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."

Comments

More appropriate title

[dtfinch]

RIAA beaten by 13 year old girl.

Re:More appropriate title

[Laz7]

host that video file on the P2P networks and see what happens to you ! *smile*

Re:More appropriate title

[turtled]

the RIAA tried asking the Judge to amend the judgment in order to allow them to sue the child

Were they going to sue for lunch money??

Re:More appropriate title

[MoreNoiseThanSignal]

i think an even more appropriate little would be "LOL PWND".
but maybe that's just me.

Re:More appropriate title

[HardCase]

Actually, no. The court dismissed the suit "with prejudice" against the mother, Candy Chan, but they dismissed the suit "without predjudice" against anybody else. The second order denied the RIAA's motion to amend the original lawsuit to add the daughter as a defendant. Only the motion to amend was denied - the RIAA can file a new lawsuit.

In fact, the second sentence of the second order is pretty clear: "The court also ruled that the plantiffs were not prevented from bringing an action against anyone else, including Brittany Chan, the minor child of Candy Chan."

So, all that's happened is that mom has managed to shift the blame from her to her daughter. Mom gets to pay her attorney's fees and the RIAA gets another crack at the family through the daughter.

-h-

Re:More appropriate title

[AxelBoldt]

However it might also make it easier for the RIAA and other corporations to bully people around, because they have extremely expensive lawyers,

Obviously, in a "loser pays" system, the loser only has to pay "reasonable costs", not all the costs incurred by the other party. Usually, countries that use this system set up a table that, based on the type of lawsuit, gives the "reasonable cost".

Open memo to the RIAA:

[BWJones]

Mwaaaaaaa ha ha ha ha ha ha ha heeee heeeeeee wheeeeeee. *SNORT* Bah ha ha ha ha *wheeeeeze!* *snicker*

In principal I agree that music theft is bad and in all honesty, none of my music is pirated, but you gotta realize that stuff like this just makes you guys look bad. Bad as in $#!theads, not bad as in cool.

Karma goes around and it comes around, so i'd say this is due.

Oh and Edgar Bronfman Jr: You say you want to hold the cheapest songs on iTunes to .99 cents and raise the prices on the popular tracks? Was not this what you were trying to do when that pesky price fixing scheme was discovered back when you were at Universal? Are you guys *trying* to put yourselves out of business?

Re:Open memo to the RIAA:

[91degrees]

Indeed. This was pretty heavy handed of the RIAA.

Actually, it's possible that the court overstepped its authority, but would any judge want to issue such a judgement against a 13 year old who, quite honestly, is hardly a reckless tearaway. Any sane judge is going to be more lenient towards the kid than the multi-million dollar trade organisation.

Re:Open memo to the RIAA:

[moosesocks]

Oh and Edgar Bronfman Jr: You say you want to hold the cheapest songs on iTunes to .99 cents and raise the prices on the popular tracks? Was not this what you were trying to do when that pesky price fixing scheme was discovered back when you were at Universal? Are you guys *trying* to put yourselves out of business?

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.

Re:Open memo to the RIAA:

[Thuktun]

The RIAA is shooting itself in the foot.

Is this really something that should be discouraged?

Re:Open memo to the RIAA:

[Geoffreyerffoeg]

Are you guys *trying* to put yourselves out of business?

Yes.

Because if the industry's failing, it's a lot easier to blame it on copyright infringement than poor business decisions, because copyright infringement is defined and illegal but poor business decisions are just poor decision, and it's difficult to prove either bad faith by the execs or that copyright infringement has no effect. And you can get a lot more money by suing people than by playing with a fair market (especially one with IP, which has zero marginal cost and the customers realize it).

Re:Open memo to the RIAA:

[Haeleth]

> 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?

This post brought to you by Overstretched Metaphors, Inc.

Re:Open memo to the RIAA:

[MassacrE]

I just think they should aim higher

Re:Open memo to the RIAA:

[shark72]

"You say you want to hold the cheapest songs on iTunes to .99 cents and raise the prices on the popular tracks? Was not this what you were trying to do when that pesky price fixing scheme was discovered back when you were at Universal?"

