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RIAA Receives Stern Letter, Folds
NewYorkCountryLawyer writes "In SONY BMG v. Merchant, in California, the defendant's lawyer wrote the RIAA a rather stern letter recounting how weak the RIAA's evidence is, referring to the deposition of the RIAA's expert witness (see Slashdot commentary), and threatening a malicious prosecution lawsuit. The very same day the RIAA put its tail between its legs and dropped the case, filing a Notice of Voluntary Dismissal. About an hour earlier NYCL had termed the letter a 'model letter'; maybe he was right."
The RIAA are doing these lawsuits with terrible evidence to show that they are not "sufficiently protected" by civil law. This can only help them as they continue to lobby congress for new criminal copyright infringement laws.
How we know is more important than what we know.
The very same day the RIAA put its tail between its legs and dropped the case, filing a Notice of Voluntary Dismissal.
Maybe now they'll start resorting to more traditional methods for people in their business. Like severed horse heads at the foot of your bed.
The theory of relativity doesn't work right in Arkansas.
Secretary: Sir, this letter says no.
Lawyer #1: Excuse me? It says no what?
Secretary: It says no, they're not going to pay up, and that our evidence is weak.
Lawyer #2: Damn, they've got us on that one.
Lawyer #1: Time to give up I suppose.
What happened here was that the RIAA saw a lawyer who not only knew of the RIAA's tactics, but also knew of how little evidence they actually had. Instead of potentially conceding a loss in court that could be used against them in the future, they withdrew their case to avoid a negative stroke on their record. One of the biggest weapons against them right now is to point out prior losses, while one of theirs is to point out prior success in these cases. The more success they have, the more ammunition they have. The more loss they endure, the more ammunition the defendants are given.
Screw the rules, I have green hair!
The 'model letter' said "we will expect your clients to be prepared to dismiss all claims with prejudice. The pleadings may be e-filed from my office the same day. Although dismissal will not avoid your clients' exposure to attorneys' fees". What the RIAA has filed here is a notice of voluntary dismissal 'without prejudice'. This is not the same thing at all.
IANAL, so I turn to wikipedia:
"In law, the phrase without prejudice means that a claim, lawsuit, or proceeding has been brought to a temporary end but that no legal rights or privileges have been determined, waived, or lost by the result. For example, if a party brings a lawsuit in small claims court but discovers that the claim is greater than the amount for that court to have jurisdiction, the lawsuit can be dismissed "without prejudice". This means that the dismissal is no bar to bringing a new lawsuit in a court that does have jurisdiction.
By contrast with prejudice means that a party's legal rights have in fact been determined and lost. To continue the same example, if instead the court had jurisdiction, but the plaintiff did not appear for the trial, the court would dismiss the case "with prejudice". That dismissal is a judgment against the plaintiff "on the merits" of the case, and extinguishes the claim that was being sued over. However, this does not prevent an appeal or a trial de novo if ordered by a higher court."
In other words the RIAA are reserving the right to sue again. Anyone know what happens about fees in the 'without prejudice' case?
While this is good news, it also shows that poor (or just normal) people cannot afford to seek justice easily.
First of all, it probably costs a little bit to get a lawyer to compose an effective C&D letter to RIAA, secondly, it will cost a lot if an innocent person wants to meet RIAA in the court.
So why can we bear arms to protect ourselves, but there is nothing to protect us from this kind of dirty tactics?
Virtual Betting on Facebook for non-geeks.
The letter contains one zinger after another. It's well worth reading.
My precis: "You guys are a bunch of losers. You should know better. We used to respect your firm. If you don't drop this case, we're coming after you to claim damages 'cause you aren't allowed to bring frivolous cases and waste the court's time. Oh, yeah, pay our legal bills while you're at it. Sorry dudes, we realize that your client is a litigeous idiot and general bully but if you don't drop this case we're coming after you anyway. Capiche. Oh yeah, don't forget to pay our legal bills on the way out. Get lost."
The RIAA is truly amazing. The guy they're suing died and they're going after him anyway. Naturally the family is distraught. That makes them a "thin skulled client" or in other words, the family's lawyers are threatening to go after big damages if the case doesn't get dropped pronto.
Wow, that defense lawyer is awesome. Read his response, it's not only legally strong but _technically_ strong. He really did his homework. The RIAA has to be worried by that response, because it would apply to almost any of their lawsuits.
