Another Victim Countersues RIAA Under RICO Act

devnulljapan is one of many users to let us know that another single mother is taking the fight to the RIAA. More than just standing up to them however, Tanya Anderson has decided to go on the offensive and countersue. In a move that aims to put the RIAA on the same level as your average organized crime syndicate the suit identifies violations of the Oregon RICO Act in addition to 'fraud, invasion of privacy, abuse of process, electronic trespass, violation of the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, negligent misrepresentation, the tort of "outrage", and deceptive business practices.' Ms. Anderson has also demanded a trial by jury.

Boo!

We're the RIAA. Boo!

Re:Most biased Slashdot article ever?

You scapegoat "greedy corporations" with non-specific accusations in order to distract from discussing the artists not getting paid

I'm not sure whether or not you mean to imply that illegal file sharing=artists not getting paid, but this does open the door to an interesting conversation I had recently with the former president of a prominent record company (retired about a year and a half ago). He told me several interesting things:

1) Most musicians don't do very well at all in their dealings with record companies. In general, under the current regime, the money doesn't go to the artists.
2) File sharing isn't damaging the record companies. This fact is also borne out by the record profits record companies are now reporting, despite the fact that file sharing has increased substantially over the last couple of years, and the fact that record companies are actually releasing fewer records.
3) Record companies could be making use of file sharing as part of major new business models. The biggest problem, though, is that most heads of record companies are out-of-touch old men who not only don't have a clue about the technology, but they barely have a clue about music in the first place.

To sum up, I'm not sure where you were going with your comment, and I'm also unsure as to why you think it's "biased" to claim the record companies' actions amount to legalized extortion, especially when it appears they may have been going after people with very little, if any, evidence of actual infringement. But I'll leave elaboration on those points to you.

Re:Most biased Slashdot article ever?

iTunes is the #1 online music store. The "obsolete business model" argument is, well, obsolete.

And look at what the record companies are trying to do... control the retail price and threaten this new business model by pulling out.

Re:Most biased Slashdot article ever?

You are completely correct... however we get the shaft no matter what we do...

When we don't buy because they are too expensive, and sales inevitably slump, we get blamed for pirating. If we buy their CD's yet don't buy all the crap they shovel out, we get blamed for not buying enough. And of course, they say piracy is at the root. (Their numbers at the RIAA website are very different from their "poor-me" press releases most of the time.) We use iTunes and buy online... they want to raise prices. It is as if the RIAA is never happy.

It's a lose-lose situation. The RIAA will find a way to demonize their base.

That doesn't mean I defend infringement. It just means that not buying to the RIAA _is_ "piracy."

If even the MPAA can realize that crappy movies == fewer ticket sales.... why can't the RIAA stop blaming "pirates" every time their sales dip? They would rather invent a buzzword du-jour to exclaim how they are being robbed of their very shirts by that "evil" internet.

Bah. It's enough to turn your stomach sometimes.

Re:Most biased Slashdot article ever?

Those contracts are willingly signed

You've either never had to sign one yourself or you're financially wealthy enough where you would never need to sign one. The contracts are crap and the only reason why the artists sign is because they need the money more than the company needs them.

You've voluntarily opted to give up all credibility with this comment. Typical preaching from the top of the mountain bunk.

Re:Most biased Slashdot article ever?

Funny, I was just reading about this last night.. the book title escapes me, but it's something like "How not to ruin your career in music". Prince, upon gaining his independence and eventually his stage name back, actually did re-negotiate with a record company for his newest albums; when asked why he was willing to deal with record companies again, he stated that he was now in a position of enough power that the record companies would never dare to propose owning his master recordings, having copyright on his compositions, etc. You know, all the things they like to do to the little musicians.

So artists that make it big only deal with record companies once they have enough clout to deal as equals.

Re:Most biased Slashdot article ever?

CD sales are down. It doesn't matter if you believe file-sharing is damaging record companies. It's their intellectual property. Should we believe it's okay to not compensate John Carmack for his years of work on Doom 3 because he's rich enough to drive a Ferrari and id made millions off the game?

