RIAA Bullies Witnesses Into Perjury

QT writes "A Michigan couple is counter-suing the RIAA after they learned that the RIAA had bullied their witnesses into lying. The story revolves around a 15-year-old girl who, when deposed, told how RIAA lawyers told her that she had to commit perjury just so they could win their case. From the article: 'Q - Did [the RIAA lawyer] tell you why he needed you to stick with your original false story? A - Because he said he didn't have a case unless I did. Q - So, he told you that he didn't have a case unless you stuck with the original false story?'"

Hmmmm....

I'm not sure I buy an industry lawyer telling a 15 year old girl he wouldn't have a case unless she lied. If he had the power to coerce her, he'd say "just do it or else."

BUT, if it is the case that he did coerce her to commit perjury, I'd seriously suggest he be criminally indicted for contributing to the delinquency of a minor and any other child-harm charge they can use against him. Plus anything in the conspiracy vein.

It would nice to see an RIAA lawyer disbarred and jailed. I seriously doubt it would happen (see /. article in two weeks where the local prosecutor declines to file charges as he doesn't believe the witness is credible enough to build a case around). But a boy can dream, can't he?

- Greg

Re:Hmmmm....

This is amazing. Every time you think that it can't get worse, it does. There are people on Slashdot right now saying that the RIAA are baby-eaters, and it's getting harder and harder to resist taking it to the extreme.

Which RIAA moron thought this would result in good PR down the road? Stuff like this will always come out.

Re:Hmmmm....

How about we start naming this evil by its true name.

Everybody is thinking the Riaa is the bad guy. Take a look at who they are though, its Sony, Warner music, Walt Disney Records, EMI Records and so on. All the Riaa name is for is to make sure there wont be a newspaper headline saying something like "EMI Records sues granny" or something like that.

So no its not a rogue lawyer for a faceless organization. Its Sony, its EMI, its Disney and they are trying to not get their name dragged through the mud by hiding behind the name Riaa

Full list of members of the Riaa http://www.riaa.com/about/members/default.asp [riaa.com]

That list is inaccurate

I hate to be the one to break the news, but that list is inaccurate. I know for a fact that Fat Wreck Chords is *NOT*, and has never been, a member of the RIAA. In fact, they had to fight for over a year to get the RIAA to stop claiming that they were a member. It looks like the RIAA has gone back to their old ways, though.

Simply put, the RIAA will list every single label it can find, and add them to a master list. Why? So that it appears that they have more backing than they really do.

All your dreams come true.

It would nice to see an RIAA lawyer disbarred and jailed. I seriously doubt it would happen

Why not? Do you think an industry that screws it's clients and treats it's customers like criminals would care about their lawyers? If one of them gets caught, the people who ordered, "win any way you can," will be the first to repudiate them, "Bad buzz Bob. You know how it goes, you're fired."

I'm not sure I buy an industry lawyer telling a 15 year old girl he wouldn't have a case unless she lied.

Why not? They don't have any evidence to begin with, what makes you think they won't create the details by threats? The fine article said he threatened the witness with all the costs of the case and that the costs would get greater unless she burnt her friend and capped the friends losses at $4,000. If you can believe a 15 year old girl was talking to the RIAA thug without a lawyer, you had better believe the thug had his way with her.

The results are what you see, the case is shit and has blown up in their face. Obviously, the thug has screwed up.

all for $4000

The transcript of the deposition that followed this motion gives us a glimpse into exactly how far the recording industry is willing to go...

I doubt that the recording industry had much to do with coersion....that sounds like a lawyer trait to me. Some people will never learn. The recording industry could spend their money much more wisely. Win or lose, lawyers are the only ones who really win in court.

' Plaintiffs' representative further threatened that unless Mr. Nelson paid $4,000.00 immediately, his client authorized him to conduct extensive discovery which would only increase the amount that he would eventually owe.

I'm sure that the law firm was paid much more than $4000 to win this case illegally.

RIAA embarrassments??

Wow, I can't decide if this might be more embarrassing than when they sued a stone-dead grandma. [betanews.com]

Re:RIAA embarrassments??

What is even more embarassing is how the RIAA believes it IS the law: said RIAA spokesman Jonathan Lamy. "We will now, of course, obviously dismiss this case.

I could have sworn that you ask a judge to dismiss a case, you don't just do it yourself.

Good

I have to say, as much as I wish this stuff never happened...I'm kinda glad its unfolding the way it is. They're doing everything they can to be as overtly evil as possible. And all it does is piss off Americans more and more and more...and now its pissing off judges and lawyers.

Change takes time, thank god they're doing us a favor by speeding up their own demise with stunts like this. I'd love to see someone make a website with info on the lawyers who represent them. Lets dig up all the crap we can find on them and post it on the web (nothing illegal of course) and make sure people realize what kind of lowlifes they're considering dealing with if they are a potential client and Google one of the lawyers.

ouch

So the RIAA bullied a little girl? Unthinkable. They would NEVER [boston.com], ever EVER [theregister.co.uk] do something so... okay so they do.

An unethical lawyer????

It just goes to show that 99% of lawyers give the rest of them a bad name.

The worst part

Now they're suing the 15 year old for copyright infringement for reading their statement outloud in public.

This is nothing

The RIAA would go to customers' houses, brutally murder them, and grind up the body as organ meat for third world countries if they could get away with it.

Bad guys ?!

all they're doing is forcing the actual file sharers further underground where they're harder to find, which leads to the next round of lawsuits hitting an even lower ratio of bad guys to innocent people

And who exactly would those "bad guys" be? Hmmm? You don't see them breaking the law and using mafia-style racketeering techniques to win cases...

