Capitol v. Jammie Thomas: the midnight briefs; defense challenges authenticity of CDs and chain of title

At the end of today's trial session, Judge Davis ordered the parties to file simultaneous midnight briefs on two obscure and highly technical issues related to copyright ownership and registration. (For the record, in response to a search, Google reports: "No results found for 'simultaneous midnight briefs.'")

Here they are:

Defendant's motion to exclude "all extrinsic evidence of the works in which the plaintiffs claim to have registered copyrights." Here, Thomas argues that plaintiffs cannot prove that she infringed their works without bringing into court certified copies of the actual "deposit copies" of the sound recordings at issue. Here's plaintiffs' opposition, which argues that "Defendant’s argument is absurd on its face. The works at issue are popular, well-known sound recordings that have sold millions of copies, and are well-known by the public; it is absurd to argue that there can be any question that the CDs in question match the copyrighted recordings."

Defendant's motion to exclude Trial Exhibit 4, which contains documents relating to the chain of title of the copyrights at issue. Here's plaintiffs' opposition, which points out (among other things) that Thomas has had the documents at issue for almost 2 years, and would not be prejudiced by their introduction at trial.

Judge Thomas has set oral argument for 8am Tuesday on both these motions.

I would stay up all night elaborating on these fascinating issues, but: 1) we'll probably have the answers from the court in less than 9 hours, so what's the point?; and 2) I don't get paid enough to pull all-nighters.