Slashdot Mirror
RIAA Sues Woman Who Has Never Used a Computer
boarder8925 writes "Marie Lindor, a home health aide who has never bought, used, or even turned on a computer in her life, was sued by the RIAA in Brooklyn federal court for using an 'online distribution system' to 'download, distribute, and/or make available for distribution' plaintiff's music files. She has requested a pre-motion conference in anticipation of making a summary judgment motion dismissing the complaint and awarding her attorneys fees under the Copyright Act."
Punitive Damages !!!!
It's better to be the foot on the boot than the face on the pavement. ~~ tkx Kadin2048
I mean she's NEVER used a computer?
How they managed to find this woman and sue her is beyond me... It just goes to show you that you can't get away from the RIAA even if you've never used a computer in your life. They managed to find one of only a handful of people who has never used a computer and sue her... I should be scared for my parents right now.
Doesn't this prove something about the RIAA's investigative methods? Let's assume that the woman is telling the truth, she has in fact never touched a computer in her life, therefore she has not downloaded the music in question. Meaning she has been FALSLY IDENTIFIED by the RIAA's investigative methods (whatever those may consist of).
My question is, now that this obvious inconsistency has been exposed, what does this mean to those that have already been convicted? Isn't it to say, if you incorrectly fingered this woman as a pirate, how can you prove that you accurately identified me as a pirate?
Reminds me of a colleague back in the UK who was taken to court for not paying his TV license fee - when asked what his defence was he responded "I don't own one".
Apparently the judge was not amused with the prosecution for not having bothered to do even this minimal check!
If this is the case (pardon the pun) with this action then I hope the RIAA get a really embarrasing and well publicised dressing down. Shame on them.
i'm assuming she doesn't have broadband either. what ip address did they use to find her? just goes to show how stupid these lawsuits are.
Can this work? The entire request to dismiss the case was one paragraph, with only one sentence stating that the defendant never used a computer. Wouldn't some investigation or proof be required in order for a case to be dismissed?
She has never used a computer?
Does she have internet access?
How could she use the 'online distribution system'?
Questions over questions....
The only one who knows is RIAA.....
Must've been humming the tunes in her head - either that or she was talking on the phone while the radio was playing in the background, that's transmission of copyrighted material over a digital medium, string her up!
This just goes to show you the great lengths to which the RIAA will go to protect their interests and punish those who violate the law.
The RIAA will not be distracted by 'facts' or other nonsense in its relentless pursuit of justice!
"customer": 'but I've never even used a computer!'
RIAA: 'la la la - I can't hear you!'
Steve
I'm suing Slashdot for wasting wast quantities of my time for the past year.
CmdrTaco, you're goin' down.
it's a blue bright blue Saturday hey hey
This woman does laundry a lot and has no dryer, so she hangs her clothes to dry. When the RIAA said she was using an "online distribution system" to make plaintiff's music files available, they were not referring to a computer; what they meant was that she is often heard whistling copyrighted songs while she hangs clothes on the line; hence, "online distribution system." Typical slashbots rush to this criminal's defense when it is clear she was openly and shamelessly stealing music and she was caught red-handed. Meanwhile, the RIAA music executives are being deprived of a living (or at least of a third yacht) thanks to the lawless actions of such criminals. Eventually this will kill music, as the RIAA warned us about home taping so long ago -- why would an artist bother creating or recording new songs when any old lady can just come by forty years later and whistle it without paying the company that distributes your cds a dime?
My in-laws (67 & 72 years old, born in Malaysia) have never used a computer of any kind, other than pressing the walk button at traffic lights, playing poker machines and playing video tapes and DVD's on normal consumer equipment set up by myself or another relative.
Maybe you were joking and I missed it. Lots of older people that I can think of would never use any kind of personal or work computer.
http://michaelsmith.id.au
but 3 albino kids soaking in water told the RIAA that this woman was planning on buying a computer to pirate music so they sent tom cruise after her. thank god for these pre-emptive lawsuits!
Yeah but when they come to break down your door they need a geographic address, not an IP address -- presumably the address you signed up for your ISP with. So most likely the actual pirate here signed up for an ISP using her home address and name.
