RIAA Sues the Wrong Person 686
Cildar writes "In the 'oops' category, the RIAA was forced to withdraw its suit against a 66 year old computer neophyte (read Apple User for god's sake) when they discovered she thought 'Kazaa' was a magician playing at local kids' birthday parties. The story is as reported in the Boston Globe." Update: 09/24 15:19 GMT by T : Note, the magician crack is a joke ;)
Re:Abolish human rights, and this won't happen. (Score:0, Insightful)
But theyre still gonna keep an eye on her. (Score:5, Insightful)
Hm.. maybe that would be a good use for VMware or similar... "I dont even have Kazaa installed on my computer".. And your VMWare installation is ofcourse - gone...
Re:Abolish copyright, and this won't happen. (Score:5, Insightful)
Abolishing copyright would make various open source licenses unenforcable..
neophyte = Apple User? (Score:5, Insightful)
Although a great many Apple users are not neophytes, the fact that a neophyte can run an Apple is a testament to their ease of use.
So there.
Where? (Score:1, Insightful)
Loose Cannon needs controlling (Score:3, Insightful)
The RIAA is a lose cannon at the moment, it thinks it can do what it pleases, without any consequences for itself.
What takes the piss more, now that RIAA is cracking down on all these things, and with copy protected CDs - the RIAA still expects levies on CDRs etc to compensate for lost revenue. RIAA must be laughing - free money.
Without a REAL Judge (Score:5, Insightful)
At this point it should be made very easy for this woman to sue the RIAA, but without the resources of a large corp. it is just going to seem like an impossiable task for her. Thus the lawsuits from the RIAA will just continue with the harassment and scare tactics.
Re:whee, here we go again. (Score:3, Insightful)
Manners maketh man... (Score:5, Insightful)
Please note, however, that we will continue our review of the issues you raised and we reserve the right to refile the complaint against Mrs. Ward if and when circumstances warrant," Colin J. Zick, the Foley Hoag lawyer, wrote
What an asswipe.
How good are the time-stamps in the logs? (Score:1, Insightful)
Even with just a few seconds on and off between the different machines (those of the RIAA and the user's ISP), an IP-adress could be used by a different user (given dynamic IPs). Or not?
The U.S. Constitution (Score:5, Insightful)
Pre-US European governments used to be notorious for going after people without a leg to stand on. But it didn't matter. All that mattered was the witch-hunt-like frenzy. That was enough to get them hung or at least imprisoned.
That's when my good pals Hancock, Franklin, Washington, and Jefferson, along with a few other buds, got together and came up with this whole fair trial system. And that was pretty cool up until a few years ago when people really started using the internet.
Thats when, well everybody in congress, who's names are too many to mention, (and not worth mentioning considering what they did) overturned two centuries worth of a tried and true system.
And where does it get you? Sueing grandmas.
I guess those old guys really had some stuff figured out. Their system isn't really silly or outdated like some people might think.
Re:neophyte = Apple User? (Score:4, Insightful)
She has an Apple and thus couldn't run Kazaa on her platform.
not
She has an Apple and thus is a neophyte and anyway she would gladly pay for overpriced shit like CDs although she would probably have iTunes anyway being the brainless anti-conformist conformists that Apple users are.
So calm down.
Re:Abolish copyright, and this won't happen. (Score:5, Insightful)
Someone is using a car to getaway from a bank robbery. Abolish cars, and this won't happen ever again.
Someone died trying to get high by sniffing carpet cleaner. Abolish carpet cleaner, and this won't happen ever again.
Twit. Just because you never had a creative idea in your life, does not mean copyright does not serve a purpose.
Re:You've gotta love this part: (Score:2, Insightful)
A user with a Mac, who can't even use Kazaa, and who has never shared music
... and probably will never touch the Internet again for fear of another army of lawyers barging her door down.
Get out of jail free card.. (Score:4, Insightful)
Concern? What concern? (Score:5, Insightful)
Scary (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Loose Cannon needs controlling (Score:3, Insightful)
Record companies (who the RIAA represent) screw record artists. Many upcoming artists do struggle and it doesn't help that record companies give as little royalities to the artists as they can. Oh, please don't say that its the artists fault, they need to negoite (spelling) better. For many, getting a record contract to begin with is a Godsend, something they don't want to lose.
