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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 ;)
Naaa, law are needed, it's the evil mega huge companies power we should get rid of.
Karma: The shiznight, mostly because I am the Drizzle.
This whole thing is turning out to be like a war. The RIAA war machine goes and attacks indiscriminately. It gets bad guys and the good guys. Wonder if they'll also spin it as - It's ok if we get some good guys. Since they're good, God will take them to a better place.
While I agree that copyright and other forms of IP law need some serious revision/balancing, I think the the total abolishment of copyright may be going about 10 steps too far, at least at this point. Such a step would require some major economic modification, and I know that the U.S. at least isn't ready for such a change (I don't live anywhere else, so I can't say anything even mildly authoritative about elsewhere). Abolish anti-murder laws, reduce lifetime-incarceration of innocents! (Yeah, I know, worthless analogy, but hey, I just got to work).
The judge did dismiss the suit against the Mac user, but would not dismiss it with prejudice (which would have prevented further litigation against her).
The attorneys for the RIAA still plan to investigate her: "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"
A user with a Mac, who can't even use Kazaa, and who has never shared music. Now that's obstinance for you.
William
When you're not looking, this sig is in Latin.
Doesn't this put a big fat hole in their main source of information? How many of these need to happen before practices are questioned, and lawsuits start getting dropped? Maybe there is light at the end of the tunnel for these people...
I honestly feel bad for people who have already given in, but I can't say I really blame them with the "go for the jugular" tactics the RIAA is using.
I'm so glad to be Canadian now, more than ever. I can't imagine a company anywhere else in the world with so much power that they can force an ISP to divulge personal information about their users just because they said so. I mean. Now they've got the address and name of a user that didn't do anything wrong. Can Mrs. Ward sue someone?! Invasion of privacy?! No? I'm probably the furthest possible thing from a lawyer so I wouldn't know, but if that happened to me, I'd be a little more then ticked.
AirSpeak - http://itunes.com/apps/AirSpeak
So there's your defense, p2p users! Get a used G3 or G4 on eBay, run VPC with Win98, and use p2p all you want.
~Philly
Oh copyright laws is one thing, being able to dodge the law and jump headfirst into a subpoena without the old checks & balances is something else entirely.
Imagine if it were taken one step further, and like the "Microsoft Tax" where a machine sold without an OS still gives MS $$ for the license on the presumption a pirated Windows will be installed on it, imagine if the RIAA were free to just bill people for the songs they'd "alleged" they'd traded
get a wrong IP, pick this 66 year old user, and they suddenly have a bill for the 2,000 songs they've shared out.
So they don't pay as it's nothing to do with them, and *bang* their credit rating is down the tubes.
THAT isn't far off
Mattel/MSI was using Foley Hoag to go after me. I didn't deal with Zick, but with Rosen. Rosen was not too bad of a scumbag, only a small amount of a slime-bag. It is not as bag as the pure scum at Schwartz-Nystrom.
Fight Spammers!
This is the best arguement yet for an alternative computing solution, such as Linux, MacOS X or MorphOS. The RIAA's anti-Kazaa suits can't attack you, since you are unable to run Kazaa. It's like when my step-brother was arrested for drunk driving when he wasn't in a car. (the cops saw a drunk driver, persued, lost them, then found my step-bro passed out on a bench next to a car that looked similar)
Karma Whoring for Fun and Profit.
Nope, but it just goes to show that the RIAA is using very sloppy methods in their whore-mongering crusade to harvest as much money from the masses as they are "legally" able to. I find very little difference between the RIAA and SCO in this respect.
So yeah, we screwed the pooch - but we might be back anyway!
On the one hand, I think that the RIAA has a legitimate issue with P2P services sharing their music.
Does that mean that I support the lawsuits? No - I think it's a civil end run around legitimate search and seizure. If I was the RIAA would I be using the lawsuits? No.
