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RIAA Wants to Depose Dead Defendant's Children

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the stuff-you-can't-believe dept.

Exchange writes "In Michigan, in Warner Bros. v. Scantlebury, after learning that the defendant had passed away, the RIAA made a motion to stay the case for 60 days in order to allow the family time to "grieve", after which time they want to start taking depositions of the late Mr. Scantlebury's children. Recording Industry vs The People have more details"

5 of 560 comments (clear)

  1. What, are their lawyers salaried? by Short+Circuit · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Are their lawyers salaried so that they can afford to go after the estate of a dead victim?

    There ought to be a law against that. (Salaried lawyers, that is. There's already laws against extortion.)

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  2. The RIAA doesn't care about public image by Infonaut · · Score: 5, Interesting

    It's an industry association. It seems their strategy is to go after their targets as aggressively as possible, in order to send out the clear message that they can and will sue regular folks like you and me. They are effectively the "bad cop" while the individual record companies play the "good cop" giving the people the Brittany Spears and Korn they so desperately need.

    You can argue that filesharing is on the rise, or that the RIAA's enforcement actions have cut filesharing, depending on whose facts you use and how you slice them. But in the end the strategy of using the industry association to attack customers, while individual labels try to pretend they play no part in it, probably won't work. In a world where alternatives to label-centric distribution are nonexistent, the labels would be able to make this good cop, bad cop strategy work. But the irony here is that the tighter they squeeze, the more systems will slip through their fingers (apologies to G. Lucas). Sure, there are no "good" big labels to defect to, but there is much more incentive to escape the entire label system altogether.

    I keep waiting for one of the major labels to break ranks and start acting intelligent, giving customers fewer restrictions and defecting from the RIAA. It seems though, that none of them has the guts to do it, so they'll all keep pushing on consumers as hard as they can. The end result of the crackdown will eventually lead to a new business model in which the labels play a small or nonexistent role. Ironic, isn't it?

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  3. Re:Yuck... by Don_dumb · · Score: 5, Interesting
    the fact that actual people make these decisions
    That's what amazes me all the time I hear of terrible acts, particularly corporate ones and you think to yourself "someone must have actually decided to do this", even worse a group of 'respected' people must have agreed on this. Perhaps it is just my middle-class upbringing but I always struggle to believe that actually at some point a director just says "I know, lets extract millions from the pension fund" or like today "The guy died but his death shouldn't stop us, he should have life insurance".
    And yet somehow the outrage only seems to be restricted to certain areas like /. I know there is a war going on but I have just looked at the BBC website and cant see the story yet. Just like the Sony Rookit scandal, I cant help thinking that the opposition to the RIAA/MPAA has to start using more effective propaganda campaigns to get public awareness.
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  4. RIAA Lawyer's office is like 1 mile away... by Anyd · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I live about 30 seconds away from the RIAA Lawyer's office. Ann Arbor is a very progressive city, maybe I should go protest (but getting sued would suck.) Any suggestions for signs? "Dead people can't steal music" has a good ring to it.

  5. Re:Yuck... by atrocious+cowpat · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Yep, a constant source of wonder for me, too.

    Who are these people? At one point or another they must have started as "regular" citizens (fathers, mothers, sons, daughters, neighbours -- consumers). When did they change? And why?

    A comparative study on criminal and corporate behaviour would probably be rather interesting... especially regarding the point when either subject decided that the interest of their immediate environment was not theirs anymore.

    I do not want to insinuate that all corporate lawyers/executives are criminals, far from it. However I'd really like to know at what point (and why) people start making descisions which they would -- perceiveing themselves at the recieving end of -- in all likelyhood reject.

    Has this been done? Does anyone have mor information on this subject? I'd be grateful.

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