Perhaps this is part of a campaign to instill fear in the hearts of the "guilty" by first stringing up a few obviously innocent people.
We don't see the world as it is, we see it as we are.
-- Anais Nin
How many times have they said "Well if you don't want to get sued, don't download music!" Explain that statement, in light of THIS!
I hope the court really slaps them one over this. It's clearly shown that they're not doing the most basic of fact-checking. (I mean, come on now, for godsakes, a dead woman, and now someone who's never used a computer at all?) Where did they pull the IP address out of -this- time? (Never mind, I don't want to know.) This is a massive waste of her time and that of the court, and I hope they get slapped with a good bit worse then attorney's fees. All their suits should be dismissed with prejudice after this garbage.
To fight the war on terror, stop being afraid.
Okay, did I read the correct story? So she may have never used a computer, but I assume she is paying for the cable or dsl service that is likely attached to her television or phone bill? Or a child used her credit card to open an AOL account... And that there is someone in her household who uses the internet she is paying for to share music on p2p? That happens all the time in these cases. A kid shares the music and the parent is blissfully ignorant. The way the blurb is phrased sounds like it was written by Pravda. Is there another article with more details?
Here is an article that describes recent news in that case:
http://www.forbes.com/business/energy/feeds/ap/20
However her defense has changed slightly:Ah, yes... the old "it's the fault of a file-sharing program for allowing them to do it" defense. I wonder how well that one will fly.
Apparently Santangelo is receiving all kinds of donations from big hearted Internet file traders but frankly it looks like money down the drain to me. There is no way she is going to win when she's already basically admitting that she failed to supervise her kids and their friends when they were using her computer.
As far as this new case, who wants to bet that it won't turn out the same way? The lady maybe never touched the computer, but what about the kids? She's responsible for their actions! Saying "I didn't do it" won't help if it's your kids, like what appears to be the case with Santangelo.
For two reasons:
1 - If this is a frivilous, baseless lawsuite in which the sued person is innocoent (extremely innocent, if one can use such a term), then how many other lawsuits, even those that have been extorted... urr... settled... were also made against innocent people?
2 - Sure, the law of averages saw that eventually one might file a completely wrong lawsuit like this. But then how many lawsuits are the RIAA filing in order to be able to hit this long-long-long shot? This isn't just an "oops, we mispelled her last name" type thing. This is way, way, way to the edge of the curve. And that means, also according to the law of averages, that there are TONS of other suits they've filed that are also "not quite accurate".
So, if it can be shown that the RIAA is filling a signifiant amount of lawsuits that range from innacurate to completely baseless, then what does that say about their abuse of the independent judicial system? It could leave them open for a massive countersuit on behalf of everyone who the RIAA has ever sued.
After all, if THEY can file suits in a court system that enters guilty pleas without the need for "beyond a shadow of a doubt", why can't we? As long as we can show that it's plausible that the RIAA has been extorting people, then we can sue them for, shall we say $500,000 per person?
UTF-8: There and Back Again
Seriously, if she never used a computer then she didn't buy any media or software, so media producers lost profits. That's even worse than pirates 'cuz hardware manufacutrers lose profits either! Jail her now.
Since they first sued a dead woman for copyright infringement, and now they're suing a woman for the same thing that does not have a computer. I can put these facts together, and come up with this idea: The RIAA is really a ghost hunting organization. First the dead woman (a ghost!), and now a nonexistant computer (a ghost!). These clearly show their hidden agenda :)
I bet she also listens to her iPod with the volume up way too high.
Re: The lady maybe never touched the computer, but what about the kids? She's responsible for their actions!
You sure? Marie Lindor and Patricia Santangelo both live in New York.
"Today, all States but New Hampshire and New York have provisions holding parents civilly responsible for youth crime, with an average maximum recovery amount of $4,100." - Parent Responsibity Laws.
IANAL
Reduce, reuse, cycle
That is what is really bad, because just about everyone violates copyright, from your parents down to your little kid brother. It is like arresting people for being terrorists because they had bomb making materials under their sink...as does just about every single person in America.