Personally, I'd take all the millions in lawyer fees and do something useful, like promote the iTunes Music Store, or pressure Sony and Buymusic.com to not suck more ass than a freshman prison inmate. I'd set up legitimate music downloading services based on Janis Ian's model, where all songs warehoused could be purchased for $1, or an album for $10. I'd set up 128 bit MP3's for $1, have 192 bit for maybe $1.25 - $1.50. Of that, 50% of the profit would go to the artist, 50% to the publisher. Note the word "profit" - it is assumed that the publishers would be taking a fair (bwahahaha - oh, sorry, I almost said that with a straight face) cut based on how much it costs a song to be stored in a central server and bandwidth costs (and that price should not go above $0.50 per song).
It should also be set up like Peanutpress.com, where once you buy a song, you can go back and download it again whenever you want, or can have it streamed wherever you are. (Since songs are much larger than eBooks usually, though, I can see some sort of minor "storage fee", like $0.01 per song per month - it should be your responsibility to back up your own stuff.)
And a quick note for the "$1 per song is too much", I'm sorry if you take this personally, but fuck you. $1 is perfectly legit for a song, $10 for a music album. If you're too damn cheap to pay any price at all for music, at least have the decency not to claim that the cost is too much. Just come out and say "I can't afford $1 after buying my $300 iPod!"
Then, and only then, if people were "sharing songs", then you could sue them, and I would feel you had done your due diligence in serving your customers and could have a solid leg to stand on for the lawsuits.
52 Weeks, 52 Religions with John Hummel
"I dont even have Kazaa installed on my computer"..
A more probable cause is someone used a net sniffing program and changed their IP address hi-jacking her assigned address to protect their identity. On a cable system, it's not too hard to do. It's also possible she has a laptop and has a wide open Wi-Fi. One of her neighbors could have borrowed her connection protected by NAT. I'm sure there will be investigations into this. If I was the wireless neighbor and saw this in the news, I would be ditching all my wireless gear about now and changing out my hard drive.
The truth shall set you free!
Knowingly responding to a subpeona with false information would get them so deep in shit their great grandchildren would be shovelling, so no, I doubt it.
Regardless of whether you or I approve of the way the subpeona's are, it's still a legal order.
Most likely the RIAAs timestamps were off. Comcast uses DHCP, the lease times aren't all that long, a few months or so. My IP has changed three times in the year I've been with them.
This isn't as big a deal as slashbots make it out to be, and won't change their strategy, and doesn't make it safe to put your Eminem collection back online.
I don't need no instructions to know how to rock!!!!
Maybe this little old lady had an open wireless network.
She pays her h4x0r neighbor kid to install her new Airport Extreme network, the kid opens it up and with the money she gives him he buys a cheap wireless card.
Bingo Bango! All the free music he wants.
ender-iii
>Someone died trying to get high by sniffing carpet
>cleaner. Abolish carpet cleaner, and this won't
>happen ever again.
Unfortunately, this is the idea many have within the US. They think that because someone was stupid enough to use a product outside its intended use, it is the manufacturer's problem - NOT the idiot with the carpet cleaner fedish.
Think I'm wrong? Pick an industry, any industry. They all have exoberant regulations on them because the US is a nation that fears personal harm but runs in horror from personal responsibility. Freedom gives the right for a person to be an idiot. But why should another's personal freedoms be limited because of another's abuse of that freedom. All are free or none are free.
I think my favorite example of this is a novel breast cancer detection tool. It was an rubber bladder filled with liquid. In the US, the product didn't get FDA approval - so it couldn't be sold. However, every doctor I have ever talked to says that the best detection is self-examination. How? Soap and water in the shower. So along comes a product (that in clinical trials actually detected lumps BETTER than soap and water) that could improve early detection. Let's regulate the crap out of it. Oh, by the way. This was a small company. I wonder if this had been a big medical corporation. Would the product still be mothballed?
People should be held accountable for their actions. This new idea that government has to protect us from ourselves is Orwelling. It is dangerous and thins the gene pool. (Maybe it's time for human kind to keel over and let the dolphins rule the world.)
Yeah I know.
I tried to submit a story the other day about a new type of alcohol powered battery that can last up to three times as long as current NI-MH batteries.
It would be a god-send for laptops and handhelds of all types, but it doesn't seem like it is one of the "flavors" they want in their "omelette".
The most important of which is (was) limits on the scope of government. Only by overturning these limits have we arrived at the system we have today: an overly complex, ambiguous, highly exploitable web of nonsense laws.
