In Priority Records v. Candy Chan, a Michigan case, the RIAA initially refused to withdraw the case against a mother who clearly had not herself engaged in file sharing, but then changed its mind and did discontinue the case when faced with the mother's motion for summary judgment and attorneys fees.
A scenario similar to that in Priority v. Candy Chan occurred in Capitol v. Foster, in Oklahoma, where the RIAA withdrew only when faced with the mother's motion for summary judgment and attorneys fees. The judge let the RIAA drop its case, but held that the 'voluntary' withdrawal did not make the RIAA immune from legal fees, and indicated that he may award the mother her attorneys fees. Ms. Foster has made a motion for attorneys fees, and was supported in her motion by an amicus curiae brief submitted by the American Civil Liberties Union, the Electronic Frontier Foundation, the American Association of Law Libraries, Public Citizen, and the ACLU Foundation of Oklahoma. In their brief the 'friends of the court' told the judge that "the RIAA has wrought havoc in the lives of many innocent Americans" and that an award of attorneys fees is necessary to deter such conduct in the future. Meanwhile the RIAA has asked the judge not to accept the amicus brief.


n another Oklahoma City case, Warner v. Stubbs, the defendant -- represented by the same lawyer who represented Debbie Foster -- filed an answer and counterclaim saying that the RIAA's tactics amounted to extortion. The very next day the RIAA moved to withdraw its case. The motion to dismiss without prejudice was granted. Immediately thereafter the RIAA tendered a unilateral "covenant not to sue" in an attempt to stave off a declaratory judgment -- on Ms. Stubbs's counterclaim -- of noninfringement.


In Virgin Records v. Tammie Marson, the RIAA voluntarily dismissed its case when confronted with the impossibility of determining who used defendant's computer, and in Warner v. Maravilla it voluntarily dismissed -- after defendant had made a dismissal motion -- upon learning that the ISP had given them the wrong name. Both Marson and Maravilla were in the Central District of California.


A Georgia case, Atlantic v. Zuleta, in which defendant had a wireless router, the IP address was connected to a wireless router, and the defendant's roommate's first name was the same as the screen name, the case was discontinued "without prejudice".


Elektra v. Wilke, in Chicago, was withdrawn after Mr. Wilke made a summary judgment motion. See Summary Judgment below.


The RIAA is attempting to withdraw one of the most highly publicized of the RIAA v. Consumer cases, Elektra v. Santangelo, after two years of litigation, as it moves on to pursue two of Ms. Santangelo's children. The RIAA would have liked the dismissal to be "without prejudice", so that it would not be liable for attorneys fees. (See Capitol v. Foster July 13, 2006, Order). Ms. Santangelo, of course, did not agree with that approach; neither did Judge McMahon. She ruled that the RIAA must proceed to trial unless a stipulation of discontinuance with prejudice is filed by April 1st.
Voluntary discontinuances have taken place in Michigan in Warner v. Pidgeon and in Washington in Interscope v. Leadbetter. In Leadbetter the RIAA tried to discontinue against the defendant but add her fiance as a defendant; the Court denied permission to add the fiance as a defendant, dismissed the case in its entirety, and indicated that it would consider the imposition of attorneys fees against the RIAA in a separate motion.


After receiving a lengthy letter from defendant's counsel in SONY v. Merchant, a Sacramento, California, case, describing the paucity of the RIAA's evidence and threatening a malicious prosecution lawsuit, the RIAA within hours filed a notice of voluntary dismissal.


*Reprinted with permission of Ray Beckerman from http://info.riaalawsuits.us/howriaa.html updated March 31, 2007.