People theorize the RIAA go after college students, etc. because they know they can't afford to go through a costly trial. However, would it not possibly cheaper just to hire a lawyer pretty much JUST to write you a letter such as this (Adapted to your state and your circumstance), and mail it? If it doesn't work, then the amount you wasted on trying that is still insignificant in comparison to the amount you could possibly save.
I don't understand why it's necessary to offer a copy of their hard disk to the RIAA representatives as evidence of innocence. If they're essentially accusing pseudo-random people of piracy, then isn't the onus on them to prove it? (I realise that in civil cases it's balance of probability, but even so...)
Why can't they just say: "I'm innocent, and you have no evidence - bugger off" (or words to that effect)?
No, I fear that brib*cough* lobbying will help them with Congress. Which is why we have the Mickey Mouse copyright extension named after Bono, the worthless AHRA, the easily abused DMCA and the obnoxious NET Act, as well as whatever laws I haven't heard of yet.
:(
I expect they'll say something like "We lost so much money, damn pirates! Can you make them easier to catch?" Then they'll try to draft something saying that any end-user of an ISP account is liable for all copyright infringement that goes on through it, including that of 3rd parties and minors.
Or something like that
Of course, that's when it'll be time to hack into their wireless networks and turn the law against them, personally, but I'm getting ahead of myself...
Well, if anything, this is one strong ad for the law firm. He ties together the CA-storm-on-the-horizon RICO, the MediaSecurity fallibility, the driftnet "Smith"-style instigations, and various CA anti-SLAPP and Rule 408 sentiment. Nicely done sir.
The RIAA will change nothing with this. However, they are going find folks spending the money (above and beyond settlement) to get press and dismissals, if possible. I believe the tide is turned.
One thing I notice is that the *AA organizations have shifted the tactics of the warfare against the public domain. They seem to have increased pressure sharply for new laws in poorer countries via international bodies for protection of the so-called "intellectual property" rights, and direct pressure from the US representatives in those countries. Legislators are also lobbied (read bought) to pass such legislation; and lobbying in such countries is still way cheaper than lobbying in the US.
;)
The end result is that more and more countries (especially countries where the electorate isn't particularly sensitive about the _laws_ that govern copyright and related rights -- as they aren't enforced much) not only pass draconian laws with stiff penalties, but use more and more the "intellectual property rights" language, and that may lead to a funny situation in which most of the world outside the US will match, or overdo US; at which point the *AA industry will possibly make the claim that this is "the state of art", and move on to further limits rights in the US.
So, while this development is good, there is still more to come on the copyright front
imo the best bit is actually split into two places in the letter. first theres this part:
'Mr. Merchant has and had no more duty to respond to attempts to "sell" him one of your clients' boilerplate, non-negotiable $3750 settlements than he has to return cold calls from pushy life insurance salespeople.'
this is followed later by:
'My clients are willing to accept dismissal of the litigation in exchange for
1. Payment of Mr. Merchant's reasonable fees and costs including retainer of $6,880.25. The payment represents good value considering what your own firm's billings will have been to date and use of those billing records as the loadstar rate for Mr. Merchant's award. See Capitol Record v. Foster, Western Dist. Okla No. 5:04-cv-1569-W, Docment 182 filed 3-15-07).'
you gotta love how it says they wont pay the riaa's protection money..., and then asks the riaa to pay them twice as much.
You shall know him by his Sig
translated to "street," it basically says
"Yo, Vinnie, youse working on your own here, and the CourtFather is VERY displeased with how youse is conducting yourself. And you didn't even ask to work this dock. The CourtFather is having a meeting with your Consigliore. Maybe youse should go home while you can."
if this is supposed to be a new economy, how come they still want my old fashioned money?
A little bit of googling, I found this organization (hint, look at the bottom picture)
http://workforcechaplaincy.org/_wsn/page3.html
from his website http://ledfordlaw.net/
"Merl Ledford III received his AB Degree in 1974 from University of California Santa Barbara with majors in English and economics."
Something tells me, he's the model lawyer RIAA wants to avoid at all cost. Speaking of tactics, he spread his response with cards stacking against RIAA such as motion to move the case to the Fresno Branch and building up the case to defeat the cost benefit by RIAA.
[excerpt] "We should also discuss how quickly you can get your tech people here to do their hard drive inspection. Again, I would be happy to send the airplane to either Butler at SFO or Kaiser at Oakland for roundtrip convenience of you and your clients' tech people."
Just priceless!
"Don't let fools fool you. They are the clever ones."
