Slashdot Mirror
The 83-Year-Old Dead File Swapper
93,000 writes "Gertrude Walton, a deceased eighty-three-year-old woman, was named as the only defendant in a federal lawsuit filed by a group of record companies. They claimed Walton made more than 700 pop, rock and rap songs available for free on the Internet under the screen name 'smittenedkitten.' Needless to say, the suit has since been dropped."
"Walton could not be reached for comment."
Unknown host pong.
Nice one guys.
Man, the RIAA is getting soft.
one way to keep from getting sued for swapping mp3s.
Fat, drunk, and stupid is no way to go through life, son.
She's also reported to have voted in the last presidential election in OH.
I'm a big tall mofo.
..why are the record companies after you? Will they take my inheritance?
file trading kills.
Scrame: Sunglasses are for assholes.
Does anyone know what the officially recorded cause of death was?
From the article: Chianumba said she faxed a copy of her mother's death certificate to record company officials several days before the lawsuit was filed. She said she did that in response to a letter from the company regarding the upcoming legal filing.
She should have let the whole thing go to court. It would make the RIAA look far sillier when a computer illiterate dead woman's name is cleared in front of a judge rather than before hand.
Trolling is a art,
Shouldn't they be held liable (for more than just court fees) for wasting our justice system's already limited time with junk like this? After all, this isn't the first time something like this has happened :/
Matt
You have 1 Moderator Point! Use it or lose it! Is that a threat? -vapid
Pets? Fetuses?
if there is now a way that this can be used to stop these kinds of lawsuits althogether, in that it shows that the whole concept of going after file swappers in this way is bogus.
|>>?
that file swapping is a grave matter.
I've heard of ADSL equiped caskets...
Where do they get these peoples names? how come I keep hearing about them getting the wrong people over and over again.
could her Family should counter claim?
*shudder* The horror... the horror...
I guess she was "smittened" with something terminal.
Ha hee heh hee... computers... terminal... I crack me up. :-)
--- Ban humanity.
Since she (obviously) didn't offer those files for download, and since this isn't the first such case of mistaken identity in these matters, doesn't this negatively affect the RIAA's potential success in future lawsuits?
Of course, I don't think anyone's been convicted of anything yet--people have only settled out of court, right?
[insert witty sig here]
Bah, she probably just faked her death to escape freaking **AA. I know I would.
Cozinha para as massas (e para geeks)
This proves what I've been saying for months. RIAA will kill you if you share more than 700 songs on a P2P application.
... god kills an elderly.
Did they say she was deceased before the file sharing occured or *after*? Man, I might want to think about settling if the RIAA is gonna send assassins after me for sharing.
Did anyone else read that and think that maybe she was swapping Dead tunes ?
... you don't see me ...
When will the craziness stop. They should be held liable for something - like someone would make a false police report - to me it is just like that - a false report. these guys are jokers and shouldn't be allowed to hide behind the stupid DMCA -
Gertrude Walton of Fayette County hated computers, her daughter said.
That did not stop the recording industry from accusing the now deceased 83-year-old Mount Hope woman of illegally trading music over the Internet.
More than a month after Walton was buried in Beckley, a group of record companies named her as the only defendant in a federal lawsuit. They claimed Walton made more than 700 pop, rock and rap songs available for free on the Internet under the screen name "smittenedkitten."
- advertisement-
On Thursday, a spokesman for the Recording Industry Association of America acknowledged that Walton was probably not the smittenedkitten it is searching for.
"Our evidence gathering and our subsequent legal actions all were initiated weeks and even months ago," said RIAA spokesman Jonathan Lamy. "We will now, of course, obviously dismiss this case."
Walton's daughter, Robin Chianumba, lived with her mother for the last 17 years of her life and said her mother objected to having a computer in the house. Chianumba said she didn't know anything about the record company's claims. And she said she does not know anything about the screen name.
"My mother was computer illiterate. She hated a computer," Chianumba said. "My mother wouldn't know how to turn on a computer."
The case demonstrates the imperfections of the record industry's two-year old effort to hunt down and sue people who put hundreds, even thousands, of copyrighted songs onto file-sharing networks on the Internet.
The industry tracks down file-swappers using the Internet Protocol addresses attached to their relatively anonymous screen names.
The IP addresses are useful because they identify computers on the Internet. But investigators cannot use the numeric codes to figure out who is using a particular computer. Often, they can only use the IP address to learn who is getting billed for the computer's Internet service.
