RIAA Not Done With Jesse Jordan

digime writes "In a recent Slashdot article it was reported that 19-year-old college student Jesse Jordan gave up his life savings to the RIAA for running a campus search engine. He has recovered over 83% of his savings lost to the RIAA, and his search engine is back up. "The RIAA started yelling and tried to rescind my order of dismissal after they signed it because of comments that I made on CNN.", Jordan says on his site. "A very well-known top lawyer at the RIAA, while making threats of further legal actions, referred to himself as a 'dentist' that I would not want to 'have another visit with'"

Comments

The RIAA are legal terrorists

[Tuxinatorium]

These are the folks who ashcroft should be worrying about.

Where's teh EFF ?

[Anonymous Coward]

This seems right up their alley... this kid was running a general purpose search engine. It indexes everything it finds. It returns results. He made no money off of it. He was intimidated into settling, pure and simple.

Can I run a search engine now? Exactly HOW are google and alta vista immune from similar suits? Simple -- they can pay lawyers who could kick the crap out of the RIAA.

It's a travesty of justice. I wish one of the multi-letter organizations would help this guy.

Re:It is time for a major BOYCOTT

[jeffasselin]

Yes, a boycott. That way, RIAA sales will go even further down, and they'll continue to blame piracy

"See it's rampant, and increasing, our sales are even lower than they were! We must have the right to destroy those evil pirates' computers"

Which will not help at all until EVERYONE gets in, and that won't happen very soon. And we still need to enjoy music, and some mainstream music is good, it's just that most of it is so identical to the last one out.

The real problem is the power of corporate america, how they can bully through legal system, how they can bully politicians and buy laws in their favor, how it takes a superhuman effort from the populace to defeat such lawsuits or stop such laws from being passed. Congressmen do not really bother listening to their own constituents (as they understand their re-election is more dependent on the cash they get from corporations than on the votes of the people they're supposed to represent), and it takes a LOT of noise to make them do so.

So you either need changes in the legal and electoral system, or you need changes in the rights of corporations. Take your pick. I'd go for some of all three. One, it's forbidden for one party to spend more on defense than the other party can afford, unless you agree to pay for both defenses upfront and cannot get it back later. THAT would deter frivolous lawsuits. Two, No more soft money and contributions are limited in proportion to the number of people living in the area, and donations from a single person is also severely limited. A corporation cannot give more than a single individual could. Three, corporations cannot bring lawsuits against individuals with whom they do not have a business relationship without prior approval from a judge.