Davis et el v. AT&T et al Antitrust Proposed Class Action Dismissed With Prejudice - What's Next?

March 4, 2012 - PRLog -- On March 1, 2012 a federal judge in the Central District of California dismissed the Max Davis et al v. AT&T et al proposed class action antitrust lawsuit with prejudice. The Court concluded that Plaintiffs and Defendants are “not participants in the same market, and Plaintiffs fail to allege the required antitrust injury.” Plaintiffs were accusing the Defendants of a conspiracy to take control of new age multimedia distribution by profit taking in a way that is vastly unfair to creators, artists and rights holders resulting in unfair business practices, a restraint of trade and other violations of the Sherman Act by Defendants, AT&T, Verizon, Sprint, T-Mobile and Tracfone. The lawsuit is (#11-02674 DDP) and a link to the Order dismissing the lawsuit appears below.

Max Davis, the founder of two non-profit organizations that have been advocating for cooperation from the wireless carriers and government in dealing with these mobile peer to peer file-sharing issues said today, “While we are not happy about being dismissed just before we had a chance to go into discovery, we feel the Defendants and the Court have at least gained a much better understanding of the principles that we believe in and the truths of the matter. On behalf of consumers, creators and rights holders everywhere we must find reasonable ways to monetize file-sharing. Sooner or later the wireless carriers will realize that payment of appropriate royalties for the use of others’ content on their file-sharing systems represents a huge avenue for growth for all concerned.”

He goes on to say, “We are all witnesses to many misguided and nonproductive attempts to bridge the gap between new technologies and copyright laws. Yet GDRI has always advocated productivity for the greater good. The wireless carriers still need to fess up to these reparable flaws in their MMS infrastructure and just get on with it. By now there should be no doubt that we will continue to press the issue one way or another. We will not be stopped by a technicality.”

The Order dismissing the case is here: http://www.docstoc.com/docs/115132715/Order-Granting-MTD-...

Please direct all press inquiries to Glenn Clarke (424) 781-0301.

About GDRI (Global Data Revenue Inc)
GDRI’s mission is to establish accountability and fair compensation for multimedia creators on peer-to-peer multimedia messaging systems (MMS). Global Data Revenue Inc. is a non-profit and non-stock trade association.