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RIAA Going After a 10-Year-Old Girl
NewYorkCountryLawyer writes "The latest target of the RIAA's ire is a 10-year-old girl in Oregon, who was 7 when the alleged infringement occurred, and whose disabled mother lives on Social Security. In Atlantic v. Andersen, an Oregon case that was widely reported in 2005 when the defendant counterclaimed against the RIAA under Oregon's RICO statute and other laws, the defendant's mother sought to limit the RIAA's deposition of the child to telephone or video-conference. The RIAA has refused, insisting on being able to grill the little girl in person. Here are court documents (PDF)."
It's in the international human rights convention (I think, or an extension dealing with childrens rights).
Of course USA is the only western country that hasn't signed the human rights convention.
The US has the best legal system money can buy. If you have money you can buy any result you like.
In this case the RIAA has a lot of money so no judge in the country is going to smack them down for suing children. In fact the judges are going to rule against the child in a summary decision because the kid can't afford a lawyer and will not show up in court because nobody gave them a ride.
Remember SCO v IBM? Yea, just like that.
evil is as evil does
I do agree with you on the fascistiod charges, but the rest of the worls were no better in past times. For instance, what about those guys that gave fascism its name: Italia in the 1920-1930, but sadly that ideology has spread to other parts of the world, or people have independently invented their own form. It is hard to tell wether the US has derived their fascim from the Italian/German version (influences in the 1930 that have not been eradicated) or that this is a more recent invention that just emulates it. Given the time between them, it hardly matters.
This space is intentionally staring blankly at you
This is exactly what RIAA wants, to instil a belief that they are evil and they will sue anyone, and they will win, because they are right. That they didn't care when it was granny or a child. PR does the later part of the job.
Is being right worth the cost of the PR problems of being an unreasonable bully? Have they measured the growing movement to boycott anything major label? Have they done anything to respond to claims of being a cartel with fixed high prices?
I hope they have their PR campaign funded as much as their lawyers. Without a good PR campaign to distract the public from the ugly side of business and get the public back to the Ooooh Aaahhh Shiny mood, they will continue to see sales fall.
Some of us are never going back! Any PR campaign is too little too late. We have read hakespeare's plays and are familiar with The Merchant of Venice.
We know reasonable and we know what type of people demand a pound of flesh. This attack on a 7 year old girl (now 10) is what is showing their true nature.
The RIAA is no friend of mine. I don't need them. More importantly, I don't want them.
The truth shall set you free!
Frankly, just the fact that the RIAA hired some company to crack into her computer should be enough to get this case thrown out and charges filed for illegal wiretapping on the RIAA and their paid crackers. Once the crackers had access there is no way to prove they did not do the downloading themselves. Her ISP should file for theft of services too, after all the cracker used the defendant's connection to download their software.
The above of course is just from a relatively ignorant AC, any network security professionals here care to add some facts or ideas? Just in case the defendant's technical advisor(s) happens to read here, heck Ray might even find it fun reading even if he sees nothing new to him in it.
At the risk of drifting off-topic, there is a reason for the United States' lack of participation in international agreements of this sort, and the reason is not (usually) a casual indifference to human rights. It has to do with the autonomous legal systems of the individual states, which are protected under the U.S. Constitution. So even if the U.S. were to sign a (perfectly reasonable) treaty restricting how its courts could operate, one could argue that the federal government lacks the authority to tell the state courts how to operate.
The counter-argument is that the Constitution does grant Congress the power to sign treaties and that should trump the state courts' sovereignty in certain situations. However neither argument is rock-solid; both sides have a point. So the way things usually pan out is that Congress doesn't ratify the treaties because the Congresspersons (who nominally represent the interests of their states, remember) don't want to sign anything that imposes a burden of treaty compliance on the state courts.
As far as I know this issue has never been put to test in the U.S. Supreme Court, so the status quo is that no one really knows how far the federal government can go in telling state courts how to operate.
[Sir Garlon] is the marvellest knight that is now living, for he destroyeth many good knights, for he goeth invisible.
Enough bad publicity?
2 005.html
Nope... Here is more..
http://www.mp3newswire.net/stories/5002/cd_sales_
"For the first time since Thomas Alva Eddison began selling wax cylinders, the music industry is having to deal with an informed customer (NOT consumer) base whose constituents can, and do, communicate with each other via blogs, emails, IM, chats, text messaging, and so on.
And what they're saying is: We have a choice, and we're exercising it.