In more than a handful of cases, the record industry has sued a person for file-swapping, then later learned that they were really after the defendant's child or grandchild.
Chianumba said she faxed a copy of her mother's death certificate to record company officials several days before the lawsuit was filed. She said she did that in response to a letter from the company regarding the upcoming legal filing.
"I believe that if music companies are going to set examples they need to do it to appropriate people and not dead people," Chianumba said. "I am pretty sure she is not going to leave Greenwood Memorial Park [where she is buried] to attend the hearing. I don't know if this is a scheme to get money, I just don't know what's going on. I am concerned."
- advertisement-
When Walton died on Dec. 11 after a long illness, she was survived by eight children, 24 grandchildren and 23 great-grandchildren, according to her obituary.
Could smittenedkitten be one of them? The RIAA declined to say.
To contact staff writer Toby Coleman, use e-mail or call 348-5156.
Linux Wireless Hardware in the UK
Your courageous and selfless spelling corrections have made me a better person.
WTF? She told me she was 18, blonde, slender and hot!
"I'd rather be a lightning rod than a seismometer." -Ken Kesey
i used to work at that newspaper.
The RIAA Killed My Grandmother!!!
I personally lament Gertrude's passing away. What a great memorial. Just prior to death, put a file server away in a hidden closet in a house with many years of ISP paid for in advance. Serve up those files with no possible recourse from RIAA and other leeches. Maybe a foundation could be started such that the file repository is transferred from near-death person to near-death person. As the slow wheels of the RIAA start legal proceedings, the person becomes beyond even their reach. Not so much the "make a wish" foundation as the "make a statement" foundation.
The RIAA/MPAA/etc. have been making fortunes off dead people's backs for decades, it would be a logical next step to eventually extend this to dead customers.
carry on...
the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
Holy shit, I thought they were only going after the big ones.
If you don't know what AltaVista is (was), get off my lawn.
The nursing home where Walton stayed has agreed to block all filesharing ports as part of an plea agreement with the RIAA.
Just because some old lady died they're not going to sue her anymore?
This needs legislation!
Just because you die doesn't mean that you shouldn't be sued!
This
Is the person being billed for the internet connection legally responsible for anything done over the connection? Even if they are running an open wireless access point? Why aren't coffee shops that offer wireless free access getting sued by the RIAA?
I've abandoned my search for truth; now I'm just looking for some useful delusions.
Here is the story as a coral cache. I could only get the first page to cache propery before the slashdotting. This Print link might work however.
February 04, 2005
Deceased woman named in file-sharing suit
By Toby Coleman
Staff writer
Gertrude Walton of Fayette County hated computers, her daughter said.
That did not stop the recording industry from accusing the now deceased 83-year-old Mount Hope woman of illegally trading music over the Internet.
More than a month after Walton was buried in Beckley, a group of record companies named her as the only defendant in a federal lawsuit. They claimed Walton made more than 700 pop, rock and rap songs available for free on the Internet under the screen name "smittenedkitten."
- advertisement-
On Thursday, a spokesman for the Recording Industry Association of America acknowledged that Walton was probably not the smittenedkitten it is searching for.
"Our evidence gathering and our subsequent legal actions all were initiated weeks and even months ago," said RIAA spokesman Jonathan Lamy. "We will now, of course, obviously dismiss this case."
Walton's daughter, Robin Chianumba, lived with her mother for the last 17 years of her life and said her mother objected to having a computer in the house. Chianumba said she didn't know anything about the record company's claims. And she said she does not know anything about the screen name.
"My mother was computer illiterate. She hated a computer," Chianumba said. "My mother wouldn't know how to turn on a computer."
The case demonstrates the imperfections of the record industry's two-year old effort to hunt down and sue people who put hundreds, even thousands, of copyrighted songs onto file-sharing networks on the Internet.
The industry tracks down file-swappers using the Internet Protocol addresses attached to their relatively anonymous screen names.
The IP addresses are useful because they identify computers on the Internet. But investigators cannot use the numeric codes to figure out who is using a particular computer. Often, they can only use the IP address to learn who is getting billed for the computer's Internet service.
...probably caused brain tumors and killed her.
