Date: 2006-06-21 Docket: M040544. Myers J. | Link

In a motion the Defendants seek production of the the hard drive from the plaintiff's home computer for analysis by an expert. The court addresses the question whether metadata (sic) is a document. "The information being sought does not fit the ordinary or intuitive concept of a document, electronic or otherwise. What is being sought by the defendants is a report of recorded data (i.e., the metadata) that is generated by computer software. That data is not something created by the user, but it is based on what the user does with her software. It is not something that has content in the same sense as a document file generated by the user, for example, a word processing document or spreadsheet. Nor is it something which is printed out or emailed in the ordinary course. The assistance of an expert is required to generate the metadata report. In spite of this, it appears clear that the metadata is "information recorded or stored by means of [a] device" and is therefore a document under Rule 1(8)." (para 29)