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Ten students in the University of Maine system have decided to take the RIAA’s accusations of illegal file-sharing to court. What makes their case groundbreaking is that two of these students are being backed by a university program.
The Cumberland Legal Aid Clinic has agreed to represent two students as part of its discounted program for clients who cannot afford legal representation. The clinic is a part of the University of Maine School of Law and trains third-years as student attorneys. Hannah Ames and Lisa Chmelecki will represent the two defendants under the supervision of clinic director Dierdre Smith.
The other eight students have collectively hired Bob Mittel, an attorney at the Mittel-Asen law firm in Portland, to represent them.
Smith said that the complaint filed by the RIAA against students is “incredibly broad and general, with no specific allegations.” In these types of cases, the prosecutor must have enough plausible cause or concrete facts to press their lawsuit.
According to Smith, the RIAA does not have the names of students that they are alleging illegally downloaded music. They only have IP addresses and are suing “John Does” when they send letters. Under education privacy laws, the university is responsible for distributing them and notifying the specific students of the RIAA’s actions against them.
Kyle Kernan, a UMaine student, received notification of the RIAA’s allegation through the IT center and at first dismissed it as a hoax. He described his notification as “riddled with ambiguity” and said it did not state his name.
This is the situation for most students being sued by the RIAA. Smith said the accusations generally contain a lot of “boilerplate,” or standardized language and do not specifically state why the students are being sued.
If the court agrees with her stance, all the charges could be dismissed. However, the process can be lengthy, and a verdict may not be reached for several months.
Kernan, who paid the RIAA $4,000 this winter, said he decided against hiring an attorney to get his charges dismissed.
“My understanding was that it was impossible to get cases dismissed.” He said that after paying for a lawyer, he would have spent just as much as if he paid the settlement. “Why fight it when it takes so much time and energy?” Kernan said.
Ray Beckerman, a New York City attorney, has been working since 2005 to change this impression among students. He said that in recent months the number of students fighting the RIAA surged. He named several schools across the country where defendants have successfully had their charges dismissed.
Beckerman cited the case of Tanya Anderson, an Oregon woman who successfully counter-sued the RIAA for negligent misrepresentation and deceptive business practices.
On Jan. 18, the court upheld her right to an attorney’s fee, or monetary compensation for her lawyer. Beckerman said this was great news for students because it means a smaller financial risk for their lawyers and a greater likelihood that they will take student cases.
“Everything is just encouraging people to get more and more involved,” Beckerman said.
“I’ve heard too many stories of students digging themselves into a hole of financial misery,” Kernan said. “Students have to focus on schoolwork and their futures, not the tiresome recording industry.”
Beckerman suggested students pool resources to hire an attorney as a group. He said that one attorney charges the same price to represent a group as he would to represent an individual client.
“If you’re a defendant, you don’t know if anyone else is fighting back,” Beckerman said. To combat this problem, he keeps a blog called Recording Industry vs. The People which is available at recordingindustryvspeople.blogspot.com.
On the Web site, defendants can find information on court decisions regarding the RIAA.
Beckerman has also convinced Pike and Fischer, a legal publishing company, to provide public access to court documents concerning RIAA prosecutions, in hopes that defendants can use them in their cases. The information is available free at www.ilrweb.com.
