RIAA Seriously Smacked Down (Again) By Judge

The latest ruling comes from a judge who already told the RIAA it needed to pay fees. Now he's reaffirmed the decision and explained it quite clearly to the RIAA. The quotes are absolutely worth reading at that link, as the judge highlights the fact that copyright isn't solely for the benefit of the content creator/owner, but for enriching the public domain, and that gives anyone accused of infringement strong defenses to their use of the content.

The judge also challenges a bunch of questionable or misleading claims by the RIAA, basically suggesting that the RIAA was assuming he wouldn't actually look into any of its claims.

Trying to trick a judge that way doesn't tend to end well. Also, rewriting history doesn't work well, as the judge points out the RIAA tried to do in claiming that it had offered the defendant a way to settle without paying anything.

There's a lot more like that in the decision, including the judge pretty much slapping the RIAA down for suggesting that it may have won the case anyway...