RIAA Drops Tanya Andersen Case

NewYorkCountryLawyer writes "After 2 years, the RIAA has finally dropped its longstanding case against disabled single mother Tanya Andersen in Oregon, Atlantic v. Andersen. The dismissal (pdf) relates merely to the RIAA's claims against Ms. Andersen, and does not relate to her (a) claim for attorneys fees or (b) counterclaims against the RIAA, which are presently before the Court on a motion to dismiss. The counterclaims were first interposed in December 2005. This is the same case in which the RIAA insisted on taking a face to face deposition of a 10 year old girl. Prior to the case, neither the mother nor the child had ever even heard of file sharing."

Comments

two years

[uolamer]

two years to drop a case that should have never been filed to start with. The civil court system in the US really needs an update.. maybe vista?

Re:two years

[Cerberus7]

Nah, then it would take 4 years but the paperwork would be _REALLY_ colourful!

Re:two years

[Timberwolf0122]

Nevermind that how can you even sue a 10 year old??! At that age surely community service would be a better option.

I think the very least they can do is pay the legal fees the family has rung up, soliciters are not cheep! RIAA are so off my birthday card list.

Re:two years

[GreyPoopon]

The civil court system in the US really needs an update..

I don't think so... at least not yet. I think the judge needs to deny the motion to dismiss the countersuit and, depending on the evidence, not only award the fees requested in the countersuit, but also an extremely stiff penalty. Basically, you don't want to make your court system less open, but you want to scare the living daylights out of any organization that would abuse the court system by harassing innocent people. If it's clear that the defendant was innocent and that the RIAA did not take proper measures to make sure they had the right person, then they ought to pay attorney fees, emotional stress, fees for any efforts related to the case that the family had to take, ongoing fees for counseling for the 10 year old, any medical bills that might have been related to the stress they put the family through, fees to cover any libel that the family may have suffered for their treatment, and then a huge penalty on top of that for abusing the court system. After that, the FBI should investigate the RIAA for participating in organized crime. ;)

Yeah, it's just a pipe dream; I know. But seriously, before we call for changes to the court system, let's see how it plays out.

Re:two years

[uolamer]

personally i am curious how her RICO Case http://yro.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=05/10/02/16 12238 will play out. would be real nice to see it go the distance, but at this pace it wont ever finish. Filing waves of law suits against people without any evidence, or knowing who your suing, then resorting to 'extortion' seems to be close enough to the RICO law to play out, if someone cares enough to do it..

Re:two years

[HRogge]

Sounds like a really good idea...

every times the RIAA want's tu sue a huge number of people they will run into an advanced feature of Vista called "User Access Controls"...

"You are trying toaccess the legal interface, are you sure ?"
"You are trying to hire an incompetent consultant, are you sure ?" ....

after 10-20 of this question (for each single case they start) they will just drop the whole matter...

Re:two years

[Rogerborg]

Learn the difference between civil and criminal cases, Little Billy.

Re:two years

[Heir Of The Mess]

So what do you reckon 30? 40 billion $$$? Afterall doctors get sued for millions for making an honest 5 second mistake. This has been a 2 year campaign of deliberate persecution of an innocent minor and her disabled mother.

Re:two years

[canajin56]

Stop saying RIAA. The RIAA didn't sue a single person. Atlantic Records, a wholly owned subsidiary of Time-Warner-AOL's Warner Music Group, sued her. Blaming on the RIAA when the RIAA isn't mentioned once in any of the court documents is what the media reporting on the case, also wholly owned subsidiaries of Time-Warner-AOL, do to shift blame away from themselves.

Re:two years

[Anonymous Coward]

Afterall doctors get sued for millions for making an honest 5 second mistake

Not only doctors. An honest five second mistake in auto traffic can result in the same kind of pain, suffering, death, and lifetimes of medical bills as a medical mistake.

You're saying that if you don't see that stop sign and cause me ten million dollars of medical bills that since it's an honest mistake you (or rather your insurance company; the same company that insures doctors) shouldn't have to pay?

Just pray you don't wind up in a wheelchair severely brain damaged because of someone else's honest mistake, doctor or no.

-mcgrew

Re:two years

[mstahl]

You're right, sort of. What really needs to happen here is that Atlantic Records needs to get taken to the cleaners on penalties, they must reimburse the defendant appropriately, and just as importantly their lawyers must be held accountable for bringing this case to court. Filing a lawsuit on false grounds and wasting two years of these people's and the court's time is grounds for disbarment.

Re:two years

[jratcliffe]

While you're right about the RIAA, you're wrong about Atlantic Records. Atlantic is owned by Warner Music Group, but Warner Music is an independent company, with no connection to Time Warner (which doesn't use the AOL name anymore). Warner Music (ticker WMG) was sold off about two years ago, so Time Warner (ticker TWX) has no connection to this lawsuit

Re:two years

[EsbenMoseHansen]

You're saying that if you don't see that stop sign and cause me ten million dollars of medical bills that since it's an honest mistake you (or rather your insurance company; the same company that insures doctors) shouldn't have to pay?

That's what I would say. Damages should only be awarded for something very deliberate, like rape. The other line of thought gets sillier by the minute. What's next, suing the weather forecast man who fails to predict a thunderstorm? The man that falls out of his window and hits you? Suing the thunderstorm or gravity itself?

In my opinion, it is your responsibility to ensure that you have sufficient insurance to the level of medical attention you will need. For most of the civilized world, taxes already provides this ensurance, but for the rest, I'm sure the lower taxes would afford you the insurance.

Re:two years

[ObsessiveMathsFreak]

You're saying that if you don't see that stop sign and cause me ten million dollars of medical bills that since it's an honest mistake you (or rather your insurance company; the same company that insures doctors) shouldn't have to pay?

When we drive cars, cross the road, ride an elevator, eat a meal, we all accept a certain level of risk. These are the risks that somehow, through no deliberate fault of anyone, something will go wrong. There will be an oil slick on the road, you will trip on a stone, a sensor will fail, there will be a chicken head in your nuggets.

It's one thing if someone deliberately avoids their responsibility and in so doing cause an accident. It's quite another when an accident occurs through no real fault of a diligent and responsible person. In the first case, their actions escalated the danger of the situation beyond the level of risk most people would be willing to accept. In the second, the accident that occurred was one that any honest person would accept was a reasonable possibility, and furthermore, one which people so accept as a possibility every single day.

Accidents happen. They are erratic events which we cannot predict, but nonetheless accept the possibility of. Of course, deliberate misfortunes also occur, which were indeed quite foreseeable and avoidable. It is the latter event that people should be held to account over.

Re:two years

[GreyPoopon]

Stop saying RIAA. The RIAA didn't sue a single person.

The question is: was the RIAA involved at all, either through securing legal counsel or through lobbying to get laws in place and establish procedures with ISPs. If so, they should participate in the accountability. If not, then s/RIAA/Atlantic Records/g.

Re:two years

[RESPAWN]

Now we just need a judge with enough balls to assess such a penalty. Of course, this says nothing about the judges in the courts above him. I'm afriad that even if this judge were to assess such penalties, the penalties would be overturned on appeal by a higher court. But maybe I'm just being too pessimistic.

