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RIAA Subpoenas Neighbor's Son, Calls His Employer
NewYorkCountryLawyer writes "To those who might think that I might be exaggerating when I describe the RIAA's litigation campaign as a 'reign of terror', how's this one: in UMG v. Lindor, the RIAA not only subpoenaed the computer of Ms. Lindor's son, who lives 4 miles away, but had their lawyer telephone the son's employer. See page 2, footnote 1." From Ray's comments: "You have a multi-billion dollar cartel suing unemployed people, disabled people, housewives, single mothers, home healthcare aids, all kinds of people who have no resources whatsoever to withstand these litigations. And due to the adversary system of justice the RIAA will be successful in rewriting copyright law, if the world at large, and the technological community in particular, don't fight back and help these people fighting these fights."
"if the world at large, and the technological community in particular, don't fight back and help these people fighting these fights."
OK..
In all seriousness. WHAT SHOULD WE DO?
Please.. what can I do to help make this go away?
Don't Tread on Me
If you read the response from the record industry, Richard Altman is not an innocent bystander. According to the RIAA he has reinstalled Windows on his mom's computer several times and he was the one who delivered his mom's computer's hard drive to the RIAA. It is not like he has not been involved
The RIAA says that the hard drive they have is not the hard drive that was attached to the computer they are looking for, so they are looking at Richard Altman's computer equipment to see if he has the information they want.
Do they have probable cause to do this? I don't think so, but that is their argument.
-Matt
See? This is bullshit. I'm so scared of getting sued by the RIAA, that I don't download music anymore -- and I don't buy CDs either. No, I don't have a 20+G inventory of MP3s. Instead, I use many of the online commercial-free radio stations (Like the fabulous SomaFM.com).
Now I've been a little scared of being hit by the MPAA for downloading Doctor Who and James Burke shows. Oh, wait...
Zhrodague.net - I do projects and stuff too.
The guy was illegally downloading music, dodging legitimate subpoenas, having people lie about his whereabouts to avoid legitimate subpoenas, having people *impersonate his dead father* to help him dodge legitimate subpoenas, and then after finally being served he tampers with evidence?
Say what you will about our thieving jackbooted fascist powertripping RIAA overlords, I'm having a hard time mustering up much sympathy for this guy. I disagree with much (if not all) of the **AA's tactics, but I'm just as rapidly running out of compassion for people who don't have the nerve to man up and just *do without* all their downloaded music and movies. At least the stoners have the nerve to stand right in front of the cops in a crowd of thousands and say "go ahead, arrest us all." I've yet to see a single person say "yes, I'm illegally filesharing and I'm willing to take the legal consequences as a symbol protest." Instead all I hear is "b-b-but it's not stealing, it's sharing! Everybody does it! Your business model is outdated and you're *mean*! Lower your prices! Britney sucks!"
Why?
The message the RIAA wants to send you is that you WILL be hurt if you're involved in P2P piracy. I've said it before and I'll say it again: The RIAA isn't going to lay-off the stereotypical (but improbable) 80 year old grandma suffering cancer and a missing limb who's never touched a computer in their lives. They want you to know they're going to go after her. They want "you" to know, as a 20-something poor-little-rich-kid zit-faced P2P user who has been caught bang-to-rights redistributing their member's content and has barely any moral credibility whatsoever, that there's pretty much nothing you can do about it, they will go after you, after all, they're prepared to go after Mother Theresa, why the hell wouldn't they go after you?
Of course it's terrible. It's supposed to be. The truth, which NYCL and others kind of gloss over (and there's a reason for that), is that the practical powers of the RIAA are strictly limited, so the entire deal is to make themselves look like the biggest bastards possible. They look for people redistributing, they get the only identifying information available (the ISP logs), they sue, and they hope there's enough publicity that other users of P2P networks will be sufficiently scared enough to avoid fighting back. And sometimes the best way to generate that publicity is to sue grandma and a few unrelated parties and let "Good cop" (a few radio DJs and artists) cry out about it.
And if Good Cop's not available, there's always an ambulance-chasing lawyer around with a silky populistic patter who also has plenty of incentives to play up the "Monster, out-of-control, can do anything and will" image of the RIAA who'll faithfully repeat the message and scare the pirates just a little bit more.
You are not alone. This is not normal. None of this is normal.
Well I doubt it would be that easy given what they are doing in other cases where the people have decided to fight instead of rolling over.
Still, even accounting for "time is money", I know that I could cost a hellva lot more money then they could cost me, were they ever to come after me. And I have nothing to lose. I have few assets and little disposable income. If they beat me, hello Chapter 7. And they'd still be out the money.
If I did have money to lose then I'd run up huge legal bills defending myself. My lawyers get priority in any bankruptcy proceeding and I'd rather give them all the money then RIAA.
If everybody had this attitude they wouldn't be able to get away with this.
