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RIAA Victim Wins Attorney's Fees
VE3OGG writes "Debbie Foster, one of the many caught-up in the RIAA's drift-net attacks who was sued back in 2004 has recently seen yet another victory. After having the suit dropped against her "with prejudice" several months back, Foster filed a counter-claim, and has just been awarded "reasonable" attorney's fees. Could this, in conjunction with cases such as Santangelo, show a turning of the tide against the RIAA?"
That is a very intruiging thought, and counters what many of the people I know fear the most - getting dragged to court for something they haven't done. One problem is though, such a precedent can also be used to protect criminals such as spammers, frauds, and so on.
Could this, in conjunction with cases such as Santangelo, show a turning of the tide against the RIAA?
/. stop ending summaries with "Could this be the end of <something most /. readers think is bad>?"?
Could
That, and a conviction of perjury.
"It is possible to commit no errors and still lose. That is not a weakness. That is life." -Peak Performance
Judge Lee could find no case "holding the mere owner of an Internet account contributorily or vicariously liable for the infringing activities of third persons."
I can see next year, really early
HR 2008 - 0002 "Secure Communication Relating to Existing Wireless Environment Detection" Act.
(i) Owners of a wireless network will be held accountable for all civil and criminal liabilities associated with any unauthorized copyrighted materials on the network....
Rhymes that keep their secrets will unfold behind the clouds.There upon the rainbow is the answer to a neverending story
Well I guess you haven't dealt with the RIAA. It more Godfather than Grisham though.
Because the rest of us are commoners. Different set of rules.
Money. Almost pretend amounts of money.
Do you honestly think the RIAA gives a damn? They would rather win, yes, but this isn't about the relatively trivial (to them) judgements and legal costs. This was a P.R. campaign. They wanted parents to stop their kids from downloading gig upon gig from Kazaa. They wanted colleges to monitor what their students were up to on the networks. They wanted the average user to always have a nagging fear every time they went to Limewire.
I think it's pretty despicable*, but it was (unfortunately) very effective, much more so (and probably cheaper than) a typical ad campaign. Yes, there are other ways they could have done it, I am not saying it was right; but to think any legal setback (other than something extremely catastrophic, such as ordering them to pay ALL legal fees for all past cases plus emotional distress or something like that) will make them consider the campaign a failure is just foolish. If they lose a case there is nothing to stop them from filing more; it's the front-page news alerts that another thousand have been served that they are after, not the judgements themselves.
And anyway, even if they were to stop tomorrow, they could do so comfortably knowing that they already won-- "piracy" has been stygmatized, and casual users are afraid.
* I would go so far as to say no corporation should be able to sue an individual under any circumstances, but that is a different discussion.
And if you're planning on killing somebody, just leave a loaded gun on your front porch. Then anybody could have done it! An airtight defense if I ever saw one.
If it was even suspected that you were hosting an open WiFi point to engage in, or encourage others to engage in an illegal activity I think they could find many ways to make your life miserable. I'm fairly certain that giving others the tools to commit a crime and then standing idly by while they commit it is, in itself, illegal. Maybe harder to prove, seeing as how they would have to prove intent, but still enough to get you in trouble. Especially if they could show that you were knowledgable enough to know what an unsecured network could be used for.
A couple points of note. First, we're talking civil cases, so everything I say will be in that venue.
Second, parents are often responsible for their children's actions; if you're the kid of the RIAA gun owner, then yes, the family of the person you killed could sue your parents. This is not an absolute; parents are not always held liable for their kids' actions, but they often are.
Third, even with no relation, it's quite possible and reasonable that if the person you took the gun from didn't secure it properly (for instance, say you found it outside on their lawn), they could be held partially liable.
The RIAA is mostly full of crap on this issue, but your analogy is at least equally flawed.
While I agree with most of what you said, federal district court decisions, while not binding precedent, are useful. So I would classify them as being significantly more valuable than "don't mean much", though obviously they're still just persuasive.
I see them cited frequently, especially in support of issues of law that haven't been determined at an appellate law. Judges tend not to like to go out on limbs, if you can show them where another judge did something similar, it can make them feel more comfortable about ruling.
Stop thinking about the children. Think of the actual facts. If you apply more feelings than logic, you know you're on the way to do someone wrong.
Well, that's part of the calculus. If you're a 75-year-old grandmother with an open network, chances are that no jury is going to think that it's more likely than not that you were the one downloading gangster rap.
In any case, I don't think "We noticed somebody from this IP address sharing this song at XX time, and the ISP's logs said that was the defendant" is enough. That's why, after all, the RIAA subpoenas the disk drives.
Wait a minute, wouldn't you only have to prove that you are not likely the offender, not that some particular person else is? For instance, wouldn't being a 72 year old grandmother who regularly had numerious neighborhood kids over be a defense, even if you couldn't say "this particular kid probably did it"? I think any reasonable jury would agree to that. Perhaps leaving your WEP open isn't enough, but making sure that people more likely than you use it is.
While it may be true that the computer illiterate probably won't be held liable for their unsecured network, if the **AA can prove you DO know what you are doing, you won't be able to get away with it. Particularly, if you found out how to secure your system and didn't act on it within a reasonable amount of time.
If Ms. Foster gets an award of $55,000, that's an expense on top of the $100,000 or so the RIAA has spent on the case. That's a net loss on this one case of, let's say, $155,000, which would wipe out all the profit from probably a hundred settlements.
Plus the decision will have a ripple effect in other cases. It makes 3 or 4 important legal points about the RIAA's typical legal attack. Judges all across the country are going to be reading it during the next 6 months. I cited it to a judge today, one day after it came down.
Ray Beckerman +5 Insightful
Then it stands to reason all we need to do is put Bush in front of a judicial inquiry and wait for his mouth to open.