Re:two years

[Maxo-Texas]

No that's just goofy.

I think $750 per day is a reasonable amount tho.

Surely a day of a person's life is worth as much as a copy of a song.

So 547,500 for two years.

Re:two years

[Anonymous Coward]

Warner Music Group was sold to a group of investors led by Edgar Bronfman Jr. in March 2004.

This happened after they found out that AOL was a (Image word)

Re:two years

[mstahl]

I dunno who would've modded me "flamebait" just then.... Really what I mean to say is that lawyers don't have to go through with lawsuits that they can clearly see are frivolous or liable to get them into trouble further down the line just because their client wants them to. Mind you I didn't say anything about the morality of a law suit.

If a client proposes a law suit like this one, it's the lawyer's job to tell their client they can't risk it backfiring.

I'm not a lawyer. I'm a graphic designer whose sister is a lawyer.

Re:two years

[Cal Paterson]

You're saying that if you don't see that stop sign and cause me ten million dollars of medical bills that since it's an honest mistake you (or rather your insurance company; the same company that insures doctors) shouldn't have to pay?

Exactly, yes. That's what I would agree with. Intent isn't present, so, neither should mens rea be.

Re:two years

[Reziac]

Nah, it's just that the RIAA are really slow learners. Have some pity for the disabled members of our society!! ;)

Re:two years

[Reziac]

"I think $750 per day is a reasonable amount tho.
Surely a day of a person's life is worth as much as a copy of a song.
So 547,500 for two years."

Seriously, that sounds like a good rule-of-thumb penalty for this sort of abuse. Enough to be painful for the abuser, not so much as to err on the side of reverse abuse.

Re:two years

[Qzukk]

that you have sufficient insurance to the level of medical attention you will need.

So in other words, he should be punished for failing to predict that you'd hit him? How is that different from the other examples?

How about his insurance company, which in the real world would turn around and sue you for causing the damages they had to pay for? Should they be punished by being forced to raise the rates for their customers because you can't be bothered to keep your eyes on the road for 5 seconds? Maybe if YOU had been insured against the damage YOU did, then the insurance company would be able to take their damages out on you, but then you'd have to face the responsibility for your own failures.

responsibility

Look up the definition of mis/malfeasance, I think you'll find that your failure to properly operate a vehicle that you have been trained and licensed to operate falls in this category regardless of whether you think that insurance companies grow money on trees.

Re:two years

[einhverfr]

IANAL, but I think there are times where neglegance should be actionable.

However, I do share a lot of the concerns about medical malpractice tort reform. My suggestion has generally been aimed at moving from a "court" solution to an "insurance" solution. Basically, a doctor's malpractice liability insurance would double as an accidental death/dismemberment insurance for his/her patients with a baseline of payments set by the state. Patients who want additional insurnace could buy it.

Then I would suggest raising the bar for malpractice suits from a "standard of care" approach to a "clear neglegence" standard. The goal is to keep the money from going into court costs and attourney's fees and provide a reasonable standard for compensation in the case of common medical issues.

There are other things that need to be done as well to reduce our medical costs, but we can save those for another discussion where they will be less off-topic.

Getting back to the case at hand... If there was copyright infringement going on, then the RIAA would have been within their rights to sue. However, since this looks like an abuse of the court system, I would suggest again, a very stiff penalty and a finding of fact that the RIAA was abusing the courts. I would then suggest the word gets out as far as possible, and that people are aware that such a finding can be used in the defense of other cases. A few such findings, and the RIAA may have a much harder time suing anybody. Yes a systematic adjustment is due but not to the court system but rather to these sets of cases.

Re:two years

[Mister Whirly]

The case started out as Atlantic Recording Company vs Andersen, but if you look at the most current court documents, you would see that the Plaintiffs are - Atlantic Recording Company, Priority Records LLC, Capitol Records Inc, UMG Recordings Inc, and BMG Music.

Guess which organization all of those indivdual companies belong too? The Recording Industry Association of America.

The RIAA isn't a separate group from the individual record companies, the RIAA IS those companies. So therefore, if you are being sued by a collective of recording companies who all belong to the RIAA, you ARE being sued by the RIAA. Elementary my dear Watson.
So are you trying to say that being sued for tens of thousands of dollars by individual record companies is somehow better than being sued for tens of thousands by the RIAA?

Now if someone can explain to me how the GP was insightful??

Re:two years

[Aeron65432]

The civil court system in the US really needs an update.. maybe vista?
"You are attempting to screw over the populace, Allow or Deny?"

On second thought, I think Microsoft has pre-programmed that answer...

Re:two years

[EsbenMoseHansen]

that you have sufficient insurance to the level of medical attention you will need.

So in other words, he should be punished for failing to predict that you'd hit him? How is that different from the other examples?

Is it punishment to have to pay for medical bills after being hit by lightning? No. It's just life. Likewise, you might get hit by a car. Unfortunately, such things happens.

How about his insurance company, which in the real world would turn around and sue you for causing the damages they had to pay for?

They wouldn't in most of the civilized world. Since they wouldn't get anything out of that regress suit. That would require "gross negliences" (literal translation) on your part.

Should they be punished by being forced to raise the rates for their customers because you can't be bothered to keep your eyes on the road for 5 seconds? Maybe if YOU had been insured against the damage YOU did, then the insurance company would be able to take their damages out on you, but then you'd have to face the responsibility for your own failures.

Relax. Everyone blinks. Sometimes, it just isn't anybodys fault, and besides, everyone makes mistakes. I am not speaking of gross neglience here.

Look up the definition of mis/malfeasance, I think you'll find that your failure to properly operate a vehicle that you have been trained and licensed to operate falls in this category regardless of whether you think that insurance companies grow money on trees.

Why should I look up legal terms for an 3rd-rate legal system that I am unlikely to ever get in contact with? I have plenty to know in the not-too-great-either system I live in. And nice straw-man there at the end. I never claimed it was free. Whether by insurance or public health, big medical bills get paid by spreading the cost out across a big part of the population. Where do you think the (relatively innocent) guy that blinked or got distracted or whatever for 5 seconds will get the money to pay damages from, especially those ridiculous ones Americans spew out? Emotional stress, my shiny behind! He gets it from his insurance company, which might well be the same that you uses in the event you blink. So you get to pay just the same amount, + the attorneys fees... which doesn't grow on trees either.

Re:two years

[MemoryDragon]

More... there should be a clear incentive not to settle against the riaa, after all million dollar lawsuits for consumer good related damages helped a lot...
The same should go for the RIAA, they sue people for millons of dollars of questionable real value, I personally think a fine which really hurts them, and with really I mean seriously hurts them is appropriate!
After this fine a few hundred thousand get rich quick crooks will hunt the riaa and out of court settling will be much harder than it used to be!

Re:two years

[Anonymous Coward]

Judges used to be lawyers. There is no way they will cripple their industry by doing something like this.

Re:two years

[Anonymous Coward]

You're saying that if you don't see that stop sign and cause me ten million dollars of medical bills that since it's an honest mistake you (or rather your insurance company; the same company that insures doctors) shouldn't have to pay?