Kind of, but not quite.

This is how the price fixing thing went down:

1. Best Buy and Wal-Mart started selling CDs at or below cost as an incentive to get customers into the stores (where they'd ideally buy higher priced, higher margin items -- the CDs are what's known as "loss leaders").
2. A few music retailers (TWE and Tower Records among them), which did not have stores full of consumer electronics, clothing or groceries to sell, could simply not match the loss-leading prices posted by Wal-Mart and Best Buy. So, they went to the record companies for help.
3. The record companies set up MAP ("minimum advertised price") programs with TWE and Tower. The record companies would help fund the stores' ads (called "program money" or "co-op money") as long as the ads didn't list prices that went below the MAP. Tower and TWE could sell CDs for whatever prices they wanted; but they couldn't advertise them below the MAP. MAP programs, by the way, are prevalent in many, many industries, including the PC peripheral industry.
4. Best Buy and Wal-Mart, which were getting no program money from the record labels, went to the government.
5. The court, in turn, smacked the record companies and told them to stop their MAP programs. They did... and meanwhile, MAP programs continue in many other industries.
6. Wal-Mart and Best Buy continued selling CDs at or below cost. Tower Records filed for bankrupcty.

The price fixing judgement was a win for Wal-Mart and Best Buy. The big losers were not the record companies (as the MAP programs did not affect the price at which they sold records into distribution), but indie record stores, which can no longer get co-op money from record labels. It's also a loss, indirectly, for people like me who remember and cherish indie record stores. They're a dying breed.

Let me be the first to say...

[conJunk]

...I for one welcome our new bullshit-lawsuit-quashing overlords.

Huge mistakes

[fembots]

They shouldn't have let it go to the court.

But good news for everyone else.

Easy Targets

[fragmentate]

Going after 13 year olds... it's like some sort of electronic pedophilia.

Re:Easy Targets

[penguinoid]

Going after 13 year olds... it's like some sort of electronic pedophilia.

Not so much pedophilia... It incredibly commonplace for any hunting animal to target the young or the weak, those who cannot fight back or run. In this case it seems most unfair. As others have pointed out, minors do not have credit cards and thus cannot buy music online, and the parents are often quite clueless. Anyhow, this doesn't help the prejudice that lawyers == sharks.

Re:Easy Targets

[TheRaven64]

It incredibly commonplace for any hunting animal to target the young or the weak, those who cannot fight back or run.

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.

Lose, lose situation for RIAA

[dada21]

While I feel this court ruling is fair, the opinions in the article are a bit off...

In my opinion, the RIAA should not be allowed to target young minors with lawsuits, especially since most cannot afford to purchase music as it is, let alone have a credit / debit card to use legal services.

So if a child steals from a store that they go to without a parent, it should be OK because the minor can't afford to purchase the item?

more reasonable approach would be first send a warning to their parents about what is going on, since in many cases the parents don't understand what's going on.

And when the parents are unaware of their child, it is bad parenting. Sometimes a warning isn't enough.

I agree that the RIAA's suit was unfounded, in this case. I also believe the RIAA has lost their battles and will only be wasting time and money on additional lawsuits (that will cost them, in the long run, far more than they will 'save' or 'gain' in judgements).

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.

The reality, though, is that they likely won't stop suing, and if they even win 1 out of 10 cases, it will likely cause them to fail even more.

So I say, sue away, RIAA.

Re:Lose, lose situation for RIAA

[flanksteak]

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)?

Re:Lose, lose situation for RIAA

[dada21]

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.

Re:Lose, lose situation for RIAA

[jcr]

So if a child steals from a store that they go to without a parent,

If that happens, the child is dealt with by officers of the court, who are supposed to have some sense of proportion. That is to say, they don't try to get a fine of tens of thousands of dollars as a punishment for stealing a one-dollar soda.

-jcr

Re:Lose, lose situation for RIAA

[Asgard]

I suspect the difference is that you probably didn't require the parent to pay 2x the cost of the item as a penalty.

