Patrick Robinson’s Motion Was Partially Granted, But Did He Achieve Anything?

Patrick Robinson’s lawyers filed a Motion for Clarification of Order Consolidating Cases and the court ruled on the papers without oral arguments. In the moving papers, Robinson asked for clarification of the court’s order regarding the consolidated cases. “Defendant’s request clarification regarding the deadline to respond to the complaints, and additionally request that they be permitted to seek partial dismissal of the complaint that Plaintiffs be required to amend the complaints based on, among other things, the recent decision of the Supreme Court in Fourth Estate Pub. Ben. Corp. v. Wall-Street.com, LLC, 139 S. Ct. 881 (2019).” The court partially granted and partially denied defendant’s requests.

The Court points out that in each of Plaintiff’s four operative complaints, Plaintiff refers to “pending copyright registration applications.” Under Fourth Estate, Plaintiffs do not have standing to assert copyright infringement claims for works where the applications remain pending. Therefore, it is “proper to amend the complaints prior to Defendant’s providing responsive pleadings.” Within the moving papers, Defendant’s demanded copies of certificates of registration, but this order denies Defendants request stating, in part, that the Fourth Estate ruling does not require Plaintiffs to provide valid certificates of registration in order to meet the pleading requirements. The Court denied Defendant’s request to dismiss or amend on that basis. The court also denies the Defendant’s request to dismiss or amend the complaints “on all other bases which were raised in prior motions to dismiss or which could have been raised prior to the Ninth Circuit’s order remanding the cases to this court.”

The court further orders Plaintiff’s to file their amended complaints in compliance with the Supreme Court’s holding in Fourth Estate, or alternatively to dismiss their complaints. This is to be done by October 11, 2019 and the Defendants shall answer by October 25, 2019.

I’m not sure how the Defense feels about this order, but I would not be very happy. The defense just gave a small victory to the Plaintiffs. Had the defense proceeded to answer the complaints in their flawed form, the flaws may have provided a valid defense of every work that was listed as “pending copyright registration application.” If there were any significant number of pending applications, the defense could have had all those claims dismissed for being in violation of Fourth Estate, (failing to state a claim). However, all they seemingly did was give the Plaintiffs an opportunity to correct their defects. Although this order grants in part and denies in part, I’m at a loss to determine the victory for the defense. It seems they only gained a little extra time to file their answer. But this doesn’t seem like a victory because the defense has been so vocal about how excited they are to start their trial using the Naked License / Limited Abandonment defense. Perhaps they aren’t as anxious to begin the trial as they pretend on YouTube.

If I haven’t said it before, I’ll say it now: I doubt that the Defendants have any confidence in their defense. Just looking back on the FUMS Video series, it was just under 3 years ago, while fighting the same court battles that Patrick Robinson looked into his camera and exclaimed “Procedures? Let’s argue the case lady.” That was FUMS 17 published on November 13, 2016. So, what has changed since then? Well, only everything: Robinson was the Plaintiff, but he has since lost that case. He appealed his defeat and lost. Scott appealed the court’s dismissals of her 4 cases, and prevailed. So now Robinson, et al. is on the defense. He is getting battle weary. He is losing funds and funding. His bills are piling up. And with every move, he seems to lose. But now here we are, and it seems that the court has put forth a clear date that the Defendants must file their answer or other responsive documents, October 25, 2019. Those who’ve been watching on the outside will now get to see some movement. Stay tuned and I’ll keep you posted on the filings by both sides. With the number of motions already filed in this matter, I’m sure we won’t escape without many motions to compel and motions to suppress. I’ll tell you one thing; this will not be dull.