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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 ;)
Serves them right, those RIAA bastards. They weren't counting on our secret weapon - the clueless user!
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"
check out cnn article on this http://www.cnn.com/2003/TECH/biztech/09/24/kazaa.s ues.ap/index.html
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.
Anyone know how much this magician charges for childrens parties...?
And does anyone know where I can download David Blaine, the popular P2P filesharing program?
I have no sig yet I must scream.
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.
That's super funny; only one problem. It doesn't seem to mention the magician thing anywhere in the linked article.
I'm generally "Interesting," "Insightful," and even "Funny" here. What the hell happens to me at parties?
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.
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
obviously Kazaa waved his(?) wand and disapeared...
"Oops sorry, the DHCP must have reassigned that address,we THOUGHT it was the one you wanted...Sorry."
This would let their customers still enjoy what they initially signed up for (filesharing, you've seen the adds, etc.)
..........FULL STOP.
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
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.
First the 12 year old and now this. I wonder what the third strike will be? Perhaps someone inside the RIAA? That'll be a PR disater.
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.
In 3 years, Microsoft's business model will switch exclusively to the SCO business model.
Since they won't be able to sell their product because it takes them too long to develop them and the quality is barely acceptable in most cases, they'll just start sueing any company that did any work based on MS technologies (Novell/Ximian), any company that cloned the looks of windows (Lindows/Lycoris/Xandros), but also any user who ever used any pirated copy of any MS software (about 80% of the planet).
As you can see, we shouldn't be too worried about the future of Microsoft as a business entity.
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. :)
However, for some of us, the whole purpose of open source licenses is as a weapon against copyright. RMS talks about the rationalization that it was okay to use copyright, which he did not agree with, as a means to fight against copyright. Hence, copyleft.
It's interesting reading, even if you don't agree.
Secession is the right of all sentient beings.
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 $150 million in lost sales per song, which is just ludicrous.
This absolutely reeks of the record companies trying to capitalize on filesharing and count each share as a purchase. If the judges awarded the RIAA what they are asking for across the board, they stand to make orders of magnitude more money than they could ever dream of by their own devices. This puts huge questions on their claims of mitigating their damages - they allowed filesharing to go on for many years before starting lawsuits... to build up their claims of lost sales??
-3Suns
~~~~
The Revolution will be Slashdotted
Nice write-up, I like how you managed to make up the bit about the children's magician, slip a nice anti-Mac troll in the middle there, and still make the front page. That takes skill. Now if only you could have shoe-horned the phrase "M$" 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.
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.
...Let the next mistaken target be a Senator's son/daughter.
magician crack?
Where do I get that? Never heard of it... =P
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
"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!
... the recording industry requested information about the wrong IP address, which is usually more than nine digits.
Plus she probably got so upset by the lawsuit that she spilled hot coffee on her lap...
Hmmmm...I do sense a litigation opportunity after all.
Apple's WiFi solution (airport) is "falling-off-a-log" easy. If you've already got a cable modem/broadband setup, you pretty much just plug it in. The software included walks you through configuring the network. Its much easier than installing a home based router, for instance. Since every mac since the original iBook (in 1999) has had built-in wi-fi options, its not unusual for her to be running a wireless network.
This is where I get my recommended daily allowance of "Foot in Mouth."