Class Action Complaint Against RIAA Now Online

NewYorkCountryLawyer writes "Recommended reading for all interested in the RIAA's litigation war against p2p file sharing is the amended class action complaint just filed in Oregon in Andersen v. Atlantic. This landmark 109-page document (pdf) tells both the general story of the RIAA's campaign against ordinary folks, and the specific story of its harassment of Tanya Andersen, and even of her young daughter. The complaint includes federal and state RICO claims, as well as other legal theories, and alleges that "The world's four major recording studios had devised an illegal enterprise intent on maintaining their virtually complete monopoly over the distribution of recorded music." The point has been made by one commentator that the RIAA won't be able to weasel its out of this one by simply withdrawing it; this one, they will have to answer for. If the relief requested in the complaint is granted, the RIAA's entire campaign will be shut down for good."

Well, well, well...

I for one would like to wave goodbye to our RIAA overlords.

Re:Well, well, well...

Actually, since I live in NZ, they're not our overlords yet, but we do have the RIANZ down here, who are cut from the same cloth.

In fact, here it's illegal to make any copies of music at all. Hence, until the iTMS arrived, it was a pretty good bet that almost all music on any digital devices was illegally uploaded. Law changes are proposed, and the RIANZ wants to keep the law the same, but they give their word they won't chase the little guy, but want the law to remain the same just in case.

Re:Well, well, well...

Actually, since I live in NZ, they're not our overlords yet, but we do have the RIANZ down here, who are cut from the same cloth.

In fact, here it's illegal to make any copies of music at all. Hence, until the iTMS arrived, it was a pretty good bet that almost all music on any digital devices was illegally uploaded. Law changes are proposed, and the RIANZ wants to keep the law the same, but they give their word they won't chase the little guy, but want the law to remain the same just in case.

Yup. And judging from the comments that came back from the select committee that reviewed the Copyright (New Technologies and Performers' Rights) Amendment Bill [parliament.nz] last year (I made a submission; hope you did too), there's a huge amount of resistance to changing that. The Bill, if it is ever passed, does include (at the moment) a limited exception for format-shifting audio recordings for personal use, but only audio recordings; even that has met a lot of resistance.

I guess all those videos I've got on my iPod are going to remain forever illegal, then. Politicians seem completely incapable of grasping the idea that it is just dumb to keep somehing illegal when not only is everyone doing it, but everyone is morally right to do it.

For reference, the Green Party is the only party to have opposed the DMCA-like DRM circumvention measures in the bill.

unprofessional

In June 2003, the RIAA publicly announced that it would begin a campaign that
would involve thousands of threats and sham lawsuits against individuals.

It goes on and on like this... plaintiff repeatedly referring to them as sham lawsuits, and in many cases, as above, suggesting that even the defendant acknowledged them as such.

Now don't get me wrong, I think all the lawyers representing RIAA and all principals of the record companies should be in jail (or worse). But this suit reads as inredibly amateurish to me, and if I were the judge I would get pretty irritated by being repeatedly told what to think, rather than the facts of the case.

keep reading, it gets better.

I suggest you keep reading, the best parts have references. Yes, there are about six or seven pages of introductory opinion but by the time you get to page 7 you start to get into the meat of it. They quote three disgusted Federal judges who use terms like, "gamesmenship", "speculation" and "hammer" to describe the suits. By the time you finish, terms like "sham", "illegal" and "outrageous" sound accurate.

Re:unprofessional

plaintiff repeatedly referring to them as sham lawsuits

Page 29 "These activities are a "sham" as defined by U.S. Supreme Court in California Motor Transport Co. V. Trucking Unlimited [findlaw.com], 404 U.S. 508 (1972) and subsequent cases."

"killing dolphins"

You gotta love the style the linked pdf is worderd:

1) "Killing "Dolphins" by Direct Threat and Intimidation"

The funniest thing: that's actually the RIAA's own word:

As a senior RIAA spokeswoman explained: "When you fish with a net, you are going to catch a few dolphins".

This will make for interesting reading, and has a good potential for quotations; I think we can hope some real prime-time awareness this time.

