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Granny Sues RIAA Over Unlicensed Investigator
Posted by
kdawson
on Tue Jul 03, 2007 08:43 PM
from the more-ways-to-hit-them-back dept.
from the more-ways-to-hit-them-back dept.
NewYorkCountryLawyer writes "An elderly, non-file-sharing grandmother from East Texas, who had been sued by the RIAA after being displaced by Hurricane Rita, has sought leave to file counterclaims against the RIAA record companies for using unlicensed investigators. In her counterclaims (PDF) Ms. Crain claims that the record companies 'entered into an agreement with a private investigations company to provide investigative services which led to the production of evidence to be used in court against counterclaim plaintiff, including the identification of an IP address on the basis of which counterclaim defendants filed their suit... [They] were at the time of this agreement aware that the aforementioned private investigations company was unlicensed to conduct investigations in the State of Texas specifically, and in other states as well... [T]hey agreed between themselves and understood that unlicensed and unlawful investigations would take place in order to provide evidence for this lawsuit, as well as thousands of others as part of a mass litigation campaign... [T]he private investigations company hired by plaintiffs engaged in one or more overt acts of unlawful private investigation... Such actions constitute civil conspiracy under Texas common law.'"
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RIAA Backs Down On "Unlicensed Investigator" 191 comments
NewYorkCountryLawyer writes "Texas grandmother Rhonda Crain got the RIAA to drop its monetary claims against her after she filed counterclaims against the record companies for using an investigator, MediaSentry, which is not licensed to conduct investigations in the State of Texas. The RIAA elected to drop its claims rather than wait for the Judge to decide the validity of Ms. Crain's charges (PDF) that the plaintiff record companies were 'aware that the... private investigations company was unlicensed to conduct investigations in the State of Texas specifically, and in other states as well... and understood that unlicensed and unlawful investigations would take place in order to provide evidence for this lawsuit, as well as thousands of others as part of a mass litigation campaign.' Similar questions about MediaSentry's unlicensed investigations were raised recently by the State Attorney General of Oregon in Arista v. Does 1-17"
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Every other day (Score:5, Interesting)
Good, but... (Score:5, Insightful)
It's the puppeteers, not the puppet, that needs to be demonized.
Re:Good, but... (Score:4, Informative)
Depends on the findings. There was a case that came up just recently where the RIAA is being accused of both federal and state RICO charges as well as quite a number of other things. While this is only a civil case, these are criminal charges. If the findings go to the plaintiff on some of the more serious charges, and were the RIAA not to reform itself, the remedies in a follow-on case from any other party could be quite severe indeed.
C//
I guess in Texas... (Score:5, Funny)
In Texas, old ladies SUE YOU!
Licensing (Score:4, Insightful)
Let's say your laptop is stolen. Let's say you had a program that reported IP addresses. Someone buys your laptop from the thief for a stupid low price and hooks it up. It reports their IP. You turn the evidence over to a cop who goes to get your laptop.
1. You were not licensed to be an investigator.
2. The program author was also not licensed.
3. The cop obtained evidence from you.
The person who bought stolen property cannot be charged with a crime. All because you didn't have a "license".
Instead, the law requiring a license should be replaced with a "suspects' bill of rights". Anyone can investigate, but if his/her rights are violated, then the evidence becomes poisoned fruit.
Re:Licensing (Score:4, Insightful)
Your analogy is flawed... (Score:5, Insightful)
What isn't legit is hiring someone without a proper license to do this professionally
on your behalf. The same thing goes for providing security services of any kind (incl.
cybersecurity...)- YOU can do it for yourself, but if you hire someone, you need to hire
someone with a license or operating the umbrella of one to make it legit if something
goes wrong.
Where your analogy falls apart is that you make the assumption that a consultant doing
the work is analogous to your doing the same work. It's not as far as the civil and
criminal laws are concerned. Since the RIAA or the Labels themselves did not have direct
hire employees doing this work, it's not the same thing as what you present- they hired
a an outside professional (or group thereof) that didn't have a Federal
license for the work being done or a Texas state PI's license. This makes it all subject
to litigation like what's now happening to them.
Civil vs. Criminal (Score:5, Insightful)
In addition to the objections others have pointed out, the situations are not analogous. Stealing your laptop is a criminal offense. Despite their propaganda, unlicensed copying of a RIAA member organization's content is a civil matter AND not theft.
