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RIAA Suit Rejected With Prejudice
yfarren writes "According to cdfreaks.com the RIAA has lost the case against the mother of a 13 year old girl accused of file-sharing violations." From the article: "The case was dismissed with prejudice, which prevents the case from being advanced against the defendant. Finally, the RIAA tried asking the Judge to amend the judgment in order to allow them to sue the child through a Guardian Ad Litem. However the court denied [the] RIAA's request."
13 year old girls - 1
The **AA - 3247923874932749782365926323
We're catching up!
Seriously though, I hope these rulings keep coming. Although it is wrong to pirate music and other media, you shouldn't have to pay thousands of dollars in fines.
Not sure about intelligence, but sanity, certainly.
Everybody, cross your fingers and hope this sparks a trend - it should at least set some sort of precidence that other's can use to their advantage.
Practically speaking, is there much difference between suing the 13 yr old vs suing the parent? Let's say the RIAA successfully sues the girl and pins her with a $1,000,000 settlement -- who's liable? It's not like the girl has any assets they can seize. Can they then go after the parent's assets? If so, is there really much difference in whether they sue the mom or the girl?
Agreed. The RIAA lost mainly because they tried to sue a parent over the actions of the child. The court said, nice try, but if your beef is with the child, then sue the child. Either the RIAA was suing the parent to get the extortion money to keep paying for the lawsuits, or suing the parent to avoid the unpleasant reaction that would probably ensue for going after a thirteen year old. Both seem plausible. Haven't other parents paid up in other suits that weren't contested like this?
Since this was Federal court, does anyone know if this makes precedent that will force the RIAA to change tactics (i.e., start going after the kids directly)?
IANAL, but does this mean soccer moms have nothing to worry about from RIAA pressure tactics or does this mean EVERYONE has nothing to worry about?
;-)
if i get an extortion letter form the RIAA for $36,000 because i downloaded Kelly Clarkson, can i play stupid in court and win?
"honest your honor, i didn't know that anyone could connect to my WiFi connection and use teh intarweb"
"honest your honor, i didn't know what my dumb cousin vinny was doing on the computer all night"
"honest your honor, i didn't know that that program is for illegal music"
do clueless soccer moms get off scott free? or anyone who challenges the RIAA and plays stupid?
serious question: can anyone plead ignorance in court and win against the RIAA extortions now?
i personally think that would be wonderful if true, because you can say what you want about the immorality of downloading pirated music, but the extortion the RIAA is pulling against average folks of limited financial and legal means is a greater form of immoral behavior
someone who is a lawyer speak up: has the RIAA's extortion mill been effectively shut down now?
please say yes
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
I own multiple retail businesses, and when a child steals from me, I guess I "extort" the parent by saying "pay up or I'm calling the cops." In fact, I've CALLED the cops a few times to arrest the kid, and the parent pays up, in front of the cops, and I've never been arrested for extortion.
Just because your innocent does not make it all right for you to not obey the law to the full. It is something an awfull lot of people seem to forget and it is a judges job to remind them.
Pity the article does not make clear exactly what she did. but the message still remains clear, obey the law. You have some leeway and big company's can't just steamroll you but neither can you steamroll the law.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
the RIAA's strategy.
/.'ers dislike are strongly reinforced. What's worse is a dissenting view can easily be positioned as at least disreputable behavior if not outright criminal activity.
1. Entertainment mega-corps still win big because they strike fear into the hearts of consumers. The message is simple, "don't steal our music." The underlying assumptions that many
2. It looks to me like they lost on procedure, not so much on the theft issue. The woman's got to pay anyway and that works out great for the RIAA.
3. No one cares that they are going after minors. The US has a criminal courts system for them too. Again, the underlying assumptions about the control of the music are not even on the table.
I really don't see how anything positive comes out of this story.
http://www.maxineudall.com/2010/02/should-economists-be-sued-for-malpractice.html
I'm not even sure that the RIAA can afford so many lawsuits. Sure, they're a multi-billion dollar "co-op" organization "defending" artists, but each lawsuit costs them something. Even with in-house legal staff, there are still filing fees, follow-up costs, and the like. I'm assuming their return-on-investment is calculated by how many people they assume will stop pirating their music out of fear of lawsuits? So they're assuming that they'll be seeing a return from people buying more albums because they are afraid to pirate because the RIAA sues pirates? Confusing.
Actually, there have been very few (if any) RIAA lawsuits that have actually gone to court and reached a verdict. From what I gather, the RIAA has set up a telephone call center via which defendants can pay setllements in order to call off the lawyers. This costs them practically nothing: they just mail out threatening letters and wait for the money to roll in.
I think this is one of the first major defeats the RIAA has suffered so far in relation to its sue-the-customers scheme, and we can only hope that it will bolster more people into challenging the RIAA's suits instead of settling out of court via their hotline. The problem is that anyone who challenges the RIAA and wins will have to then pay their own lawyers' fees, so many people decide that settling is cheaper and less time-consuming - which is exactly what the RIAA is gambling on because they want to brag about how many people their goons have scared settlements out of so far.
Arguing about vi versus Emacs is like arguing whether it's better to make fire by rubbing sticks or banging rocks.
