Film Premiere: 10 Rules for Dealing with Police: Via Cato Institute .

FILM PREMIERE
Friday, February 12, 2010 (rescheduled to a new date yet to be determined)
Cato Institute 
1000 Massachusetts Ave., N.W. 
Washington, D.C.

With comments from William "Billy" Murphy, Attorney and 10 Rules Narrator and Neill Franklin, Law Enforcement Against Prohibition. Moderated by Tim Lynch, Director, Project on Criminal Justice, Cato Institute.

Editor: Due to the weather conditions, we are unable to hold the film premiere. The event will be rescheduled for a future date and new invitations will be sent. You can also check back here at cato.org for updates. [ Read more ... ]

Lawyers Challenge Lowered Amount of ‘Shocking’ File Sharing Award: Via Threat Level.

Lawyers for a music file sharer said Monday they would challenge a judge’s order reducing from $1.92 million to $54,000 the amount their client, Jammie Thomas-Rasset, must pay the recording industry for copyright infringement of 24 songs.

The appeal concerns Friday’s head-spinning order by U.S. District Judge Michael Davis. The Minnesota federal judge dramatically lowered the amount a jury in June ordered Thomas-Rasset to pay — after being found liable in what at the time was the nation’s first Recording Industry Association of America file sharing case to reach trial. Most of the RIAA’s 30,000 lawsuits were settled out of court for a few thousand dollars during the record companies’ six-year litigation campaign, which is winding down.

Joe Sibley, Thomas-Rasset’s attorney, said in a telephone interview that even the reduced amount of damages is unconstitutionally excessive. It’s a penalty of 2,250 times an assumed $1 cost of a music download. [ Read more ... ]

Woman Sues Toyota Over 'Terrifying' Prank: Via ABC News.

A Los Angeles woman is suing Toyota for $10 million over a marketing campaign that she claims "punked" her into incorrectly believing she was being stalked.

In a lawsuit filed Sept. 28 in Los Angeles Superior Court, Amber Duick claims she had difficulty eating, sleeping and going to work during March and April of last year after she received e-mails for five days from a fictitious man called Sebastian Bowler, from England, who said he was on the run from the law, knew her and where she lived, and was coming to her home to hide from the police.

There was even a fictitious MySpace page reportedly created for Bowler.

Although Bowler did not have Duick's current address, he sent her links to his My Space page as well as links to video clips of him causing trouble all over the country on his way to her former house in Los Angeles, according to the lawsuit.

"Amber mate! Coming 2 Los Angeles. Gonna lay low at your place for a bit till it all blows over," the man wrote in one e-mail.

Ficticious Man Claimed He Knew Alleged Victim, and Was Coming to Her House [ Read more ... ]

Judge Refuses to Punish Lawyer for Anti-RIAA Blogging: Via Threat Level.

An attorney defending against a music-piracy lawsuit didn’t cross ethical bounds by filing motions broadly attacking the recording industry and posting them on his blog, a magistrate judge has ruled, rejecting demands from the RIAA for monetary sanctions.

Attorney Ray Beckerman was “less than forthcoming at times” in defending a client against an RIAA lawsuit, but the music industry’s concerns were “largely overstated,” New York Magistrate Judge Robert M. Levy wrote Friday (.pdf).

“Although defendant’s counsel took an unusually aggressive stance and, at times, veered into hyperbole and gratuitous attacks on the recording industry as a whole, I do not find clear evidence of bad faith on counsel’s part,” [ Read more ... ]

Court Allows Woman to Sue Bank for Lax Security After $26,000 Stolen by Hacker: Via Threat Level.

An Illinois district court has allowed a couple to sue their bank on the novel grounds that it may have failed to sufficiently secure their account, after an unidentified hacker obtained a $26,500 loan on the account using the customers’ user name and password.

As initially reported by legal blogger, David Johnson, Marsha and Michael Shames-Yeakel sued Citizens Financial Bank in 2007 in the northern district of Illinois on several grounds, including a claim that the bank failed to provide state-of-the-art security measures to protect their account.

U.S. District Judge Rebecca Pallmeyer refused last week to grant a summary judgment in favor of Citizens Financial, stating in her ruling (.pdf) that “assuming that Citizens employed inadequate security measures, a reasonable finder of fact could conclude that the insufficient security caused Plaintiffs’ economic loss.”

Larry Smith, an attorney for the Shames-Yeakels, told Threat Level that he’s surprised and happy by the judge’s ruling, particularly since the negligence claim was not the meat of their case against the bank. [ Read more ... ]

RIAA Should Pay for Single Mom's Two-Year Ordeal: "

Innocent Target of File-Sharing Lawsuit Racked Up Legal Fees Fighting Baseless Charges

Seattle - The Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) should pay for a single mom's two-year legal ordeal fighting a baseless file-sharing lawsuit, the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) told Washington state court in an amicus brief filed Thursday.

The nightmare began for Dawnell Leadbetter in January of 2005, when she received a letter from the RIAA that accused her of illegally downloading copyrighted music and claiming she owed hundreds of thousands of dollars. Leadbetter contacted the RIAA to deny the baseless claims, and refused to pay any settlement monies. In response, the RIAA sued Leadbetter, and Leadbetter hired an attorney to fight the charges. After months of legal wrangling, the RIAA finally dropped the case in December of 2006. But in the meantime, Leadbetter had incurred significant attorney's fees. [ Read more ... ]