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Mothers Taking the Fight to the RIAA
Posted by
ScuttleMonkey
on Sun Sep 18, 2005 06:03 PM
from the more-should-follow-this-example dept.
from the more-should-follow-this-example dept.
An anonymous reader writes "p2pnet is reporting that two more single mothers are refusing to be victimized by the RIAA. Patricia Santagelo was one of the first to stand up and fight the lawsuits, which some say resemble protection racket schemes. Now Dawnell Leadbetter of Seattle and Tanya Andersen of Oregon have decided to follow suit and stand up against the recording industry behemoth. From the article: 'Don't let your fear of these massive companies allow you to deny your belief in your own innocence. Paying these settlements is an admission of guilt. If you're not guilty of violating the law, don't pay.'"
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New Attorneys Fee Decision Against RIAA 144 comments
NewYorkCountryLawyer writes "The RIAA has gotten slammed again, this time in Oregon, as the Magistrate Judge in Atlantic v. Andersen has ruled that Tanya Andersen's motion for attorneys fees should be granted. The Magistrate, in his 15-page decision, noted that, despite extensive pretrial discovery proceedings, 'when plaintiffs dismissed their claims in June 2007, they apparently had no more material evidence to support their claims than they did when they first contacted defendant in February 2005.....' and concluded that 'Copyright holders generally, and these plaintiffs specifically, should be deterred from prosecuting infringement claims as plaintiffs did in this case.' This is the same case in which (a) the RIAA insisted on interrogating Ms. Andersen's 10-year-old girl at a face-to-face deposition, (b) the defendant filed RICO counterclaims against the record companies, and (c) the defendant recently converted her RICO case into a class action"
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News: BusinessWeek Takes On the RIAA 240 comments
NewYorkCountryLawyer writes "BusinessWeek magazine has gone medieval on the RIAA, recounting in grisly detail the cruel ordeal to which the RIAA has subjected a completely innocent defendant, Tanya Andersen of Oregon. Nobody can read the story and come to any other conclusion than that the RIAA and its lawyers are total jerks. Of course we've been reading about Atlantic v. Andersen on p2pnet.net and on my blog, and discussing it here, but there's something extra special about a mainstream publication like Business Week really letting them have it."
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As the IRAA starts going down hill (Score:5, Funny)
But... (Score:5, Insightful)
They are more powerful than you because they have more money than you, and that's all that matters in the United States in 2005.
a citizen can't afford a lawsuit (Score:5, Insightful)
Wrong. Your only choice lies between paying a few k dollars to an extortionist company, or getting many millions to be able to afford lawyers and stand through the trial. It's not something an average person can do, so the choice boils down to either paying the extortion or suffering a personal bankcrupcy.
You're a citizen, not a company. You have no rights.
Re:a citizen can't afford a lawsuit (Score:5, Interesting)
Ultimately, if you're going to fight this sort of thing, you'll want to not have too many assets, so if you do lose, you don't lose much. (Even a billion dollar judgement isn't worth much if the guy the judgement is against only has $6.)
You'll also want to have enough money to get some competent legal representation. The two normally do not go hand in hand -- usually when you have enough to defend yourself, you have so much to lose that it's safer to just pay. In fact, it's generally cheaper to just pay, even if you're poor, which seems to be what our entire civil court system is based on.
In any event, you may not need even thousands of dollars to defend yourself. You can spend as little or as much as you want on your defense -- the more you spend, the better the odds of winning, but even if you spend $0 and represent yourself, there is a chance that you'll win. It's also possible that some lawyers may work on your case pro-bono (since it would be good for a lot of advertising for them, especially if they won) and it's also possible that the EFF or ACLU may help defray your legal expenses if they decide that your case is strong enough to warrant their help.
Of course, there's also a very good chance that the RIAA won't push any cases far enough to actually go to trial. After all, so far they have a perfect record -- no losses -- and they won't want to risk that unless they're sure they can win -- and the people that are sure to lose are not the people who are likely to fight it.
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The protection racket angle... (Score:5, Interesting)
I hope some crusading federal DAs have their children targeted and decide to go after the RIAA.
What about a massive defense fund? (Score:5, Interesting)
I wonder how much it would affect the strategy is large numbers of objectors banded together to create a massive defense fund. Retain a few lawyers and offer to defend anyone who is accused.
New Org (Score:5, Funny)
Re:New Org (Score:5, Funny)
But how do you solve a problem like MARIAA?
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WE ARE RIAA of BORG (Score:5, Funny)
That and we don't got dates for Saturday.
Sounds like she's probably on dialup (Score:5, Funny)
A quote which comes to mind here... (Score:5, Insightful)
Ordinary Americans desperately need, now, to begin to take back their country. If they leave it much longer, they themselves will not be the only ones to suffer consequences at the hands of their government and groups like the RIAA. The Australian government has already begun passing draconian laws of its own, following the cue of Bush, and I have no doubt that more will follow.