When we drive cars, cross the road, ride an elevator, eat a meal, we all accept a certain level of risk. These are the risks that somehow, through no deliberate fault of anyone, something will go wrong. There will be an oil slick on the road, you will trip on a stone, a sensor will fail, there will be a chicken head in your nuggets.

It's one thing if someone deliberately avoids their responsibility and in so doing cause an accident. It's quite another when an accident occurs through no real fault of a diligent and responsible person.
=
=

If corporations do not have to pay for damage caused by their negligence, what incentive do they have to avoid harm?

Re:two years

[Marxist Hacker 42]

What's even more interesting is the counterclaim- if the RICO suit fails, there will be case law in Oregon making it legal to copy files out of anybody's open and unprotected shares- plus it will be legal to scan for such open ports and shares. Kazaa isn't the only file sharing software out there- "I want to share my printers and I want to share my files, and I want to share my anger 'cause it's making me bloomin' wild"- ReInstalling Windows by Les Barker, from back in Windows 3.1 days. MOST basic file systems are file sharing software if you don't know, or are too stupid to, protect them.

Re:two years

[Anonymous Coward]

Patients who want additional insurnace could buy it.

That would require more information than doctors are willing to give out. Could you imagine calling up your insurance agent to get some malpractice insurance for an ingrown toenail removal done by Dr. Doe, only to find out that it'll cost 30 times more than the same insurance for Dr. Smith?

Re:two years

[Qzukk]

Everyone blinks.

5 seconds is more than just a blink. I'd even go so far as to say that if you're looking at something other than the road for 5 seconds, you're negligent. If it takes you more than a second to read your speedometer, you either need your eyes checked or you've had too much to drink.

everyone makes mistakes

Punishment is the process by which people learn not to. Is 10 million dollars too much punishment for deciding to fish around in your purse while approaching a red light? Maybe. Are claims for "mental anguish" total bullshit? Usually (show me some psychiatric bills). You break it, you buy it? Totally.

I have car insurance that insures me against my fuckups. If I fuckup, my insurance pays for it, and then bills me more to cover the cost of having to pay for my fuckups, or if I fuck up so often that it's simply too expensive to cover me, they drop me, requiring me to find some other insurer or stop driving. That is what I consider fair.

Re:two years

[bdjacobson]

No that's just goofy.

I think $750 per day is a reasonable amount tho.

Surely a day of a person's life is worth as much as a copy of a song.

So 547,500 for two years. No, make that $750 every 4 minutes. So, $547,000 * 24 * 15 = $196,920,000. Much more reasonable.

Re:two years

[killjoy356]

The SCOTUS said that punitive awards of around 9 times actual damages are around the maximum; with some nebulous upper bound...

Re:two years

[Anonymous Coward]

This has been a 2 year campaign of deliberate persecution of an innocent minor and her disabled mother.

There isn't enough cock on earth for the **AA bastards to suck.

Re:two years

[Anonymous Coward]

Where do you think the (relatively innocent) guy that blinked or got distracted or whatever for 5 seconds will get the money to pay damages from, especially those ridiculous ones Americans spew out?

First off, dig out the statistics on the actual disribution of awards in the American court system. The large awards are a) extremely rare and b) usually knocked down to vastly less on appeal. Of course the insurance dickmouths will only shriek about the initial award in the extravagantly few large awards, then go strangely mute about the final outcomes. They just want every voter to think enormous awards are routine.

In fact, they're nothing but a self-serving, duplicitous, meretricious, fucking bastards.

And don't bring up the McDonalds lady before you find out the facts. McDonalds was well aware of the danger of serving coffee at that temperature. There were plenty of previous cases, so they were on notice, but freely chose to continue the practice.

And the woman was DECIDEDLY NOT negligent in opening the coffee while driving. HER SON was driving. And she DID NOT do so while the car was in motion -- she had her son pull over and stop the car while she attempted to remove the lid.

So just fuck that one off the planet right now.

Re:two years

[celtic_hackr]

Yes, accidents happen. However, I have yet to see or read of any accident that couldn't have been prevented by at least one party to the accident. Automobile accidents are always because at least one driver was not taking the proper precautions or not paying proper attention to the situation around him/her. Doctors make mistakes, so does everyone, but some mistakes are more serious than others. Mistakes are inevitable in a world where there is incomplete knowledge, but that doesn't mean the victims of these accidents shouldn't be awarded damages. In the cases of intentially causing pain and suffering there should also be punitive damages, after all that's what punitive damages are for. Moreover, the American legal system is seriously broken when lawsuits such as these are allowed to run on for years. Indeed many cases are allowed to run on for years, draining the wallets of both parties. However, one party usually can afford to let the wallet drain, just to be able to smack down the other party. The courts in America at one time were accessible to any citizen, and citizens oftentimes represented themselves. Something that is not always possible today. For proof of what I say take a look at the court records for NY in say 1680. They can be quite entertaining. The modern system is intentionally obfuscated and rule-filled to prevent such self-representation. It's no longer about justice, but who can tell the best story and outspend the other (mostly). Sure sometimes the system works, but more often it doesn't

Re:two years

[ioshhdflwuegfh]

The whole business of risk management is tricky exactly because it is hard to define what the risk is. Economists tried to get risk into their formulas without success, and no matter how self-understandable the concept might be, when an accident occurs all kinds of other things start to work. You say

It's one thing if someone deliberately avoids their responsibility and in so doing cause an accident. It's quite another when an accident occurs through no real fault of a diligent and responsible person. and I of course agree, but I am not sure how this logic can be translated/applied to pretty much any real-life accident. First off, notice that, by their very definition, corporations are societies that are trying to limit their responsibility. And how to determine whether a particular Co, by trying to limit their responsibility, is also trying to avoid it? What if the risk management is just one among other strategies to limit the responsibility?

Furthermore, we shouldn't neglect other logics of accident. Let's assume that it is undisputed that a particular accident was:

the accident that occurred was one that any honest person would accept was a reasonable possibility, and furthermore, one which people so accept as a possibility every single day. and that the responsibility was established beyond any doubt of anybody. Very idealized situation, but let's assume in its spirit that, for instance, after an accident and a court settlement a large amount of money was awarded to a person X suing a company Y. Like in the news: X got severely injured and after going to the court got awarded from Y a large amount of money. Isn't there something strange/perverse/bizarre about this even if there is nothing left to be clarified about the responsibility of people involved?

Accidents happen. They are erratic events which we cannot predict, but nonetheless accept the possibility of. This reminds me of the Atom Egoyan's movie The Sweet Hereafter, where the lawyer is trying to rally people to sue after a nasty accident, and when somebody asks him why should they sue since it was an accident after all, he replies that to him word accident means nothing, but rather that somebody somewhere in some company decided to save some money and thereby make the school bus involved in the accident less safe...

Proposal

[TrueRecord]

RIAA has got a pretty nice way of making money: bullying innocent people; I suggest imposing a just 100 per cent tax on them and their business.

how the RIAA beat me

[Anonymous Coward]

The most effective tactic they used to make me stop pirating music was to produce music that wasn't worth listening to.

Re:how the RIAA beat me

[Ilex]

The most effective tactic they used to make me stop pirating music was to produce music that wasn't worth listening to.