Shouldn't that really be the ??AA, not **AA ? Or do you have something against the Automobile Associaton of America, Alcoholics Anonymous and every other organisation who's acronym ends with two A's?
sig
Thats why you should share/download a whole album or a discography in a .zip or .rar It's less files, so theoriticly the less change of getting caught. But if found out then your SOL becuase you just got 300 songs per file.
If he wasn't running Slashdot, he'd be making one of those crazy websites about how the Masons or the Lizard People are secretly taking over our government. Crikey man, get a grip.
Slashdot: providing anti-social weirdos a soapbox, since 1997.
What's the point indeed.
Despite what the ravenous morons on this site will now scream, the RIAA was collecting information and planning BEFORE she died. They just happened to file the lawsuit AFTER she died. They got the wrong person, yes, but it's only coincidence that she happened to be dead by the time they actually filed the suit.
Alito: A vote for Alito is a punch in the eye to put that bitch back in her place!
NetNifty has the subject here
Thats the real reason Bush doesn'nt want stem cell research. We all know as soon as those pesky stem cells start mutiplying they'll be trading songs, movies and software over p2p networks.
.....
The only way to stop that is BAN STEM CELL RESEARCH.
So Long and Thanks for all the Fish.
And it would look even siller if she negligently withheld the information and ended up being liable for something herself when a fax could have cleared it up...
say it ain't so!
John-boy, wipe that grin off'n yer face!
It's supposed to be completely automatic, but actually you have to press this button.
Hi
Microsoft sucks
One wonders how a big, powerful law firm staffed with smart people could have made such an enormous blunder, if in fact Jenner & Block was the firm doing the work on this.
I'd be interested to find out how many lawyers the RIAA employs and/or keeps on retainer.
Read the EFF's Fair Use FAQ
Only 700? Old lady's a novice! A dead novice!
You have already head of her - she is the one who voted for Bush in last november...
Grundgesetz * 23. Mai 1949 - 30. November 2007 - http://www.vorratsdatenspeicherung.de/
http://www.wacotrib.com/opin/content/news/opinion/ stories/2005/01/14/20050114wacnethaway.html
The whole legal strategy of the RIAA is to settle out of court and that's harder to do with a dead person. They know full well taking it to trial would not be in their best interests.
This is shady. Anyone knows how the old lady died? She might have been a serious threat to the RIAA. And, do i dare say, they might have.... terminated her before she could cause any more damage! Eek!
A computer makes it possible to do, in half an hour, tasks which were completely unnecessary to do before.
way to go riaa. get that ..old, dead lady...
They got the wrong person, yes, but it's only coincidence that she happened to be dead by the time they actually filed the suit.
But it was not a coincidence that she was the wrong person (actually they knew she was dead because the death certificate was sent to record officials before the suit was filed, they are even more ridiculous).
It strikes me that if there are enough mistakes like this, then they will not be able to convict anyone. The question will be asked - are you sure (beyond reasonable doubt) that you have the right person - the person who was actually committing the "crime". And the mistakes will be held up as evidence that they can't be sure. So how many mistakes will be enough to make reasonable doubt for everyone?
Just goes to show you that the record companies are too greedy to spend some of their money on a decent investigator and legal team.
A decent investigator would have noticed that the person didn't own a computer, and a decent legal team wouldn't have lost track of the defendant long enough for them to die.
Reading code is like reading the dictionary - you have to read half of it before you can go back and understand it.
This dead person probably didn't even know she was committing a crime, alot of people hear by "word of mouth" that you can download music on the internet by using various free programs like winmx,kazaa,limewire and others programs.
Of course when you download music, it goes into a folder and those file sharing programs allow others to share the music you've downloaded by default.
So, most people don't even know that they are doing something wrong.
I think the makers of these programs need to put a large visible (not hidden in a ula) warning/disclaimer into the setup of the programs Informing the individual that if you continue setup and use the program you may be illegally downloading and sharing files, from there they can choose wether or not to continue the installtion process.
~Later~
*ducks*
...and that's the way the cookie crumbles.
... It's obviously a dead issue.
When you download MP3s, you're downloading rigor mortis.
Man, smittenedkitten is dead? Where the hell am I going to get that Benny Goodman and Frank Sinatra now? I am so bummed. Damn mortality anyway.
Having done so much with so little for so long, I now can do anything with nothing at all.
You know what they say, "Nothing is certain but death and taxes... and RCIAA/MPAA lawsuits". Looks like we have 2 out of 3 at one time here.