If the record labels think their persecution of online customers who include schoolchildren and and disabled mothers is going unnoticed offline, they're wrong.
The WSJ doesn't mention the failure of Organized Music (Sony BMG, Vivendi Universal, EMI ands Warner Music) to accept the reality that it's now in the digital 21st century and not the physical 1970s and 80s and that its business models need to be updated accordingly.
OM's members are in addition being found guilty - and very publicly - of one seamy practice after another and if they believe it'll all just go away, they'd better think again."
The truth shall set you free!
I don't get it though, there has to be another side to this. This is crooked-old-guy-with-an-eye-patch-stroking-a-cat-a nd-laughing-insanely-behind-his-desk-as-lightening -cracks-in-the-background Hollywood style evil.
Is there anything we're not being told?
// MD_Update(&m,buf,j);
What I never understood is why these people who haven't downloaded any music don't countersue for libel/slander and stressful damages etc etc, like those people who sue mickyD's for nothing :P
I mean if you can win a suit for microwaving your cat, I'm sure that you can win a suit against the RIAA for slandering and causing you stress and etc.
Not only do we tolerate our children being prosecuted but we allow them to be handcuffed at five and tasered at six. This 10-year-old doesn't stand a chance.
Everyone is rallying against RIAA as a whole, but there is only a single RIAA member behind this lawsuit: Warner Music Group, which owns Atlantic Records.
Warner is the very same company that gave the children of late Mr Scantlebury 60 days to grieve before they would be sued. (Warner v. Scantlebury) They only dropped the suit after it got media attention.
Warner also owns Elektra Records that is suing a woman with multiple sclerosis. (Elektra v. Schwartz) MS is a disorder that can worsen rapidly if the sufferer is put under stress.
And, apparently it did: In a March 2 letter to the judge, her lawyer basically writes that she is now so sick that she can no longer defend herself. Guilty or not, Warner Music has shortened her life just the same. I guess "compassion" is a foreign concept to them.
A judgment against a child can't normally be used against the parent. At 10 years old, she's not going to have any income or assets.
By the time she reaches 18, it will no longer be reported by credit bureaus, and I suspect the judgment will expire by then.
So why would they even bother deposing the child? Maybe they want to see if the mother is just using her to get out of the case.
Her stance is that they broke the law instead. Representing that they had concrete information
about the contents of her machine from off of a closed network, using an unauthorized client
is hacking. That's a violation of several state and Federal laws on the subject. And, it's the
only way they could have concievably known about anything on her HD. It gets even worse for
RIAA, MediaSentry, and the labels. MediaSentry's in trouble for doing the hacking they did- even
if they never really hacked her machine. RIAA's in trouble for arranging the act (much like
someone would get in trouble for hiring a hitman to go do in someone...) and if they didn't get
information on her "illegal filesharing" they're also guilty of making false representations.
All of which can flow, liability wise, all the way back to the member labels as RIAA was acting
on their behalf and orders in this matter (Back to the Hitman line of thinking...)
There's a reason why She's filing under her State's RICO laws first. If it gets that far, it'll
provide the solid basis for a FEDERAL RICO suit. I'm surprised nobody's filed one against them
until now, really- they are guilty of racketeering and all. As guilty of it as a cat is guilty
of being caught in a goldfish bowl when you catch it trying for the fish in it.
I am not merely a "consumer" or a "taxpayer". I am a Citizen of the State of Texas
In the midst of all the outrage over the RIAA's choice to drag a 10-year-old girl onto the witness stand, I think we're overlooking the extent to which the legal system is working to the benefit of the defense (the girl's mother, Ms. Andersen).
The defense is entitled to a trial by jury. The defendant is also counter-suing claiming (among other things) that the RIAA's case is based on evidence that was obtained through unlawful computer intrusion.
It gets better: in the U.S. we have a concept called "punitive damages," which means the court can award additional damages (money) if the party who was in the wrong behaved "outrageously." When I sat on a jury and the subject of punitive damages came up (in Middlesex County Superior Court in Cambridge, Massachusetts), the judge said to consider punitive damages separately, and that the amount should be chosen large enough to deter future outrageous behavior. That is, when it comes to punitive damages, the amount of award is set by how much of a financial penalty would really, really hurt. :-)
So the RIAA is insisting on hauling a 10-year-old girl onto the witness stand to testify against her own disabled mother. How stupid can they get? I doubt that will play well with a jury. Also, if the RIAA loses their case, they're subject to punitive damages for committing computer crimes in order to obtain their evidence.