Sshh thats their new DRM tm. Make the music sound so intolerable that no one will want to listen to it hence no will download it much less share it.

Of course to safeguard their profits they'll just buy legislation which will tax the production of music. Anyone found accidentally bashing a stick against another object will have to pay the RIAA royalty tax.

Unfortunately that will also include bashing A clue stick against hollow objects like the heads of Industry executives. It looks like they've finally found their uncrackable DRM system.

Re:how the RIAA beat me

[statusbar]

This works into their grand master plan:

1) produce poor quality music
2) sell less albums
3) blame pirating and internet radio for their reduced sales
4) tax internet radio and sue everyone else for pirating even if they are not pirating ..5) profit!!!

--jeffk++

Re:how the RIAA beat me

[Mattintosh]

blah blah blah... heads of Industry executives... blah blah blah... uncrackable...

Not likely. Let's bash some heads.

Re:how the RIAA beat me

[MooUK]

Wait, so I can bash the heads of the industry executives in as long as I pay them?

Sounds like a decent deal to me!

Re:Obligatory

[theTrueMikeBrown]

you forgot to welcome our ten year old prate girl overlords!

The Trifecta!

[Himring]

Harrassing a handicapped mother, her child and disrupting the child's education (by wanting to depose during school hours). Congo rats RIAA! You've pulled the trifecta!...

Seriously, the devil is going to be in serious need of something to do the way these fookers are going. I think even he sits back, looks at these cases and says, "dayum...."

Re:The Trifecta!

[u-bend]

Yes. With so much money being wasted and lives disrupted, maybe all this nonsense will become so publicly humiliating for the **AA groups that some real change might happen. Ooooor not. It's discouraging that things like this happen, but it's much more important to cover the silliness of this than whether or not Paris H. can handle the hard time she's serving or any other media inanity going on right now.

Re:The Trifecta!

[palewook]

in the end, this story might end up on the small screen as a movie of the week.

Re:The Trifecta!

[NewYorkCountryLawyer]

Yeah, it would be a good movie.

Here's a good article to start the research with.

Re:The Trifecta!

[canajin56]

The RIAA had nothing to do with this case. It was Atlantic V. Andersen. Atlantic Records, a wholly owned subsidiary of Time-Warner-AOL sued her. The RIAA is what The Media, (tm) also a wholly owned subsidiary of Time-Warner-AOL, report as doing the suing because saying "We are suing her" makes them look bad. So remember, Atlantic Records, Time-Warner-AOL. They are the ones suing, not the RIAA. The RIAA is the organization they belong to that recommends investigators to track down offenders but takes no real actions on its own, being only an organization the ACTUAL media corporations belong to. Ahmet Ertegün was the founding chairman of Atlantic until he died December 2006, so I guess blame the lawsuit on the dead guy? Certainly don't stop buying Atlantic albums like Led Zepplin, Cher, Charles Mingus, Coltraine, AC/DC, Bush, Ray Charles, Death Cab for Cutie, Emerson, Lake & Palmer, Genesis, Jennifer Love Hewitt, King Crimson, Lil' Kim, matchbox twenty, The Rolling Stones (Some), Sugar Ray, or Velvet Underground, to name a very very few ;) Because remember, its not THEIR fault, right? Its somehow the RIAA who had nothing to do with anything?

Re:The Trifecta!

[Himring]

huh?

Re:The Trifecta!

[Foobar of Borg]

Harrassing a handicapped mother, her child and disrupting the child's education (by wanting to depose during school hours). Congo rats RIAA! You've pulled the trifecta!...

Seriously, the devil is going to be in serious need of something to do the way these fookers are going. I think even he sits back, looks at these cases and says, "dayum...."

Well, it's a good thing Satan already installed the new Tenth Circle of Hell!

Re:The Trifecta!

[Reziac]

Maybe someone should pitch it as a TV movie of the week. Imagine the irony if a TV-production branch of some cartel wound up producing a docudrama about their own audio-branch's evildoings :)

Seriously, it might be a good project for some production-arts student, to ultimately be released into the public domain for maximum exposure.

Re:The Trifecta!

[Mister Whirly]

You need to be able to draw connections that may not be so obvious.

The case started out as Atlantic Recording Company vs Andersen, but if you look at the most current court documents [ilrweb.com], you would see that the Plaintiffs are - Atlantic Recording Company, Priority Records LLC, Capitol Records Inc, UMG Recordings Inc, and BMG Music.

Guess which organization all of those indivdual companies belong too? The Recording Industry Association of America.

So you are mistaken. It isn't just Atlantic suing her. Oh, and Atlantic is owned by Warner, who are separate from Time-Warner and AOL. If you truly believe that the RIAA has nothing to do with this case, you are as naive as they come...

Re:The Trifecta!

[Anonymous Coward]

I think the devil's gonna need to hire Bob Vila to remodel and add on to Hell.. because there's LOTS more people who deserve to go there than usual... what with all the ambulance-chasing scumbag lawyers on the planet. (Wait, scumbag lawyer... that's redundant...)

Re:The Trifecta!

[NewYorkCountryLawyer]

I think it could make an excellent movie on any scale.

Re:The Trifecta!

[Anonymous Coward]

Imagine the irony if a TV-production branch of some cartel wound up producing a docudrama about their own audio-branch's evildoings :)

Imagine the greater irony of that same branch then going out and suing someone for uploading clips of the movie to youtube.

Re:The Trifecta!

[Anonymous Coward]

1 Time Warner AOL does not exist any more
2 How can a wholly owned subsiduary be quoted on the stock Exchange?

Haha

[Anonymous Coward]

"child chad"

A girl named Chad, that's weird.

I really hope...

[FredDC]

... this woman will get some retribution for the many months of hell she went through. It really wouldn't be fair if the RIAA didn't have to pay up for this!

Re:I really hope...

[Rogerborg]

Oh, did you spot the best bit? They reserve the right to continue to pursue her to recover their lawyers' fees and costs. Goddamn them.

poor girl

[Floritard]

...the RIAA insisted on taking a face to face deposition of a 10 year old girl. Prior to the case, neither the mother nor the child chad ever even heard of file sharing." Isn't the girl suffering enough from having a boy's name?

Re:poor girl

[clickclickdrone]

>Isn't the girl suffering enough from having a boy's name?
You mean you people call kids Chad? I thought Randy was bad enough and don't get me started on Randy Vanwarmer or whatever his name was (70's singer).

Re:poor girl

[ICantHearYourMusicAn]

At least they weren't hanging Chad. That caused all manner of problems last time.

Re:poor girl

[HTH NE1]

"How's it dangling, Chad?"

Re:poor girl

[Floritard]

How on earth is this Offtopic? I pointed out poor copyeditting in the summary and wrapped it in a bad joke. That should get +5 Insightful on /.

Re:Obligatory

[clickclickdrone]

You're right. And I can't count above 4 either. Dammit, a flippant and ill-conceived post if ever there was one.