From the levies put on CDRs, and income from iTunes Music Store etc, do the artists get a share of that money? I doubt it.
the RIAA is behaving out ragously - "bully boy" sums them up.
Oh, when Record companies have control of what music is played on what devices, they'll still expect that they get their levies on CDRs etc.
Only going after the worst offenders... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:whee, here we go again. (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:RIAA also get sued(again) (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:You've gotta love this part: (Score:2, Insightful)
Of course they'll reserve their right to refile. What if they find out tomorrow that they just got fed a line of bullshit, and the ladies been running Kazaa under virtual PC.
I dont agree with the lawsuits but it makes perfect sense.
To continue your analogy, I sue you for breaking my window, you come and tell me "hey, I couldnt have done it because I throw like a girl because of my carpal tunnel syndrome". I say OK and drop the suit. A week later I see you as the starting pitcher for your companies baseball team, so hell yeah I'd refile if I found out you're lying.
Legally unjustifiable actions (Score:5, Insightful)
The suits claim damages of $150,000 per song. If one music company stole a song from another company, and published it separately, this may be a reasonable claim. The RIAA could claim maybe $150,000 TOTAL lost sales, plus whatever was made by the infringing company.
The problem is, they are holding EVERY FILESHARER liable for the entire amount of lost sales. This isn't just double-dipping on their damages, this is n-dipping. I can imagine that the company might lose $150,000 in total sales of a single song, but if only 1000 people shared the song (an extremely conservative number, probably only relevant for unpopular songs), their claims in total are $150 million in lost sales per song, which is just ludicrous.
This absolutely reeks of the record companies trying to capitalize on filesharing and count each share as a purchase. If the judges awarded the RIAA what they are asking for across the board, they stand to make orders of magnitude more money than they could ever dream of by their own devices. This puts huge questions on their claims of mitigating their damages - they allowed filesharing to go on for many years before starting lawsuits... to build up their claims of lost sales??
Re:Concern? What concern? (Score:4, Insightful)
Perhaps you have misunderstood the difference between a subpoena and a request for a comment.
Paul
Re:Without a REAL Judge (Score:5, Insightful)
This is why, ultimately, I think the subpoena process the DMCA grants will be found unconstitutional.
It basically allows PRIVATE "search and seizure", under the guise of the courts, without ANY due process, judicial review/oversight, etc...
And, no one ELSE except someone invoking the DMCA has, or has ever had, such carte blanche unsupervised subpoena power. It's unprecedented. And quite untested in the courts.
Basically, it violates half the Constitution.
Not that the Constitution matters very much to judges these days.
In order to subpoena, you have to FILE a lawsuit, and get it approved by the presiding judge. Subpoenas are part of the discovery process IN an actual lawsuit.
The DMCA allows witchunts and fishing expeditions, UNSUPERVISED by a court, yet invoking it's power.
Methinks if some lawyer makes that point strongly enough to one of our fine, meglomaniac, unelected king for life Federal judges, it will get struck down.
Not just because it flies in the face of the 4th, 5th, and 14th Amendments, but because it is a REAL threat to judicial powers!
Re:Abolish copyright, and this won't happen. (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Without a REAL Judge (Score:3, Insightful)
Getting rid of the carte blanche subpoena power of the DMCA will remove most of the law's teeth, with respect to being able to go after USERS of applications that allow infringement.
They will have to use other means to collect " cause" to file a suit, THEN get discovery to subpoena ISP records. This would be nearly impossible to do on a large enough scale, and would be horribly expensive to do. And it's a process that is in the open, and subject to review and challenge.
In any conventional court case, the subpoena-er must justify the subpoena, and the subpoena-ee has the chance to quash it by countering their claims.
Right now, the DMCA lets the RIAA have carte blanche subpoena WITHOUT the need to even file a lawsuit. They just have a lawfirm write them up and dump them in one jurisdiction.
Also, I think there is another question that needs to be raised:
Standing.
What standing does the RIAA have to bring copyright claims? Does it own any? Did it's members ASSIGN all copyrights they own to them? If so, how are they a legal nonprofit?