When Walton died on Dec. 11 after a long illness, she was survived by eight children, 24 grandchildren and 23 great-grandchildren, according to her obituary.
If the RIAA had done a little more research, they could have had 55 defendants instead of 1.
Anyone who disagrees with the RIAAs tactics should boycott legal music downloads on April 1, 2005.
...sorry, I just can't finish this crap joke.
Have you people learned nothing from sienfeld and the simpsons.
From seinfeld, old people steal batteries and are notoriously cheap.
From the simpsons: The cat burgler is an old man.
If I'm retired there nothing to stop me from firing up Kazzaa, and when being summoned playing dumb. That old woman might have had mad Ski11Z. And frisky too judging from her sceen name.
You age discrimatory slashdot bastards.
Of course she might have just had an unsecure wireless router.
It's a story that has the first 7-8 comments all modded up to +5, Funny! What the hell did you think it is??
--LWM
<quote>They got the wrong person, yes, but it's only coincidence that she happened to be dead by the time they actually filed the suit.
...?... 4. PROFIT!
</unquote>
Prosectability Matrix
x Live Dead
Right 1. Investigate 2. Subpoena Gert
Wrong 3.
With a zombie process?
But it is her! She's fileswapping in her grave as smittened old grandma!
I must say she sounds like my kind of file swapper and yes I am smitten by her.
RIAA Piracy Dragnet Snares Popular Female Musician, Deceased Man, and Three-Legged Kitten
Coming soon, The Sixth Circuit, in which a cunning IP lawyer, played by Bruce Willis, works for the RIAA. From the trailer: "I sue dead people."
Let's not jump to conclusions, people. Granny's can rock and swap files also. Just because you are old does not mean you can't still boogie woogie and jam. Maybe she just happened to die shortly after file trading.
Table-ized A.I.
SHHHHH!!!! Don't give them ideas! It's the RIAA, the *WILL* use them!
...Had this been an actual emergency, we would have fled in terror, and you would not have been informed.
Seriously, all they see is an IP address and target for a law suit. They aren't looking at probability. If they were gathering evidence instead of one sided router records they would have realized this woman didn't even own a computer! Could this be a case of identity theft? Possibly.
On Thursday, a spokesman for the Recording Industry Association of America acknowledged that Walton was probably not the smittenedkitten it is searching for.
Weak-minded fool!
Oh, say does that Star-Spangled Banner entwine / The myrtle of Venus with Bacchus's vine?
I know this is slightly off topic, but I am still waiting for the RIAA to file law suites claiming broadband should be banned because it facilitates pirating music.
You BASTARDS!
great I can just hear the RIAA ad now.
"Just because some old lady died they're not going to sue her anymore?
This needs legislation!
Just because you die doesn't mean that you shouldn't be sued!"
I hope you're kidding...
Sig? No thanks, I'm trying to quit.
This was a civil, not a criminal case. In the event that the RIAA had won the case, any judgement would have been awarded against the defendants estate. You don't need to be alive to be sued in civil court.
The RIAA didn't need to drop the case just because the defendant was dead.
However, this was mostly a PR case. The lawsuite was not filed with the purpose of recovering damages. The real reason they filed the case was as a PR suit to make an example of the person and with the person being dead, the only PR results would have been to make them look like bigger scum than they already do. That's why they withdrew the case.
Mmmm.. Donuts
Possibly, if anyone actually takes them to court. AFAIK, none have.
WeRelate.org - wiki-based genealogy
Of course, if the ISP's quit keeping dynamic-IP address assignment logs so long, that would pretty much do in these suits as well.
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
They exist for only ONE purpose. To keep the RIAA around.
Long dead musicians or fools who signed their rights away are the RIAA's stoc in thare.
Anything 'new' is hyped, churned, produced in such a way as to bankrupt he musician (see/hear Wall*Mart,) and put into the remainder bin.
That's why you have Golden Oldies stations.
It ain't good music. Its merely the most profitable.
The RIAA is to music what a Mortician is to a beauty parlor.
MSBPodcast.com The opinions expressed here are my own. If you don't like 'em... Think up your own stuff.
I know you're trying to be farcical but no legislation is needed. Civil cases can continue against dead defendants and any judgements are awarded against their estate.
The RIAA chose to drop the case but they didn't have to.
Mmmm.. Donuts
Lawyer: "And to my last, and least favorite, nephew, I will my 700 illegal downloads, and the RIAA suit that goes with it -- on the condition that he continue to be known as smittenedkitten."