People vs. The Child

[packetmon]

RIAA Attorney: Did you know that by downloading music you were doing something illegal?
Little Girl: wots eleegul?
RIAA Attorney: Don't play dumb missy. I'll ask again. So when you download Bratney Spears did you think you were doing something wrong?
Little Girl: I love my Bratney neener neener
RIAA Attorney: ANSWER THE QUESTION
Little Girl: *sobs*
RIAA Attorney: DID YOU KNOW THAT BY SHARING MUSIC YOU HEAR FOR FREE ON THE RADIO YOU WERE DOING SOMETHING WRONG
RIAA Attorney: DID YOU KNOW THAT YOU COULD GO TO JAIL FOR A VERY LONG TIME
Little Girl: DID YOU KNOW THAT AL CAPONE DIED IN JAIL
Girl's Attorney: OBJECTION YOUR HONOR
Little Girl: *sobbing
RIAA Attorney: FINE YOUR HONOR (looks at little girl) YOU'RE GOING AWAY FOR A LONG TIME MISSY
RIAA trolls/employees: This guy is good!

Re:People vs. The Child

[kharchenko]

Little Girl: DID YOU KNOW THAT AL CAPONE DIED IN JAIL
Man, I thought the little girl was going to open up a can of whoopass after such a good start :)

Re:People vs. The Child

[CmdrGravy]

Little GirlChop him up, chop his head off ...

PoliceOh my God ! What's going on ??
Little Girl He killed the man
ManShe told me to do it !
Little GirlI'm only six, and three quarters

Re:People vs. The Child

[Anonymous Coward]

Capone didn't die in jail.

Re:People vs. The Child

[Mister Whirly]

"Capone didn't die in jail"

Yeah, but it was only a scant 8 years after he was released though... So it was practically in jail...heh..

Re:People vs. The Child

[Anonymous Coward]

hahaha... it reads just like the story of a new phoenix wright game

Scare Tactics

[christus_ae]

You know all of that "suing an old lady" or "requesting a deposition with a 10 year old girl" was just scare tactics, nothing more. How often was I told as a young child "if you do something bad the police will get you and take you to the slammer!"... I would assume that notion translates here.

Re:Scare Tactics

[Anonymous Coward]

How often was I told as a young child "if you do something bad the police will get you and take you to the slammer!"

I don't know, but it's phenomenally bad parenting.

Re:Scare Tactics

[dbIII]

If that's the case then could it be the crime "demanding money with menaces"?

Re:Scare Tactics

[Ant P.]

I'd think a more apt comparison to this case would be rape.

The amount of trauma caused, from being dragged through 2 years of court over deliberately false claims, is probably the same. Forget compensation, they should be pushing for 20-to-life sentences for every single RIAA suit involved in these cases.

We need some personal accountability

[spazmonkey]

We always talk about the RIAA as an entity, but there is probably only a relatively few individuals that are heading up all of this nonsense. Who are they PERSONALLY. They need to be outed, so that maybe when they are revealed as to who they really are, their personal lives will become as unbearable as they try to make their victims. No more hiding behind a corporate front. I want to know who these people are and everything about them made public so that decent citizens can avoid these pariahs.

Re:We need some personal accountability

[Aladrin]

I might agree with you if there were a -single- person that works for the RIAA willing to speak out and say 'what we are doing is wrong', and -not anonymously. By not doing so, they are each personally condoning the tactics of the entire organization. Even the US Government has people that say 'well, maybe that was wrong.' The RIAA has nobody like that.

So let's say you find your 3-10 (relatively few) people and 'oust them'. Who replaces them? The same people that backed them the entire time. You haven't changed anything except the faces.

Re:We need some personal accountability

[LWATCDR]

"We always talk about the RIAA as an entity, but there is probably only a relatively few individuals that are heading up all of this nonsense."
Nope your wrong. This is corporate policy. In this case the entity it's self really is to blame. I can give you that some employees may find it distasteful and personally disagree. They may even just work there because they need the money to raise their family. How ever the RIAA as an entity is corrupt and needs to be removed. The music industry has been convicted of price fixing. They have a long history of ripping off artists. I don't know how they have avoided getting busted under the RICO act a long time ago. Well I do know. They "Art" side pays big money and sends out celebrities to keep the Democrats in their back pocket and the big business side gives out big money to keep the Republicans in their back pocket. It really is the perfect storm. The Democrats can pretend they are protecting "Artists" rights while the Republicans can claim the be protecting profits.

Re:We need some personal accountability

[SQLGuru]

http://www.riaa.com/about/leadership/default.asp

Mitch Bainwol
Chairman And CEO

Cary Sherman
President

Board of Directors
http://www.riaa.com/about/leadership/board.asp

Member labels (you can look up their leadership individually)
http://www.riaa.com/about/members/default.asp

Layne

Re:We need some personal accountability

[Anonymous Coward]

#1 Weasel Edgar Bronfman Jr. ---- Check out the family ... Good wholesome family that one ....

Re:We need some personal accountability

[Anonymous Coward]

Their replacements will be well aware of the public exposure they will be facing should they continue to pull silly stunts. That's the difference.

Re:We need some personal accountability

[internetcommie]

Could we possible get their corporate phone book turned over to all the telemarketing companies?
That could be a start.

Re:We need some personal accountability

[Himring]

You never find 'em. Typically, they end up as a questionable heap of charred bones with a hint of gasoline....

Re:We need some personal accountability

[Anonymous Coward]

By not doing so, they are each personally condoning the tactics of the entire organization.

*imagines a drone weighing options* Make statement, eat this week, make statement, make mortgage payment, make statement, pay untility bills...
I think we know how this is going to end.

It may take someone at a higher level to be able to speak up, and I doubt those who see themselves as the winners in this money game will want to end the game before they have to.

Re:We need some personal accountability

[ioshhdflwuegfh]

We always talk about the RIAA as an entity, but there is probably only a relatively few individuals that are heading up all of this nonsense. Nope your wrong. This is corporate policy. In this case the entity it's self really is to blame. But as far as I know, RIAA is not a corporation. They must be accountable to someone.

Re:We need some personal accountability

[Anonymous Coward]

The RIAA is in fact a not-for-profit corporation based in Yonkers, New York.

Re:We need some personal accountability

[LWATCDR]

They have a chairman and a CEO so they sound like a corporation to me. They say they are a trade group so I would bet they are incorporated.

Re:We need some personal accountability

[xXShadowstormXx]

I read that as "Mitch Brainwash" for a second there.

Re:We need some personal accountability

[einhverfr]

If it is corporate policy, than the people who set the policy should be held personally accounable. Maybe Hilary Rosen should be named as a codefendant of counterclaims?

Just like Cochran

[l33tPr0digy]

Her lawyer should have used the Chewbacca defense, that way, the case wouldn't have drug on for so long.

avoid? I think they need to be questioned.

[swschrad]

we need to stop them on the street, call them at home during dinner, and have all the Mike Wallace Wannabees on their doorstep with cameras and microphones and ask the twisted few why they are terrorizing Americans.

which, after all, is against the law.

imagine, RIAA in gitmo
it's easy if you try....

Swing... and a miss...

[T_ConX]

OK... so how many times has it been that the RIAA ended up bringing legal action against people who didn't (and in some instances, couldn't have) engaged in music piracy?

How do people like these folks even end up on the RIAA's hitlist? Do they pick their targets by just pinning up a street map of a city and throwing darts at it?

