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RIAA Sues Stroke Victim in Michigan
NewYorkCountryLawyer writes "The RIAA has now brought suit against a stroke victim in Michigan in Warner v. Paladuk. The defendant John Paladuk was living in Florida at the time of the alleged copyright infringement, and had notified the RIAA that he had not engaged in any copyright infringement. Despite the fact that Mr. Paladuk suffered a stroke last year (pdf), rendering him disabled, the RIAA commenced suit against him on February 27, 2007. Suing the disabled is not new to the RIAA. Both Atlantic v. Andersen in Oregon and Elektra v. Schwartz in New York were suits brought against disabled people who have never engaged in file sharing, and whose sole income is Social Security Disability. Both of these cases are still pending. The local Michigan lawyer being used by the RIAA in the Paladuk case is the same lawyer who was accused by a 15 year old girl of telling her what to say at her deposition in Motown v. Nelson. In the Warner v. Scantlebury case, after the defendant died during the lawsuit, the same lawyer indicated to the court that he was going to give the family '60 days to grieve' before he would start deposing the late Mr. Scantlebury's children."
We all know the ill and disable are pure of heart, love their moms and are made of kitten whiskers. Slashdot is getting seriously pathetic trotting out extremist nonsense like this.
Do not try to read the dupe, thats impossible. Instead, only try to realize the truth
What truth?
There is no dupe
It is times like this that I wish America would switch over to a system where blank media is taxed and they don't prosecute piracy. Sure it might stretch the bottom line for the Mafiaa, but wouldn't it be beneficial to society at large? Hopefully in a decade or so it will be a big enough hot-button topic to spur actual political change. Until then keep it up RIAA... if you stop being the stereotypical evil corporation all we will have left to overthrow when the revolution comes is Microsoft :-)
Having a stroke and/or receiving disability payments renders one incapable of copyright infringement? Does the BitTorrent client refuse to install if it detects a Social Security check in the vicinity?
Being disabled isn't evidence of innocence, unless the disability is such that one is incapable of even using a computer. If the guy broke the law, he broke the law. I happen to think the law sucks and needs to be changed post haste, but it sucks for everyone, not just stroke victims and the handicapped.
In short, the RIAA is as within its rights here as it is in any of its other cases.
How long until they start suing dead people? ...
They haven't sued dead people, have they?
The RIAA has now brought suit against a stroke victim in Michigan in Warner v. Paladuk.
And by "stroke victim", they don't mean someone with a medical condition. That's just what they call someone who gets caught downloading a Billy Squier album.
The theory of relativity doesn't work right in Arkansas.
I've read articles where the RIAA have sued a person who had no computer. Even then, they don't get as much sympathy as someone who has a disability.
What I really want to see is the RIAA sue someone that is deaf (and MPAA sue someone that is blind). If reported properly, then maybe the general public will finally realize how stupid all these lawsuits are. Instead of being outraged by a nipple on TV, we (the collective we, as a nation) can rise against something that is worth it.
I know it's a slimeball move to exploit someone with a disability, but if they were to be sued, I'm sure they'd love to go after the MAFIAA as well. You have to fight slimeball moves with slimeball moves.
hackers of the world unite!
Satan must be a pirate too, cause these guys seem to be trying to get an express ticket to his crib.
"Thanks for all the money you paid to us. We've used it to buy off ISO among other things" -Microsoft
The more I hear "RIAA" the more I wonder what it's really for. It seems like whenever stuff like this happens, we say the RIAA is suing a stroke victim. The RIAA sues dead people. It seems like the RIAA is doing a great job redirecting all of the bad press for this campaign. To me it looks like Warner is suing this guy, not the RIAA. Let's at least identify who is calling the shots here. Maybe if more people heard about Warner's actions, they would buy CDs from other record labels. (Yes, I know other labels sue people just as much, but it'd be nice if there was some bad press to come with stuff like suing disabled people.)
Judge: Are you the Sony BMG lawyer who defended the root kit?
Lawyer: No, that was the Warner lawyer.
Judge: The same Warner lawyer who indicated to the court that he was going to give the family '60 days to grieve' before he would start deposing?
Lawyer: No, that was the Motown lawyer
Judge: The same Motown lawyer who was accused by a 15 year old girl of telling her what to say at her deposition?
Lawyer: No, that was the Michigan lawyer
Judge: The same Michigan lawyer brought suits against disabled people who have never engaged in file sharing, and whose sole income is Social Security Disability - a lawyer whose story that has just been posted on slashdot?
Lawyer:Dohhh!!
Look at all the bullshit this nation is willing to put up with!
Do you really think this means anything?
The American ideal is dead. We are all just trying to keep our heads down and to survive the machine we have built.
Frankly, we have no one to blame but ourselves. We continue to purchased $21 CDs with two good tracks because we dont have the principles to really boycott the industry.
I just saw 'RIAA sues victim in Michigan' and thought crap, they're getting closer!
Comment removed based on user account deletion
At this point, I doubt it would matter. If we stopped buying the cds they would claim it as proof of pirating.
RIAA is a fanaticle group. Any traditional tactic that could be used to display displeasure of something is only fuel to their cause. It is past the point were a boycot could work. It is past the point were you or i could make a difference. And that is because we could never make a difference. RIAA is the sole reaction to the market trying to prove a point.