Try Google...I tossed "thin skulled client" and got back a lot of results. After reading parts of them, I think the following is a very good description:
The "thin skulled plaintiff" principle indicates that you must take a person as you find them, even if they are particularly susceptible to a particular harm.
You win some, you lose some.
Posters here respond to the handful of stories that show the rights' agencies at their most vulnerable. But there is no running tally of the thousands - tens of thousands - of settlements which are paid out without much argument or fuss.
You may learn how to win your case here - but you won't learn how to lose your case here.
You might find a lawyer willing to chance an aggressive - and costly defense.
You might be willing to commit to two years of litigation. You might become the next poster child for the EFF. You might recover your costs. You might win the tri-state lottery.
More likely you will resign yourself to a schedule of monthly payments and a diet of mac and cheese. Only 1% of federal civil cases end a bench or jury verdict - which means you can forget about jury nullification. You will never get that far.
Do it yourself, because no one else will do it yourself. [beta blockade 10-17 Feb]
1. The RIAA claims that there have been about 5000 settlements.
2. I'm not aware of a single case having gone to trial.
Ray Beckerman +5 Insightful
The bottom line is that if you bring suit against someone else, you should be prepared to get your ass handed to you. You should not be allowed to simply drop the suit once you initiate it. If the defendant is willing to fight it to the end, then they should have that option.
Maybe this would make it harder to bring suit against a well-financed opponent. So be it. A suit brought against a well-financed opponent is just as unjust as one brought against a poorly financed one if the suit itself has little merit.
The problem of bankrupting either side through the lawsuit is a completely separate issue that also needs to be addressed, of course, and as far as I'm concerned the maximum amount of damage should be limited to some large percentage of the total assets of the entity in question (for a corporation, those assets should include the total assets of all direct and indirect owners). That goes for plaintiff and defendant, of course. So if the plaintiff elects to drop the suit after having hit that limit, only then should doing so not require the assent of the defendant.
The system as it stands right now is inexcusable.
Use 'slashdot stuff' in the subject line in any email you send me if you want to get past the spam filter.
NEVER go into court without at least consulting a lawyer. Even if you think all the evidence is in your favor, you could get procedurally out maneuvered.
I never said I was smart, I just said I was smarter than you
Plaintiff can't drop the case without defendant's consent after defendant's filed any response to the complaint. That's the point at which defendant's officially begun to incur costs. Up until then plaintiff can decide they made a mistake, after that they're on the hook.
In this particular case, I have this image of the RIAA lawyers scurrying in a panic to get their voluntary dismissal to the courthouse before the target's lawyer decides to officially file a response.
You're right he's getting a rich guy out of trouble.
He's also making it simpler for those of lesser standing to take the same course. He made it abundantly clear that there was lots of money available to throw at the case, but he also made this letter public. The letter itself is clearly based on more than just "money" it's based on what someone with money would spend to fight this case, which is based solely on the legal merit of the case, otherwise the settlement would have been paid or the letter would have been more humble.
I agree it sucks that a good lawyer costs an arm and a leg. At the same time I'm sure some lawyers enjoy it when they get to affect real justice. Sometimes legal theory works and for that Mr. Merl Ledford III deserves his kudos.
Under the influence of Post-Cyberpunk Gonzo Journalism
Second, RTFA: The authorized settlement offer expressed in the preceding paragraphs of this email (and confirmed in staff-proofed letter format to be sent by fax and US Mail tomorrow; sorry for typos that are an unfortunate part of any quick-response email) He appears to be saying he sat down and hammered this thing out before lunch, making it all the more impressive. That's a damn fine amount of case law to have memorized. In any case, I find the letter to be very well written. If you're put off by the lack of bloviating and douchey legalese that seems to dominate the genre, well that has a simple explanation: the guy's not a douche.
I think there is a world market for maybe five personal web logs.
From the letter:
I especially like the bit about sending the airplane - always offer to run up the costs - especially when you want to show that you believe that you have an open and shut case! Of course, it doesn't hurt to also show that you know the likely principals in the case from previous dealings. I like this attorney!
He's saying that the settlement from his client's countersuit would be somewhere between $500k and say $1.5 mil.
He's being cute about it.
HBI's Law: Frequency of calling others Nazis is directly correlated with the likelihood of the accuser being Communist.
Personaly I think this little tidbit near the end is a real zinger which finishes off the RIAA team.
Procedurally, we need to address how best to move the case to the Fresno Branch so you can enjoy our new Courthouse and avoid Judge Levi's wrath for filing in the wrong court.
