Oct. 18 Hearing Set on Motions for Summary Judgment in 3-Year-Old AHRA Case

Judge Ketanji Jackson scheduled an Oct. 18 hearing in U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia on motions for summary judgment filed by both sides in the nearly three-year-old legal battle between the recording industry and major automakers over the scope and applicability of 1992's Audio Home Recording Act (AHRA) (see 1407310086). Contrary to arguments from plaintiff the Alliance of Artists and Recording Companies (AARC), the car infotainment systems at issue from Ford and General Motors and their suppliers Clarion, Denso and Mitsubishi aren't “digital audio recording devices” under the AHRA, the automakers argued in their April 11 summary-judgment motion (in Pacer). "As confirmed through discovery," the infotainment systems' "digital recording function is capable of storing fixed sounds only on hard disk drives that contain materials that are not incidental to those fixed sounds, such as computer programs, other data, or images,” they said. “This undisputed fact takes Defendants’ systems outside the narrow class of products to which the AHRA applies,” they said, asking Jackson to “grant summary judgment in Defendants’ favor and end this litigation." AARC days later filed under seal several motions for partial summary judgment against the automakers. Jackson in a February 2016 memorandum and opinion largely sided with the car companies that the CD-copying functions of their infotainment systems fall outside the AHRA’s scope and that AARC’s arguments to the contrary were “unpersuasive” (see 1602220055). But Jackson let the case proceed to the discovery phase, denying the automakers’ Rule 12 motions under federal court procedures to dismiss AARC's July 2014 complaint or render a judgment on the pleadings because AARC’s allegations were “sufficient to survive” those Rule 12 motions, her opinion said.