Washington Woman Sues RIAA for Attorneys Fees

NewYorkCountryLawyer writes "A Washington woman sued by the RIAA has asked the Court to award her attorneys fees, after the record company plaintiffs (Interscope Records, Capitol Records, SONY BMG, Atlantic Recording, BMG Music, and Virgin Records) dropped their case against her after two years of litigation, in Interscope v. Leadbetter. The brief submitted by her attorneys (pdf) pointed out the similarity between Ms. Leadbetter's case and Capitol v. Foster. In the Leadbetter case, as well as Foster case, the RIAA sued the woman solely because she had paid for an internet access account, and then later in the case attempted to plead 'secondary liability' against her without any factual basis for doing so. This tactic had been repudiated by Judge Lee R. West in Capitol v. Foster as 'marginal' and 'untested' in his initial decision awarding attorneys fees, and in his later decision denying the RIAA's motion for reconsideration."

Wierd

How is it tha I pirate music all the time and nobody comes after me, but the RIAA seems to go after many people who clearly have no evidence against them?

Re:Wierd

Your day will come. And when it does, the RIAA will subpoena Slashdot's records to see what IP ( and account info, if you are actually logged in and only just checked the AC box on the input form ) is associated with your "Anonymous Coward"

Re:

Someone can yell and scream and claim all they like (in legit media, much less anonymously on /.) that they do illegal stuff all the time, but that's not actual evidence that anything's actually happened.

For example, a guy could claim on slashdot that his

Re:

Well my husband doesn't know I'm having an affair with another woman.

Re:

So... You're husband is a woman...

Re:Wierd

I believe the correct response for this is "Pics or it didn't happen."

'Course, I'd prefer video, but it just wouldn't be Slashdot without the idiotic memes, would it?

Re:

Not my account info! Poor ajfhokjnaf lfdnsakldckljj from 666 Dis lane in aosdsoajdhiojuh audhnbjkashdojh. He'll never know what hit him.

Re:

Yes, and your IP? Slashdot's servers know all about you.

Re:Wierd

How is it tha I pirate music all the time and nobody comes after me, but the RIAA seems to go after

From what I understand, they insert themselves into the P2P network, then gather the IP addresses which connect to them. After that, it's a matter of getting the IP address to match to a person's home, which isn't always easy. So to get hit by them, you need to unlucky enough to attempt to download from their honeypot, and to have an ISP which is willing to share your addressing info with the RIAA (or not to fight a court order). Basically, they need to spend a lot of money on lawyers just to get that address, and then more money to sue, and they would never be able to collect enough money to make the lawyer process self-sustaining. What they are really hoping is not to 'catch' everyone, but to scare enough people so make the P2P networks ineffectual.

Re:Wierd

From what I understand, they insert themselves into the P2P network, then gather the IP addresses which connect to them.

They sit on the networks at scan for what are likely copyright violating files (after that they should have to download the files to prove that their copyright has actually been violated, though as far as I know no one has argued this point in court). Seeing what IP addresses connect to them wouldn't get them anywhere for two reasons: 1. Being on a P2P network and connecting to other nodes isn't illegal nor does it constitute a copyright violation in and of itself. 2. Since they are the holder of the copyright, if their P2P client offered it for download (even if it wouldn't actually send that file) that'd be like giving anyone who searched for it a free license to download it since as far as the end user can tell the owner of the copyright is making it available for free download. So if you don't want to be caught, you don't share files.

Their history of false accusations supports this method. Most people here probably remember when they sued a professor named Usher a few years ago for distributing his lectures in mp3 format on P2P.

IANAL BTW.

Re:

Not every jurisdiction has prohibitions against entrapment, entrapment only applies when the entrapping agency is an agent of the state, and it only applies (IIRC) in Criminal matters. Also, to mount an entrapment defense, there needs to be good reason to

Re:

Well, as I understand it "entrapment" only applies to activities performed by law enforcement. Besides, they aren't encouraging people to illegally download music in order to nail them, they're just observing network activity. Now that in itself might or m

Re:

Well, entrapement [onlinelawyersource.com] is a criminal defense, not a civil one, besides "Entrapment situations alter the risks and benefits to increase the likelihood the crime will occur.", which I don't believe they are.