Nice write-up (Score:5, Insightful)
As for this being yet another PR disaster; the RIAA knows almost everything they do these days is going to be a PR disaster. They simply do not care: [com.com]
Clearly, record companies and the RIAA had some concerns about backlash before going into this. Certainly the story about the 12-year-old in public housing who was sued hit the headlines fast and hard. Are you at all concerned about public relations backlash?
We knew that this was not going to be a good PR experience from the get-go. But the (record) companies were of the view that this was something we had to do without regard to the PR implications. If PR were the dominant consideration, we would not have taken these actions, and the problem would be continuing unabated, and people would not be thinking twice about the legality of what they're doing. If bad PR is the price, it's a relatively small one compared to the size of the problem.
Take it to court!! Oh wait... (Score:3, Insightful)
Isn't that the crutch of the matter? It really doesn't matter if what they are doing is right or wrong, as long as they have the money to take it to court and the people they are sueing do not, this will always be the case. What would really be nice would be for some noble rich person to start a trust fund for RIAA 'victems' to help pay for their legal battle if they so wish to fight this in the courts.
Otherwise this will just continue. Let's face it, as fair or unfair as the RIAA may be, most people aren't going to stop buying cds because of this; IMO, most people will just say 'oh that's too bad' like they did with the 12-year old girl and then go out and do what they normally do, if that includes buying a cd than so be it.
The only way to stop such practices is to
a) Educate the masses
or
b) Fight this in court
Both take money unfortunately...
Re:Collateral Damage? (Score:2, Insightful)
Actually, that's exactly what they were doing for almost a decade. Sitting on their asses, slowing down technology so that they could milk the market for overpriced, price-fixed, CD's. Napster was written in 1999. Here it's 2003, and the Big-5 have been spouting that they've "been working on" an online version themselves. Not true. No one in a competitive marketplace would take that long to evolve.
The ultimate defense: P2P IP address spoof (Score:4, Insightful)
What if I have an 802.11 Net at home? (Score:1, Insightful)
Cryptonomicon.Net [cryptonomicon.net] is running a story RIAA Sues Wrong Person [cryptonomicon.net] and asks the question... "What if I have an insecured Wi-Fi network in my house?" How will the RIAA prove that it wasn't a roving war-driver who connected to my network explictly for the purpose of downloading music? Will they have to? What if they get a forensics guy out to the house with a copy of AirSnort and find that they guy next door has a WiFi network, but his client attaches to my network half the time? Would they then sue everyone on the block?
Re:You've gotta love this part: (Score:5, Insightful)
But I'll expand my anaolgy using your own example.
What if your window got broken during a Little League baseball game and you weren't really sure who broke it or who is really legally responsible, so you filed suits against all the players and coaches individually?
Only you didn't know all of their names and culled them from newspaper articles.
One of these names turns out to be a 66 year old who was just mentioned in an article incidentally, wasn't there, doesn't have any grandkids and doesn't even like baseball.
It wouldn't be unreasonable, even for a lawyer, to do a quick check of her story through publicly accessable means, then send her a letter saying, "Ooops, sorry," and then procede with the other 260 cases you have pending.
Especially since actually hauling a 66 year old in front of a judge claiming she's a Little League player who broke your window, with all the pissed of townspeople there watching, could be highly embaressing and prejudice your other cases.
KFG
Re:But theyre still gonna keep an eye on her. (Score:3, Insightful)
>A more probable cause is someone used a net sniffing program and changed their IP address hi-jacking her assigned address to protect their identity. On a cable system, it's not too hard to do
Uh, head hurts. How do the packets get routed back to the spoofer's machine? You can spoof IPs for sending datagrams, but it's pointless for connection oriented protocols.
Re:Nice to see the patterns. (Score:2, Insightful)
It's interesting how you decided to quail about being attacked personally (I assume to try and discredit the argument), but you did not offer anything to bolster your original statement, or counter the argument presented. How is that any different from you performing the same type of personal attack? And if you feel he should be discredited for such action, shouldn't you be as well?
Claims of personal attacks aside, you still have not offered anything. Exactly which side is "indefensible" again?
Please Oh Please.... (Score:5, Insightful)
sheesh! (Score:5, Insightful)
Huh? This is equivalent to saying "Sorry I pushed you down the stairs, but I reserve the right to do it again!"
This is complete and utter lack of respect to Beeler, but tells you alot of what it thinks of its own customers!