Re:Lose, lose situation for RIAA

[size1one]

"So if a child steals from a store that they go to without a parent, it should be OK because the minor can't afford to purchase the item?"

No it is not ok.

You've just made the common mistake of replacing "copyright infringement" with "theft". In this case they become quite different. A theft from a store takes a tangible good from the store, something that might be sold to someone else. Downloading a song online does not prevent the sale to someone else.

Re:Lose, lose situation for RIAA

[HunterZ]

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.

Re:Lose, lose situation for RIAA

[NMerriam]

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."

One critical difference -- do you demand the parents pay for the goods stolen, or do you demand the kid's entire college fund?

Re:Lose, lose situation for RIAA

[HardCase]

No, the RIAA did not lose. The RIAA sued the parent because that's who "owned" the IP address. When they finally got the parent to 'fess up and admit which child had done the deed, they asked for the lawsuit to be dismissed, with prejudice, against the mother and amended to name the child. The mother objected to that, so the judge had to make the decision. The real score? The RIAA won one (the case was dismissed with prejudice), lost one (they didn't get amend their original lawsuit) and the mother lost two (she gets to pay for her attorney and her daughter is still open to a new lawsuit).

Dunno if the RIAA is right or wrong, but I'm pretty sure that a /. story that links to a blog linking to a blog is probably a pretty inaccurate way to get the straight story. The real news is in the actual court documents.

-h-

Re:Lose, lose situation for RIAA

[canadacow]

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?

Re:Lose, lose situation for RIAA

[Deanasc]

And the parents aren't facing a possible $150,000.00 per stolen item civil penalty which amounts to the threat behind the threat of extortion.

Re:Lose, lose situation for RIAA

[Sj0]

That's ok. Through lobbying, both media lobbies have effectively stolen fifty years of the public domain.

How about we call it even?

Oh joy!

[Brandon K]

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.

It seems odd to me...

[Spytap]

...that such a strong dismissal would also include this part:

"While the case was dismissed, the mother had to pay legal fees as the Judge refused to award her attorneys fees. The reason is that the plaintiffs' lawyers had taken the appropriate steps in trying to prosecute the mother and that the mother used tactics to obstruct the Plaintiff to efficiently prosecute her."

So it's dismissed, but she still owes somewhere between a couple thousand and a hundred thousand dollars? She's fucked regardless.

RIAA's still making it's message heard: Either roll over early, or we'll fuck you for life.

Re:First intelligent thing a court has done to RIA

[MrMista_B]

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.

Re:Defendant still lost in a way...

[pete6677]

When a case is dismissed with prejudice, it is a lot easier for the defendant to countersue for attorney fees, which I suspect they will in this case. The award is not automatic, but likely.

ad litem defined

[Anonymous Coward]

The OED cites a law dictionary from 1959: "A guardian ad litem is a person appointed to defend an action or other proceeding on behalf of an infant.. or a lunatic or idiot not so found.. who is defendant or respondent to a proceeding in the court."

Fucking hell

[Turn-X Alphonse]

I think I speak for us all when I say "What The Fuck".

What company wants to sue children? We were all kids once, we probably commited minor crimes (stole a chocolate bar or whatever). But you never hear a shop keeper going "lets sue the little kid! He's a right fucker him!", they slap them on the wrist, tell their parents and keep a closer eye on them.

I didn't like the RIAA before, but when they start to sue children.. you've crossed a line no adult should even think of crossing.

Maybe there should be a new Pepsi/iTunes ad...

[RetrogradeMotion]

... with a rendition of "I fought the RIAA and the law won."

Liability questions

[solarlux]

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?

precedent?

[circletimessquare]

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 ;-)

Re:precedent?

[tktk]

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?

Downloading Kelly Clarkson is the surest sign of stupidity.

Cool, but she still had to pay costs...