Please note that record companies != artists ... You might be interested in an actual artist's take on the situation [janisian.com]. It's rather old now, having been published in 2002, but it's highly illuminating in terms of both the effect of free music downloads and the nature of the RIAA and recording companies.

Don't assume that the RIAA represents the interests of artists - it quite clearly does not.

Re:Worse yet

Ok, here is your new business model: SELL MP3S OVER THE INTERNET!!!!!

There are quite literally millions of people who would buy them. iTunes would have a serious run for its money (at the same pricepoint)for remaining the top site in internet music.

The record companies could do this and they would earn BILLIONS of dollars.

There are millions of people out there who will buy the music. There are millions of file sharers who will actually start buying the music.

All the RIAA needs to be is reasonable, but they're not. All they have to do is make it so easy and reasonably affordable (read same price as iTunes or less) and they can sit back and real in billions of dollars. And there are quite likely millions of people sitting on the sidlines right now, like me, who aren't downloading anything, but also aren't buying CDs.

But they won't do that.....

Re:Most biased Slashdot article ever?

if people want to be rock stars so badly that they feel they can't turn down an unfair deal, fine

I completely agree. But don't make the signing deals out to be fair. At the same time the same laws which govern signing deals govern my employee agreement and I can't afford to be unemployed. This has nothing to do with wanting to be a rock star.

Are you even employed in an industry which has an employee agreement? If not then you've instantly lost all credibility in this thread.

hey did have a choice, they could have chosen to get a regular 9-to-5 job or whatever

Even 9-to-5 jobs require an employee agreement and, unless you're financially wealthy enough to be able to afford to turn them down, there's nothing you can do but accept an unfair agreement.

I'm not a bleeding heart for the artists. I do recognize that the media industry, as a general rule, is fleecing the artists blind and deserve none of the protections warranted by a responsible member of society.

Re:Most biased Slashdot article ever?

Fine, They are not fair. But you know what -- life isn't always fair.

Perfect. Now let's here you say that to the recording companies with respect to p2p.

Checkmate.

Re:Most biased Slashdot article ever?

If I directly gave the artist the same amount of money he would have made from the sale, had I bought the CD, would that make piracy okay, since I wouldn't be hurting the artist?

That would be fine, if the artist actually wants it that way. But if you like the artist and say you respect them, why not do business with them in a way that they personally have asked you to? No artists wants to have to deal with what amounts to thousands or millions of transactions directly with them. That's exactly why they get in business with a company that deals with that for them.

Re:Most biased Slashdot article ever?

Your whole post is no more than a "straw man" style argument in which you misrepresent Slashdot's supposed editorial stands on the various issues presented so that you can more easily attack them. Well, I 'll just make a few points and then leave you to continue your trolling in peace...

"Despite Slashdot calling for the RIAA to go after individual infringers back during the Napster lawsuit, Slashdot has done a 180 and is against that now, using anti-capitalist rhetoric to avoid discussing the issues of music piracy."

The point was that suing and in any way bothering ISPs with these RIAA lawsuits was a bogus approach because ISPs should have "common carrier" status. Just as people can carry out illegal activities on phone lines while the phone companies are held to be legally without liability, so too should it be the case for ISPs who are mere carriers for the information being sent and retrieved by their customers.

No one advocated bogus lawsuits against individuals. No one suggested abuse of process (because this is more a scare campaign than anything else, let's face it). No one supported the RIAA going after people without even the ability to state a valid claim. In this case (the one under discussion) they weren't able to state an actual damage, just the potential of one - and even that might have been based on erroneous information.

Seriously, get your shit together first before coming here to talk utter nonsense.

BTW, you know who cares about Music Piracy? Maybe the RIAA and no one else. Why should our government be wasting resources for the benefit of so few? Why even discuss it? If someone infringes your rights and you can claim a damage - Great! Sue them in court. Leave everyone else alone. The courts are not there for the exclusive use of the RIAA and all of their thousands of bullshit lawsuits.

