Federal Judge Says Maybe the Does Should Go.
The US Copyright Group is a group formed by a lawfirm in Leesburg, Virginia, which according to their website, is designed to "Save Cinema" from the evils of illegal downloading. We have mentioned them before in relation to their attempts to involve the internet service providers. They have filed many lawsuits, primarily in the DC Federal District Court, against multiple defendants, mostly described as "John Does" since they have not as yet definitively identified the defendants. In a couple of the suits involving the movies The Steam Experiment and Far Cry, they have provided for 2,000 and 4,577 defendant Does, respectively. They propose to obtain the identities of the alleged infringers through discovery in the suits by getting the "infringers' identities through ISP subpoenas", again according to their website. They advertise that they do all of this on a contingent fee basis.
Although it has not been specifically determined yet, it is unlikely that all of the alleged defendants live in the DC area, so it would be very difficult for each defendant to appear and defend and conversely, it would be very difficult for each defendant to be sued individually in the area where they live. You can see why the US Copyright Group has tried to join all defendants in a single case.
The Rules of Civil Procedure for the DC Court states that defendants can be joined in a single suit if the actions giving rise to the suit arose from the "...same transaction, occurrence or series of transactions or occurrences..." and a question of law or fact common to all the defendants will arise in the case...".
The two cases mentioned above have found their way onto the docket of Judge Rosemary Collyer and she has decided to rule on the issue of joinder of all the defendants. She has given the plaintiffs until June 21 to show cause why all but one defendant in each case should not be dismissed due to misjoinder. This could result in the dismissal of 1,999 Does in one case and 4,576 Does in the other. Hence the bad rhyme in the title of this post.
A couple of public interest groups, including the ACLU, have filed amici curiae briefs on the side of the defendants. The ruling by the judge in this case will have major ramifications on the nature of these types of cases going forward.
Incidentally, The Steam Experiment's plot line is "A deranged scientist locks 6 people in a steam room and threatens to turn up the heat if the local paper doesn't publish his story about global warming" and Far Cry is based on a video game. This is not a commentary on the value of the thing allegedly stolen.