Remember, this is a war of rights... civil disobedience is a way of showing your discontentment with a law. Some take it to extremes, some are just casual downloaders, but WE are not the bad guys.

P.S: I know that the guy who wrote the article didn't mean what I'm trying to infer from what he said, but these "slips of tongue" can be significant and "used against" the involved party, because it does mean that of all the people sued for downloading copyrighted materials, SOME were "bad guys", which IMHO isn't true...

Stop consuming RIAA product!

Since the RIAA is clearly an evil organization, I suggest that everyone stop purchasing music. And, stop downloading it as well.

Think about it, if no one even "illegally" downloaded music, the RIAA would go away in a big hurry. What would be worse for them, piracy or no one on earth giving a shit what they did?

This sounds like a job for....

RICO [wikipedia.org]

The difference between a lawyer and a sperm cell?

The sperm cell has a one in ten-million chance of eventually becoming a human being!

You may be interested into..

learning which companies [riaa.com] do support RIAA. Let them know what is RIAA doing so that they can do some image-issues calculus.

RIAA's problem is not file-sharing

RIAA's (along with several famous musicians') problem is that technology has rendered their way of doing business obsolete.

Why does RIAA hate file-sharing? They're not stupid; they know the actual "loss" is nowhere near what they claim they lose (whether it's a loss at all is debateable). They aren't worried about losing customers: they are worried about losing musicians.

Professional-quality audio production software can now be bought for a few thousand dollars. Peer-to-peer networks as well as other Internet protocols allow musicians to distribute music without a label. Anyone with the talent, time, and guts can market his or her music without the need for a label, and get people to go to his or her concerts which is where musicians make money anyways.

A lot of my favorite bands don't have labels: they distribute their music through p2p, on the web, and through tape/CD/mp3 swapping. That's what keeps RIAA up at night: the idea that musicians (and then consumers) would see that RIAA doesn't actually serve any purpose. (A&R? Yeah, maybe if they actually did that... heck they outsource A&R to reality TV shows now...)

I'm sure musicians who are addicted to album sales want to use the legal system to fix the world at the stage of early-90s technology -- I'm also sure horse stablers wanted to fix the world at the stage before the internal combustion engine. You don't have a "right" to make a living in any particular way, though you have a right to try.

Hardly surprising...

This is hardly surprising, is it?

We all knew the RIAA uses mob tactics to get what they want. This is just another proof...

I'm actually surprised nobody's tried to sue them under the RICO act yet. I wouldn't be surprised if they'd win.

*evil grin*

I think it would be nice to slip in state legislation in as many states as possible that does a little death-by-a-thousand-cuts on corporations who do this kind of thing.

Maybe by making it illegal for any party contributing to the delinquency of a minor, and all their members, agents, and partners, to sell their wares to minors or in stores accessible by minors.

I imagine that you'd see everyone withdraw from the RIAA pretty quick. No music label wants their CDs to be available only in porn shops.

Re:The sad part...

Yes, the RIAA will probably get away with it. However, the landshark involved will, with luck, get disbarred and spend several years in the Graybar Hotel. Why? Because in order to convict the RIAA louses (Although calling one of them a louse is an insult to every louse that ever lived.) you'd have to prove that said louse knew in advance what was being done and approved of it. If all he or she did was tell the lawyer involved, "Win the case and I don't care how," that's not good enough. You'd have to prove either specific instructions or advance knowlege. Shame, really, but that's the way it works.

Re:Coercion?

Q. It wasn't true. And you felt that Mr. Krichbaum was trying to get you to say something that wasn't true?

It seems like the interviewer is the one telling the girl what's true and what isn't. "It wasn't true" doesn't sound like a question to me. Although I'm sure the RIAA has done stuff much worse than this.

You are quoting it out of context. Look to the prior question and answer:

Q. -- Jim and yourself had ripped the music off?
A. Yes.
Q. And that wasn't true, was it?
A. Correct.
Q. Correct that it wasn't true?
A. It wasn't true, yes.
Q. It wasn't true. And you felt that Mr. Krichbaum was trying to get you to say something that wasn't true?
A. Yes.

You can clearly see from the dialogue that the questioning lawyer is merely repeating the answer the witness gave immediately prior.

This is a common speech error among lawyers. Many people when they speak "fill gaps" with "Uh-huh" or "Um" and the like. Many lawyers also use these space fillers. With lawyers, of course, it is Q&A, so one of the most common space fillers is to repeat the prior answer as part of your next question.

Really poor lawyers do this in EVERY QUESTION. It gets annoying quick. But even good lawyers do it from time to time. It's just the way people talk.

There is nothing dirty about this. You might also note from the record that there was another lawyer there, a Mr. Miller, who objects from time to time. He is working for the other side, and would have objected if this was improper (which didn't happen, because it wasn't).

Re:Coercion?

With lawyers, of course, it is Q&A, so one of the most common space fillers is to repeat the prior answer as part of your next question.

A group of old attorney friends of mine used to call it Matlocking: "Everything was going fine, until Nate started matlocking during the depo. I thought the court reporter was going to kill him after 20 minutes of typing everything twice". Kind of like monologueing in the incredibles.

Some think it lends a know-it-all air of authority to the questioner, but after many a drunken discussion with them it's just a way for the questioner to get time to think or (in the case of one friend) remember what the witness actually said. These guys were work-comp attorneys, so they were a bit oddball and irreverent in the first place. Boy, did they havesome great parties ;)

Re:So where's the problem?

Except the 15 year old made it quite clear that the lawyer solicited testimony he knew to be untrue. That's suborning perjury, generally a felony and always, always grounds for disbarrment.