"This is the kicker. "Average organized crime syndicate" is so blatantly over the top that the obvious intent is to stir the hornet's next of pro-piracy advocates on Slashdot (which has become P2P piracy central in the past couple of years) to generate page hits."

Um...okay. May I ask if you even know what RICO stands for? It's an acronym for: "Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations." The history of RICO law in the U.S. follows closely with government attempts to squash the activities of organized criminal organizations (i.e. the Mafia, gangs, etc). So yeah, if it happens to be the case that you can hit an organization with a RICO lawsuit chances are at least even money that they are on the same legal footing as mobsters or your "Average organized crime syndicate." And you have a problem with that why? If it's proven out in court, the RIAA will be seen to have been using the courts to pursue an illegal agenda that was abusive of court processes and infringing upon the rights of individuals to boot. I can't condone that.

It seems to me that whomever modded your comment as insightful is as ignorant as you are. Your comments are barely coherent and you appear to be poorly informed.

FWIW, I guess it's kinda cool how I predicted this RICO move a couple of weeks back: http://yro.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=162628&cid =13592078 [slashdot.org]

Re:Most biased Slashdot article ever?

Hardly.

The linked article (a piece of legitimate journalism) should be unbiased, the headline need not be. Perspective is important as it creates an environment in which intelligent discussion can gestate. Rather than merely squelching what you perceive as bias with a random slew of generalizations, perhaps you should understand the issue at hand:

P2P filesharing. The two stances? Copyright infringement vs. legitimate music acquisition.

Why isn't it a big deal? The smaller labels aren't complaining about filesharing...independent artists aren't complaining...it seems only major labels care. Most artists on those labels make only 7 to 8 points on CD sales anyway, so they don't profit. If music sales decline (and a number of studies have shown that P2P does not harm, and may even boost sales, as shown here [boingboing.net], here (PDF) [unc.edu], and here [washingtonpost.com], just to name a few) then the artists really don't feel the hurt, as they profit mostly from merchandising and live shows. Both of those require fans. Thus, the more people to hear their music, the more likely they'll sell out a show, or sell more merchandise, and thus profit. This is why more and more artists are endorsing file sharing. If you understand the real issue of corporate control (Infinity, Clearchannel, and Viacom control the vast majority of radio in America, as well as venues, and where I live in Cleveland, Clearchannel owns all of the billboards), then you will notice that a bias here isn't so bad.

Arists need an audience to exist. If they are not on a major label and thus can't get airplay, how can they find an audience? (hint, the answer is filesharing).

Rash generalizations and non-sequitors do little to address the issues and, rather than bias, are what paints Slashdot in a poor light and keeps it from being taken seriously as more than a niche geek site with very rigid agendas and a strict groupthink policy.

Re:Most biased Slashdot article ever?

Okay, right from the start, the headline is an editorial via the use of the term "victim."

Victim does not imply innocence. If the RIAA sued her, then she is their victim, regardless of whether the RIAA's suit was valid or not.

from the racketeer-influenced-and-corrupt-organizations dept.

The RIAA was convicted of price-fixing. Racketeering and corruption are fairly valid adjectives in that context.

This is the kicker. "Average organized crime syndicate" is so blatantly over the top that the obvious intent is to stir the hornet's next of pro-piracy advocates on Slashdot (which has become P2P piracy central in the past couple of years) to generate page hits.

RICO was originally set up to attack organized crime. That's where the parallel to organized crime comes in. Not that the RIAA is putting out hits and charging protection money, but that the laws set up to catch organized crime is catching them too.

The RIAA did what it is legally entitled to do; go after infringers of its copyright that it found on the P2P networks.

Except that it has a history of getting the wrong people with it's scatter-shot lawsuits. If this person turns out to be one of those people, then no, the RIAA is not doing what it is legally entitled to.

No, slashdot isn't POV neutral, but when was the last time you saw a neutral mainstream news report? At least their editorializing is in some sense justifiable.

Re:Boo!