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
I love this effort to discredit all file-sharing suits by pointing out the few that are off-target.
"Look, see how dumb and evil the RIAA is? They're suing dead old women?"
Please. The same errors occur with IRS tax suits, electricity bills, lottery winnings, and anything else that involves identity and is executed by a large beaurocracy. What's the point of this idiotic story? If you haven't figured it out its an effort to discredit and vilify the the big evil RIAA (who has an extraordinarily legitimate case).
Remember kids: Capitalism bad. Socialist free information good. No one needs to get paid. Money = evil. Free entertainment is our birthright! Yar!
Hey.. why are there nothing but reruns on?
------ The best brain training is now totally free : )
I'm surprised the RIAA didn't dig her up and piss on her corpse. I mean, why should the bitch rest in peace when she's responsible for all that lost corporate revenue with all the Snoop Dogg, April Lavigne, Dr. Dre, and Eminem files she shared with her punk-ass octogenerian miscreant fileswapping feloneous scumbag friends? Right?
I'm sorry...was I on a sarcastic rant? he he
I might know what I'm talkin' about, but then again, this is Slashdot...
...and they're using Kazaa!
Grandma Walton's death could be a medical mystery yet to be solved, but CNET has provided a clue: court documents related to the ongoing "RIAA vs. Sharman" lawsuit in Australia reveal that even Sharman's own employees are scared of installing Kazaa software because the adware in it screws up their computers. I have a link to that article on my blog at: http://sundroid.blogspot.com/.
Sun and Fun
In order to keep these bastards away, I don't buy any new music.
I have 800+ old CDs moved to iTunes and I've ripped my 400+ vinyl albums to it too so I figure I can listen to that instead for ever.
And the **AAs can kiss my money goodbye...
The next James Bond is a remake of Ca,bloody,sino Roy,friggin',ale. A remake... What a bunch of accountants...
I still remember the one with David Niven. I'm not going to pay to see that again.
MSBPodcast.com The opinions expressed here are my own. If you don't like 'em... Think up your own stuff.
Its to never trust old dead people. Especially the ones that listen to techno.
[FromTheMorning]
...maybe I really AM a geek after all? Was I the only one who read the title as "The 83-Year-Old Dead Swap File"? ;P
-"...bad old ideas look confusingly fresh when they are packaged as technology" - Jaron Lanier (Digital Maoism on Edge.o
^ the new RIAA/MPAA slogan.
"The question will be asked - are you sure (beyond reasonable doubt) that you have the right person"
No it won't. These are civil suits. Civil suits do not require the burden of proof beyond reasonable doubt like criminal cases. Instead, it is a question of whether a resaonable person is convinced that the evidence is sufficient to support the claim made by the plaintiff. That's a far easier row to hoe.
Gertrude Walton must have been a fan of death metal.
She won't be trying THAT again!
Remember: Every time you share a song, a kitten dies...
"...Well, there's egg and bacon; egg sausage and bacon; egg and spam; egg bacon and spam; egg bacon sausage and spam..."
She's quite slender now, and depending on how she led her life might be very hot indeed!
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
John Boy is the real file swapper.
I'm a consultant - I convert gibberish into cash-flow.
In Fayette county, only old people pirate music!
Roses are #FF0000, violets are #0000FF, all my base are belong to you
the funny thing is you don't have to read half of these threads.. you can read their title and know they are going to be a crack.
I mean.. how can you not make a joke about this.. morbid as it might be.
The Nomad
"Men of lofty genius when they are doing the least work are most active."-da Vinci
... is being dead the only way to save an innocent person from the wraith of the RIAA?
What if she weren't dead? Would they have believed her that she was not 'smittenedkitten'?
- Kevin
The less confident you are, the more serious you have to act.
Everyone who's anyone knows that Grandma Gertie is the rap-mp3-file-sharing-overlord....
Insert witty comment *here*. I'm fresh out of wit...
Still suffering with the PEST trauma are we. (Post Election Stress Trauma)
goodness, it was a typo. I know what your and you are mean. good grief you grammar nazi!
What's Old, Yellow, and lives off Dead Beattles?
Ans: Yoko Ono
---
Seriously, if you die and forget to turn off the computer and your p2p file sharing, you're asking for it. No wait, you're dead, you don't care anymore.
/\/\icro/\/\uncher
"Needless to say, the suit has since been dropped."