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
No, it's when they get the judgement against his *parents* - where they're ruined.
I've been involved and vindicated in court case (Same Name, Different Guy) that has a, shall we say, credit problem. I was taken to court by his creditors- even though I proved I wasn't the person they wanted.
I lost about 20 lbs in the time that it took to straighten out and felt like shit for the entire time.
So... what can they do? They can make you so miserable that you don't want to live.
At least 'justice' worked in my case... now if I could just win judgement against them for violations of the Fair Credit act....
It's about not filing a ridiculous lawsuit. It's about making it un-profitable for them to continue with their existing ridiculous lawsuit.
If you want to come after me then I'm going to stipulate nothing. I'm going to send you a merry paper chase with my interrogatories. I'm going to drag out any depositions that you may request to the point that you walk away with nothing useful. I'm going to file a counterclaim that you'll have to answer.
The point is that they are spending hundreds or thousands of dollars per hour on their lawyers and that if everybody did this then even RIAA would not be able to justify that sort of expense. Do you think the shareholders would approve of pouring tens of millions into a legal black hole when you are only expecting to cover a few thousand per case if you win and if the defendant has any money or assets that can be seized.
And if RIAA does get a judgement, then so what? You think civil judgements are the end of your life? Ask OJ how hard that civil judgement hurt him -- he didn't even need to file bankruptcy (always an option) to avoid paying it!
Make it massively unprofitable and sooner or later the shareholders of the RIAA companies will demand an end to this little adventure.
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
You can do it for far less than that and go further under the radar if you really want to and are very diligent and meticulous about personal cleanliness and general lifestyle cleanliness.
You need one set of durable clothing. The basics: socks, shoes, underwear, long pants, t or a shirt. Additional according to target climate: zero or more additional pairs of cotton pants (for layering in the cold), zero or more cotton long sleeve shirts (for layering in the cold), zero or more wool or cotton sweaters or sweatshirts (for layering in the cold) one or more jackets suitable for the weather--a good setup for even the coolest climates is t-shirt, two long sleeve cottons, one cotton sweatshirt, one wool sweater, one cotton hooded sweatshirt, one field jacket or heavy coat--one pair of gloves, one hat (anything more effective than a baseball cap will do). Multipurpose: one rain poncho (rainproofing, doubles as a ground layer). One sleeping bag suitable for the target climate--get a compression bag to reduce bulk, Marmot makes nice ones. Additional survival necessities: steel fork, knife, spoon, Swiss Army or Leatherman style multifunction pocket tool, Toothbrush, toothpaste, baby powder (for feet), antibacterial ointment (for first aid), miniroll of duct tape, small roll of kite string (50 pound test), one large roll of thread (pick your color) and at least five sewing needles (you'll break a few unless you have prior proficiency in hand-sewing). You can fit just about everything (except the sleeping bag, which should come with its own tote bag) into a standard size backpack. Extra clothes can be folded up or secured, with the kite string, to one of the bags. State issued ID--preferably a US passport (not 100% necessary but makes random encounters with local authorities go quickly and without mishap). It may take a bit of practice to refine your particular carryall system.
That's about it. Choose an urban location in a moderate climate (ie. not the desert, not anywhere with heavy snowfall or severe cold temperatures) with readily accessible toilet facilities, a readily accessible supply of drinking water, but far enough towards the edges of urban jungle so that you can find a sleeping spot that's relatively secluded. You should be able to set up your sleeping spot in less than five minutes and pack up in the morning in a similar amount of time. Use the rain poncho to cover the ground where you will spread out your sleeping bag. If it rains during the day then you can wear the rain poncho and have what I used to call "free car wash day" but is now "free rain poncho wash day". If it rains at night, well, spend the night walking around in the rain poncho. If that's the worst of your worries--staying awake for a night--then life isn't so bad.
Note that this lifestyle requires staying clean. No heavy drinking as humans tend to become forgetful, at best, or outright stupid, at worst, when drinking is involved. Heavy drinking is the number one cause for torn clothes, dropped items, unfortunate encounters with the police, or falling asleep under the wrong tree and being awakened by the police (or worse). Heavy use of hard or debilitating drugs is also discouraged--habitual use of cocaine, crack cocaine, or crystalline methamphetamine will cause you to become involved with people who will only see you as a potential slave. Habitual use of marijuana isn't, in and of itself, terribly debilitating but be forewarned that "street demons" look for marijuana users and prey on them to satisfy their addiction to the harder drugs. Don't worry about showers. During the summer time spend time on beaches or at parks where you can sponge bath (a bathing suit comes in handy) off after a good sweat. Don't worry much about body odor--with proper self-care and maintenance it will eventually moderate itself.
Learn to deal with hunger. You will have days where you are hungry--COPE. As long as you have water the human body can go for, probably, months without a good meal. I can personally go for abou
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