If we are going to have laws, the punishment should fit the crime, and getting 60,000.00 out of some poor sap for doing the same thing that every other person is doing is just wrong. If someone was printing up 10 thousand copies of a CD to sell at flee markets, that might be a reasonable fine (maybe).
What we need to do is have some good old fashioned Black Sabbath The Mob Rules...and run a few RIAA execs up on a tree with a rope. Maybe that would put into perspective for them the concept of punishment fitting the crime.
Usurper_ii
Ron Paul
- Hunter S. Thompson
Never try to beat a professional at his own game!
Agreed.
Dear Steve:
Greetings. I represent the RIAA. The song "la la la - I can't hear you!" is copyrighted by BMG, an RIAA member corporation. Your appropriation of the lyrics without permission of the copyright holder is in direct violation of Title 17 USC 101-810. Indeed, your transmission of said lyrics over the internet constitutes a distribution of copyrighted material, and your use of the "online distribution system" known as "slashdot" for your criminal activity amounts to conspiracy to commit copyright infringement. Moreover, the use of the "moderator" system to enhance the visibility and thus the distribution of our client's intellectual property multiplies the damages significantly. Please cease and desist in the use and distribution of our client's property or face legal action.
Let's imagine 2 things for a moment. First, that she's an old granny of 80something, and second, that her grandson bought her a computer so she could stay in touch with him via e-mail.
No, she didn't download. How could she? She has no idea how that machine works. All she knows is "click here, click there, write text, click here". But what do you think happens then?
Search warrant, all her neighbors watching, realizing that the police is hauling stuff from her home. A computer? Oh, kiddy porn. After all, that's what you get to see on TV when they haul computers out of homes.
Granny dealing in kiddy porn? How could she? But then, she's always been the quiet one... you know, gotta watch those creepy quiet ones...
That lady better be VERY glad she doesn't have a computer! Own a computer, hook it to the 'net and you're already with one foot in the prison. But nobody cares when you own 10 guns and an artillery piece...
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Why would the RIAA actually bother to investigate what songs are downloaded and by whom? Too much trouble for them! Everyone has illegally downloaded before, right? So no one will ever notice if you just ...
...
1. pick up the phone book and choose your victims at random.
2. pick a few popular songs that everyone must have downloaded anyway
3.
4. profit!
But also Bill Gates is due his $300 - $400 dollars for a computer operating system and a full office suite (plus anti-virus software) she should be using. What a thoughtless woman. She and her kind are resposibible for holding back the economy. Think of the starving Chinese children turning out computer boards and peripherals that are being denied their daily bowl of rice. Oh, the humanilty! Think of all those pimple faced kids in their first job at the local appliance stores being deprived of ales. And the ISPs not getting their share.
What a shame. This woman and her kind are criminals. Let's round them up and send them all to re-education camps and force feed them computer classes until they change their anti-social behaviors.
Too lazy to create a sig...
I know... like, how the hell does she pirate music and have meaningless arguments with strangers?
You join either the Democrat or Republican parties and attend the party congress. You will get into plenty of meaningless arguments although some say the the patriotic music offered at these events tends to be a bit cheesy. If you want to get serious about meaningless arguments you can also run for the Senate. Be warned it is an expensive hobby and you have to have your moral backbone and conscience surgically removed.
Only to idiots, are orders laws.
-- Henning von Tresckow
A farmer from Wiltshire got a penalty notice accusing him of doing 85mph on his tractor in south Wales.
His tractor, however, has a top speed of 26mph and has never been to Wales. Simple case of mistaken identity: automatic numberplate reader gets the plate wrong.
The farmer's quote:
"It's a good tractor, but not that good."
Good illustration with the pipe bomb example.
:)
:)
The only thing I disagree with is the lynch mob because we simply don't need it, society already does something much more effective: blatantly ignoring misconstrued laws. It's not even civil disobedience simply the aggregate of common sense. Imho RIAA lost close to a decade ago and have since been involved in a protracted harakiri as they continue to sue willy-nilly while not managing to follow their own rules and seeing major artists publicly state their support for ordinary filesharing.
