before advance screenings, security guards will confiscate camera phones for the duration of the movie in order to prevent piracy. Most people's reaction is to question the likelihood of someone actually pirating a movie they record with their phone. Aside from the fact that few people could be interested in such a bad-quality product, there don't seem to be any phones capable of recording an entire feature-length film. Well, ludicrous reasoning never stops the MPA from enforcing their anti-piracy policies, and now at least one man is facing imprisonment for recording a few minutes of The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift onto his phone. Either they've got some better phones in Taiwan or the guy had a ton of memory cards -- the police only confiscated one additional card to the one inside the phone -- and planned to include a significant amount of gaps on his end product. He now faces a large fine and the possibility of becoming a different kind of pirate in jail. Another man in an unrelated incident was also recently caught recording the same movie on his cell phone but he was not charged because he was either able to erase the recording or his phone broke and lost its memory.

Source: cinematical.com
Jail time for a ***** phone cam version of a movie that no one would want to download anyway.

MPAA files lawsuits against local women for Internet piracy

FRESNO - Two Bakersfield women are in trouble with the law after investigators say they were selling movies that were illegally downloaded.
The Motion Picture Association of America, Inc. (MPAA) on behalf of the major motion picture studios filed four lawsuits today in District Court in Fresno. The suits claim the four illegally swapped movies online using peer-to-peer software.
Two of the individuals are from Bakersfield, Paula Dixon and Brandy Sherman.
Some of the movies said to have been copied are Hitch, Mr. and Mrs. Smith, Meet the Fockers and National Treasure.
If the women lose the judgment, they could face damages as much as $30,000 for each motion picture illegally copied or distributed over the Internet and as much as $150,000 per motion picture, if such infringement is proven to be willful.
They could also face up to five years behind bars.
The worldwide motion picture industry said it lost $18.2 billion in 2005 as a result of piracy and over $7 billion of that they said is due to internet piracy.
source: KGET TV 17

Philips introduces Video Fingerprinting Solution for P2P video filtering, automatic content monitoring and remote triggering.

source: irish dev

A federal judge in San Francisco on Tuesday allowed video rental giant Blockbuster Inc to go forward with anti-trust claims against online rival Netflix Inc, which has sued Blockbuster for alleged patent violations.
Source: Reuters

Taylor Hicks Sues Over iTunes Releases
"Idol" crooner in beef with 2001 Nashville recordings producer

AUGUST 23--"American Idol" winner Taylor Hicks has sued a Tennessee music producer to halt the online distribution of songs the grey-haired crooner recorded five years before copping the reality TV crown. In a lawsuit filed yesterday in U.S. District Court in Alabama, Hicks charges that William Smith recently sold three of his songs via Apple's iTunes music store
Source:The Smoking Gun

Where Defendant Wiped Hard Drive in Violation of Court Order, Default Judgment Awarded RIAA in San Antonio, Texas

In Arista v. Tschirhart, in San Antonio, Texas, the judge awarded judgment to the RIAA because the defendant -- in violation of a court order directing her to produce her computer's hard drive for inspection -- had the hard drive "wiped" first, thus deleting song files that had been downloaded. The court noted that this "wiping" irreparably prejudiced the RIAA because the only evidence it had without the hard drive was "scant and piecemeal".
Source: recordingindustryvspeople.blogspot

RIAA Drops Stubbs Case in Oklahoma One Day After Receiving Defendant's Answer & Counterclaim!

In Warner v. Stubbs, in Oklahoma, the defendant filed her answer and counterclaim against the RIAA on August 23, 2006. In it she likened the RIAA's tactics to "extortion".

The very next day, on August 24, 2006, the RIAA turned around and asked the Judge for permission to withdraw its case.
Source:recordingindustryvspeople.blogspot

Dangerous Patent Law Ruling Threatens Free and Open Source Software

San Francisco - The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) has asked the United States Supreme Court to overturn a dangerous patent law ruling that could pose a serious threat to Free and Open Source Software projects.

Source:EFF

Two plead guilty for violating copyright

THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

NASHVILLE, Tenn. - Two men have pleaded guilty to violating copyright laws by posting an album by rock musician Ryan Adams on a Web site before its public release, federal officials said Thursday.

Robert Thomas of Milwaukee and Jared Bowser of Jacksonville obtained and made available for copying portions of "Jacksonville City Nights" by Adams and his band, The Cardinals.

It was made available for copying by the public in August 2005 - about a month before the record's commercial release, according to a federal indictment.
Source:alligator

Music copyright suits reach Cape
Friday, August 25, 2006
JENNIFER FREEZE ~ Southeast Missourian

A Cape Girardeau man is one of the targets of lawsuits filed by the Recording Industry Association of America this week for copyright infringement.

Shernet Showers is one of more than 18,000 people who have been sued by the RIAA since 2003 on charges of downloading music without paying for it or sharing music files in violation of copyright laws. The lawsuit was one of four filed against Missouri residents this week.

Attempts to contact Showers were unsuccessful. Showers was not found at the William Street address listed on the lawsuit.
Source: semissourian