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RIAA Victims Bring Class Action Against Kazaa
NewYorkCountryLawyer writes "In Chicago, Illinois, a Kazaa customer has filed a class action against Kazaa, Lewan v. Sharman, U.S.Dist. Ct., N.D. Ill 06-cv-6736. The lead plaintiff, Catherine Lewan, was a Kazaa customer who was sued by the RIAA for her use of Kazaa, and paid a settlement to the RIAA, and she sues on behalf of others in her position. In her complaint(pdf) she alleges, among other things, that Kazaa deceptively marketed its product as allowing 'free downloads' (Complaint, par. 30); it designed the software in such a manner as to create a shared files folder and make that folder available to anyone using Kazaa, while at the same time failing to make the user aware that it had done so (Complaint, par. 36-37); and it surreptitiously installed 'spyware' on users' computers which made the shared files folder accessible to the Kazaa network even after the user had removed the Kazaa software from his or her computer (Complaint, par. 42-45)."
If I buy a house, and then don't pay the morgage, they'll repossess the house. I can't use the argument of 'I didn't read the Terms and Conditions' to get myself out of the mess I'm in.
Last time I installed a piece of software like Kazaa, it stated what it was going to do at each step, and clearly explained what would happen, and that I shouldn't share files to which I didn't own the copyright.
Sueing for being stupid is... well, stupid.
Read the fine print lady, all the stuff your sueing for is painfully obvious. Had you bothered to do any research on Kazaa, you would know it's issues! You got caught, sucks to be you. But it's not Kazaa's problem, they are simply providing a service.
The spyware claim (keeping the shared folder shared even after uninstalling Kazaa), if valid, is the only one that might have any merit.
Everything else, though, smacks of "Look what you made me do!" blame-deflection.
ummm, IANAL, but isn't the POINT of suing to recoup losses?
Justice is for criminal law, civil law is for reperation of damages/lost income/etc, etc. Not for "justice". The only place "justice" comes into is paying some one for their "psycological truama" or "pain and suffering", and those I tihnk are just rediculous anyway. If some one HARMED you then what they did is almost always illegal, and thus is covered by criminal law.
I guess that is just my oppinion on law, probably I am wrong.
Do Or Do Not, There Is No Spoon, There Is Only Zuul. Everything in the above post is probably opinion.