Re:

If they (the RIAA) participate in P2P activities to catch people leaching off them... surely that's entrapment?

No. That's just a sting operation.

"Entrapment" is when the state induces you to perform an act that you would not ordinarily perform, and then charges you with a crime for it. If the police just catch you doing something of your own free will, it's not

Re:Weird

What is and is not entrapment varies by jurisdiction. In MA a speed trap is entrapment, in NY it's perfectly fine. (Or so I understand: it may be completely different now.)

I believe that it varies. Around here in the city there are no speed traps. Meaning that the speed limit signs are clearly posted and don't deviate from the normal speed limit in the state by much. Just to the north of the city, the local authorities hav

Re:

Just to the north of the city, the local authorities have a speed limit sign which is 25mph, which is lower than the speed limits in most other parts of the state. The officers there have been instructed to pull people over several blocks into the speed zo

Re:Wierd

Downloading is not a crime. The RIAA will never sue anyone for illegally downloading music. Why? A downloaded song has an established market value of $0.99.

Uploading music (without permission) is a crime, with statutory damages of $750 per song. Whether the downloader (eg, RIAA's p2pbot) ha permission to download it is irrelevant because you didn't haver permission to upload it.

Re:

And, what's your name and address again, sir? We're taking a survey.

Re:

Question: Do you have money, or are you tied to someone with money?

If the answer is no then you know the reason why.

Maybe the RIAA will back off a bit?

Sounds like a case for having the RIAA back off a little.

Loosing cases like this would only embolden piraters(according to RIAA thinking). Even massive amounts of having to pay attorney's fees won't slow the RIAA down, that's chump change. Still, being forced to pay the fees is a bad sign for them. Not only do people see them loose, but loose so badly they have to pay the person back, making them more or less whole.

Re:

I guarantee you it will slow them down. They'll either have to actually be sure they'll win, or they won't sue. It does affect the fiscal risk/reward ratio as well. I guarantee you the bean counters will start screaming about the money if things go south.

B

Re:Maybe the RIAA will back off a bit?

Except that this was 2 years of litigation. Attorneys aren't going to work for free for years. Also, her time, and distress. That's 2 years of her life she's never going to get back, and in the end they just said "Oh, nevermind. Have a nice life!" At this point she's probably had to put her home into hock in order to defend herself. Now here's my question - how many of you are willing to put your home/retirement/both on the line to stand up to them?

That's why their tactics work. They know most people cannot afford to risk it. I'm thinking that wherever that special hell is for child molesters, the people that decide who get sued this way belong there too. It's one thing to be tangibly harmed by someone and have to seek legal recourse. It's another to not be harmed *at all*, and throw someone's fiscal wellbeing into jeopardy over your bottom line.

I'm sorry. I'm a forgiving person. I'm a kind and loving person. I would love nothing more to punch a few lawyers and corporate big-wigs in the face over this one. Comparatively speaking they have nothing to lose, but from a financial standpoint, the people being sued have everything to lose by standing up for themselves. They know this, and they're doing it anyway.

That's where I draw the line. Straight to that special place in hell with you.

Special place in hell

Ah ... you must mean the room with the asbestos walls and the unshielded nuclear reactor in the middle. Yeah, that one.

Re:

No, the one with the indestructible chair with indestructible straps, where you're straped in and forced spend eternity watching, and even wose listining to, Bill O'Reilly...

Re:

Bill O'Reilly isn't so bad. The Oprah marathon, interspersed with tele-tubbies and the purple monster on the other hand...

Re: Wierd

How is it tha I pirate music all the time and nobody comes after me, but the RIAA seems to go after many people who clearly have no evidence against them?

I've never heard about anyone being prosecuted for downloading copyrighted material. Uploading, how

Good luck, Lady!

Presuming the judge grants her request, the RIAA will no doubt engage in their usual legal shenanigans and manage to delay any final disposition for at least another two years, during which time a lot could happen.