I think the RIAA should be forced to prove that someone *does not have a license* to digital music. I no longer have my "Frampton Comes Alive" album that I bought in the 7th grade, but I paid for it at one time. After all, I bought a license to the music, not an "album" or "cd"..that was only the delivery medium, right? So, if I scratch my new CD, I should be able to mail it to the record company and get a new one at the cost of manufacturing that replacement CD? Obviously, none of this is true in the real world and isn't likely to happen anyway. In fact, I don't want the RIAA (or anyone else) keeping track of my music purchases anyway. So why don't we get off of the concept of "licensing" a single work and just have someone (RIAA or whomever) charge us $20 a year that includes a license to all music produced. $20 a year from everyone is a nice revenue stream and would keep artists compensated fairly..the artists would make their extra millions on tours/t-shirts/endorsements anyway.
Does earthstation 5 and the new kazaa lite protect your identity very well ?
As the article makes plainly visible, your primary defense in a lawsuit with the RIAA/MPAA should be "prove that was me". The RIAA may have an IP address and know that address is reserved by an ISP, but connecting the time stamps, accesses, and logs may well be impossible. The human error component is very large - numbers maybe transposed, time stamps may be incorrect, etc. just make the process filled with potential for error. Considering the amount of money the RIAA is requesting ($150,000 per song), any amount of potential error is intolerable.
>Knowingly responding to a subpeona with false information would get them so deep in shit their great grandchildren would be shovelling
Says who? The subpoenad information is addressed to the plaintiff, not the court, so it's not perjury. Remember, the RIAA don't swear to the truth of their claims, they just argue their validityy in court. I doubt that a third party can be held to a higher standard.
Any actual lawyers want to chime in on this one?
If you were blocking sigs, you wouldn't have to read this.
All my Mac-loving friends say running KazaA is the #1 reason to buy VirtualPC! I like the VMWare idea too, you could even keep your warez within the VM Disk, so at the touch of a button you no longer run KazaA or have any MP3s, ka-ching!
#include <sig.h>
Since RIAA reserved the right to file suit against her again, what happens if they do (or if others use the "I own a Mac, I couldn't possibly be using Kazaa" defense)? If she truly owns a Mac, then she couldn't possibly have installed Kazaa. If I don't own a Mac but claim I do, is the burden of proof on me to prove I own a Mac, or on RIAA to prove I don't?
If the burden of proof is on the RIAA, then what can they do without a true warrant to search my home? That would go well beyond the powers granted to them by the DMCA and would require law enforcement intervention. There's no way to say "we know you don't own a Mac" without coming into my home to prove it.
If the burden of proof is on me, couldn't I just borrow a Mac or a receipt of a friend's Mac (assuming I was lying) to prove I do, in fact, own a Mac? Since RIAA can't come storming into your house (yet...), this seems like it would be more than satisfactory to meet a civil suit requirement for dismissal doesn't it...?
I hope this is a viable idea, and everyone uses it to stick it to the RIAA.
"The market alone cannot provide sufficient constraints on corporation's penchant to cause harm." -- Joel Bakan
If she's got no kids living with her I'll bet she's got some form of broadband and an unsecure wireless router. Someone has been accessing it to share files, knowing they couldn't be tracked. If I had broadband and I lived in an apartment building and I was dumb enough not to secure my wireless router, that'd be my defense.
Happy goldfish bowl to you.
Why change out your hard drive? Just make sure each sector is zeroed out in its entirety so that the empty space in allocation units is wiped, then reinstall.
;-)
Would look too much like a cover-up with old drive/new install. Easier to claim the HD fried so you replaced the dinky drive with a bigger new drive. The old drive is in the landfill. For charges of the cost of my house per song, ditching the old drive and all wireless gear is very cheap insurance.
Time for full disclosure.. I'm still on dial-up and don't own any wireless gear. DSL is still not avaliable and the cable tax for not having a TV subscription makes the cable too expensive. Slashdot without extensive graphics works fine on dial-up. Not running Kazza or other sharing program except e-mail which can send attachments. I run a LAN but it's all hardwire. I put it in before wireless. It's Cat5. The coax was replaced.
The truth shall set you free!