Will it ever get to the point where a judge just gets tired of all these false positives, desides that the RIAA can't be trusted in court, and throw them out of the courthouse? Let's hope so!

Re:Swing... and a miss...

[Maxo-Texas]

It makes me wonder,
given how many people are doing this how Riaa can screw this part up so badly.

I *remember* only a few years ago when people said, "well the music business should go after the folks actually downloading songs". Finally Riaa tried to start doing that. But fortunately they got it horribly wrong.

I can't imagine how they got it as wrong as they have with suing dead people and people who do not own computers and 13 year old kids. Maybe people use private trackers (100-200 members) and peer guardian (and keep moving to newer technologies when old ones become to ubiquitous ) while the 13 year olds of the world do things that get them caught.

Re:Swing... and a miss...

[NewYorkCountryLawyer]

Good post, Unknowing Fool.

By the way, she offered them the opportunity to examine her hard drive
before the lawsuit. They turned her down, and just sued her.

Don't start clapping yet

[Billosaur]

One drop of water does not make a waterfall... it is but the start.

The RIAA has plenty of other cases out there they are pursuing with zest, and still more cases where people are simply caving and paying them their blood money. Until the tide truly turns in the courts, this is only a small victory. I suspect it's going to take one of these getting to the Untied States Supreme Court before the RIAA will be forced to call off their dogs.

Re:Don't start clapping yet

[DakotaSmith]

It won't get called off. To call it off would require a complete dismantling of the U.S. copyright and patent system. Copyrights and patents as they presently stand were never consistent with reality and they've always been blatantly immoral. Easy digital reproduction simply makes this painfully obvious to even the dimmest bulb.

Clearly, there's too much money tied up in copyrights and patents (and consequently too many Congresscritters purchased by interested parties) for the current system system to be dismantled.

No, the sad fact is that what the RIAA does is legal and will remain so until the Republic finally falls and we can ignore those jokers in Washington. In ten years, there will be midnight copyright raids, the same as there are drug raids today and with the same justification.

Screw ethics and morality. The issue is always about how those in government can control the governed. Copyrights and patents are a wonderful way of making sure we all knuckle under.

what happened to mafiaa tags

[Anonymous Coward]

so slashdot only allows approved tags? what fun is that?

Yes, but did she steal songs?

[Henry V .009]

Do handicapped mothers not download Kazaa or something? The RIAA seems to have dropped this case because of bad PR, not because she was innocent so far as I can see.

Re:Yes, but did she steal songs?

[aegisalpha]

It says in the summary that neither the mother nor child had heard of file sharing. So maybe not?

And it took them 2 years to drop a case because of bad PR? It's far more likely that she really was innocent at this point.

Re:Yes, but did she steal songs?

[Anonymous Coward]

Never heard of file sharing?

"Yes, all I was doing was using that fun little kaz-ahh thing my nephew told me could get me lots of music from the internets. What's file-sharing? I didn't get any files, just songs!"

Re:Yes, but did she steal songs?

[Paradise Pete]

Yes, but did she steal songs?

I don't think there were any missing.

Re:Yes, but did she steal songs?

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, but the profit of the record labels was missing. I feel that they should'nt have dropped the case, and instead seeked damages in the range of $15,000 per song. Assuming she downloaded 10 songs (which is the minimum that any copyright infringing freeloader steals) then she should have been forced to pay $150,000. On disability and can't pay? The RIAA can have the money deducted from her disability check she receives each month from the government. After all, we are talking about the profits of a multi-billion dollar industry here. The lives of executives are at stake, including the coke, whores, multi-million dollar mansions, and million dollar sports cars they purchase.

Who gives a shit about some disabled mother and her daughter who struggle to make ends meat on a daily basis.

Re:Yes, but did she steal songs?

[UnknowingFool]

Do handicapped mothers not download Kazaa or something? The RIAA seems to have dropped this case because of bad PR, not because she was innocent so far as I can see.

I would say that Ms. Anderson appeared to be innocent all along, but that doesn't matter to the RIAA. Only the bad PR may have mattered to them. This case, like many others, shows the RIAA's inaccurate and despicable driftnet techniques can harm the lives of the seemingly innnocent. When she received her settlement notices from the RIAA, she tried to reason with the settlement center even offering her HD as proof that she did nothing wrong. The only options they gave her were to pay their settlement or face a lawsuit informing her that they had accessed her computer to gain all the evidence they needed.

Living on a fixed income (because of her disabilities) she simply could not afford to pay the RIAA to go away. So the suit began. During discovery the HD was examined and no evidence of P2P software or illegal songs were found. Her lawyer also brought to the attention of the RIAA that P2P username that they targeted belong to someone else in the city when they googled for it. That other person openly talked about stealing songs via P2P on his myspace page.

To me it appears that she was innocent all along. Yet the RIAA still pressed forward wanting to depose her minor daughter in person. I hope that she wins big in fees because of all the anguish they have inflicted over the past 2 years. BTW, if she was innocent, then the RIAA either illegally accessed her computer (she did not have P2P software) or lied to obtain a false settlement. IANAL but wouldn't the latter be considered a crime?

Re:Yes, but did she steal songs?

[10Brett-T]

BTW, if she was innocent, then the RIAA either illegally accessed her computer (she did not have P2P software) or lied to obtain a false settlement. IANAL but wouldn't the latter be considered a crime?

Arrrr... and this be Oregon, where unauthorized access of computers be aggressively prosecuted, so the former be too.

Re:Yes, but did she steal songs?

[DakotaSmith]

I don't think there were any missing.

And that, my friends, is the most succinct argument as to why the copyright and patent system in the U.S. is (and has always been) immoral.

"Intellectual property" doesn't exist. It's a legal term with no real-world counterpart. Information isn't property: it's either known, unknown, or secret. Unknown information can be discovered and kept secret, but the moment it's out in public, there's no making it secret again, no matter how hard you try. You can have NDAs to protect against it no longer being secret, but that's as far as it goes.

Particularly with music -- which is information that by its very nature is intended to be public! -- there is no way to treat it as owned by a single individual. At best, one might devise a system to assure that proper credit is given for its creation and to restrict others from playing it.

However, the notion that a stream of bits on my hard drive isn't my property is identical to claiming that the memory of a song I heard at a concert isn't my property. Why, after all, do we have storage media? To assist in our own imperfect memories. If we all had eidetic memories, we wouldn't need to store the songs: we could listen to them once and then recall them in perfect detail any time.

One day, we'll have computers that plug into our brains directly and will actually allow us to recall every event we've ever experienced in perfect detail: memories are, after all, pathways literally burned into our brains, it's only our limited indexing and recall capacity that makes it impossible for us to access them. But that's a problem that will eventually be solved.

What modern copyright claims, in the final analysis, is that we don't own our own memories, particularly if we've got them on archived storage like a hard disk or CD. That's all vinyl records, 8-track tapes, cassette tapes, CDs, and hard drives are, after all: archival storage for our own minds.

Do you own your own memories, or does some musician? That's the real question.

Re:Yes, but did she steal songs?