What RIAA is doing right now is covering for lack of sale and bad business decisions. They are giving the recording industry excuses for artist not making the money they deserve and they are giving excuses to share holders for producing run of the mill stuff and passing it off as something it isn't. The more RIAA sues, the more smoke covers how the artis is being treated and paid.
Instead of using RIAA start calling it the record labels. Now they're just pushing the bad pr over to an organisation that has nothing to lose.
How do you prove you did not commit anything ? Find an alibi ? That's right : in most of the case you won't be able to prove you DID NOT commit anything. Proving a negative/absence of crime is illogical and neigh impossible. That should be the RIAA job to prove you commited infringement without reasonable doubt.
C. Sagan : A demon haunted world:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0345409469/
visit randi.org
Do you understand this logic?
Distributing something across the internet would be considered large scal productions. If you have a torrent and there are 20 people leaching from your half downloaded song and then you leave the torrent for a week, you have effectivly let several thousand people have the song. You are a large scale producer/pirater. And you need to get it from somewhere so you will need to have some large scale pirating system set up to get the ball rolling.
Otherwise, you have exactly what we have today but now RIAA gets a cut from every picture CD you make of you last trip. Riaa gets a profit from you doing a backup to DVD of your documents. The only difference would be RIAA getting money for stuff totaly unrelated.
This is an Appeal to Pity.
Yes, we all know the RIAA kills puppies and causes gout. But is it too much to ask to find articles about the RIAA that simply tell the facts as they are about them? They're bad enough, and they'll stand on their own.
Weaselmancer
rediculous.
At this point, I doubt it would matter. If we stopped buying the cds they would claim it as proof of pirating.
Then let them. Claims don't keep their business afloat, money does. They can't make you buy CDs, they can only stop illegal copying. If all this anti-piracy crap doesn't increase their sales numbers they'll run out of options sooner or later.
Justice is the sheep getting arrested while an impartial judge declares the vote void.
Why not? Their tactics are intended to scare people into changing their behaviour without regard to the victims involvement in the process. Isn't that the definition of terrorism.
I like http://www.metropolis-records.com/
I know about RIAA Radar, the site that lists music that IS RIAA owned, but is there a site that reviews music that ISN'T owned by them? I'm an Industrial/DnB fan and I'd like to not give money to people who sue children and the disabled.
This is just insane but it doesn't do much good for us all to sit here and whine about it to ourselves. *we* are not the market that keeps funding these people. Howver, *we* have a responsibility to mobilize and get the word out to the *regular public*. Call every talk show you can print flyers.. Spread the word, while we still have the right of "freespeech" on our side.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
1. The surest sign of an RIAA troll is a post that starts out
2. That is a complete fabrication about the law; there is no such thing as "selective prosecution" in civil litigation. (In fact, even in criminal law it's a concept that exists on paper, but is almost never an issue in reality. Prosecutors are supposed to be selective and have "prosecutorial discretion" to pick some cases as worthy of prosecution, and others not.)
Ray Beckerman +5 Insightful
They could try, but when the artists they claim to be protecting start to scream for the heads of the lawyers, things would change.
It would only take a 20 - 30% drop in a short period to get their attention. The trick is getting the boycott organized and getting publicity.
== First cross river, then insult alligator.
There are, in fact, several documentary films about it in the works right now as we speak.
Ray Beckerman +5 Insightful
I've been collecting a list of links I call Liberated Music.
Ray Beckerman +5 Insightful
No, you can't give them to your friends. That would infringe the distribution right due to an extremely careful bit of rewording of the bill that RIAA got through without anyone really thinking about the effect. You see, the big exception to the distribution right is the first sale exception, which applies to any copy lawfully made under the Copyright Act. But AHRA compliant copies are not lawfully made, technically, they're just not actionably made. That is, they're infringing but no lawsuit can be brought on the basis of their making.
So it'd be better to lend people the original, lawfully made CDs and let people make their own copies. Except of course that the RIAA also got a law passed to prohibit the lending and rental of music (otherwise it'd be just as legal as video rental, which anyone can do for free, so long as they use lawfully made copies) with broad language that probably applies to individuals. This means that when you lend a friend a CD, you probably have to rely on fair use, which is fine for ordinary lending, I'm sure, but probably no good if you're doing so for the purpose of having them make copies as a substitute for having to buy their own.
So let's not thank them too much.
-- This and all my posts are in the public domain. I am a lawyer. I am not your lawyer, and this is not legal advice.
Well, if you made a stand-alone device that could connect to Bit Torrent and which could comply with SCMS, and you paid the royalty on it, and which wrote to some sort of conveniently removable media (e.g. a thumb drive), then you'd be fine. It's just a bit of an engineering challenge and not really all that likely to sell since people will probably just ignore the protection it confers, what with the price of the thing. But certainly the statute doesn't seem to prohibit networked devices from qualifying. It's just that it's tough to build anything interesting that complies with SCMS, it seems.
-- This and all my posts are in the public domain. I am a lawyer. I am not your lawyer, and this is not legal advice.
Try Jamendo. All music on the site is entirely free to listen to and download.
Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not entirely sure about the universe - Einstein