I wonder how much money the RIAA has made off of this for the labels. They seem to be police, judge, jury, and collections for profit. I wonder how much of their record profits are from these lawsuits.

Well, I know the RIAA has helped me. I have purchased no new media in over a year now (never downloaded it). And it has helped the local band scene as many people I know go watch the bands and purchase the CDs where the bands play rather than feed the beast. Overall it is less expensive and I have made more friends.

My kids, and many of their friends are growing up on live performances from local artists. We have been to Beef and Board (a very *nice* playhouse), the local small playhouses, the parks, ethnic presentations, and much more. I never could have forced them to go to these things until the RIAA (and now MPAA) stepped in. I never thought I would live to see the day where the labels would make that happen.

InnerWeb

Entrepeneurial Warfare against the RIAA

Perhaps the best way to fight the RIAA is to use cases like this countersuit.

    But let's get serious about this and make some money.

    The law firm sets up an web bank account and links to PayPal or some other global small payment funds transfer provider. People who hate the RIAA put up a $1 to this firm's defense fund related to the case. If a million people send a $1 to destroy the RIAA, then there is a million dollars to fight the RIAA. Then the firm countersues for $10,000,000 in damages. If they win and collect, then each person who put in $1 to the defense fund gets $5 from the settlement minus expenses. If the countersuit loses, everyone loses a dollar. But the RIAA is now going up against an organized force that has millions of dollars and a serious desire to destroy them and take their money (and the money of their corporate sponsors). The RIAA will think twice about just randomly selecting people to fuck with.

    In the real world, there is no justice and fairness. The only thing that works against a large corporation with a lot of money is an large organization of people who each contribute a small amount of money with the specific purpose of forcing the corporation to back off. (and pay them back for the trouble). Get used to it.

You are the one!

"Ms. Andersen, You've been living a double life. During the day, you're Ms. Andersen, a humble housewife. But during the night, you are known as [e-mail], a peer to peer downloader. Only one of these lives, Ms. Andersen, has a future."

Now it makes sense! Ms. Andersen is THE ONE! :D

Re:You are the one!

I know you're out there. I can feel you now. I know that you're afraid... afraid of us. You're afraid of change. I don't know the future. I didn't come here to tell you how this is going to end. I came here to tell how it's going to begin. I'm going to hang up this phone, and then show these people what you don't want them to see. I'm going to show them a world without you. A world without rules or controls, borders or boundaries. A world where anything is possible. Where we go from there is a choice I leave to you.

Oh I had to do it...

Introductory sentence

This is the case peer-to-peer file sharers have been waiting for.

Is this really true? If you use P2P to share original works of art (nothing is stopping you from doing it) - for instance a personal flickr - or to share legitimate files like Linux distros, why would you really care about someone fighting the RIAA regarding copyright issues? This doesn't really seem like a P2P issue, but rather a copyright infringement issue.

Re:Introductory sentence

Napster was fully shutdown years ago, regardless of whether the songs on the network were legal. MP3.com had a vast free music network, but someone decided to upload music that wasn't theirs; mp3.com got sued and had to sell their domain (and no longer do we have access to those files). Limewire will now require licensing in its files, hardly something you'd do for your own personal files.

Even if you are sharing legal items, RIAA is making it harder to do so on p2p networks.

Re:Introductory sentence

Napster was really shutdown because of "mission" statements made by the founders/creators of Napter. Those statements basically stated that they developed the tools as a means to undermine RIAA, etc. That is what pushed things over the edge in the courts eyes.

Re:Introductory sentence

"Although one has to wonder whether this is going to work out."

I'm more wondering about the "slippery slope" of this approach by Limewire. There is nothing in any law, copyright or otherwise, that requires you to provide a license to share your own works. In fact, this action tends to remove rights from copyright owners, who will now be forced to provide some license with their works if they want to distribute their works this way. Granted, they can chose not to use Limewire, but if this catches on in P2P in general then there is little choice left (hence the "slippery slope). I hope it doesn't catch on.