Technology is such these days that it is no longer good enough to merely talk about removing a dictatorial regime after it has come to power. In this case, it's not merely prevention being better than cure...Prevention may be our only option.
Re:A quote which comes to mind here... (Score:5, Interesting)
What laws would those be and how exactly do they relate to Bush? I'm all for people taking controll but it seems like ever fucktard out there thinks that everything was all milk and honey until Bush took office.
"Ahistorical - you think this shit just dropped right out of the sky
My analysis: it's time to harvest the crust from your eyes" - Fugazi
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Civil Litigation (Score:5, Interesting)
What happens in civil court when you show up and tell the judge that you can't afford to hire a lawyer?
This was just a matter of time ... (Score:5, Interesting)
I hope they keep up and tell the RIAA where they can shove their lawsuit. All it will take is one judge to rule in favor of any one of these single mothers to set a JUDICIAL PRECEDENCE nullifying every other case the RIAA tries to file.
Now back to reality, this will probably not happen this way. I'm not saying that the right to download a song is the exact same as the right to die or right to chose what to do with your own body, but everyone knows that these lawsuits are rediculous.
I hope they stick with it until the end, through all the appeals ... and win one for everyone. This is where we all knew that it would come down to. Whichever one of these cases actually makes it to court, will be the case that people refer to.
Lets just wait and see.
Is a computer like a dog or a cat ? (Score:5, Interesting)
It looks possible that Kaaza was on her machine, but that she was unaware that it was there and what it was doing, for the purpose of this comment I shall assume that this was the case. (I am a Brit and so from an understanding of UK law).
Several independent points:
Can we make an analogy in law between liability of pet activity and liability of computer activity ?
In theory a computer is completely under its owner's control, but many people lack sufficient understanding of their machines to control it properly; what is the situation when a computer is hijacked by some malware that (unknown to the owner) causes damage (needless to say this happens frequently) ?
I think that the last 2 points are very important, I am not aware that they have discussed -- now is the time to debate this very important issue.
I would love to know what the law decides: is a computer like a dog or a cat ?
$$$ money (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Editors - edit (Score:5, Insightful)
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Re:What's there to fight? (Score:5, Informative)
Repeat after me, COPYRIGHT INFRINGMENT IS NOT STEALING. It is in a legally separate category. Copy right infringment is sometimes against the law, but it is never stealing.
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For the last fucking time.... (Score:5, Informative)
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Re:For the last fucking time.... (Score:5, Funny)
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Re:Victims? Not really (Score:5, Insightful)
If I took you to court and said, "This man over here stole $4000 worth of music from my music collection. Pay me right now for damages." they might consider it, but what if I told them by stealing I mean that you took my CDs, copied them, MP3'd them, and then returned them without any kind of damage? Now is it stupid to ask for their full value?
Now what if I said that instead of my entire music collection, you owe me 50 times the price I paid for them. I'd be laughed out of the courtroom and cornholed by the baliff for making him miss McGuyver.
But its all good if you're a company, because God knows whatever a company says has been well researched, thought out, and their word should be taken over mine at all times.
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Re:Victims? Not really (Score:5, Informative)
Full paragraph:
I have always been against music downloading. In fact, I have been a member of BMG's music club for quite some time and I purchase my music either from there or from Target. When I first got my computer set up almost three years ago, I had a friend set it up for me since I did not know how to do it. She had put Kaaza Lite on there and told me what it was. I never used it and had no interest in doing so. I deleted it since I had no use for it. Even though I deleted it correctly, as is recommended by Microsoft, Mr. Eilers has told me it can hide out in my system and play without me knowing about it. I have done a total check of my computer and it is no where on there.
I don't know if you're trying to make a point or not, but you completely ignored everything Tanya Andersen said in that paragraph.
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Re:Victims? Not really (Score:5, Informative)
Nice job of selective quoting.,,
She tried to delete it and her computer says it's deleted. It can't be her fault if it's still used to share music.
"...She had put Kaaza Lite on there and told me what it was. I never used it and had no interest in doing so. I deleted it since I had no use for it. Even though I deleted it correctly, as is recommended by Microsoft, Mr. Eilers has told me it can hide out in my system and play without me knowing about it. I have done a total check of my computer and it is no where on there."
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Re:Good (Score:5, Funny)
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Re:Good (Score:5, Insightful)
On top of that, have you actually listened to the music being produced today? It is largely crap. Go look at what people are actually downloading over the P2P networks -- a lot of it is older music, music that under a reasonable copyright system would already be public domain.
(Or wait, do you think people should still be paying for Beatles and Elvis albums that have been burned into their neurons by radio, TV, freaking elevators for the last 40 years?)
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