[RyanFenton]

She still had to pay her defence costs in this case - hardly unusual, but very much a threat against those who don't want to settle. Yes, they can use this case as precident, but the costs of any court case just won't be acceptable to most of the people here in the U.S., who are living in a constant state of debt. This leaves the threat of bankruptcy as a legitimate tool of terror in the hands of the content distribution organizations, and any other corporations that decide that preying on the weak to settle is a legitimate financial strategy.

We need some corporate anti-terror legislation to stop corporations from acting to terrorize citizens. We already have too much historic and current legislation running the other way around. Of course, we used to just call it organized crime when applied to corporations, but terror as a political label is in fashion these days.

Ryan Fenton

How much?

[SmallFurryCreature]

Exactly what kinda attorny do you think she got? The message here is simple, the court WILL spank both sides if they misbehave. She tried apparently to pull something that was not to the courts liking so the judge send a message by making her pay her laywer. Had she not obstructed the case then the RIAA would probably have had to cough up the dough to pay her lawyer. Idoubt the bill comes to more then a couple hundred bucks. This was not a long complex drawn out case.

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.

fun with popups

[jaxon6]

Repeat after me:

Never, ever, ever link to a site with that level of popups.

I really think /. should make a point of not linking to sites that are just that shitty. Maybe the site owners will get the point.

And when the hell is Firefox going to get functionality to block flash-based popups?

Re:fun with popups

[jcr]

Never, ever, ever link to a site with that level of popups.

The site has popups?

Why aren't you using a better browser?

-jcr

Guardian Ad Lidem

[MBCook]

No kidding. Guardian ad lidem? That means they wanted the court to remove the parents' legal rights to the child for the purposes of this case (ostensibly because the parents weren't looking out for the best interests of the kid) and have an officer of the court take over.

The parents' of this kid aren't fit because they won't let the RIAA sue her? They want a new legal guardian (again, only for legal matters pertaining to this case) appointed purely for the purpose of suing a child the parents' prevented you from suing?

These people are INSANE.

Re:Guardian Ad Lidem

[moosesocks]

These people are INSANE.

No. They just have no soul.

And then...

[anandamide]

...they tried asking the Judge to amend the judgment in order to allow them to roll over the child's cute,fuzzy puppy with a hella gnarly steamroller, which the judge granted.

This doesn't change....

[mpapet]

the RIAA's strategy.

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 /.'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.

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.

Here's what really happened.

[SlayerofGods]

The case was dismissed aginst the mother with prejudice but they're still free to refile and sue the child if they want.
From what I can make out with my legal knowledge (which is more then person that wrote the summary I'd say but I'm not a lawyer) here's what really happend.
They sued the mom, who had the ISP account.
They found out that it was really the daugther who was the sharer.
They asked for the case to be dismissed aginst the mom.
They then asked for the case to be changed to the daugher after the judge issued his judgment.
The judge said nope and did what they asked and dismissed the case.
So basicly I think this was a mistake on the lawyers part for asking the case to be dismissed before they got the defendent changed.
This is more of a technicality win then a real win aginst the RIAA

Re:In defense of the RIAA

[molarmass192]

Last time I checked, music pirates primarily used Windows only tools like Kazaa, most probably running on pirated copies of Windows. People who earn their livings using Linux, every single copy legitimately licensed I might add, are much MUCH less likely to participate in music and software piracy. Besides, if you're looking for anti-intellectual property types, look in the BSD camp. Last time I checked, my GPLd software did not grant me ownership of any of the itellectual property within the codebase.

Re:Am I Correct?

[flanksteak]

You can sue a minor, you just have to follow special procedure. Part of which is the appointment of someone of age to represent the minor (in addition to the lawyer). The interesting thing about the case is that after the RIAA lost on the technicality they asked for permission to represent so they could follow the rules. The judge said no, which strikes me as a recognition and rejection of the overall end-around tactic.

It would be interesting to review the cases where the RIAA has acted this way and see if they pick cases where the parents may not be of means or legal savvy to fight the way this woman did.

Collective funding?

[Spy der Mann]

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?

Re:Collective funding?

