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RIAA Sues the Wrong Person
Cildar writes "In the 'oops' category, the RIAA was forced to withdraw its suit against a 66 year old computer neophyte (read Apple User for god's sake) when they discovered she thought 'Kazaa' was a magician playing at local kids' birthday parties. The story is as reported in the Boston Globe." Update: 09/24 15:19 GMT by T : Note, the magician crack is a joke ;)
If the RIAA can sue anyone for anything at any given time, then where would be no mix ups.
I bet the RIAA will be back with a vengeance once they "discover" that granny had a haxx0red version of Kazaa able to run on the Macintosh. After all, you can use a mac emulator.. are you free to go then?
Hm.. maybe that would be a good use for VMware or similar... "I dont even have Kazaa installed on my computer".. And your VMWare installation is ofcourse - gone...
// instant - "I for one welcome our new Decaff Coffee-Flavoured-Coffee Overlords"
Abolishing copyright would make various open source licenses unenforcable..
Trolling is a art,
> (read Apple User for god's sake)
Although a great many Apple users are not neophytes, the fact that a neophyte can run an Apple is a testament to their ease of use.
So there.
I read the article, there's no mention of this birthday party thing. Do either the submitters or the editors read the story?
If the US wasn't $$$ orientated towards its policies, the US government would have cracked down on the RIAA itself.
The RIAA is a lose cannon at the moment, it thinks it can do what it pleases, without any consequences for itself.
What takes the piss more, now that RIAA is cracking down on all these things, and with copy protected CDs - the RIAA still expects levies on CDRs etc to compensate for lost revenue. RIAA must be laughing - free money.
This is gonna become more and more frequent as the lawsuits pile up. Without having to get real warrents and go thru a real legal process, these harrassment tactacts will continue costing normal people lots of time, money and agravation.
At this point it should be made very easy for this woman to sue the RIAA, but without the resources of a large corp. it is just going to seem like an impossiable task for her. Thus the lawsuits from the RIAA will just continue with the harassment and scare tactics.
"The word "genius" isn't applicable in football. A genius is a guy like Norman Einstein," - Joe Theisman
That we know of...
Everybody dies frustrated and sad and that is beautiful
Please note, however, that we will continue our review of the issues you raised and we reserve the right to refile the complaint against Mrs. Ward if and when circumstances warrant," Colin J. Zick, the Foley Hoag lawyer, wrote
What an asswipe.
How precise are those time-stamps in the log-files?
Even with just a few seconds on and off between the different machines (those of the RIAA and the user's ISP), an IP-adress could be used by a different user (given dynamic IPs). Or not?
This is the reasoning behind checks and balances, due process and other protections provided under the Constitution.
Pre-US European governments used to be notorious for going after people without a leg to stand on. But it didn't matter. All that mattered was the witch-hunt-like frenzy. That was enough to get them hung or at least imprisoned.
That's when my good pals Hancock, Franklin, Washington, and Jefferson, along with a few other buds, got together and came up with this whole fair trial system. And that was pretty cool up until a few years ago when people really started using the internet.
Thats when, well everybody in congress, who's names are too many to mention, (and not worth mentioning considering what they did) overturned two centuries worth of a tried and true system.
And where does it get you? Sueing grandmas.
I guess those old guys really had some stuff figured out. Their system isn't really silly or outdated like some people might think.
Slashdot Syndrome: the sudden, extreme urge to correct someone in order to validate one's self.
Good answer. Someone is abusing something, so let's just scrap the whole idea altogether. Let's see how this idea applies to other things: Someone is using a computer to steal money from a bank. Abolish computers, and this won't happen ever again.
Someone is using a car to getaway from a bank robbery. Abolish cars, and this won't happen ever again.
Someone died trying to get high by sniffing carpet cleaner. Abolish carpet cleaner, and this won't happen ever again.
Twit. Just because you never had a creative idea in your life, does not mean copyright does not serve a purpose.
It hurts when I pee.
A user with a Mac, who can't even use Kazaa, and who has never shared music
... and probably will never touch the Internet again for fear of another army of lawyers barging her door down.
Use a Mac and run Kazaa in VirtualPC. When you get served. Remove VirtualPC and say: "It can't be me...Kazaa doesn't run on my Mac!"