Re:"killing dolphins"

It's 'way past time we came up with an expression to represent the current situation. Perhaps, "Killing Weasels". The phrase itself could be something like, "When you're shooting rats near the henhouse, it's inevitable that you're going to hit an occasional weasel." This would cover the RIAA thugs the record companies have hired, as well as the scumbags who actually run the Big Four.

As a strong believer in animal rights, I am appalled at your defamation of weasels.

Already Slashdotted

The server saw all the nerds coming and had an emotional breakdown.

Re:This could backfire

No..., If they win.. everything will as it is right now... It can not get worse than this.

Re:This could backfire

NO! Please tell me you didn't just say "It can't get any worse."
Tell me you said something else in another language that just looks like that phrase in English.
Sigh.
Gets ready for it to get worse.

Re:This could backfire

Cant get worse?

Are their new laws making it a criminal offense to even think about IP violations? Do we have federal IP cops going door to door to inspect everyone's computer that has internet access? Do we have them stopping people on the street to look at MP3 players? Do we have mandatory 'restricted access clients' installed on our PCs that have a internet connection to monitor our traffic PRE-encrypted and our files?

Yes, it CAN get worse. ( and will if we don't get this thing derailed in time )

Re:This could backfire

No..., If they win.. everything will as it is right now... It can not get worse than this.

As a general rule that is almost infallible, there is nothing on God's Green Earth that "can't get worse." Maybe the sun exploding and wiping out the planet....that might qualify. Anything short of that, though.....

Re:This could backfire

I think the point is whether they win or lose, RIAA will have to submit to discovery [wikipedia.org], which should have the effect of uncovering all sorts of dirt about their legally questionable [p2pnet.net] methods of finding people to sue.

Re:This could backfire

They also apparently have an army of unlicensed private investigators.

It seems that their tactic was:

1)"illegally enter the hard drives of tens of thousands of private American citizens to look for music recordings stored there". That was MediaSentry's job.

2) Fill "thousands" of anonymous lawsuits, only to subpoena the ISP, and then "discover" the IPs that they already illegaly found. The lawsuit is then discarded, having served it's purpose.

3) Profit, by settling out of court, harrassing and such.

I thought I was pretty well informed on those things, and yet it's the first time I hear about that. It sheds a very new light on the fact that they often couldn't give the proofs. (What I still don't get though, is how they ended suing guys without computers.)

Re:This could backfire

What I still don't get though, is how they ended suing guys without computers.)

You're making the assumption that the RIAA's attorneys care about that. I think it's been demonstrated that their activities center around scaring people away from acquiring music illegally via the Internet, rather than recovering "damages" due to copyright infringement. Suing innocent people just makes the RIAA's lawsuit mill appear even more intimidating.

Re:This could backfire

They also apparently have an army of unlicensed private investigators. It seems that their tactic was: 1)"illegally enter the hard drives of tens of thousands of private American citizens to look for music recordings stored there". That was MediaSentry's job. 2) Fill "thousands" of anonymous lawsuits, only to subpoena the ISP, and then "discover" the IPs that they already illegaly found. The lawsuit is then discarded, having served it's purpose. 3) Profit, by settling out of court, harrassing and such. I thought I was pretty well informed on those things, and yet it's the first time I hear about that. It sheds a very new light on the fact that they often couldn't give the proofs. (What I still don't get though, is how they ended suing guys without computers.)

I wonder about that myself. If I were a judge I would have hit the RIAA's attorneys with Rule 11 sanctions, big time.

Re:This could backfire

After reading/skimming my way through all 109 pages of that, I have a question for you. I noticed many of the allegations made against the defendants look like laws with criminal punishments. Is there any chance (please say yes) that some of the people involved in this legal travesty could face prison time? Preferably somewhere with multiple large cellmates named "Bubba"?

Re:This could backfire

After reading/skimming my way through all 109 pages of that, I have a question for you. I noticed many of the allegations made against the defendants look like laws with criminal punishments. Is there any chance (please say yes) that some of the people involved in this legal travesty could face prison time? Preferably somewhere with multiple large cellmates named "Bubba"?

Yes.

For example, the Michigan Department of Labor and Economic Growth recently pointed out [blogspot.com] that
(a) MediaSentry has no license to conduct investigations in Michigan (b) MediaSentry needs a license to conduct investigations in Michigan (c) MediaSentry appears to have been conducting investigations in Michigan and (d) the penalty for conducting investigations without a license in Michigan includes up to 4 years in prison.

