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

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

[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.

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: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.

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: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: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: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

[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.

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: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

[Anonymous Coward]

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