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RIAA Backs Down Again in Chicago
NewYorkCountryLawyer writes "The RIAA seems to have a problem making things stick in the Windy City. It has once again backed down in BMG v. Thao, after suing a misidentified defendant. Same thing occurred last October in Elektra v. Wilke. In the Thao case, the RIAA based its case on information that the cable modem used to partake in file sharing was registered to Mr. Thao. However, it turned out that Mr. Thao was not even a subscriber (pdf) of the ISP (pdf) at the time of the alleged file-sharing, and therefore did not have possession of the suspect cable modem at that time."
Realizing you are suing the wrong person is not 'backing down'.
Is there anyway to at the very least get your lawyer fees covered? Or do you have to file your own lawsuit to get those?
This is getting fucking ridiculous!
I remember back when the RIAA lawsuits first began. While they didn't stop a lot of people from file sharing, it did disquiet a lot of people. The idea of the RIAA sniffing the P2P networks and logging everything you did was frightening, and people imagined itemized lists of dates and times their downloads were completed.
Now the only disquieting thing is that the RIAA seems inclined to sue anyone and anybody, regardless of whether they have anything to do with it or not. The more cases they pursue, the more obvious it is that their ability to locate and pursue anyone is pathetic. Feelings of Big Brother subside, and now we can rest easy knowing that if the RIAA does sue you, it's because they think you're someone you're not.
Thunderclone: ONE MAN ENTERS! TWO MEN LEAVE! ONE MAN ENTERS! TWO MEN LEAVE!
Oh? Did you have a promising career all planned out just before this little mishap? Sorry about that. No blood, no foul, right? We're sure your home country will have some nice relief services for people who are down on their luck.
Have a nice day!
the NPG electrode was replaced with carbon blac
In most cases, if you read the briefs, the lawyers are clueless about the evidence presented, in almost ANY field, not just in tech. The verbage indicates ignorance in many many areas. In most cases though, the lawyer is more up to speed then is the judge. Think that one through and you will understand the ture pickle we are in...
- Minutus cantorum, minutus balorum, minutus carborata descendum pantorum.
The only way the RIAA is going to stop harassing people through the courts is when it costs them so much that they can't sustain it anymore. That won't happen simply by suing for court costs and attorney's fees -- the RIAA (through its members) is much too wealthy for that.
Use 'slashdot stuff' in the subject line in any email you send me if you want to get past the spam filter.
but it's their job to vaidate it.
Yeah, lets see a newspaper pull that off. "But your honor one of our sources reported that Celebrity T was doing R bad thing at the time therefore we didn't slander them."
Guess what, if you sue someone it's now your problem. If the RIAA doesn't fully explore evidence before suing people over then they have no right to continue suing people. It would be like the police bringing a case against a suspected murderer and asking, in the trial, to search the house, car etc. to find evidence. That's not how the legal system is supposed to work. Trial is supposed to be the last thing in a long line of to do's, one of which is verifying that you've got the right person. The RIAA doesn't do that long list, which is horribly wrong but not quite illegal, and more and more often it's coming back to haunt them.
There are two kinds of fool One says 'This is old therefore good' Another says 'This is new therefore better'- Dean Ing
While it may not be their fault, cases like these show that the RIAA may have acted on bad information in the past. The burden of proof might be elevated for future cases, thus making it harder for the RIAA to sue people. While it may not be a direct victory, many cases like these can discredit RIAA suits.
The point is that the RIAA is acting like an enforcement agency instead of a civil litigant. They've used uniformed "swat teams", they do their own para-police investigations. If they're going to collect their own evidence, then they're going to have to abide by the rules, and if they storm into somebody's life they better get it right.
Yes, the RIAA "made a mistake" and should be held accountable.
You are welcome on my lawn.
The law suit was dismissed without prejudice which means they can sue him again... and he wasn't offered costs! His lawyer should have asked for costs and should also ask the case be struck with prejudice.
Wikipedia has a comment about this:
Let's name the actual companies involved: Sony, Universal, Capitol, KGB Records, Synapse Films... We might even make up a new acronym for the coalition.
404555974007725459910684486621289147856453481154 in hex is "You sank my Battleship?"
[GPG key in journal]
I'm sure the RIAA was much more likely to end it quickly if they had a NDA on how much their victim was compensated and was allowed to let it look like a draw rather than a humiliating defeat.
Apocalypse Cancelled, Sorry, No Ticket Refunds
Ooops. Sorry about sending you to Guatanamo. We had the wrong info. No blood, no foul, right? No hard feelings? Just sign this release form.
Congratulations, you just described reality.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mamdouh_Habib
The difference is that the RIAA's targets actually get a day in court, and the RIAA aren't allowed to extract confessions using tortu^H^H^H^H^H "psychological pressure". Why are you expecting American companies to behave any better than the American government, when one controls the other?
Blank until
Think of it this way. We know the standard Slashdot opinion of politicians and lawyers. A judge is a lawyer that is more politically savvy than most. /shiver
This is quite common practice, and acceptable. It is quite unlikely that the judge did not read over the decision before hand. Judges often simply agree with a proposed order's reasoning. That's what law clerks are for. It's the same thing at the US Supreme Court.... clerks write many of the opinions for their justice.
Often in state court, the PARTIES write the decisions for the judges and submit them as "proposed" orders and the judge just scratches through the word "proposed" and signs it. I've written dozens of these that the judge just signed w/o a single change.... and I'm not even a law student.
PS. Here's a secret.... lawyering ain't hard. Most programmers would make very god lawyers with a minimum of training.
Is it an accident that the RIAA seems only to go after ordinary people in these cases? Given the thousands of cases you would expect the occasional politician, lawyer, rich businessman to be accused.
Yet people who can barely afford the settlement costs seem to be the most common.
In a civil suit it's 'a preponderance of evidence' (51%) not 'beyond a reasonable doubt'. Now, the issue is still, if there is a likelyhood that the account is wrong, and there are multiple people in the house, how do you ever get to 51% that a specific individual is responsible for anything?