How the RIAA has Dodged RICO Charges

Gerardo writes "Wondering why the RIAA hasn't been hit with racketeering charges over its shady legal fight against file-sharing? Ars Technica looks at why the RIAA has been able to dodge RICO charges. '"Right off the bat there are some problems with the predicate claims for RICO," explained IP attorney Rich Vazquez. "You have to have a pattern of racketeering activity: either criminal acts where there is a one-year jail penalty, or mail or wire fraud." Any RICO action brought against the RIAA would have to focus on the wire fraud component, likely accusing the record labels of poking around someone's PC without permission.' That's going to be a difficult argument to make, given that Kazaa's default settings give users no reasonable expectation of privacy."

Simple

[Digital Vomit]

Greasing the right palms will let you break the law and get away with it, too.

so the needed reform is identified

[Anonymous Cowpat]

malicious civil prosecution and filing spurious, meritless, lawsuits need to become crimes with a 366 day maximum jail sentence

Re:Shouldn't they be asking ...

[2names]

I would much prefer getting my advice as to whether I have a case from the person who spends their time finding ways to get cases thrown out of court than from a prosecutor.

Presumed guilt?

[gstoddart]

Any RICO action brought against the RIAA would have to focus on the wire fraud component, likely accusing the record labels of poking around someone's PC without permission.' That's going to be a difficult argument to make, given that Kazaa's default settings give users no reasonable expectation of privacy."

This argument presupposes that you actually had Kazaa installed and actually traded the files.

If some idiot^H^H^H^H^Hexpert from the RIAA gets my current IP address as the ID of someone who has shared music (I've never personally neither shared nor downloaded music .. ever) if the RIAA spends time trying to break into my computer to prove that I did something I've never actually done ... that sure as hell sounds like they'd be poking about my PC without permission.

We have yet to see any good evidence that the stuff the RIAA uses to launch these suits even remotely passes muster for the legal requirements. Their experts keep saying it does, but a screen shot of data gathered through dubious measures isn't to be trusted. I'll mock up a screenshot showing anything you like if you give me an hour or so.

I mean, what if the RIAA starts pre-texting to get information about my account once they figure out that I don't have any open ports on my machine and there is no evidence I've ever done anything? Their assertion that an IP address is legally tied to an individual is a completely weak argument. Next they'll claim my firewall is an attempt to prevent them from breaking into my computers to collect the evidence they believe should be there.

I think there's a lot of evidence to support the fact that they're doing some pretty shady things. I mean, how many times have we heard about people who don't even own computers being sued? The RIAA just quietly drops the suit and moves on, hoping nobody will say anything.

Cheers

Expand your thinking of "expectation of privacy"

[JohnnyComeLately]

That's going to be a difficult argument to make, given that Kazaa's default settings give users no reasonable expectation of privacy I was say it's a great deal easier if you widen your scope to include hardware. Thousands, if not millions, of PC users use Residential Gateways, which specifically state "increased security, yada yada yada" on the box. So although the SOFTWARE may be configured to be open (such as LimeWire), the user could easily argue that the HARDWARE provided the expectation. With NAT and obfuscated IP addresses it's a technicially sufficient explanation.

Re:I've dogded, like, 10000 murder charges

[Spazntwich]

Troll? It's both hilarious and insightful.

RICO laws were not intended for this type of thing, and the RIAA is likely not engaging in racketeering by any technical definitions, AND we all know how technical the law is.

It's sad when Slashdot's moderators wear their biases on their sleeves so blithely that humorous sarcasm pointing out the foibles of others is instantly labeled trolling.

both

[Anonymous Coward]

It's both, collusion to fix prices and on going payola scandals, as in, since the 50s at least, and they will_not_ stop, and they do have convictions there, so it is a RICO case. Where's the choice on the radio that stopping payola allegedly was going to fix? It's the same top 40 since I've been a kid and the radio was all AM. NOTHING has changed there. With the big group, why aren't there any noticeable pricing differences? Cost of copies is negligible,so there's only one answer, most likely collusion.

There's plenty to go get a RICO case going, just no one in government gives a crap about consumers, we are living in the corporate crooks rule the world phase of government. Look at sony rootkit, imagine if it had been YOU did that? You'd be in jail now, plus a fine that would hurt. Sony and their tame rootkit company? Small fine that didn't hurt, a week or so of sorta negative press that meant about nothing in the grand consumer area, no jail time for anyone for mass "hacking", and back to business, and their next suckers pay the fine.

I don't download, I *boycott* and have been doing so for many years now. Any band that signs with an RIAA affiliated label, screw 'em, I don't even want to listen to their crap, nothing I haven't already accumulated years ago, and is most likely now on an obsolete format. Just say no to giving the MAFIAA labels or studios one penny. There are plenty of other things to do for amusement and entertainment, and certainly better places to spend your money.

Re:I've dogded, like, 10000 murder charges

[Anonymous Coward]

It's sad when Slashdot's moderators wear their biases on their sleeves so blithely that humorous sarcasm pointing out the foibles of others is instantly labeled trolling.

I'm fine with having biased sources as long as they clearly state their biases.

Re:Ah! The old "Not guilty of the crime" argument

[Registered Coward v2]

RICO was always going to be a stretch. The RIAA was, and still is behaving reprehensibly. The lawyers wanted some way to prove they were acting illegally, so they has a stab at the RICO laws. But these aren't designed to stop an entrenched cartel from suing its customers using inappropriate laws. They're disigned to combat actual organised crime. We're talking gangsters and organised fraud operations.