Post-copyright world. (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Collateral Damage? (Score:3, Insightful)
The whole problem with the US court system is that you can bankrupt someone with a frivolous lawsuit and just because you withdraw it at the end they can't get an injunction to keep you from doing it again.
Re:But theyre still gonna keep an eye on her. (Score:4, Insightful)
honestly think granma has a wireless Lan setup? (Score:3, Insightful)
If she really is a computer neophyte, do you truly believe she has a Wi-Fi setup? I'm not very Mac aware; do they come with Wi-Fi out of the box or something, waiting to be sniffed? I doubt it.
Re:Abolish copyright, and this won't happen. (Score:2, Insightful)
The GPL is not an anti-copyright. You do not have to share anything in order to use GPL software. If you got rid of copyright laws, the GPL would lack any force as it depends on copyright law in order to obligate "downstream" distributors of binary package to make the source code available. Three strikes. You're out.
In fact, while some of us might oppose copyright laws, the fact that they exist and give force to licenses like the GPL is a great boon to Free Software. Without them, anyone could simply compile the code from a Free Software package and sell it as a binary only package. It is not likely, in a free market unburdened by copyright, that this would be a very profitable strategy, because any one of us would then be free to give away copies of those binaries. But even so, at the end of the day, obtaining actual source code would be more problematic than it is now. It is quite possible that programmers would be more inclined to keep their source code secret because it would be the source code that would be of incredible value, not the binaries themselves.
I have come full circle on this issue myself. It seems to me that the best copyright/patent rules are those favored by the Founders. Short terms with plenty of requirements on the part of the copyright seeker to obtain and maintain. This allows inventors, writers, musicians, artists, programmers and others a short time to monopolize their work, but makes it more likely that they will only be able to do so during the key initial period after the idea is first implemented or the work published.
Even so ... (Score:3, Insightful)
The lawsuite will be quitely withdrawn and none of us will ever hear about it
Re:Collateral Damage? (Score:3, Insightful)
Thats not the way our system works. The civil system is seperate from the criminal system. The police, in general, investige criminal charges.
OJ Simpson was found innocent of the criminal charges of murder leveled against him, but he was still sued successfully in civil court. Likewise, many of the crooks on Wall Street are being pursued in civil court, because, in many cases, there isn't enough evidence, or even a legal framework, for a criminal conviction.
Product liability suits are also civil suits. There are no "convicted felons" being sued.
If we change the system so that you can only sue in civil court someone who is convicted criminally, then you will see major corporations will get to act with more inpunity than ever before.
Re:Collateral Damage? (Score:4, Insightful)
Notice that the civil suit was AFTER the criminal one? The state gets first dibs on felons. If he had been convicted, then proving culpability in the civil case would've been a slam dunk.
there isn't enough evidence
The police are quite good at collecting evidence. In most of the RIAA music-trading lawsuits that have been filed so far, it would've been possible to assemble enough evidence for a criminal conviction ("Beyond reasonable doubt"). If the plaintiff could reach the 51% margin of guilt needed to win a civil suit, then handing that evidence to the police would've brought them to the the even lower degree of proof needed to get a search warrant. Then they could kick in doors, seize hard drives, and do whatever else is needed to build an ironclad case.
The chance of any nonprofessional infringer managing to wipe her hard drive before the police cut power is minimal. And computer-forensics can recover stuff like that. A hard drive full of 3000 MP3s, with no sign of owning the CDs, and corraborating records of P2P transfers made by the defendant... that's more than enough to convict someone. The evidence is there, if the cops are interested in grabbing it.
If we change the system so that you can only sue in civil court someone who is convicted criminally,
I'm not talking about all the non-crime, non-felony things lawsuits can be based on. I'm saying that if something is clearly a crime (as the RIAA claims), then the police should be eager to arrest someone. Or at least make an investigation. Instead, they only care about commercial infringement.
And let's look at it from the PR aspect. Who does the (flag-waving, Bush-voting, PATRIOT-supporting) US Citizen trust more? The government, or a corporate consortium? More importantly, who do they fear more? If they could get a half-dozen P2P sharers dragged to jail in handcuffs, it would do wonders for the chilling-effect.
Re:Anybody read between the lines? (Score:3, Insightful)