Note that Orrin Hatch wanted to give these people rights to blow up people's computers. And how do you think the RIAA got her name from an IP in the first place? My guess is through a DMCA subpoena. This is Not Nice(TM).
If 12 year olds and people who don't even have file sharing software installed are being targeted, then the "wosrt offenders" list must be pretty big. :)
Oh, but they would be contributing back; without copyright, you can reverse engineer Wndows to you heart's delight, peop;e who work for MS could release code, etc.
the article at the parent of this post says it all. "Once the industry determined a downloaded song file was a copyright work, they issued subpoenas to Internet access providers to find out who was behind the account used to log onto the file-sharing network." So some kid gets a list of an isps logins and passwords. He or she then proceeds to download via kazaa. You (the owner of the account at the isp) get sued for this 'hackers'? actions. Yay for RIAA being totally clueless.
The RIAA withdrew its complaint (while reserving the right to refile. Nice guys).
Of course they'll reserve their right to refile. What if they find out tomorrow that they just got fed a line of bullshit, and the ladies been running Kazaa under virtual PC.
I dont agree with the lawsuits but it makes perfect sense.
To continue your analogy, I sue you for breaking my window, you come and tell me "hey, I couldnt have done it because I throw like a girl because of my carpal tunnel syndrome". I say OK and drop the suit. A week later I see you as the starting pitcher for your companies baseball team, so hell yeah I'd refile if I found out you're lying.
I don't need no instructions to know how to rock!!!!
I've been thinking about these RIAA suits, and have realized that not only are morally reprehensible misplacements of blame, but they are legally unjustifiable when looked the suits are looked at as a whole.
The suits claim damages of $150,000 per song. If one music company stole a song from another company, and published it separately, this may be a reasonable claim. The RIAA could claim maybe $150,000 TOTAL lost sales, plus whatever was made by the infringing company.
The problem is, they are holding EVERY FILESHARER liable for the entire amount of lost sales. This isn't just double-dipping on their damages, this is n-dipping. I can imagine that the company might lose $150,000 in total sales of a single song, but if only 1000 people shared the song (an extremely conservative number, probably only relevant for unpopular songs), their claims in total are $150 million in lost sales per song, which is just ludicrous.
This absolutely reeks of the record companies trying to capitalize on filesharing and count each share as a purchase. If the judges awarded the RIAA what they are asking for across the board, they stand to make orders of magnitude more money than they could ever dream of by their own devices. This puts huge questions on their claims of mitigating their damages - they allowed filesharing to go on for many years before starting lawsuits... to build up their claims of lost sales??
-3Suns
~~~~
The Revolution will be Slashdotted
Elitist bastard. I don't like Ms. Spears (and her "ilk"), but a lot of people do. To you they are tasteless morons, but they like what they like. Who the hell are you to tell them they can't?
Stupid sexy Flanders.
Nice write-up, I like how you managed to make up the bit about the children's magician, slip a nice anti-Mac troll in the middle there, and still make the front page. That takes skill. Now if only you could have shoe-horned the phrase "M$" in there somewhere.
As for this being yet another PR disaster; the RIAA knows almost everything they do these days is going to be a PR disaster. They simply do not care:
Clearly, record companies and the RIAA had some concerns about backlash before going into this. Certainly the story about the 12-year-old in public housing who was sued hit the headlines fast and hard. Are you at all concerned about public relations backlash?
We knew that this was not going to be a good PR experience from the get-go. But the (record) companies were of the view that this was something we had to do without regard to the PR implications. If PR were the dominant consideration, we would not have taken these actions, and the problem would be continuing unabated, and people would not be thinking twice about the legality of what they're doing. If bad PR is the price, it's a relatively small one compared to the size of the problem.
The Electronic Frontier Foundation has counseled about 30 of the 261 people sued, Cohn said, adding that some have settled for fear of spending too much money fighting powerful corporations.
Isn't that the crutch of the matter? It really doesn't matter if what they are doing is right or wrong, as long as they have the money to take it to court and the people they are sueing do not, this will always be the case. What would really be nice would be for some noble rich person to start a trust fund for RIAA 'victems' to help pay for their legal battle if they so wish to fight this in the courts.