I know it's little comfort for those unlucky enough to be affected by the death throes of RIAA. I know the justice system and most politicians are lagging at least 20 years behind society but that has always been the case and isn't any kind of surprise. If one tries to speed things up one should be very wary of doing more harm than good.
Rant warning!
RIAA really had/has no reason to fear individuals filesharing and should have jumped at this gratis opportunity for broad artist exposure and recognize the market for high-quality reasonably priced unobstructive digital formats. Instead of their centralized campaigns for a handful of artists they could have taken advantage of everyone promoting everyone for free and let the naturally popular artists rise instead of trying to manufacture them. If they had any business sense they would be actively promoting filesharing, making it easy for fans and casual listeners alike to support & pay those they enjoy, making it easy for artists and consumers alike to find each other and create communities. If they did all that they would be doing their job which boils down to having a living thriving music industry, as it is they're doing the opposite. They could still change course but they wont because they do not understand anything about their customers or the market. Businesses that have no clue about their own market disappear over time, I doubt the RIAA will exist in their present form come 2016.
Wow I've got to add a rant warning at the beginning lol
MPAA has tried to learn from RIAAs fiasco but the whole bizarre strategy of DRM, DCMA etc. is so fundamentally flawed that they can't have learned much. At the least they have not understood that the only people they punish with such strategies are their lawabiding customers and as such they're in practice fighting for "piracy" even if that's not their intent.
RIAA & MPAA shooting themselves in the foot is too much of a mild description; they're repeatedly stabbing themselves in the chest and have been doing so for years -- noone survives that but luckily it has nothing to do with the continued existense of great music and movies as eventually the cash flows will just end up being rerouted around them.
I'm eagerly avaiting the day a senators or congressmembers child/familymember is hauled in to court by the RIAA or MPAA, they share too. Hell, I'm pro-Bush but I'm sure there's at least one track on his beloved iPod that's "pirated" lol
this comment is provided "as is" and without any express or implied legibility or congruity [...]
Parents are liable for the behavior of their minor children. In your strawman case, the parents can, in fact, be sued for negligence.
Yes, but that's because the parent has not been performing their duty of care - an offence for which they would probably be found guilty in my hypothetical. My point is that they are not guilty of the offence the child committed.
If the police wanted to prosecute Ms Santangelo for negligance for allowing her child to use the internet unsupervised, that's one thing; but for the RIAA to be able to successfully sue her for Copyright Infringement, an offence she didn't commit, is another thing entirely, and wrong.
Remember kids, it's all fun and games until someone commits wholesale galactic genocide.
"Marie Lindor, a home health aide who has never bought, used, or even turned on a computer in her life,"
If she DOESN'T even OWN a computer, WHY WOULD SHE HAVE AN INTERNET CONNECTION?
"Read the f****** article", people!
"Money is truthful. If a man speaks of his honor, make him pay cash." Notebooks of Lazarus Long, Robert A. Heinlein
I advise that we send her ass to GitMo or Area 49 (used for cyborgs, not aliens, located in California, of course) for some serious probing- let Congressmen Conyers and Sensenbrenner plug her analog hole for a little while!
If a nation expects to be ignorant and free, in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be.-TJ
There was some debate here, so thanks for clearing up that it is a computer.
I guess this OT here, and should go in as an Ask/. but any help would be appreciated.
If you think imaginary property and real property are the same, when does your house become public domain?
I'm starting to think the RIAA "investigators" pick people at random from the phone book or something and the only reason there aren't more cases like this is because almost everybody is using P2P.
No sig today...
While I want to agree with you, I'm going to have to call you on that. I suspect they make a lot more money by grooming particular artists and therefore knowing where their money will be coming from. To use an analogy, look at the state of animal husbandry. In medieval times, it was not uncommon to let your pig or cow free range for food. It was considered cheaper than providing for feed. Nowadays, I'm sure people would argue that it provides for a survival of the fittest, much as you state your idea regarding music. However, what typically happened was that there was little control over your animal and its productiveness. Your cow might be stolen by bandits. It might be shot by an errant poacher (or an earnest one). Even when it survived, you had no idea what it had been eating and who it was breeding with. And average production for those cows was small. With modern animal husbandry techniques, we now keep the naimals penned and well fed, control their breeding, and we wind up with cows who have easily 50 times the milk production of medieval cows. Right now, the RIAA has those penned and bred cows. They know they can milk those cows and be assured of a rich bounty because they bred them that way. And you're asking them to free range their artists? It's just not a smart move for them.