Except RICO has become a way to dog pile on a defendant to get them to plea bargain by threatening much higher penalities if they are found guilty. It gives them a bigger hammer to use.

As one lawyer friend put it - You want to learn about right and wrong - seek religion. You want to learn about winning and losing - go to court.

Re:Shouldn't they be asking ...

[2names]

IANAL, BTW...

So, in your opinion would you say it is easier to build the entire ship, or to poke a hole just big enough to sink it?

Re:Asking the wrong question.

[Kelz]

And trying to take down a conglomorate of lawyers with reps and senators in their pockets with law is like trying to cut down a tree with that herring.

Re:What about extortion?

[Anonymous Custard]

"demanding money from someone, and threatening to financially ruin them if they don't comply, is nothing more than extortion."

What if an auto shop damaged your car when you brought it in for service, then gave it back to you and refused to fix the damage they caused. Does 'demanding money' from them mean you're practicing extortion? No, it means you're suing them for property damage, as is your right under the law.

Unless you threaten violence or some other illegal action (like kidnapping or torching their car) then you're just suing them, and it's not extortion.

And to protect people from frivolous lawsuits, if the judge/jury believe the plaintiff is full of crap and his claims have absolutely no merit, then they can order that the plaintiff pay for the defendant's legal expenses. So the defendant would not be financially ruined.

"no reasonable expectation of privacy"

[Chas]

Kinda like running an defaulted Wifi AP gives users no reasonable expectation of privacy?

Yet people get busted for "stealing wifi".

Re:What about extortion?

[Anonymous Cowpat]

and if the defendant has, say, had to sell their house to cover their legal expenses in the mean time. Will they get the associated costs of moving out of their house and storing their property paid? And if their kids have had to do without, say, new clothes and had to suffer bullying because they've been wearing hand-me-downs, will they be compensated? What about the months of sleepless nights, family breakdown, complete loss of life outside of work/courtroom?
My cousin is a lawyer (in Britain, when the winner normally gets their costs from the other side) and he was explaining to me when I challenged him about contract law and 'valueless considerations' (such as promising not to sue for something that they wouldn't be able to successfully sue you for anyway) that even if the other side has no case you won't get all the costs incurred in defence back.
And here's another example, http://www.taubmansucks.com/ [taubmansucks.com], this guy was sued over a trademark issue by someone who had no case. A year later he finally won, and got the costs of engaging a lawyer back. Unfortunately, he couldn't afford to engage a lawyer at the start so had to defend himself. He's a consultant. When he was buried in legal documents, he couldn't work. (from act115) "I probably lost tens of thousands of dollars in potential billings;" - did he see any of that? nope. Work you do to defend yourself is free - if you want to be paid, be a lawyer.

Suing someone without a case is extortion in all but name. Infact it's worse than extortion. If you try to extort me by coming around with a baseball bat, I'd be allowed to take your head off with a big sword, if you did it with a court I have to roll over and take it, or end up in jail/dead.
What do you think about the judge who's suing a dry cleaners for $65million over a lost pair of trousers? if he wins outright they'll be ruined. If he wins 1% of what he's suing for they'll be ruined. Even if he doesn't win, the hidden costs that they've incurred (maybe the stress has caused them to make mistakes and damage other people's trousers) will be close to ruinous (assuming, then, that they get their costs back, which given that they did misplace his trousers, isn't guaranteed). How does that NOT fit the common definition of 'extortion', just because his enforcers have badges and are lead by a man in a wig and a toy hammer?

Re:Shouldn't they be asking ...

[PopeRatzo]

You two have really beaten the hell out of that poor shipbuilding/shipsinking metaphor. Will you please leave it alone now? Enough, already.

A RICO case really doesn't have that much to do with boat construction, capisce? It's about ongoing criminal enterprises. In my mind, the RIAA is exactly that, an ongoing criminal enterprise.

When I heard about the way SoundExchange was collecting money for musicians without their permission or knowledge, and then keeping the money unless those artists contacted them to collect, it was the final straw in a very big bale of crooked hay.

Re:both

[Macadamizer]

With the big group, why aren't there any noticeable pricing differences? Cost of copies is negligible,so there's only one answer, most likely collusion.

Just because everyone charges the same price for a CD does not mean there is collusion. The problem is, CD's are not fungible -- you can only get a U2 CD (legally) from one source, the record label that works with U2.

If you could get U2 CD's (legally) from multiple sources that were in competition with each other, and they still all charged the same price, then THAT might be evidence of collusion.

If people didn't care about which CD they were buying, and only want any old CD, and all CD's were still the same price, that might be evidence of price-fixing as well.

But neither of these are reality -- the fact that a U2 CD and an Usher CD cost about the same amount of money simply means that the record companies can sell a lot of CD's at the current price, and that's what they are priced at. Actually, you can probably get an ABBA CD a lot cheaper than the U2 CD, because the market sets the price, and it's hard to sell an ABBA CD for the price of a new U2 CD. But the fact that the Usher CD and the U2 CD are the same price is not evidence of price-fixing -- if the label selling U2 CD's dropped their price by $2 a CD, you wouldn't expect all of the Usher fans will become U2 fans. Musical taste doesn't usually work that way. Simply put, there isn't a competitive market for CD's like there are for many consumer goods -- each CD is represented (usually) by only a single record label, so there is a single source for the CD, so there CAN'T be collusion on price, at least not for any particular CD.

Re:I've dogded, like, 10000 murder charges

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually, threatening people to sue them if they don't pay up fits the definition of racketeering pretty well.