As an artist, I decide how I want to whore my creations -- not you.
Bullshit1 If you don't want people "stealing" it, then don't publish. Keep it to yourself and get all the pleasure that gives you from it.
Society generously gives you certain limited rights to encourage you to share it with us. the "uniqueness" is just selfishness. A piece of art can be shared with the world for virtually no cost. It's still the same piece of art whether one person or a million people have it.
The weak, maybe, but targeting the young is often a huge mistake. There are few things more ferocious than a mother protecting her cubs - most predators that fail to realise this don't pass on their genes.
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
Oh and Edgar Bronfman Jr: You say you want to hold the cheapest songs on iTunes to
Not only is he trying to put himself out of business, he's trying to directly oppose the law of supply and demand. Granted, it's been argued that the S&D laws don't necessarily apply to intellectual property and the like, but charging a premium for a high-volume item is a recipe for disaster.
If anything, it's the rare live recordings that should be priced more agressively. Why would we want to pay a premium for a song that's played frequently on the radio?
I could possibly see something like 'Buy 2 songs from this EP and get the 3rd for $.50' -- which would be a win-win for consumers and the labels. Consumers get a cheap song, and the labels still make a profit on it because chances are, without the discount, the person wouldn't have purchased the song.
The RIAA is shooting itself in the foot.
-- If you try to fail and succeed, which have you done? - Uli's moose
Guys, I thought of an idea. How about donating to a special fund for "Victims of the RIAA" so the we can pay for the defendants' attorney fees? Something like "music taxes", but instead of paying the corporate monster, we'd help support the innocent victims of a corrupted system. This way, when a mother is told: "Pay us thousands of dollars, or see you in court!", we can tell her: "Don't settle! We'll pay for the legal expenses!"
Is there already such site?
Oh oh! I have a better example. What if a child walked into a store, sat in the home theatre demo section and watched a whole Disney movie they hadn't seen before. Is that OK? Is it theft then too?
I always found this is one of the strangest features in the US Justice System - that the loser does not automatically gets to pay both sides fees in a civil complaint. After all, if you bring a lawsuit against me and I am proved innocent, you still get to bankrupt me on legal fees (or force me to surrender whatever you wnat without trial because I can't afford it). It is not only unfair, it (probably intentionally) tilts the balance of Justice in favour of corporations and against the consumers or the common person. I wonder why there is no popular movement to review this specific legislation so anyone can defend him/herself against corporate lawsuits without fear of losing everything to the lawyers on the way to reclaim Justice.
> The RIAA is shooting itself in the foot.
Is this really something that should be discouraged?
Yes! Because the RIAA is also trampling all over our rights. Guess where the bullets are going to end up?
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It's a civil demand. Basically a legal form of extortion. Basically better for everyone though, you don't get a record and the owner gets compensated a little extra for the people he didn't catch and security costs.
I don't think that you can get yourself out of court-imposed debts through bankruptcy. Otherwise you'd have deadbeat dads, drunk drivers, and other scum doing it all the time to avoid paying up. I'm not sure exactly what kind of legal language prevents you from being able to do it, but my recollection is that even if you declare bankruptcy, that satisfies only PRIVATE debts -- as soon as you start making money again, the courts will garnish your wages to pay off the PUBLIC ones.
There are specific debts that can't be discharged in bankruptcy. Drunk driving fines, child support, fines for criminal activity, etc, are virtually impossible to discharge.
IANABL (bankruptcy lawyer) but I am in the middle of a Chapter 7 myself and everything I have read on the subject would lead me to think that you _could_ discharge a judgment owed to RIAA. Typically judgments are dischargeable unless they stem from criminal activity/fraud/child support.
I don't know if it works this way for government-backed standard school loans or not
Student loans are pretty hard to discharge in bankruptcy. The only way to do it is to prove that paying them back would be an undue burden. Pretty much the only way you can pull that off is if something really bad happened to you and you have little or no prospect of working again/having income.
As for your thoughts about the military you are probably right. I have a friend who was forced out of USAFA after she testified in the ongoing sex abuse scandal. She had the choice of paying them back for the education she had received or doing two years enlisted to make up for it.
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
that the mother can't be sued, the Guardian Ad Litem implies that neither can the Girl as the child's GAL is her mother, and it would be a loop.
RIAA sues girl, GAL is mother, mother has immunity due to Dismissed with prejudice. Lawsuit against the girl is a defacto lawsuit against the mother. The Judge chopped that one off with an axe. There was much gnashing of teeth at RIAA HQ.
Worse yet, since the kid is under 18 they can't wait it out. Actions under the age of 18 are except in certain extreme circumstances, deleted at age 18.
Sorry about the writing. Robot fingers, you know? Cliff Steele in DOOM PATROL #23
That's absolutely disgusting. Any chance she could sue under whistle blower laws?
Perhaps. In her situation I think she's just glad to be done with it. If she had stayed at USAFA she would probably still in the service today. Which doubtless means she would be somewhere "over there" getting shot at right now.
In her particular case she was assaulted and tried to work within the system to get it addressed. When that failed she went outside the system. You thought what you've seen in the news media about the scandal there was bad? They don't know the half of it.
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.