Read between the lines. The lawyer knows the judge personaly. The Lawyer implied the Judge dislikes mistakes and maybe dislikes dirty tactics. The lawyer implied the judge will be quickly brought up on the technical holes in the case. If the RIAA proceeds the lawyer will drive an expensive SUV through the flaws in the case to show how big they are. The RIAA will be billed for the cost involved in providing the demonstration. There will be no getting away with BS in this case. All shakey data will be exposed for errors.
The laywer didn't need to say it, but it was implied loud and clear. They got the point.
The truth shall set you free!
it's usually in regards to negligence -- negligence takes their victims as they come. Let's say CowboyNeal sits on CmdrTaco's face and farts. Although this wouldn't hurt a bonehead like Zonk, CmdrTaco happens to have osteoporosis (a side effect of taking female hormones), and his head is crushed. CowboyNeal is thus criminally/civilly culpable for his death.
>Now everyone that receives a $3000 settlement letter from the MAFIAA can just reply and get the case thrown out?
Well, in the case, the response is a very specific address warning the plaintiff's attorney of the deficiency of his evidence and of other procedural problems that will prevent his bringing his case to court. Separate, is that he knows exactly how to seek relief for malicious litigation in his state, and warns that he is likely enough to be successful, that a half-million dollar or higher settlement paid to his clients would be a realistic potential outcome of going forward with their weak case. Whether he could really make this happen or whether he is bluffing, is hard to say. But I suspect he is not bluffing at all, and I further suspect that he is entirely capable of nailing the plaintiff to the floor and that his clients can afford to do it just for fun. (I think the main thing to note is that the defendant here is a wealthy Californian who can do this just for the pleasure of making someone squirm.)
-fb Everything not expressly forbidden is now mandatory.
>What does that mean? what is it that's "a mid-six to low seven figure piece of computer gear"?
It means he would be perfectly happy to document that the cost of professional data forensics suitable for litigation purposes, particularly for evidence that may be required for a federal case are quite high, and if the plaintiff's experts show up with no case, they will be paying this bill.
-fb Everything not expressly forbidden is now mandatory.
Sigh... I posted this as AC, but got modded flamebait... so, here it goes again. In some cases copyright infringement is already criminal according to US Code Title 17 Chapter 5 Section 506.
http://www.copyright.gov/title17/92chap5.html#506
The punishments violating the above mentioned code are as listed below:
http://www4.law.cornell.edu/uscode/html/uscode18/
So can we *please* stop pushing the myth that copyright infringement is a strictly "civil" offense. It just isn't, no matter how much people say it. I've pasted the actual punishments below.
2319. Criminal infringement of a copyright
(a) Whoever violates section 506 (a) (relating to criminal offenses) of title 17 shall be punished as provided in subsections (b) and (c) of this section and such penalties shall be in addition to any other provisions of title 17 or any other law.
(b) Any person who commits an offense under section 506 (a)(1) of title 17--
(1) shall be imprisoned not more than 5 years, or fined in the amount set forth in this title, or both, if the offense consists of the reproduction or distribution, including by electronic means, during any 180-day period, of at least 10 copies or phonorecords, of 1 or more copyrighted works, which have a total retail value of more than $2,500;
(2) shall be imprisoned not more than 10 years, or fined in the amount set forth in this title, or both, if the offense is a second or subsequent offense under paragraph (1); and
(3) shall be imprisoned not more than 1 year, or fined in the amount set forth in this title, or both, in any other case.
(c) Any person who commits an offense under section 506 (a)(2) of title 17, United States Code--
(1) shall be imprisoned not more than 3 years, or fined in the amount set forth in this title, or both, if the offense consists of the reproduction or distribution of 10 or more copies or phonorecords of 1 or more copyrighted works, which have a total retail value of $2,500 or more;
(2) shall be imprisoned not more than 6 years, or fined in the amount set forth in this title, or both, if the offense is a second or subsequent offense under paragraph (1); and
(3) shall be imprisoned not more than 1 year, or fined in the amount set forth in this title, or both, if the offense consists of the reproduction or distribution of 1 or more copies or phonorecords of 1 or more copyrighted works, which have a total retail value of more than $1,000.
(d)
(1) During preparation of the presentence report pursuant to Rule 32(c) of the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure, victims of the offense shall be permitted to submit, and the probation officer shall receive, a victim impact statement that identifies the victim of the offense and the extent and scope of the injury and loss suffered by the victim, including the estimated economic impact of the offense on that victim.
