Texas ISP's Renewed Motion for Judgment 'Has No Valid Basis,' Say Music Labels

Grande Communications’ renewed motion for judgment as a matter of law (JMOL), or a new trial, filed last month in U.S. District Court for Western Texas in Austin, has “no valid basis to upend the jury’s verdict,” said Universal Music Group and other music label plaintiffs Monday in a memorandum of law (docket 1:17-cv-00365) opposing the internet service provider’s motion. Most of Grande’s arguments in the renewed motion for JMOL aren’t based on the “legal sufficiency of the evidence at trial, but rather seek to re-litigate nearly a dozen issues of law” that the court has already considered and resolved in plaintiffs’ favor, said the memorandum. The proper forum to raise challenges is the 5th U.S. Circuit Appeals Court, where the music labels filed notice last week of a conditional cross-appeal of the final judgment entered Jan. 30 in their favor by U.S. District Judge David Ezra (see 2303160029). Grande’s “implicit request” that the district court “act as its own appellate panel and reverse its prior legal rulings is improper in a motion for JMOL and should be summarily rejected,” plaintiffs said. The jury found in plaintiffs’ favor “on every issue it was asked to resolved,” which is “why the Court denied Grande’s request for JMOL the first time it raised it,” said the memorandum: “Nothing has changed since then.” Grande’s request for a new trial should be denied because the only basis the ISP asserts for its entitlement to relief is its disagreement with some of the court’s evidentiary rulings during the trial, and its attempt to relitigate those rulings through Rule 59 “is improper.” Plaintiffs alleged Grande induced or caused the direct infringement of copyright by not terminating accounts of repeat infringing subscribers. The jury concluded that Grande was liable for contributory copyright infringement and had willfully infringed plaintiffs’ copyrights and that plaintiffs should be awarded $46.8 million in statutory damages. Grande said last week in an opposing motion the court should reject the music labels’ request for an additional $13 million recovery.