[dbIII]

Isn't hacking into people's computers considered a criminal offence as distinct from the civil offence of file sharing? If they really did access her computer without permission there should be legal consequences - especially given the recent high profile extadition for someone that had done nothing more.

Re:I've never seen a pic

[Kaffien]

This is SICK someone moderate #19395815 now.

Typo in Article, Title, and Summary

[canajin56]

The article and summary repeatedly use the term "RIAA", which is a typo. It should really read "Atlantic Records, a wholly owned Subsidiary of Time-Warner-AOL drops Yanya Andersen Case", and so on. The RIAA is like a guild. The big labels belong to it, they pay their dues and the RIAA acts like a mouth piece. But it doesn't own the music, Sony and Warner and maybe a few other companies own the music. The RIAA isn't suing, and can't sue. They may have provided the "experts" that will testify that they tracked down these evil pirates, but that is the full extent of their involvement. But I suppose people like to blame it all on the RIAA since if they blame the RIAA and not Atlantic Records and Warner Music, they don't have to stop buying stuff like Led Zepplin and Snoop Dogg and The Stones (Well the early stuff from them) as well as any stuff from matchbox twenty, Sugar Ray, Ray Charles, and hundreds of others.

Re:Typo in Article, Title, and Summary

[NewYorkCountryLawyer]

You, and others who have offered similar comments, are right that the record companies are to blame, and that it is important to name them so people will know whose music not to buy. The only reason I don't name each of the 5 or 6 plaintiffs in each case, in addition to the RIAA, is just laziness. I just don't have the time.

But it is not inaccurate to say the RIAA is bringing these cases; the RIAA is actually commencing and administering the lawsuits day-to-day. The record companies have nothing to do with it except on those rare occasions -- such as pretending for the Attorney General's sake that they do not know each other's prices in UMG v. Lindor -- where they have a strategic reason to pretend to be working independently of each other.

So when I say "RIAA" please accept it as shorthand for the litigation cartel of the "Big 4" record companies and their affiliated labels. And if you have the time to dig down into the court papers and supply the names of the culprits in any particular cases, please accept my sincere thanks for doing so.

Re:Typo in Article, Title, and Summary

[Anonymous Coward]

I get the impression that the RIAA provides the lawyers and decided the legal strategy, so the article is correct. Sure Atlantic is named in the suit, but that's the extend of their involvement. If you have reason to believe otherwise I'd love to hear it.

Re:Typo in Article, Title, and Summary

[Anonymous Coward]

Warners Music Group (WMG) is quoted on the Stock exchange so it is not a subsiduary of anything.

We welcome our mis-informed overlords.

Re:I've never seen a pic

[PurPaBOO]

FFS. That is fully NSFW.

ew

Oh come on!

[Anonymous Coward]

Seriously, what the hell does being a single disabled mother have to do with ANYTHING???? Why is that any worse than if it was a married father or anyone else for that matter?

Re:Oh come on!

[DustyShadow]

It was enough to get the case dropped so apparently it has everything to do with this case.

Re:Oh come on!

[Anonymous Coward]

It might not be worse in your eyes, but maybe you should try asking her that question.

Sure, being disabled has no bearing on one's ability to download music, but it can affect one's ability to handle stress, and the record label must have known that bringing a court case such as this would place incredible stress on this person. At the very least they must have taken her disability into account and decided that it mattered less than their crusade against perceived breeches of intellectual property - and that alone makes this worth reporting, since it shows what this label is capable of.

Re:Oh come on!

[Kiaser Wilhelm II]

How would you feel if I started harassing and threatening your elderly parents/grandparents?

Re:Oh come on!

[Is0m0rph]

Depends what the disability is. If she has no arms, is blind, and is deaf she wouldn't be able to pirate music very easily.

Re:Oh come on!

[Anonymous Coward]

If she were deaf she wouldn't be able to listen to the pirated music anyway....

Re:Obligatory

[TheVelvetFlamebait]

You misspelt "prat".

Re:Obligatory

[theTrueMikeBrown]

ops, I aktually missspelt pirate.

child chad?

[kwieland in stl]

EDITORS: Could you please fix the typo?

Re:child chad?

[Zorandler]

We need to remove all the hanging chads...

Huh?

[Frosty Piss]

Harrassing a handicapped mother...

Why do people insist on adding in this little factoid? It has absolutely no relevancy to the case. Certainly the RIAA has their heads up their ass, but if or not this woman or her child are "handicaped" has nothing at all to do with if she or her child are "guilty" as charged or whether she should or should not be pursued for breaking some law someplace. Anymore than this:

Harassing a single mother with enormous breasts, her child and disrupting the child's so called birthday party...

Re:Huh?

[Himring]

Reminds me of a piece from that cache of quotes from court documents some where on the internet:

"Your honor, the fact that the defendant was dead has nothing to do with the pain they must have suffered due to a bad autopsy, and that is what this case is really about."

Seriously, listen to yourself. You sound like a lawyer....

Ever been in court? Defending yourself? I have. One day, when you are finally drug into court and have to defend yourself, what you said here today will come back to you in spades....

Re:Huh?

[drummerboybac]

From the countersuit. "Tanya Andersen is a disabled, 42-year-old single mother of an eight-year-old daughter who lives on a limited income from Social Security." More of the sticking point is that she is supporting a family on a fixed income, meaning that the suing party can not hope to get the money they demand. In this instance, handicapped means fixed income.

Re:Huh?

[Mister Whirly]

The fact that she is disabled, and on a fixed income has nothing to do with a civil case in which she is being sued for tens of thousands of dollars that she will never be able to pay due to this fact?? You are right, how could that possibly be relevant to anything??

Re:Huh?

[Anonymous Coward]

I work with a disabled guy. He makes 6 figures.

Re:Huh?

[Mister Whirly]

So what? Maybe the RIAA should sue him instead. Hey I make 6 figures too, it's just that only 5 are in front of the decimal point. I actually make 7 figures - $XX,XXX.XX!!

Ok, for thoses of you like the last AC -- not all disabled people can't work, and not all people who don't work are disabled. Oh, and also EVERYONE IS NOT THE SAME. There, does that cover it better for you?

Re:Huh?

[dbIII]

It's how we treat those less able to defend themselves that establishes our worth as a society. This extra bit of information makes those that bring these poorly researched charges look a little bit more like the barbarians they are.

Pedantry...

[Nereus]

Prior to the case, neither the mother nor the child chad ever even heard of file sharing.

Chadn't they?

Re:Pedantry...

[Anonymous Coward]

Maybe her daughter's names is chad. Ever think of that?

I think it's inappropriate and in bad taste

[shelterpaw]

to wish ill-will towards anyone, but seeing how the RIAA has handled this case, I can't help myself.

Re:I think it's inappropriate and in bad taste

[Workaphobia]

Yessss, let the hate flow through you. Embrace the dark side.

Sung To "Its only rock n roll" by the stones ...

[Archangel Michael]

I know, she's only ten years old but she stole it.

What can constitute adequate evidence?

[rajkiran_g]

A screenshot of limewire running on the RIAA's computer showing some files being shared from some IP address? Can that be sufficient evidence? Cannot such a screenshot be artificially generated?