(2) Persons permitted to submit victim impact statements shall include--
(A) producers and sellers of legitimate works affected by conduct involved in the offense;
(B) holders of intellectual property rights in such works; and
(C) the legal representatives of such producers, sellers, and holders.
(e) As used in this section--
(1) the terms "phonorecord" and "copies" have, respectively, the meanings set forth in section 101 (relating to definitions) of title 17; and
(2) the terms "reproduction" and "distribution" refer to the exclusive rights of a copyright owner under clauses (1) and (3) respectively of section 106 (relating to exclusive rights in copyrighted works), as limited by sections 107 through 122, of title 17.
The deposition gets funny around page 24/25.
Jacobsen is a smart man from my university, but he doesn't come off well on paper and the lawyers just seem to be fighting eachother the whole time.
I personally think that since P2P only uploads a chunk of a file to someone, you technically didn't give them anything really useable- but that's just me.
You don't hear lawyers cite settlements in court, the cite case law which means cases that the court decided. After all a settlement just means that two parties came to an agreement, has nothing to do with what the actual law might be. You can threaten to sue me for breathing and, though you'd never win in court, I can still choose to settle with you beforehand. I would be stupid to do so, but I can if I want. Doesn't mean a court will give that any weight.
Please note that the following artists revenue is helping to fund this action by Sony BMG and the RIAA:
Good Charlotte
Shakira
Avril Lavigne
Christina Aguilera
Pink
Justin Timberlake
Evanescence
By buying anything from these or any other Sony BMG artist, you are helping to fund these lawsuits. Please stop!
"Then they'll try to draft something saying that any end-user of an ISP account is liable for all copyright infringement that goes on through it, including that of 3rd parties and minors."
I should think that would be quite amusing and short-lived. You could just go trolling for unsecured wireless networks in the rich area of town, and download to your heart's content. The RIAA would either never sue, or sue and get bitchslapped by people with lawyers as expensive as the RIAA has.
You have tried to support your argument with faulty reasoning! Go directly to jail; do not pass Go, do not collect $200!
Which makes it not really a victory for Mr Merchant.
And it doesn't set a bad precedent against the RIAA either: confronted with a choice between paying a settlement of $3750 or avoiding a settlement by paying your lawyer $6880.25, most "rational" people would probably chose the settlement. And that's all the RIAA needs.
And it's not a model letter either: the "emotional distress" argument is specific to Mr Merchant, and cannot be reused by other people. And most caselaw cited is specific to California.
You're absolutely correct that we need to turn the law against them, but the solution is not to hack their wireless networks. It's rather a change in the way our P2P programs work (or perhaps in the way infringing files are bundled), what one might call a "pirate handshake."
Here's the way it would work. The RIAA has to catch people red handed in order to make any sort of a case against them, which is easy to do because all they need to do is join the swarm and grab the infringing file from the unsuspecting mark (using BT as the example here because that's usually the way it goes down). Some people have often had the idea that there's something slightly shady about this because it means that in the process of downloading the file, the RIAA must also be uploading it to others, thereby becoming complicit in the distribution. Alas, there is no legal problem here, because one assumes the RIAA has been authorized by its members to distribute their materials in order to bust others. So you can't get them that way.
There is, however, a speck of useful logic there. The RIAA may be authorized to distribute its own crap over P2P networks, but it's certainly not authorized to distribute my crap. If it came to light that they had done so, assuming that I had a registered copyright on whatever it is that they distributed, I could file for damages against them. So one might have the idea to zip together every piece of infringing material with another piece of infringing material, where the second one is owned by someone that has no intention of suing the average user, but will drag the RIAA through the mud if it ever comes out that they passed the file around. We might call this a weak form of pirate handshake.
Weak, of course, because there are ways around it. The RIAA might just make sure to leech the whole file, thus avoiding any sort of redistribution, or perhaps they could figure out how to only distribute the pieces of the file that they have the rights to (not sure what this would mean in the case of a zip file - I think they're just encoded in a pretty simple way, so you may be able to localize one piece).
The strong form would be to build the handshake into the P2P client. I absolutely refuse to send any sort of data to you, other than the handshake request (which would probably be the very same file as the response), until you send me the copyrighted (but perfectly safe for anyone but the *AAs and their agents) file. Only once I recieve that file and check its contents to make sure that you have now infringed against this benevolent third party do I agree to send you even a single bit of whatever it is you wanted to download from me.