Don't Mess With (Score:5, Interesting)
> [T]he private investigations company hired by plaintiffs engaged in one or more overt acts of unlawful private investigation... Such actions constitute civil conspiracy under Texas common law.
Just so. Also, as noted in the p2p article their actions "amount to extortion". If someone says "If you do/do not do X, then I will/will not do Y", that's extortion. When it's done across state lines, it's a federal offense, and none of the plaintiffs are Texas corporations.
I'm looking forward to the day someone manages to get charges filed rather than just filing suit, and someone from the MafIAA gets arrested. My money's on a state's attorney general doing it, and Texas is a very likely place for that to happen. In any case, KICK ASS, GRANNY!
Re:The RIAA is such a broken record.... (Score:4, Funny)
Jimmy
RIAA put some grannies in the ambulance ... (Score:5, Informative)
Well, her lawyer knew enough to discover this information and file this anyway...
You'll recall from an earlier article that Tanya Anderson's lawyer (in Oregon) http://www.ilrweb.com/viewILRPDFfull.asp?filename
Texas has a similar requirement for private investigators to be licensed. So THIS granny's attorney is filing a copycat countersuit. This is the second buffalo in the stampede.
I expect we'll shortly see television ads from the law offices of James Sokolove asking whether you have received a settlement request from the RIAA, which is about to be nibbled to death by ducks. B-)
Re:RIAA put some grannies in the ambulance ... (Score:4, Funny)
You'll recall from an earlier article [slashdot.org] that Tanya Anderson's lawyer (in Oregon) found a number of grounds [ilrweb.com] on which to countersue.
[...]
I expect we'll shortly see television ads from the law offices of James Sokolove [jimsokolove.com] asking whether you have received a settlement request from the RIAA [...]
Re:RIAA put some grannies in the ambulance ... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:RIAA put some grannies in the ambulance ... (Score:5, Funny)
You wouldn't say that if you were standing in front of them. 8^)
Re:Lawyers Rock (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Lawyers Rock (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Not really (Score:5, Insightful)
Lawyers aren't the real problem, and getting rid of them isn't a solution. The underlying problem is that some people are anti-social jerks who have discovered that they can get their way by bullying others. Under our current system, the jerks hire lawyers to do their bullying for them. If you eliminate the lawyers, the jerks will just find a new set of bullies to do their dirty work.
The real solution is to give ordinary, decent people a way of striking back when the bullies get on their case. Counter-suits, like the one mentioned in this article, are a good way of doing that. If everyone who was wrongly accused by the RIAA decided to launch a nasty counter-suit rather than caving in, the litigation strategy would grind to a halt- or at least focus on the worst, most obvious real offenders rather than people chosen at random.
Re:And yet... (Score:4, Funny)
Re:And yet... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:And yet... (Score:5, Informative)
Re:you GO, girl! (Score:5, Funny)
Its the little old lady who got a subpoena (Score:5, Funny)
Go granny, go granny, go granny go
She got a mean nasty letter after fleeing hurricane Rita
Go granny, go granny, go granny go
It said "Hey, we caught you downloading our garbage,
so we've hired a bunch of lawyers to sue you to Dodge!"
And everybody's saying theres nobody meaner
Than the mean nasty lawyers from the RIAAaaahhhh
They sue real fast and with no good reason
They're like "Grandmas should be in open season!"
Its the little old lady who got a subpoena...
You can see her on the stand telling the truth now
Go granny, go granny, go granny go
With her four lawyers and her bi-focal glasses now
Go granny, go granny, go granny go
"Them lousy RIAA jerks hired an investigator
who would be better occupied as my personal masturbator!"
You can see her on the stand her kickin' RIAA ass now
Go granny, go granny, go granny go
With her four salivating lawyers and her beehive hair now
Go granny, go granny, go granny go
She's gonna have an RIAA executive as her waiter
cause they cant help being evil vindicators
And everybodys saying theres nobody meaner
Than the little old lady who got a subpoena
She counter sues real fast and packs a punch
They say She's out to eat some asshole's lunch...
Its the little old lady who got a subpoena
Re:Its the little old lady who got a subpoena-D/L (Score:5, Funny)
Oops, WinMX is down.
Re:Its the little old lady who got a subpoena (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:There's no reason to hunt them all down (Score:5, Funny)
Yarr!