Judge Finds 'bulldozer' approach 'improper'

Found on Digital Lifestyles on Tuesday, 23 November 2004
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Last week, members of the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) filed 11 lawsuits against hundreds of people they accused of using file-sharing networks to share infringing copies of movies. However, the Federal Judge ruled the 'bulldozer' approach improper, ordering that the case should be put on hold for all but one of the defendants.

The MPAA sued groups of "Does" (John Doe) identified by numerical IP address and requested the discovery of names from the users' Internet Service Providers (ISPs). However, Judge William Alsup ruled that because claims against the 12 defendants were unrelated, suing them together into one big case was improper. "Such joinder may be an attempt to circumvent the filing fees by grouping defendants into arbitrarily-joined actions but it could nonetheless appear improper under Rule 20," the order states.

Now now, suing all at once would be too easy. Seeing more and more examples about how the industry bullies open-minded approaches (e.g. of less-profit studios), it is good that not everbody does what they want; some people remind them that being big doesn't mean being right.