Re:Introductory sentence

While what you are saying is generally true, it isn't the RIAA that is making it harder to share legal items on P2P networks, it is the people using them to share copyrighted works (which is probably 95% or more of the people). If all copyrighted works were removed (or even a vast majority of them, the RIAA wouldn't be going afterp2p networks, because there would be nothing to go after them for.

All works are copyrighted the moment they are created, and the copyright lasts until the world ends or Disney stops extending them, whichever happens first or until the author gives up his copyrights by placing the work in public domain. Simply because I happen to be the copyright holder to a piece of work I'm sharing, doesn't mean it wouldn't be copyrighted; also, simply because you happen to have a license (GPL, for example) from the copyright holder to share a copyrighted work, doesn't make that work not copyrighted. For this reason, I'm going to assume that by "copyrighted work" you mean "work that is copyrighted by someone other than you who hasn't given you a license to distribute it".

The users sharing files are most certainly not making it any harder to share works that you have a legal right to distribute on P2P networks. RIAA's constant abuse of power is what makes it harder to share such works. RIAA might be provoked to such actions by the copyright infringers, but that does not make those copyright infringers guilty of actions taken by the RIAA. The RIAA is presumably lead by human beings, and human beings are responsible for their own actions even when provoked. Nor can the RIAA leadership claim self-defense as justification for their actions, since the RIAA is not suffering any measurable harm from copyright infringment - no, claiming that each illegally downloaded song is a lost sale is not evidence of this actually being so.

So, the ones harming P2P networks are the RIAA and its kind, not users of said networks.

Finally, did you just make up the 95% figure or do you have any sources backing that up ?

So instead of screaming about the RIAA enforcing their copyrights (and whether you like it or not, they own the copyrights and should have the power to stop people from infringing on them) why aren't you screaming about the people who are actually infringing the copyrights and causing the RIAA to go after the p2p networks.

Actually, there is quite a bit of question whether those copyrights rightfully belong to the RIAA. After all, quite a bit of older music would have fallen into the public domain had the period of copyright not been extended; was that extension legitimate ?

Furthermore, the RIAA is basically engaging in blackmail - threatening to sue people and drive them to banckrupty with legal fees whether they are guilty or not if they don't pay a settlement to the RIAA. This is unacceptable behaviour; it essentially makes the RIAA a protection racket.

Finally, the RIAA is trying to force all consumer electronics to have DRM by law. I, for one, find it completely unacceptable that my computer would accept commands from the RIAA and let the RIAA intercept and prevent my commands from taking effect, nor do I like the idea that a document cannot be opened anymore when its publishers take their license verification servers offline. When one also remembers that it is already illegal to break copy prevention systems, it seems to me that the RIAA is fast pushing us towards a digital Dark Age, where information is only given to those who absolutely must have it to serve their corporate overlords, and can be made to disappear like it never had existed in the first place.

The RIAA is pure black nasty evil with absolutely no redeeming qualities. It is trying to crush entire Western civilization, nay, the entire world between its slavering jaws of DRM and DMCA, and swallow the shattered remains to be digested in its guts of

Re:Introductory sentence

Do insane people rattle on about the RIAA now, instead of Masons or Elder of Zion or English Bankers?

Insanity would require my post to have some factual errors; otherwise it is perfectly in harmony with reality, after all. Perhaps you might show some of them, since you've obviously noticed some; after all, why else would you speak about insanity ?

And give me a break, everybody knows P2P networks are almost entirely used for copyrighted works. Just because the GP post hasn't done a formal study doesn't invalidate this.

Everyone once knew that Earth was flat, Sun orbited the Earth and nothing ever changed in the spheres higher than Moon. Just because they hadn't done a formal study didn't invalidate that. Only it turned out to be a load of bullshit.

95% is probably a very conservative estimate - most P2P sites have very very weak collections of anything legitimate.

Since we are talkng about P2P filesharing networks, like Gnutella and Kazaa, here, would you please clarify what you mean by "P2P sites" ?

Your whole argument is based around pretending the obvious isn't true.