[darnok]

If this is going to attract MY money, I'd like the group (EFF?) to select a (probably small) number of test cases to contest, rather than have a free-for-all system where everybody signs up to be defended against Sony et al.

Why? I've got no problem with the RIAA (and its equivalents worldwide) suing people for:
- massive copyright infringement involving zillions of songs and zillions of copies
- selling illegal copies of infringing content

On the other hand, I've got a big problem if/when the *AA goes after:
- 13 year old kids, and by proxy, their parents (who generally have little to no idea that things such as Limewire even exist)
- people who download a couple of songs for their own personal use i.e. not loads of stuff, and not to distribute further
- people who download copies of songs they've already purchased on CD, but which they can't copy to e.g. their iPod because of copy protection restrictions on the CD
- people who download a TV show which has already been shown on non-subscription services
- people who "pirate" content that is so old that common sense says it should've been out of copyright years ago (e.g. old "I Love Lucy" episodes). The concept that copyright can effectively be extended forever just defies common sense, particularly when you see Hollywood waiting for vintage content to become public domain, then releasing "their" take on it and claiming copyright protection on intellectual content that someone else invented 50+ years ago
- suing people for e.g. $100k per downloaded song, on some bogus principle that they COULD have given it to the 20,000 others. In that case, the onus should be on the suing party to come up with the list of 20,000 others, with verifiable documentation to support it

the girl can't be sued?

[falconwolf]

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. IANAL, but doesn't that mean they can no longer sue the child?

It doesn't mean that at all, all it means is that the mother can't be sued, the Guardian Ad Litem in this case is the mother therefore they can't sue her.

GUARDIAN AD LITEM
Phrase meaning "For the Proceeding" referring to adults who look after the welfare of a child and represent their legal interests; usually volunteers who are also officers of the court. If the GAL is not an attorney, they must hire one for the child, but some states are starting to allow GALs to do the actual legal work. GALs are also responsible for medical care of the child.

Falcon

Misleading slashdot spin...

[Kjella]

The mom was sued as the owner of the ISP account. During discovery, everything points to the daughter so they drop the charges against mom with prejudice. Since they have made a "best effort" to sue the right person, each side pays court costs. I think the judge was a little pissed at the mum for making the court go through formal motions just to establish this, and feels she should have simply informed them of the circumstances.

The other motion was to continue prosecution against her child as the same case. The court basicly said "That's just as much work as starting a new case, you'll need new court reservations, a Guardian Ad Litem = lawyer to represent the child (as the mother and child could have conflicting interests in this case) and so on anyway, and it's not cheaper either". The RIAA wanted to sue a 13yo girl. They will probably refile to sue a 13yo girl, because it was the mother's case that was "dismissed with prejudice". If they are really nasty, they will completely refuse to settle the second case just to make an example out of them. How this is a victory eludes me.

Kjella

The curse of digitization

[skingers6894]

The RIAA are attempting to contain the uncontainable - and it's their own fault.

No matter what they like to say many, many people do not believe that copyright infringement is the same as theft.

Combine this with a media format that can be copied in seconds and you have a problem.

How did the poor recording industry end up in this mess? Greed and shortsightedness.

They had a format that could not be copied easily. Vinyl was the clearly superior sounding format of the day. For music lovers a tape copy simply would not do. People could not afford to create their own records. Even the inferior tape copies could only be created from the vinyl in actual time. So people bought the original. They weren't buying the "rights to the song", they were buying the media!

Enter the CD. Better sound quality but people did not have the capability to copy it perfectly - at first. The CD came out at a price that was a PREMIUM over vinyl. Why? Because the format was BETTER QUALITY, we were told. The recording industry was happy to be selling "media format" when it suited them. We the consumers were told that the price would drop as the production costs of CDs came down. Well, I can produce a CD for about 25 cents in my house now. So why am I paying at least 50 times the price that I could produce the thing for? Where is the price reduction that was promised? It never came.

So now the RIAA have a problem. The media is now worth squat and we can make our own perfect copies for virtually nothing. Plan B - copyright violation and suing 13 year olds.