If I manage to capture a screenshot of the RIAA homepage containing false adverse remarks about me, can I sue them for defamation, given that it is trivial to produce such an image?

Suppose RIAA victims who are being subjected to blackmail just reformat their hardisks, destroy any cd's they might be possessing containing any infringing material and claim they never had anything to do with any p2p downloads, what then? What evidence is there to incriminate them?

Re:What can constitute adequate evidence?

[Benanov]

The pirate bay used to have an artificial screenshot generator. You might be able to find it with a quick search.

Re:What can constitute adequate evidence?

[einhverfr]

I would think that the question would become one of bad faith regarding the RIAA. IANAL, though. (I.e. the evidence itself doesn't say much, so you have to decide whether to trust the source-- this is not a criminal case so a different standard of admissibility would be used).

In short, the question is the screenshot and the witness. Impeach the witness and the screenshot doesn't count for much. Same would go for log files, and the like.

Triple that.

[Anonymous Coward]

No that's just goofy.

I think $750 per day is a reasonable amount tho.

Surely a day of a person's life is worth as much as a copy of a song.

So 547,500 for two years.

Too low. Triple that amount. About 1.5 million would be more appropriate, after all the goal is to *punish* the offenders and set such a strong an example as to thwart them from ever even thinking of repeating the offense plus discourage others from doing the same.

Re:OMG, she MUST be innocent!

[WilliamSChips]

She didn't "refuse" to work. She had a physical disability and couldn't work. Let me guess, you're a corporate shill.

Edgar Bronfman, Jr.

[gruffbear]

Edgar Bronfman, Jr. is the most visible recording industry person driving the RIAA lawsuits, in my opinion.

From Wikipedia:

Bronfman is a noted opponent of P2P technologies, and as CEO of Universal, helped lead the music industry's opposition to Napster, likening it to slavery and Soviet communism. In late 2006 in an interview with Reuters, Bronfman caused a stir by admitting that his children have pirated music. He claims to have punished the child, but wants the punishment to remain within the realm of the family.

Certainly if he didn't support the RIAA's tactics, they wouldn't be happening.

Re:Edgar Bronfman, Jr.

[Mister Whirly]

If that is true, he should go after his own kid to the full extent of the law. THAT would show people that he really means business, and isn't to be trifled with...

New slogan - "If he would do that to his own kids, imagine what he will do to yours!"

Re:Edgar Bronfman, Jr.

[gruffbear]

You're being sarcastic, aren't you. I can tell.

Going after RIAA execs is lame and ineffective

[gruffbear]

Understand that the execs at the RIAA are there as human shields to keep us little people from disturbing their masters -- the recording industry execs. They are what Tom Wolfe called "the flak catchers." They are paid handsomely to ignore you.

Instead, go around them.

• Buy a share of stock of Time Warner (TWX), and then show up at their annual meeting to tell them exactly what you think of their tactics. 2,000 small shareholders with big voices would scare the shit out of them.
• Write paper snail-mail letters--more effective than email--to RIAA record company execs telling them what turds they are. In particular, write to the smaller members (like Telarc) and pressure them to withdraw their support for the RIAA.
• Find out what theatrical enterprise Edgar Bronfman, Jr. is supporting these days, and hand out leaflets in front of the theater telling patrons about how Edgar's pet industry attacks innocent working people.
• Above all, complain to the artists that the recording companies are pretending to defend in these lawsuits. Express moral outrage. Demand that they take a public stand on what their masters are doing.

But bitch to the RIAA? Won't work, sorry

Why should they stop saying RIAA?

[mengel]

Yes, this case was taken to court by Atlantic Records. Atlantic Records is a member of the RIAA, and this suit is but one piece in the ongoing RIAA campaign to sue people for copyright infringement, apparently regardless whether they've done so or not.

To quote the RIAA presidentCary Sherman (regarding a different, but similar case):

"This is an ongoing strategy, and the way to let people know that there is a risk of consequences is to continue the program. You don't set up a speed trap for one day and stop enforcement thereafter. It has to be consistent."

Re:Why should they stop saying RIAA?

[Builder]

They should stop saying RIAA because the RIAA WANT people to blame them. They have one role - represent the record companies.

If instead of saying 'RIAA sued blah' we said 'Atlantic records, who distribute music by the following bands ... sued blah' then the record companies start to take a public beating.

At the moment, the record companies are committing vile acts and hiding behind the RIAA. If they started to take some public flak for their actions, they might think twice before committing them.

Hell, all for going a step further. I'm all for mentioning and blaming the BANDS that are financing these actions. I'd rather see
"The Record company that represents Funeral for a Friend, Led Zepplin and Gnarls Barkley have spent two years suing a disabled women and making the life of a 10 year old child miserable."

Re:Why should they stop saying RIAA?

[mengel]

Ahh... Now I see your point.

It hadn't occurred to me that people might not be associating particular record labels with the RIAA... but you're right, many people probably are not, which is why they're having the association do it for them.

I was thinking more along the lines of "It isn't just Atlantic records, all of the RIAA members are party to this..."

Re:Why should they stop saying RIAA?

[Builder]

I did a straw poll in the office and asked who was suing who, and all anyone came back with was 'The RIAA'.

So from a sample of 50 people, the record companies are coming out of this smelling like roses, when they should be smelling like shit.

Arrrgh!

[gruffbear]

Did the research I SHOULD HAVE done before making the above post: Time Warner no longer owns Warner/Electra/Atlantic. That business is privately held since November, 2003; mostly by Edgar Bronfman, Jr., a Canadian.

In fact, no major label is controlled by an American public corporation. The industry is for the most part foreign owned. So there's no way that shareholder activism at an annual meeting would have an impact on the industry; unless you're French, German, or Japanese.

I apologize for the mistake.

Re:Arrrgh!

[Anonymous Coward]

That's so cool. Non-US companies screwing US citizens with the full backing of elected US officials. Glad to see the US still has government by the people for the people.

Re:Sung To "Its only rock n roll" by the stones ..

[OutOnARock]

I know, its just a furry hole, but I like it....

These days its just a shaved hole, and I still like it.....

I charge $275/hr as a lawyer

[Anonymous Coward]

$750 per day ... uhh
$275/hr * 2000 billed hrs/yr * 2 yrs = $1,100,000 for the main attorney plus the other associates and secretaries.

Now granted no one attorney worked on her case 100% of the the time for 2 yrs straight. I am sure they have other clients.

Re:I've never seen a pic

[NoobHunter]

You, sir, are sick and demented. People like you need to be banned from the internet due to serious lack of A) Common Sense, B)Decency, C)Morals or D) All of the above.

RIAA Suing Economically Doomed

[monxrtr]

I wonder what the ROI is for the legal strategy? Lawyers aren't cheap. Even judgements don't mean the RIAA will be paid if a person doesn't have the money and has to declare bankruptcy. So is it $10,000 in legal fees for every single $1 actually collected? $100,000 for every single dollar actually collected? More? It's pure despearation PR done on a small scale in hopes of influencing the behavior of the masses. Well, that behavior is more and more influenced, just not in the direction the RIAA was hoping. Now that I think about it, perhaps a lot of statistical analysis goes into which suits to pursue, to maximize the effect of FUD.