I wouldn't state that it was "needless to say". Knowing the RIAA, they would probably sue to get a share of the inheritance she left for her children.
Haley Joel Osmont, grown up and working as a **AA lawyer.
"I sue dead people."
The lawsuit was filed, probably because someone using her computer or somehow connected to her in some way, it was found that she was dead and couldn't possibly be the one, and so the suit was dropped.
Why is this news? Is it so Slashdotters can hoot and holler about a suit that was already dropped? Obviously the wrong people will occassionally get named in these things due to the nature of IPs and the Internet.
Are we supposed to laugh at how dumb we think the RIAA is for going after individual downloaders, even though it's EXACTLY WHAT SLASHDOTTERS (including CmdrTaco) SAID THEY SHOULD DO back in 2000 during the Napster lawsuits?
Is it okay to violate music copyrights? If so, does that mean nobody should bitch in the next "GPL source code theft" article?
Just asking questions. With things like the iTunes store (.99 per song) and other online services, it's pretty silly to be justifying music piracy these days with excuses about how expensive and evil you think the RIAA is (notice the artists getting ripped off are never mentioned in those equations).
Lister: "Rimmer, you're dead and 3 million years from Earth."
Rimmer: "That means NOTHING to these people!"
Where do you get this information? Almost every file swapper who's ever lived is still alive. MP3 trading is practically an immortality drug!
It's rare that you're presented with a knob whose only two positions are Make History and Flee Your Glorious Destiny.
...they can be sued for sharing files.....Wonder who's been posing as this dead person? :)
From parent sig:
"It's amazing what you can accomplish when you don't care who gets the credit." - Ronald Reagan
Yes, it's amazing what a reputation for wisdom Reagan was able to accomplish by not caring whom he stole the credit from.
just saying...
The article seems to indicate that this woman had no knowledge of how her computer was used. HOWEVER, I support the idea of posthumously trading files as a statement.
First, what's the statement?
* file traders don't profit from their trading
* the agencies pursuing traders do so with no concern for their customers
* that even 'respectable' old people object to the current IP system
Perhaps there are other statements, but those were the first that came to mind.
Yes, I could see devoting my last few days on earth to that cause. I like it a lot better than giving my money to starving people who are just going to die anyway, for example.
You can have my iPod and P2P account when you pry them from my cold, dead hands.
- Apologies to Mr. Heston
If you R'ed TFA, she only died on December 11.
every time you download music, God kills a kitten.
would you swap fluids with a Gertrude?
http://eika.no-ip.info
Rock on smittenedkitten.
The government has a defect: it's potentially democratic. Corporations have no defect: they're pure tyrannies. -Chomsky
I'm sorry, I'm to tired to be witty at the moment so this message will have to do.
I shall also make my 10000+ collection of music etc. as widely available as possible, just to sabotage the criminal media industry.
In many countries downloading is still legal, and apart from that is very difficult to track. The risk is taken by those that publish "illegal" files, so it would be excellent if people who have nothing to loose would do so massively, until the media industry nazis are bankrupt.
it is very honourful to be remembered for damaging acts to a bunch of the worst criminals, i.e. the media industry who behave like nazis: to protect their illegal interests they bribe politics and are prepared to corrupt democracy and civil rights.
really, i can't think of a better way to be remembered as such a statement. to fight the concept of intellectual property, the most despicable "invention" of mankind.
In Soviet Russia, File Sharing Kills YOU!
... if Bush gets his way ...
Where is this fabled land where judges are in their right minds?
Note to humorless right-wing moderators: This is a joke. Look it up!
Infuriate left and right
Hmm. Sounds like I could make a movie about this.
I thought all the people working in all the record companies are totally, completely, utterly, and in all other ways retarded and stupid.
"First they came for the dead, and I did not speak out because I wasn't dead..."
Could a lawyer in the house tell me if these scatter-shot law suits by the RIAA can be used to claim that any suit they bring against an entity they can actually drag into court (neither a minor nor a dead grandmother) is likely to be just as random and unsubstantiated?
The REAL jabber has the user id: 13196
What you do today will cost you a day of your life
When will these sorry ass old farts with no brains and scientific backing realise making examples of people never work. It didnt work for the nazis or stalin or Chineese dissidents or pot smokers of the 60s or Enron execs stealing billions.
Liberty freedom are no1, not dicks in suits.