I'm eagerly avaiting the day a senators or congressmembers child/familymember is hauled in to court by the RIAA or MPAA, they share too. Hell, I'm pro-Bush but I'm sure there's at least one track on his beloved iPod that's "pirated" lol :)
Feh! Do you think their lawyers would let them get that far? I would not be surprised if they have a database of names which they automatically remove from consideration. At that, they probably do make a non-token effort to ascertain who's actually pirating out of the people they prosecute. It's only due to volume that we're getting these "never touched the Internet" people. If the RIAA were at all smart, they'd come out publically and state that this person was all a mistake and award her $500 worth of music from RIAA artists. It would be good publicity, the "we made a mistake and are making up for it" kind, plus it will cost them all of $5 plus shipping to do so, since they own the CDs.
This sig has absolutely no significance and serves only to take up screen space and waste the time of the reader.
Let me clarify your post:
:)
1. Rip pages out of telephone directory
2. Pin to wall as darts target
3. Throw dart
4. Sue all those that weren't hit by dart
5. Profit!!!
(6. Repeat)
Any technology distinguishable from magic, is insufficiently advanced.
it doesn't matter.
RIAA doesn't sue people for the money.
It doesn't even sue people to get them to stop doing whatever they are supposedly doing.
They sue them for the publicity.
This is worse than mere barratry: the more outrageous the abuse of the legal system, the more it suits there purpose. They'd send a spurious C&D to a deaf vegan paraplegic nun who runs a homeless shelter, if they could find one. In fact, brazenly baseless accusations are better than substantive ones; it gets the point across without the expense of a trial.
They're trying to establish a reputation like the La Cosa Nostra. And they want to use that reputation exactly the same way: to create de facto privileges that do not exist de jure, e.g. "You don't want to park there, that's Vinnie the Hatchet's spot."
And you can't call them to task for their misappropriation of state machinery to despoil private individuals of their fundamental human right to be left alone; not without talking about it, which is exactly what they want you to do.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
Lawyer: "When's the last time you used a computer?"
Ms. Lindor: "Actually, I've never used one in my life."
RIAA Lawyer: "OBJECTION, relevance!"
When out in public how can you tell a Grammar Nazi by just looking at them?
Simple, look for an adhesive label on their lapel with an upsidedown lower case 'e' on it.
By their schwa-stickers ye shall know them.
"Oh drat these computers, they're so naughty and so complex, I could pinch them." --Marvin the Martian
Kind of like the old adage that goes something like "Discipline your child often. Even if you don't know what they did, they do." And no, I have no children. Yet. But it would seem clear that the RIAA really needs to look over their methods for collecting evidence. Didn't they end up suing a supposedly innocent Mac-user once, because they didn't realize that on a DSL or Cable subscription, you have dynamic IP? Maybe they need to be taught that *everybody* do not have computers, and *everybody* with computers are not using them to l33ch mp3s.
Quidquid latine dictum sit, altum sonatur.
In the old days people had a way of dealing with people like the RIAA execs. They grabbed them, stripped them, beat them, coated them in tar and feathers. In other words they made a public example of them to discourage other similar-thinking assholes from doing the same thing. Are we too civilized for that today?
this is just the ISP's playing games with the RIAA.
RIAA: Give us the user of this IP address!!!
ISP: Why?
RIAA: We have the right to commit murder to prevent copying of our intellectual property under the DMCA! This IP was trading files! Give us the name or we'll kill you!
ISP: [flips through phonebook.....] Ok, Ok...it was....Joe Schlabotnick, of 123 Main Street, Fukyusville, Montana.
RIAA: Thank you. Well...not really. You should consider yourselves honoured to give us the information of your cruminal customer scum!
ISP: Oh, we are....we are... [giggling in background]
RIAA: SUESUESUESUESUESUE!!!! [Calls Joe Schlabotnick]
Joe: Hello?
