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RIAA Countersued Under Racketeering Laws
Negadin writes "According to CNET News, a New Jersey woman, one of the hundreds of people accused of copyright infringement by the Recording Industry Association of America, has countersued the big record labels, charging them with extortion and violations of the federal antiracketeering act." The woman's attornies are arguing that "...by suing file-swappers for copyright infringement, and then offering to settle instead of pursuing a case where liability could reach into the hundreds of thousands of dollars, the RIAA is violating the same laws that are more typically applied to gangsters and organized crime."
It probably won't stick, but Bravo! I'm tired of watching the RIAA offer to settle with people regardless of guilt. By agreeing to settle many people look guilty and add fuel to the RIAA's fires.
Stick it to the Man!
Now if everyone who got sued by the RIAA counter-sued with similar charges, you'd see these lawsuits go away entirely, for two reasons:
1) The RIAA can't stand up to intense public scrutiny, without shooting themselves (and their industry) in the foot.
2) Being sued by over 1,000 people becomes cost prohibitive very quickly, particularly considering it will be in 100's of different courtrooms spread across America.
I'm not a big fan of lawsuits, but I say good for her.
How's that work.....??
The darkness... controls the music. The music... controls the soul.
Let them get some huge judgements and watch how fast the laws are amended in the public's favor.
Nothing like a few citizens getting their ass reamed to foster change in government.
HBI's Law: Frequency of calling others Nazis is directly correlated with the likelihood of the accuser being Communist.
Why is it that the police will arrest individuals, but corporations seem to need to be sued? If someone sent in a tip to the police that the RIAA were racketeering, nothing would happen, but if the same tip were applied to an individual or gang, there would be an investigation. These days, big businesses seem much more powerful because they can hide behind lawyers and deep pockets.
I liked this part of the article:
"Maalouf's attorneys noted that downloading through Kazaa was openly discussed at Maalouf's daughter's school by teachers, and they downloaded songs used in classes. That should be a protected fair use of the music, the attorneys said."
First, I really wonder if the teacher said "now, put thousands of songs in your Kazaa share directory." They got nailed for apparently sharing lots and lots of copyrighted material with Internet users at large without authorization, not for downloading a song or two at the behest of a teacher.
At any rate, helping yourself to a copy of Photoshop because you need it for a class project isn't "protected fair use" (although, sensibly, Adobe and many other software companies do often take steps for students to legally get software at less than retail cost), and neither is downloading a song. Did the teacher mislead them into thinking that massive music piracy was legal? Fine; sue the teacher. But it's no excuse to break the law.
There are plenty of legitimate ways to fight back against the recording industry (as the main subject of the article is doing), but this defense is just plain silly.
Sitting in my day care, the art is decopainted.
IANAL, and am just thinking out loud, but couldn't those that have been singled out by the RIAA claim some sort of discrimination? More specifically, there are hundreds of thousands of people the RIAA could pursue for sharing music. What is the chance of convincing a court to force the RIAA to attempt to identify and prosecute every single user of Kazaa that distribute RIAA music?
Not only would it cost the RIAA a fortune (as well as create logistical impossibilities), but as soon as the children of a few politicians, celebrities, executives, etc, are fingered by the RIAA we would see some fireworks fly.
Dan East
Better known as 318230.
http://www.usdoj.gov/usao/eousa/foia_reading_room
She may be able to get a criminal act by a violation of the Sherman Antitrust act:m
http://www.usdoj.gov/atr/public/div_stats/1638.ht
Section 1959 (18 USC 1959, on the first link) spells out that just racketeering won't do it, you need a criminal act in support of this. Now, a successful argument that the RIAA is an illegal monopoly, would be the criminal act that brings massive awards and possible injunctions, but that is a big hump.
I'm not a lawyer, this isn't legal advice
Yeah just mentioning jury nullification though is a sure way to get kicked off a jury.
Works every time. Little unnerving though when the judge asks me if in all cases I can follow the law as he describes it to me: my answer is "No. I am a strong proponent of jury nullification."
Dismissed immediately, three times in a row... and it happens to be the truth!
If the jury was always expected to follow the law as the judge describes it we wouldn't need juries. Jury nullification is why we're there, IMHO.
The prinicple is called "jury nullification." Judges are so scared of the idea of juries deciding for themselves what the law should be that lawyers are forbidden to mention the possibility in their arguments to the jury.
Good, inexpensive web hosting
In principle, I agree with you. But there were some pretty famous cases in the US, prior to the civil rights movement, where white defendants who were clearly guilty of murdering black victims were acquitted of murder by all-white juries. This abuse of the right to acquit is part of what has led to an effort at cracking down on that right.
Still, it is true that a jury can always acquit, even if it believes the defendant factually guilty. There are no legaly sanctioned repercussions for the jurors.
MM
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