Re:This could backfire

Right, I was aware of the illegality of the MediaSentry investigations. I guess I had my eye on the much jucier RICO charges like racketeering that can carry up to 20 year sentences. Any chances a US Attorney could indict on those grounds even after this litigation is settled?

Sure. They'd have plenty of material to work with. In the Napster case the judge held they could no longer assert attorney-client privilege, under the 'crime-fraud exception', because they'd lied to the US Department of Justice when it was conducting its antitrust investigation of them.

Of course the Napster case was settled shortly thereafter.

Simple Mind

Music is an activity, but the problem is more important than entertainment. If people are not allowed to make and share verbatim copies of electronic media, there can be no public libraries. DRM is not an answer to your problem either. The only way to enforce your way of doing things is so deeply unAmerican that no one is going to accept it. We can not allow third party control of our computers because our computers are also our press. What you are left with is reinterpreting the copyright establishment clause of the constitution in a way that still encourages publication. The simple, American solution is 180 degrees of where you are. If someone else makes money with your work, you can demand your fair share. Everything else should be allowed. A simple system like that will be good for everyone.

Re:Simple Mind

I second this proposition. Some people would say that I'm crazy for believing that copyright, in its current form, is hurting society. I say that they're crazy for realizing that supply and demand doesn't affect digital media. Supply is infinite. The prices should then be set accordingly, right? Wrong, We're starting to approach an information overload. The amount of media that exists is growing too quickly for the market to adjust accordingly. Why are we still required to pay fifteen dollars for a CD? The actual product is not worth that much. Do I even need to mention the fact that most CDs have a small collection of good songs on them? It's not the consumer that sets the prices when it comes to copyrighted materials, it's the companies.
We currently have two majors oligopolies in this country. The members of the RIAA and the MPAA are what form these. The (please pardon this term) mafiaa are controlling and setting prices in such a way that is detrimental to the circulation of media.
It should also be mentioned that very few artists will suffer in the slightest from a situation in which music is freely distributable . I suspect that many artists would benefit from it. Especially the lesser known artists. Has anyone forgotten about concerts? These people are performers. What do performers do best besides, well, perform? I will admit that there are some artists who create in such a manner as to disallow for performances. These would be the only ones I can think of that would be damaged at all by this. Although, these ones could still find jobs in other areas. For instance, making music for various companies that require music for a particular reason. Or perhaps allow the music to be freely downloadable from an ad-based site? Even so, it would help more artists than it would hurt, in the end.
Then again, who am I to know these things? It's everyone else that has to see the world like this. So, someone give me a damn good argument. : )

Re:Simple Solution

It's easy to take the moral high ground and say, "Don't rip off music that doesn't belong to you." But it really isn't that simple because it begs the question of when does the music "belong" to us. Some of the more senior among us may have bought a favorite song as a 45 rpm record, as part of an album, as a cassette (and if we hit the timing wrong, on an 8-track tape) and then as a CD album. Do you really think we should now go out an buy another version so that we can listen to the same song as an MP3? Many of us will do that or will make an MP3 from one of the versions we already own but, as I understand it, RIAA believes that even "ripping" an MP3 from one of the many versions we've already bought is "piracy." And, the RIAA is run for the benefit of the same group of companies that are telling the composers and performers that they're not due any royalties because the company mysteriously failed to make any profit from the 4 or 5 versions that we've already purchased.

Re:I don't mind lawyers getting rich.

In this case, I think I'll be happy as long as the RIAA gets badly bruised. The only way this could turn out badly is if the class-action lawyers accept a payoff by the RIAA before discovery happens.

Well, if there were a quick settlement which included a consent decree against bringing any more of these stupid cases, and the dropping of the cases that are out there.... that would be okay with me. The main thing in my book is to stop this evil thing.

Re:'big 4' and RIAA

maybe someone with more knowledge of the law can comment on the 'burden of proof' to connect RIAA to the record labels, for the sake of punitive actions (damages and maybe even better/worse...)

It's not even an issue, it's an admitted fact that the lawsuits are being run by the record companies' front, the RIAA; the contracts with MediaSentry were signed by the RIAA.. the extortion -- I mean settlement -- checks are made payable to the RIAA client trust fund.