Great idea guys, sue your user base. Worse still, sue the user base who couldn't afford to buy the stuff now anyway but may be inclined to in the future IF you hadn't completely soured their musical experience when they were young by taking them to court for listening to Jay-Z.

Get a clue. Reduce your prices. Encourage artists to make money from concerts (wow, imagine, performers, performing!). Find a superior format again and make it worth buying. You are trying to contain a product that can be perfectly reproduced in seconds, from anywhere in the world, to anywhere in the world, for free. People find it hard to believe it's stealing. Good luck with your business.

Re:Nice try. But no.

[Shakrai]

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.

Re:Nice try. But no.

[Kadin2048]

I am not a bankruptcy lawyer either, but I did ask one where I could find the list of "non-dischargable" debts:

You'll find it here: TITLE 11 > CHAPTER 5 > SUBCHAPTER II > 523. A more verbose discussion is available here, which you might find interesting, if not exactly light reading.

I'll summarize (skipping the irrelevant subsections):

A discharge under section 727, 1141, 1228 (a), 1228 (b), or 1328 (b) of this title does not discharge an individual debtor from any debt-- (19) that-- (B) results from-- (i) any judgment, order, consent order, or decree entered in any Federal or State judicial or administrative proceeding; (ii) any settlement agreement entered into by the debtor; or (iii) any court or administrative order for any damages, fine, penalty, citation, restitutionary payment, disgorgement payment, attorney fee, cost, or other payment owed by the debtor.

So pretty much, if any court orders you to pay something, or you agree to a settlement, you're SOL as far as declaring bankruptcy to discharge it goes. And unlike some of the other subsections, which have "outs" for things like inability to pay, or the benefit to the debtor outweighing the benefit to the creditor by discharging it, that section has no outs.

Street Justice

[0x0000]

Well, since you would be a criminal, you might not be able to draw welfare (actually, is there still any such things as welfare? I thought the neo-cons put an end to that?).

No, I think that since the RIAA are demanding the criminalization of file sharing behavior, the file sharers should oblige them - deal with the RIAA in terms they can understand: Gang fo thugz to gang of thugz.

E.g. Form an IP Theft Crime Syndicate and respond to each lawsuit with a couple drive-bys at some RIAA member corporate offices. There are more of you than there are of them, and they are highly visible wiht a lot to lose - right out there in the open. Vulnerable.

For the financially disadvantaged (those who can't just dash out and buy a tech 9 or mac 10 or whatever they're called - toss a couple of gasoline bombs thru their plate glass (wait til everyone has gone home if you're squeamish about offing the bastards - but a more useless bunch of dickheads I really have trouble imagining) - show them what "losses" are really all about...

And speaking of fininancially disadvantaged, hasn't anyone noticed that the RIAA/MPAA thugs only pick on middle-to-low income citizens? They seem very careful to avoid going after anyone who has the real financial oomph to give them a real legal fight. This Michigan decision is not too bad, but the war is far from over, and the people are losing.

The RIAA/MPAA will no more be stopped by legal means than any other group of entrenched gangsters.

If the courts and law enforcement won't stand up for the citizens' rights, the citizens have to do it themselves.

This girl's mother could obviously afford a lawyer, and was willing to take the chance - what about all those other one-paycheck-from-the-streets victims who are having to balance next a paying couple months rent in protection money to the RIAA thugs against the possility that if they give a similar amount of money to lawyer they *might* not get stuck with an even larger fine?

I figure if the RIAA/MPAA thugs had their families threatened in the same way - to the same degree - they are threatening the families of their victims they might at least begin to understand what's at stake.

Regardless of what protestations and representations the RIAA/MPAA thugs might make, file sharing as we know it is not illegal. The fact that they have purchased legislattion supporting the pretense of its illegality doesn't change that. To those victims without sufficient funds to purchase legislation to protect themselves from unjust action under the color of Law, force becomes the only possible response.

It's a rigged system. It's ime to shut it down and start over.

Re:Nice try. But no.

[Shakrai]

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.