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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 ;)
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.
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
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
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.
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.
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.
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
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.
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