Electronic Discovery Law

Posted at 11:16 AM on June 27, 2007 by K&L Gates

RAM and FRCP 34 Lock Horns

In a June 19, 2007 article in the New York Law Journal (subscription required), and a June 27, 2007 article appearing on www.law.com, K&L Gates partner Kelly D. Talcott writes:

A recent e-discovery decision from the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California provides an opportunity to reflect a bit on the permanence of storage media. It has also inspired debate as to when temporarily stored information becomes "electronically stored information" that needs to be preserved and, where relevant, produced in response to discovery requests.

The May 27, 2007, order directs defendants in an ongoing copyright infringement lawsuit to collect and produce information stored in the random-access memory of their servers.

Depending on the ideological and topical bent of the commentator, this decision (a) heralds a substantial victory in the war against copyright infringement; (b) sounds the death knell for Internet user privacy, or (c) could require anyone involved in a lawsuit to turn over information stored by their computers' RAM hardware. Closer inspection of the federal magistrate judge's decision reveals the correct answer is probably (d) none of the above.

The article relates to the case of Columbia Pictures Industries v. Bunnell, CV 06-1093 FMC (JCx), U.S. District Court for the Central District of California.

For those interested in reading the Court's now-unsealed order that is the subject of the article, it is available here.

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