Re:

Presuming the judge grants her request, the RIAA will no doubt engage in their usual legal shenanigans and manage to delay any final disposition for at least another two years, during which time a lot could happen.

One thing that would happen is that their exposure would probably triple.

In Capitol v. Foster [blogspot.com], 2 1/2 months of such shenanigans caused the RIAA's exposure to increase from $55k to $114k [blogspot.com], and counting.

bittorrent

Has anyone who wasn't seeding massive amounts of people on bittorrent ever been sued? All the cases I hear about seem to involve P2P services like limewire, which seem to me at least to be what only a small percentage of people use to get music and movies,

Re:

All the cases I've seen deal with FastTrack rather than BitTorrent.

I can't believe that

the judge didn't just automatically award her costs, and some punitive damages against RIAA for her massive stress and inconvenice too.

See a Breakdown of Just Who do they Sue?

I'd like to see a breakdown of just who do they sue, based on number of files shared, newness of files shared, and P2P system in use.

Do they go after people with lots of files shared as they once said they did? Seems to me that number of shared files, once said to be >1000, is now <600, and maybe much lower still.

Are certain songs, artists, and/or new hot sellers more likely to draw lawsuits? The supposition is that the are telling the truth when they say they log into P2P systems like any other user, search out specified files, and then list out entire shared directories. When they pick a target, they download one or two dozen files as "evidence", copying down the apparent IP address and time. What files seem to attract their attention? And what if you just didn't let any single user d/l more than 2 files from you. Might they stop by not being able to collect enough "evidence"?

What P2P systems are they searching? KaZaA? Yeah! Limewire? Apparently on occasion. What other systems have they sued people for using, and how often?

There are now reportedly 30,000 cases they've pursued far enough to identify users and attempt to extort settlements from. An analysis of all that data, which must be available in the John Doe ex parte lawsuits used to identify these users, ought to prove interesting enough to someone writing a paper about it and sharing their findings by now.

Re:

Haven't you ever heard of broadband gnomes? They crawl around the intertubes with their little notepads jotting down your favorite porn sites and p2p exchanges!

Re:What I never understood...

No, you don't get those people. While I don't agree with most of what they're doing, they're certainly not monitoring your cable connection.

For example, they could simply do a search on limewire, The Pirate Bay, or wherever for a piece of copyrighted material that their member organizations own. They could then download the file, watching all the IPs that offer a piece of that file up to their computer. If, upon downloading the file, they find that it is indeed copyrighted material, they have strong reason to believe that each of those IPs represents someone illegally offering the file for download to others. That's not monitoring your connection, it's monitoring their own.

Of course, in cases like bit torrents, people will tell you that because only a small piece of the file comes from a given computer, there's no way to prove that someone had the entire file. If they didn't have the entire file, they might not have known what they were downloading and making available to others. Frankly, I think that's stretching "reasonable doubt" a little far, but I guess it's for the courts to decide.

Re:

Reasonable doubt isn't a requirement of a civil suit, only in a criminal trial.

Re:

For example, they could simply do a search on limewire, The Pirate Bay, or wherever for a piece of copyrighted material that their member organizations own. They could then download the file, watching all the IPs that offer a piece of that file up to their

Re:

You voluntarily send data into a public network. Therefore, a court would likely find (if they haven't already) that you have no reasonable expectation of privacy.

It would be like an organization trying take photos of random people, just because "Well,

Re:

In the US, unlike other countries such as the UK, it is not automatically assumed that the winner (either by decision or by default) will receive court-cost reimbursement. IANAL, but I understand that a request for such recompense must generally be submit

Re:

It could cause more unnecessary lawsuits. Little Old Lady hates MegaCorp, so she brings an unnecessary lawsuit against them. Her costs are $100 (1 shyster for 5 hours at $20), theirs are $100,000 (100 experts for 5 hours at $200). They win the case and

Re:

Oh you bleeding heart "corporate liberal". I think it's more like MegaCorp doing things for which it is libel, but no one will sue it because unless they win they'll have to pay MC legal fees which could bankrupt most individuals. It is a long a drawn out

Re:RIAA's case seemed frivolous

Thats because tort reform is a complete scam, paid for and designed to benefit one industry - the insurance industry. Insurers are not hurt by these suits (insurers can't indemnifiy insured for statutory fines and I don't think they even have a duty to defend the insureds in these suits), so they have no interest in making an issue out of them.