It is crucial that this copyrighted file be a third party's, offered without an explicit license to redistribute, by the way, and it must have some artistic value (to qualify for any copyright protection at all); if it was my own file or if the entire reason for its existence was to act as insurance against being taken to court for copyright violations, the courts might not decide to grant it copyright protection on the grounds that it's clear it's only out there to mess with their rules. I don't know if there's any legal precedent for doing this, but it seems like the type of thing that might offend a judge, and at some level, if you piss off a judge, you're screwed. Likewise if the file was offered with a license that granted, for instance, the right to redistribute as long as you are not using it to enforce copyright laws, the courts might take offense. The key would be to find an independent band or author that was sympathetic to the cause and get them to make a gentleman's agreement to:
One such "pirate handshake" has already been implemented, actually, though not directly into P2P-clients to my knowledge.
It's called Monolith, and it's basically about merging two copyrighted files, so for the RIAA to claim infringement it must also claim ownership of the other copyrighted file, one that it does not neccesarily own.
http://monolith.sourceforge.net/
I would attack the problem from the software stack end.
P2P Software license v0.1
You are free to use and distribute this software subject to the following provisions;
a You do not use the software to track, investigate or persue other users, legally or otherwise
b You are not associated or affiliated with the publishing industry in any way, shape or form, and do not act on their behalf.
c You do not assert copyright over any materials that may be transmitted by this software, nor act on the behest of others that do.
d you do not pass information about other users of this software or the network protocols employed to a third party, over and above the normal operation of the software.
e you agree to finance any and all legal fees of any user of this software, who is subjected to prosecution as a result of your use of the software over and above the normal functioning and behaviour of the software.
Let them write their own clients!!!!
- som
You could also make it so that the client has built in ways of faking any and all data that could be used to prosecute people. If they then try to use it, you can simply demonstrate how simple it is to fake the evidence they are using with nothing more than the program they used to gather it.
...being the opposite of conflict (fighting) must therefore mean "making sweet love to"
If you don't risk failure you don't risk success.
unfortunately, all this means is that your client will be incompatible with the GPL, and the FSF will clean-room the whole thing in order to make a free version =/
being vague is almost as cool as doing that other thing...
Actually, what he suggested is that it could be moved "by stipulation and order" and then withdrawn. I take that to mean that both sides mutually agree that the case is moved, and the court orders it so. The issue of whether to withdraw would be handled afterwards, through the new court.
He was just taking an opportunity to point out a few other things they'd done wrong and offer "friendly" advice on how to fix it. If they actually intended to withdraw (with or without prejudice) there'd be little point in stipulating to the change of jurisdiction first, which I think Ledford knows-- he's just pointing out that not only were they ill-prepared to win, but that they were also procedurally deficient as well.
One problem: judges and juries don't seem to give a crap about the technical side of things. As far as the courts seem to care, the RIAA does not download the files, rather it merely snoops the IP address swarm. Sure, technically they do download part of the file, but if copyright law was that technical, wouldn't copying web pages into cache be illegal?
You know, there is a difference between trolling and pointing out the flaws in your reasoning. Just saying.
"The great thing about multitasking is that several things can go wrong at once." -me
OT for the main thread, but I studied bullies a bit.
..." They hate spending the day thinking about it. It comes back to them each time they bully someone. In the best case they realize their problems and leave others alone.
;)
I must agree with Denoir. In my experience bullies are not cowards, except for being under the submission of another bully themselves, usually an abusive parent.
It's true that facing them only mean that next time they will leave you alone, but they continue their bullying ways.
As for them running at first blood, this is actually rare and highly dependent on the bully's stamina. When you get beaten by your drunken dad 3 times a week, you can take a fairly good beat in the schoolyard without really caring.
When I realized that, (thru a friend after his dad broke his arm in a drunken rage) I found out that most bullies can be dealt with by carefully chosen phrases about their personal and family problems. "Your dad beats you and you take that on others? No? What is it then?
Now to stay on topic.
- Who is RIAA's bullies? Stockholders.
- Key phrase to use in the fight: "Your stockholders beat you in the boardroom?" "Your sales are down so you get back on a 10 year old?"
OK, not very effective in the courtroom
Sure, but at the same time, if the RIAA is intentionally and willfully releasing their content via the same P2P distribution channel as where they are actively suing users, it does present a bit of a legal problem. "I got it from the RIAA" would be a valid defense.
As always there is a chicken and the egg problem though, someone needs to first send the RIAA investigator a piece of the file before the RIAA can redistribute it, so potentially that first person would still be a target.
Give a man a fish, he'll eat for a day, but teach a man to phish...