Otherwise this will just continue. Let's face it, as fair or unfair as the RIAA may be, most people aren't going to stop buying cds because of this; IMO, most people will just say 'oh that's too bad' like they did with the 12-year old girl and then go out and do what they normally do, if that includes buying a cd than so be it.
The only way to stop such practices is to
a) Educate the masses
or
b) Fight this in court
Both take money unfortunately...
Actually, that's exactly what they were doing for almost a decade. Sitting on their asses, slowing down technology so that they could milk the market for overpriced, price-fixed, CD's. Napster was written in 1999. Here it's 2003, and the Big-5 have been spouting that they've "been working on" an online version themselves. Not true. No one in a competitive marketplace would take that long to evolve.
Why are there only 19 people folding@home for slashdot?
It seems to me that if someone could demonstrate how to use a common P2P client like Bearshare or and make it look like someone else was using it, it would throw out RIAA's entire case. If I could share my files through my computer, but make it look like it was you doing it, your defense would be "I was hijacked", but I don't know by who. If you could claim that you were hijacked, suddenly everyone else could claim that too. Presto! No case against anyone! They could no longer prove that an IP address is really associated with a particular Verizon (Comcast, Road Runner, etc.) customer. Reasonable doubt could prevail.
Cryptonomicon.Net is running a story RIAA Sues Wrong Person and asks the question... "What if I have an insecured Wi-Fi network in my house?" How will the RIAA prove that it wasn't a roving war-driver who connected to my network explictly for the purpose of downloading music? Will they have to? What if they get a forensics guy out to the house with a copy of AirSnort and find that they guy next door has a WiFi network, but his client attaches to my network half the time? Would they then sue everyone on the block?
Sure.
But I'll expand my anaolgy using your own example.
What if your window got broken during a Little League baseball game and you weren't really sure who broke it or who is really legally responsible, so you filed suits against all the players and coaches individually?
Only you didn't know all of their names and culled them from newspaper articles.
One of these names turns out to be a 66 year old who was just mentioned in an article incidentally, wasn't there, doesn't have any grandkids and doesn't even like baseball.
It wouldn't be unreasonable, even for a lawyer, to do a quick check of her story through publicly accessable means, then send her a letter saying, "Ooops, sorry," and then procede with the other 260 cases you have pending.
Especially since actually hauling a 66 year old in front of a judge claiming she's a Little League player who broke your window, with all the pissed of townspeople there watching, could be highly embaressing and prejudice your other cases.
KFG
Ummmm... what are you talking about? He quite clearly attacked your idea through a series of broadened applications. Simply because YOU focused on him saying "twit" is another indication of your short-sightedness. You did not comprehend the post for its whole meaning, as your "abolish it" argument does not comprehend the ramifications when it is applied to all other situations.
It's interesting how you decided to quail about being attacked personally (I assume to try and discredit the argument), but you did not offer anything to bolster your original statement, or counter the argument presented. How is that any different from you performing the same type of personal attack? And if you feel he should be discredited for such action, shouldn't you be as well?
Claims of personal attacks aside, you still have not offered anything. Exactly which side is "indefensible" again?
...Let the next mistaken target be a Senator's son/daughter.
"Please note, however, that we will continue our review of the issues you raised and we reserve the right to refile the complaint against Mrs. Ward if and when circumstances warrant," Colin J. Zick, the Foley Hoag lawyer, wrote to Beeler.
Huh? This is equivalent to saying "Sorry I pushed you down the stairs, but I reserve the right to do it again!"
This is complete and utter lack of respect to Beeler, but tells you alot of what it thinks of its own customers!
If there were no copyright, the whole business model of limiting each copy is gone. One reason source is closed is because revealing it would negate any copy protection. I have no problem with the GPL because it uses copyright to introduce the mindset that information should be shared. Once copyright is abolished, it's no longer needed and has done its job.
-Libertarian secular transhumanist
But if the RIAA pressed for criminal charges, where applicable, it'd actually be for a crime and handled by the criminal justice system. As is, they can just threaten someone with a multi-thousand dollar demand, or an expensive civil defense, and people pretty much have to give in or go bankrupt. Unless of course, they're photogenic like a 12-year old or a grandmother.