RIAA: We know you are stealing our music using Napster! [whispering in background...What?...that's legal now....ok, then what's still illegal?......] using KaZaA, eMule, LimeWire, and Bearshare, all at once! You have no chance to survive make your time!
Joe Schlabotnick: Huh? It couldn't have been me. I don't even own a computer.
RIAA: What happen? Someone set us up the bomb!
"City hall" in German is "Rathaus" Kinda explains a few things......
I'm starting to think the RIAA "investigators" pick people at random from the phone book ...
Indeed, and once we see a lawsuit against Navin R. Johnson, well know for sure.
Beauty is in the eye of the beerholder.
It wouldn't get the exec whacked though. He'd suddenly have union troubles and every last thing he'd ever done that was remotely illegal would have local cops investigating it. It'll all go away when he drops the suit AND pays a handsome penalty.
A bigger truism is don't whack a guy when you can extort him for some cash.
William of Ockham had no beard. The most likely explanation is that it was chewed off by squirrels every morning.
No, we've become pussies due to the political correctness police.
The Christian Right is Neither (Christian nor right). See: Matthew 23, Matthew 25, Ezekiel 16:48-50
RIAA Exec: "The new phone books are here! The new phone books are here!"
Here's an interesting article on the misquotes.
Rucker
F*** the political correctness BS. That's probably the single biggest reason America is declining as much as it is today. If people would replace their PC attitude with some good old fashioned common sense (and the occasional tar-and-feathering of idiots who don't use common sense), this world would be a much better place.
When we bought a house we had an escrow account set-up with the mortgage for paying things such as property taxes and home owners' insurance. Well it turns-out that the banks that do the mortgages often farm out the duty of handling escrow related matters. So the processing company that worked for our bank paid our property taxes for the first year. Unfortunately the company that handled the escrow accounts for another bank also did because someone at their company mis-entered some number in their system. Now the county returned the money once to the company for our bank and once to the company for the unrelated bank. Years later we get a bill for a couple thousand dollars plus.
By that time we no longer had the same bank for our mortgage and both companies that handled the escrow accounts had been absorbed by larger companies. This all was a large pain in the butt to work out. I actually had to pay a lawyer to look over the terms of a settlement between all of the parties in the end.
The worrisome aspect was that the county clerk told me that it is very common for this sort of mix-up to happen. You would think that if that was the fact the county would mail a letter to the homeowner on record if they got two checks for paying the property taxes as a heads-up, but no we don't get that sort of service even though it is our taxes that finance the county.
Multiple "john does"...CHECK
7 year old girl...CHECK
A mother of four...CHECK
Non computer users...CHECK
Nuns...
President bush...
Lars Ulrich...
Ourselves...
God...
It's true no man is an island, but if you take a bunch of dead guys and tie 'em together, they make a good raft.
Of course, those work better when you are an immortal and, after your rival runs you through ten times without killing you, you can apologize for calling his wife a bloated warthog and bid him good day!
Gamingmuseum.com: Give your 3D accelerator a rest.
"Kind of like the old adage that goes something like "Discipline your child often."..."
OMG that is the most horrible piece of advice I have ever heard. I hope you were using it sarcastically, because if you actually did that to a child you would have the most horrible miserable child on the face of the planet.
Have you ever been punished for something you didn't do? You NEVER forget it, and you NEVER forgive either. It eats at you till you can find some way of revenge. I'll prove.... (most likely that I can do something really bad and get away with it, to balance out the unfair punishment.)
And even if they did do some minor thing, if you constantly discipline someone, they never learn to discipline themself. You never trust them, so they never trust anyone else, and they never learn to contain themself either.
At the most extreme you get kids like that elf on harry potter - they do something bad, and punish themself, then do something bad again. They never learn that it's bad to do something bad - all they learn is that if you get punished then the bad thing is neutralized.
-Ariel
; )
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
The IP is translated into 127.0.0.1 I'm sure they are sharing music!!!
It was John Doe and John Smith, sue them!!!
Custom electronics and digital signage for your business: www.evcircuits.com