So now this woman has to pay her lawyers to defend herself, right? She was wrongly accused, in fact did absolutely nothing wrong, yet she is still forced to pay fees? And countersuing for legal costs is such a pain that it's not even worth it. If she did win against the deep-pocketed RIAA lawyers, it would still be a headache and tons of time.
That sucks.
"I either want less corruption, or more chance
to participate in it." -- Ashleigh Brilliant
It does make you wonder how accurate their process for identifying these people is tho. I would guess that the odds of simply selecting a COMCAST provided IP at random and hitting a person with P2P on their machine is pretty high. If you were wrong you just say, "Oops,I'm sorry, but you have to expect some mistakes," and move on to the next.
The whole thing seems pretty fishy. Or rather, it seems like a fishing expedition. Just like the "Step up and we'll forgive you" schpiel they were handing out a few weeks ago.
Or the article for that matter?
Heck, here is a perfect way for all the ISP's to make this RIAA lawsuit crap go away : when they come asking 'Who has IP address 192.168.2.105 so we can sue them ?!?' just give them bogus replies, pick a customer at random (even better, give them a customer at random that moves less than 100M a month, pretty much insuring it ISN'T a P2P trader.) It will only take about 5 of these in a row before the common public totally freaks out over this witch hunt and says ENOUGH!
Can I copywrite or patent that idea?
Glonoinha the MebiByte Slayer
Malicious Prosecution.
They will apologize only when the court orders them to apologize. Anyone in these same circumstances should countersue, or in this case file a new complaint. Causes of action would be chiefly malicious prosecution, but also illegal business practices, wiretap violations, infringement of privacy, etc.
After all, they have no reason to have her personal information on file. If they choose not to do the right thing then they should themselves be compelled in the courts to do the right thing.
It's not fun to be sued needlessly (exactly this case) for little reason except a large publicity campaign (exactly this case) and to rack up needless legal bills (exactly this case). At least, they should pay her fucking legal bills.
from the Politech mailing list ...
I do believe, although I am not 100% sure, that the Foley Hoag attorney,
Colin J. Zick, who magnanimously (tongue firmly in cheek) withdrew the
lawsuit he filed against sculptor and computer neophyte Sarah Seabury Ward
"without prejudice" to refilling is the same Colin Zick who lives at
[DELETED] Sentry Hill Place, Boston Massachusetts 02114 and whose telephone
number is (617) 723-7329. But I could be wrong. But that's okay. Some
politecher might want to sue him anyway in any court in the United States
for anything that he might have done to them, although you're not sure
whether it was him that did it to you or whether any civil violation of
your rights occurred at all. Maybe then he might appreciate that hauling
someone into court and seeking millions of dollars in damages is not very
fun when you are the person wrongly sued and that the methodology by which
RIAA is determining who to sue is flawed. My only question is whether Ms.
Ward's attorney made a motion seeking Rule 11 sanctions against the
plaintiff and its attorney for commencing suit in federal court with no
basis whatsoever in fact.
P.S. I recognize that you may not post this as it contains personally
identifiable information about Mr. Zick and that usually it is not very
cool posting such information to the Internet. However, its not very cool
to sue someone when you do not have your facts straight. So edit it as you
wish if you deem it worthy as fair comment on this situation.
TJH
_______________________________________________
Politech mailing list
So, who's reimbursing this victim of Sony Music, BMG, Virgin, Interscope, Atlantic, Warner Brothers, and Arista's (let's call them by name, not allow them to hide behind the "RIAA" shield) misguided attack the $1000 or so it took to hire a lawyer to file a response?
"Freedom means freedom for everybody" -- Dick Cheney
First question:
What if you are walking down to the local coffee shop and you hop on their "legally free and open" hotspot. You then proceed to share and dload tons of copy righted music. When the IP is traced it will go to that coffee shop, not to you. How do they find you? I assume they can't, unless your there and they are lookign for you at that time and see Kazaa open on your screen for some reason.
Question 2
What if you have a AP at your house that you leave open for your neighbors and friends to use and one of them is sharing files? The IP gets traced to you right, so are you responsible for their actions if you had no knowledge that they would or were doing that?
Inquireing minds want to know
Ave Molech Setting