The whole problem with the US court system is that you can bankrupt someone with a frivolous lawsuit and just because you withdraw it at the end they can't get an injunction to keep you from doing it again.
If she really is a computer neophyte, do you truly believe she has a Wi-Fi setup? I'm not very Mac aware; do they come with Wi-Fi out of the box or something, waiting to be sniffed? I doubt it.
$#!^ happens, but why does it always have to happen to me???
Score: -1, Misinformed.
The GPL is not an anti-copyright. You do not have to share anything in order to use GPL software. If you got rid of copyright laws, the GPL would lack any force as it depends on copyright law in order to obligate "downstream" distributors of binary package to make the source code available. Three strikes. You're out.
In fact, while some of us might oppose copyright laws, the fact that they exist and give force to licenses like the GPL is a great boon to Free Software. Without them, anyone could simply compile the code from a Free Software package and sell it as a binary only package. It is not likely, in a free market unburdened by copyright, that this would be a very profitable strategy, because any one of us would then be free to give away copies of those binaries. But even so, at the end of the day, obtaining actual source code would be more problematic than it is now. It is quite possible that programmers would be more inclined to keep their source code secret because it would be the source code that would be of incredible value, not the binaries themselves.
I have come full circle on this issue myself. It seems to me that the best copyright/patent rules are those favored by the Founders. Short terms with plenty of requirements on the part of the copyright seeker to obtain and maintain. This allows inventors, writers, musicians, artists, programmers and others a short time to monopolize their work, but makes it more likely that they will only be able to do so during the key initial period after the idea is first implemented or the work published.
I do not have a signature
The lawsuite will be quitely withdrawn and none of us will ever hear about it
karma : former act as leading to inevitable results
Thats not the way our system works. The civil system is seperate from the criminal system. The police, in general, investige criminal charges.
OJ Simpson was found innocent of the criminal charges of murder leveled against him, but he was still sued successfully in civil court. Likewise, many of the crooks on Wall Street are being pursued in civil court, because, in many cases, there isn't enough evidence, or even a legal framework, for a criminal conviction.
Product liability suits are also civil suits. There are no "convicted felons" being sued.
If we change the system so that you can only sue in civil court someone who is convicted criminally, then you will see major corporations will get to act with more inpunity than ever before.
Sarcasm and hyperbole are the final refuges for weak minds
OJ Simpson was found innocent of the criminal charges of murder leveled against him, but he was still sued successfully in civil court.
Notice that the civil suit was AFTER the criminal one? The state gets first dibs on felons. If he had been convicted, then proving culpability in the civil case would've been a slam dunk.
there isn't enough evidence
The police are quite good at collecting evidence. In most of the RIAA music-trading lawsuits that have been filed so far, it would've been possible to assemble enough evidence for a criminal conviction ("Beyond reasonable doubt"). If the plaintiff could reach the 51% margin of guilt needed to win a civil suit, then handing that evidence to the police would've brought them to the the even lower degree of proof needed to get a search warrant. Then they could kick in doors, seize hard drives, and do whatever else is needed to build an ironclad case.
The chance of any nonprofessional infringer managing to wipe her hard drive before the police cut power is minimal. And computer-forensics can recover stuff like that. A hard drive full of 3000 MP3s, with no sign of owning the CDs, and corraborating records of P2P transfers made by the defendant... that's more than enough to convict someone. The evidence is there, if the cops are interested in grabbing it.
If we change the system so that you can only sue in civil court someone who is convicted criminally,
I'm not talking about all the non-crime, non-felony things lawsuits can be based on. I'm saying that if something is clearly a crime (as the RIAA claims), then the police should be eager to arrest someone. Or at least make an investigation. Instead, they only care about commercial infringement.
And let's look at it from the PR aspect. Who does the (flag-waving, Bush-voting, PATRIOT-supporting) US Citizen trust more? The government, or a corporate consortium? More importantly, who do they fear more? If they could get a half-dozen P2P sharers dragged to jail in handcuffs, it would do wonders for the chilling-effect.
I'm fairly sure that would result in an "obstructing justice" charge against the ISP.
"I'm not impatient. I just hate waiting." - My Dad