Or just serve your p2p stuff from a country
that has
No freedoms
No human rights
No democracy
Russia/China
Who would have thought in the 60s that those hippies would find themselves living in a totarlian stat
Liberty freedom are no1, not dicks in suits.
I can't help but think this is more the doing of an ISP (probably Comcast or another cable company). Many ISPs cough up subscriber information prior to filing of lawsuits - especially the cable ISPs, which makes it easy for the RIAA to name a defendant in a lawsuit without having to go through due dilligence and taking the standardized john-doe legal action to identify the perpetrator's identity.
It's my contention that some ISPs don't protect their customer's right to privacy. Telcos have more ethics than cable companies in this respect, so you're more likely to be handed over to the authorities if you're using broadband cable.
She also voted in Washington state, as well.
Why is it the RIAA never accidentally try to sue a compton ganster rapper with 3 murders to his name?
Liberty freedom are no1, not dicks in suits.
I'm just glad Walton had the balls to demand a trial rather than knuckling under and paying the typical $3,000 settlement.
- First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then ???, then profit.
At some point the RIAA's terror tactics are going to cause someone to commit suicide themselves. This will happen. Suing dead people, children, students. These people make me SICK!
kin242.net
Although the article says that this woman was computer illiterate and "objected to having computers," it never actually says that there wasn't a computer in her house. It's curious that although the article spends a lot of time talking about how she didn't like/know about them, it never explicitly states that she didn't have one in the house. It also states that she had family members living with her, and that she has 24 grandchildren and 23 great-grandchildren. Odds are that one of them were using her internet account for file-sharing, so she was busted for it. The fact that they filed the suit even though they had already received a copy of the death certificate can be attributed to the ordinary bureaucratic mix-ups that happen routinely in large offices, and shouldn't surprise anyone who has ever worked for a company with more than ten employees.
I don't see the point of this being on slashdot.
R'ed? Wtf is that? Readed? You tried to shorthand the four letter word "Read" by using a badly designed FOUR LETTER abbreviation?
Well I have bill collectors after my ass for a repo car. I have nothing, I will never have nothing. The collection agency can go stick it where the sun don't shine, ;-)
They were interfering with the business of the court. If you go into Congress and start making political jokes out loud, or into the Supreme Court and start yelling out "O'Connor's a homophobe!" at the top of your lungs, you're going to get in trouble. That's what happened here; these guys had been going to courthouses all over the place and being dumbasses specifically to interfere with the business of the court.
The correct term is GULT
But that's exactly what makes it funny.
I'm new to this. Help me out.
Sig not available, please try again later. If the problem persists, then the submitter is an idiot.
Trademarks are generally valid, and the law is generally used in an acceptable manner. I'm not convinced, though, that it always it. I've heard of a resturant that was called MacDonald's long before there was a hamburger chain that was put out of business through abuse of trademark laws. Still, USUALLY trademarks are handled reasonably.
I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.
Since she's dead. More correctly, she was 83 at the time of her death. You can't be an 83 year old dead person.
i'd be dead too if i was sharing barbra striesand and Bette Davis. i wonder if she had already died when they tracked down her internet server. did she leave Edonkey running for months after she died my we should be commending people on how stable p2p software has become, where as legal stuff like MS office has yet to become very stable when mixed with different clients. (hasnt got the a massive scalable network. seems like people are getting movitated
"I Just Wasn't Made For This Bed," by the Beach Boys
"Rupture," by Blondie
"Born To Run, Unfortunately," by Springsteen
"Start Me Up--No, On Second Thought, I'll Just Catch A Few More Winks Firzzzzzzz," by the Rolling Stones
hahahahah LMFAO! ;)
Sorry, bad pun, but I was wondering why this wasn't left to go to court with all the associated expenses? Would have been much more effective in bad press value if they'd turn up in court to find a picture of a gravestone...
Insert
A priest and a lawyer are walking down the street when they see a young boy.
The priest says to to the lawyer, "Hey, wanna screw that kid?"
The lawyer asks, "Out of what?"
The Future of Human Evolution: Autonomy
goodness, it was a typo.
"Goodness" (capitalized).
good grief you grammar nazi
"Good" (capitalized).
"grief," (comma after phrase).
Also, quoting "you" and "you are" would make your second sentence easier to understand.
At least you spelled "grammar" correctly.
Mrs Walton was asked for a comment on the case. Her only reply was: "Braaaaaaaains..."