No, my argument is that

1. RIAA is responsible for its own actions; it's current actions (described below) are evil, so it is evil.
2. RIAA is abusing the US legal system to effectively blackmail people.
3. RIAA is trying to pass laws that would require all consumer electronics to have DRM, which is designed to give them control over said electronics.

Maybe it works great when rallying the similarly-minded against the RIAA, but it won't convince somebody who hasn't drunk the Kool-Aid.

I'm sure this would make a lot more sense if I was trying to rally the simple minded or knew Kool-Aid.

Way to pull stuff out of your ass

Bzzzzt, wrong. But thanks for playing.
From www.copyright.gov
"Copyright Secured Automatically upon Creation
The way in which copyright protection is secured is frequently misunderstood. No publication or registration or other action in the Copyright Office is required to secure copyright. There are, however, certain definite advantages to registration."

and if you look at www.copyright.gov/register you'll see that you don't need a laywer, don't need to file a petition, and costs between $30 and $70, depending on what form the work takes. But hey, don't let little things like facts get in the way of your comments you stupid twatwaffle.

You are wrong about mp3.com

Someone didn't "upload" music that wasn't theirs. What MP3.com did was take advantage of the Right to format shift, starting a music locker service that worked like this: a user put a legit CD in their CD-ROM and it "beamed" the music to the locker in MP3 format. Now what they actually did was buy a ton of CDs and rip them to MP3, so that users only had to have access to a real cd to instantly get access to the exact same songs in MP3 format. To that end, MP3.com went to great lengths to make sure what they were doing was legal to begin with...and remember, it is legal to format shift AND the user had to have a real, physical CD of the same music to access the service (at which point they could have just ripped it to MP3 to begin with).

Usurper_ii

MP3.com sues lawfirm over "bad advice"

Here, MP3.com tries to get some of the money back that they spent going to great lengths to make sure their service was legal:

Law.com [law.com] is reporting that MP3.com [mp3.com] has filed a malpractice lawsuit again Cooley Godward [cooley.com] , a law firm, alleging that it was responsible for allowing MP3.com to launch and subsequently be sued for copyright infringement by giving bad advice on the legality of My.MP3.Com ( MP3.com Sues Cooley Over Legal Advice [law.com] ). The charges are quite loaded, alleging that Cooley was basically inept their legal analysis of fair use and other copyright doctrines, and perhaps even misrepresented to MP3.com about expert testimony the Cooley firm had secured.

This isn't a small lawsuit either. MP3.com wants $175

Re:MP3.com sues lawfirm over "bad advice"

This typo completely changes the point of the comment, so it's worth correcting here.

This isn't a small lawsuit either. MP3.com wants $175 million.

Here's the relavent quote from the original article:

The suit, MP3.com Inc. v. Cooley Godward, 266625, says MP3.com has paid out in excess of $175 million in settlements, judgments and legal fees.

I thought the same things probably everyone else did, wondering if that was sarcasm or MP3.com being silly; so I actually looked (holy shit someone RTFLink on /.)

~Rebecca

Re:Introductory sentence

Go read Lessig's Free Culture, then come back to the discussion with a little more realistic perspective. Apparently you missed the real cruft of this situation. It is less about copyright issues right now and more about corporations abusing the legal system and bullying people into submission.

Re:Introductory sentence

"Crux", not "cruft." Typos are one thing, but that error completely reversed the meaning of the sentence.

Re:Introductory sentence

Though it was, in this case, actually more accurate.

Re:Introductory sentence

Is this really true?

No, as you correctly note it isn't really true. Reading the article shows that Ms. Anderson is stating she has never been a file sharer and has never used P2P software. By definition then, this case is not "the case P2P file sharers have been waiting for" as it is not involving the rights and wrongs of P2P.

Cheers,
Ian

Re:Introductory sentence

Actually, one could argue that it is what P2P people have been waiting for. All hashing around aside, you can't really argue that filesharing mp3s is illegal. However, if someone pulls something like this against the RIAA, based not on the fact that "It's not illegal to share