RIAA Grabs Student's Life's Savings

An anonymous reader writes "ABCNews is reporting on a 19-year-old college student at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in Troy, N.Y. He created a site named ChewPlastic.com where students could search for files on the university network. Mind you, this is not a music file sharing software, this is just a search engine. Presumably, the search engine was being used to search for music files as well. The folks over at the RIAA did not take too kindly to the idea, and sued the student. He settled but denies any wrongdoing. What was settlement, you ask? His life's savings."

Comments

Umm....

[mhore]

"They agreed to allow Jesse to deny their allegations. They agreed to dismiss the case and all allegations against him," Andy said. "Basically they agreed that he didn't do anything wrong, but [they're] taking his 12 grand."

Anybody else find something wrong with that quote? His father is quite right -- by allowing him to deny all charges, they're basically saying he didn't do anything wrong...yet they take his $12,000.

Mike.

Re:Umm....

[SirSlud]

or barratry:

barÂraÂtry Audio pronunciation of barratry ( P ) Pronunciation Key (br-tr)
n. pl. barÂraÂtries

1. The offense of persistently instigating lawsuits, typically groundless ones.
2. An unlawful breach of duty on the part of a ship's master or crew resulting in injury to the ship's owner.
3. Sale or purchase of positions in church or state.

Barratry is simply the judicial version of extortion. Ie, "Can't afford to fight? Whew, our accusations were groundless anyhow. That'll be 12,000$ please."

Dear RIAA,

[SuperDuG]

I would like to formally invite you to litigate me. I believe that you are full of shit and I believe that I can be a "hero to the hacker world" such as Dimitry and Kevin have been. I want to spend years in court with you spewing out techincal jargon and confusing grand juries and judges alike. I want to appeal all the way to the supreme court to make the entire world realize what a sham you really are.

If you could please send the proper paper work we can get started ASAP. The bully only stays a bully so long, then someone comes along and beats the ever living shit out of that bully and makes them realize that they aren't allowed to be a bully any longer.

Bring it, I'm tired of you picking on all my peers and I'm ready to kick your ass. Remember when you take me to court, IT ALL COMES ON THE TABLE, and I'll subpoena everything!!!

Grand Strategy?

[Chaltek]

My first reaction to the story was to wish someone had referred Jesse and his father to the EFF instead of letting the RIAA bully them into a settlement.

Upon futher reflection though, perhaps the Jordans have made a huge personal sacrifice as part of a very strategic move against the RIAA. IF, and it's a big if, the facts of the case do make it out to the public (i.e. that he was just making a search engine for the campus network, which has plenty of legitimate uses) this may be the match lighting the fuse of a popular boycott of the RIAA.

Maybe not, but whether the plan works or not, we should all donate a bit and help Jesse get his life savings back. (12000 /.'ers X $1 each)

~Kirk

RIAA honeypots, would that work?

[gylle]

Perhaps it is because I've been reading too much of slashdot, but it seems these RIAA folks can be to netizens what military police have been to citizens in fascist dictatorships. In the OSS movement you ofter hear that "Don't whine, show me the code". Well, what about the following idea: RIAA honeypots.

1. Do a couple of something like: dd if=/dev/zero of=LOTR.Two.Towers.Complete.dvdrip.divx.avi
2. Make a webpage with links to your fake warez and post it to search engines.
3. Repeat the previous with different variations
4. Wait for your ISP or the RIAA to contact you.
5. Reply with a polite and legally correct letter asking for proof that you have infringed on someones copyright... This letter could be prepared by someone from the filesharing community who has studied law. Please someone fill in the details here
6. Goto 1.

IANAL, would this work? A couple hundred thousand of these fake cases could perhaps force the RIAA to go after the real bad guys -- the ones that make pirating a business.

I will if a candidate agrees with me!

[Schezar]

The biggest problem I've had is that no candidate supports my position. If I disagree with everyone, who the FSCK should I vote for? The lesser of several evils?

I'd run myself, but even disregarding the money issues I'd have, there are minimum ages for members of Congress...

Show me a candidate who represents me, and I'll vote for him.

Re:What's next?

[SirSlud]

>Why didn't university help him?

Or, to put it another way, "Just how much of a typical university's operating budget is comprised of funds from corperate sources?"

I wonder if universities are becoming less and less 'able' to help bite the hands that feed them. There've certainly been a number of high profile cases in the past 15 years where students have run afoul of corperate wishes, and the university has sided with the corperation out of contractual neccessity.

Re:Sums It Up

[Hrothgar The Great]

I disagree. A good defense attorney would be able to get the case dismissed if the RIAA failed to go anywhere with it in a reasonable amount of time. $12,000 should have been plenty of money for what in reality is a very, very simple case with little evidence to present and so forth. This isn't Congress - the RIAA can't just indefinitely filibuster.

In the event that the court found in the kid's favor, it is likely he could have countersued, FOR FREE, if some lawyer decided they had a good chance of reaching into the RIAA's deep pockets. The lawyer's fees would come out of the RIAA's settlement.

The way they handled this is completely stupid, in my opinion.