Also, copyright infringement is not a tort. Its a federal staturory civil offense. So there would be no need for tort reform, just action by 269 people in D.C.

The only ones who benefit from tort reform are insurance companies. While it is true that trial lawyers, primarly PI lawyers (who are always portrayed as the "bad guys" by the insurance industry) would be hurt by tort reform the people who are actually injured would be hurt far more than the lawyers.

When the Bankruptcy Chapter 7 and 13 amendments were debated, one of the primary benefits cited by banks and the credit industry was that average American's interest rates would go down. Let me ask you - how much have yours gone down? If the insurance industry is able to limit damages, do you think premiums are going to go down? At least banks were honest enough to advocate in public and not use PACs and hide who was spearheading the intiative.

Insurance companies and corporations have completely f**ked the Workers Comp systems to their benefit throughout the country and are trying to do the same with negligence and products liability.

Sorry for the off-topic rant. (And no, I am not a PI lawyer).

Re:

Insurance companies are in a sufficiently strong position that tort reform wouldn't actually benefit them. They're already able to pass on the costs of paying out damages to their policyholders. Tort reform would, in the presence of a competitive insuran

Re: Tort reform a scam

This is off topic but I think the prior post needs a response.
In the case of the medical liability malpractice crisis - tort reform in Texas worked as intended. In Texas we were down to 2 insurers - one of which was started by physicians. Since Prop 12

Re:

Wouldn't it depend on the specifics of the tort reform?
If someone proposed to dismantle all insurance companies, and execute their lawyers, I don't see how they would see that as a benefit.

Re:

Doesn't she have to sue the organization that sued her, if she wants to be awarded attorney's fees?

Re:Does she really?

Doesn't anyone ever RTFA? I can understand you not doing it [although you probably spent more time asking the question then you would have if you'd just clicked a link and read]. But then to get modded up as insightful? Jeez....

From the first freaking link:

"Dawnell Leadbetter, the successful defendant in Interscope v. Leadbetter, has brought a motion for attorneys fees against the record company plaintiffs, Interscope Records, Capitol Records, SONY BMG, Atlantic Recording, BMG Music, and Virgin Records."

Re:

Mod parent down. The very first line of TFA: "Dawnell Leadbetter, the successful defendant in Interscope v. Leadbetter, has brought a motion for attorneys fees against the record company plaintiffs, Interscope Records, Capitol Records, SONY BMG, Atlantic

Re:Does she really?

1. Don't blame Cowboy Neal, I wrote the heading and take full responsibility for it.

2. I don't consider it misleading. The cases are brought by the RIAA on behalf of 4 big record companies. The cases are controlled strictly by the RIAA. I use "RIAA" as shorthand for "The four major record companies who have authorized the RIAA to bring suit on their behalf". It would be way too time consuming and space consuming to keep on referring to the 4 suing companies + the dozens of affiliated labels who wind up as plaintiffs in these cases. So technically it's the record labels that appear as the plaintiffs who have been sued, but I think just about everybody knows what I'm talking about, especially if they read the article.

3. How would you have written the headline within the space constraints of a Slashdot headline (approximately 5 or 6 words)?

Re:

Is this woman _REALLY_ suing the RIAA? That seems pretty retarded to me.

First, she isn't, but others have already answered that.

Second, the RIAA comprises those companies. There is no difference between saying "the RIAA" and listening its members. If

Re:

Technically it's the record company plaintiffs SONY BMG, BMG, Interscope, Atlantic, Virgin, and Capitol, that will be liable for the attorneys fee award. I use the term RIAA as shorthand for the cartel of 4 big record companies who are using the RIAA to br