Yes, it's rotten that the RIAA is abusing its right to force the 10-year-old to take the stand, but the defense is making full use of its own rights in this case. If you read the list of complaints Ms. Andersen is making in retaliation, it sure looks as if the RIAA has a lot more to lose in this case than it stands to gain.
IANAL but I can't imagine why the RIAA's attorneys would take the dire risk of bullying a ten-year-old in a jury trial.
[Sir Garlon] is the marvellest knight that is now living, for he destroyeth many good knights, for he goeth invisible.
I don't get it though, there has to be another side to this. ... Is there anything we're not being told?
What's the worst thing you could be told? That the mom is a dirty bad pirate, someone who had the nerve to download gangsta rap? Would that justify any of this? I don't think so. Don't stick your head in the sand!
What you are left with is the slimy reign of terror that Rogers and Beckerman describe. Thousands of people have been threatened this way. They face the loss of all their possesions, livelihoods and jailtime. Many if not all are innocent. They turn to next of kin when one victim escapes to promote further terror: we will get your kids next! The very tactic proves they don't know who really did what they accuse. It's ugly because extortion is always that way. It's horrifying because huge companies should not act like gangsters. The reality is so horrible that people want to reject it outright rather than believe they live in such an ugly and threatening world. That fearful denial is one of the greatest assets of any tyranny.
The publishers behind these suits are not really interested in infringement, they want to control the internet itself and shut down all possible competition. The RIAA is a shell organization for the incumbent media companies, publishers, broadcasters and others dinosaurs that want to maintain their current monoply position. They want you to be afraid to share and they dream of charging you for every trivial enjoyment of your own culture. These lawsuits lay bare the true nature of non free publishing, perpetual copyrights, monoploy broadcasting and owned culture.
It is time to make copyright reasonable again.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
I'm aware of that, which is what makes it harder.
It's hard to explain how the RIAA is evil, though, and why it's really THAT BAD to support them, when people won't listen, and they're like, "if I like this music, I'm going to obtain it anyway."
(FWIW, the person in question was anti-paying for music - but I was attempting to use the listening base argument - look at Microsoft - users violating copyright is why they're successful)
I don't get the point of this story. How does someone being ten years old or someone being disabled and on social security make their behavior any different? The question is whether or not they did what was claimed. If they did, then why should someone be treated differently if they're on social security than if they're fully employed and working hard and paying taxes?
Someone could take advantage of the madness of the RIAA. First issue a press release that if elected, you will support the review of the copyright laws. Then watch closely for the the RIAA/MPAA to donate money to your opponent. Then come out swinging and don't stop: "My opponent takes money from people who want to put you (or your kids) in jail for moving songs from their CDs to their iPods." "My opponent takes money from organizations who sue 10-year-olds for hundreds of thousands of dollars!".
Be a real pit bull. Have many copies of the affidavits, etc... ready to hand out at press meetings and political rallies. Keep on message: Sue the children! Imprison the teenagers! (don't forget to get those 18+ year olds registered to vote!)Sue the children! Imprison the teenagers! Sue the children! Imprison the teenagers!
People really do hate the RIAA when the learn what this organization is actually doing. You have a good chance of winning the election by taking the anti-RIAA stand instead of just blindly supporting them.
It's surprising to see so many people here falling for "must-protect-that-kid- from-that-big-bad-guy" syndrome.
Explanation is clear and simple. Most of the people who do music piracy fall in early-teen age group. RIAA is making a statement by going after that girl. This is a business decision. That's it.
They don't care if they look like bad evil guys. In fact that's the point.
I am sure that they will make sure this news gets enough publicity, and then they will let that girl go with minimum trouble.
If after reading a story, you have to believe that things took this course because somebody was inherently, incorrigibly evil, you are probably wrong. We live in a world where conflict of interest cannot be avoided even if everybody is good person.
K
Fact: The pyramids were built by Egyptions.
National Geographic:
Harvard Magazine:
If I were the artist of any of the specific songs they're accused of distributing, I'd be ashamed. Truly ashamed, at this.
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
I wish that somebody they sue would blow up their building.
More power to you. I'd love to see a coalition come together and tell the RIAA that they can shove it down their throats, and actually have some consumer clout behind it.
These people have lost all sense of reason, decency, and perspective. They've become the worst sharks anyone in our society can become, and they actually think their behavior is *appropriate*! It's time someone kicked them in the nuts to show them otherwise.
We are the fire that lights our world.. and we are the fire that consumes it.