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Washington Woman Sues RIAA for Attorneys Fees
NewYorkCountryLawyer writes "A Washington woman sued by the RIAA has asked the Court to award her attorneys fees, after the record company plaintiffs (Interscope Records, Capitol Records, SONY BMG, Atlantic Recording, BMG Music, and Virgin Records) dropped their case against her after two years of litigation, in Interscope v. Leadbetter. The brief submitted by her attorneys (pdf) pointed out the similarity between Ms. Leadbetter's case and Capitol v. Foster. In the Leadbetter case, as well as Foster case, the RIAA sued the woman solely because she had paid for an internet access account, and then later in the case attempted to plead 'secondary liability' against her without any factual basis for doing so. This tactic had been repudiated by Judge Lee R. West in Capitol v. Foster as 'marginal' and 'untested' in his initial decision awarding attorneys fees, and in his later decision denying the RIAA's motion for reconsideration."
No, you don't get those people. While I don't agree with most of what they're doing, they're certainly not monitoring your cable connection.
For example, they could simply do a search on limewire, The Pirate Bay, or wherever for a piece of copyrighted material that their member organizations own. They could then download the file, watching all the IPs that offer a piece of that file up to their computer. If, upon downloading the file, they find that it is indeed copyrighted material, they have strong reason to believe that each of those IPs represents someone illegally offering the file for download to others. That's not monitoring your connection, it's monitoring their own.
Of course, in cases like bit torrents, people will tell you that because only a small piece of the file comes from a given computer, there's no way to prove that someone had the entire file. If they didn't have the entire file, they might not have known what they were downloading and making available to others. Frankly, I think that's stretching "reasonable doubt" a little far, but I guess it's for the courts to decide.
"Entrapment" is when the state induces you to perform an act that you would not ordinarily perform, and then charges you with a crime for it. If the police just catch you doing something of your own free will, it's not entrapment. Even if they lie to you about not being police officers.
What is and is not entrapment varies by jurisdiction. In MA a speed trap is entrapment, in NY it's perfectly fine. (Or so I understand: it may be completely different now.)
(In a related note, also varying by jurisdiction, you may be REQUIRED to comply with a police officer's orders. So if a man with a badge comes up and says "go buy a joint from that dealer", you're probably immune from prosecution for it. But check with your local laws first.)
Except that this was 2 years of litigation. Attorneys aren't going to work for free for years. Also, her time, and distress. That's 2 years of her life she's never going to get back, and in the end they just said "Oh, nevermind. Have a nice life!" At this point she's probably had to put her home into hock in order to defend herself. Now here's my question - how many of you are willing to put your home/retirement/both on the line to stand up to them?
That's why their tactics work. They know most people cannot afford to risk it. I'm thinking that wherever that special hell is for child molesters, the people that decide who get sued this way belong there too. It's one thing to be tangibly harmed by someone and have to seek legal recourse. It's another to not be harmed *at all*, and throw someone's fiscal wellbeing into jeopardy over your bottom line.
I'm sorry. I'm a forgiving person. I'm a kind and loving person. I would love nothing more to punch a few lawyers and corporate big-wigs in the face over this one. Comparatively speaking they have nothing to lose, but from a financial standpoint, the people being sued have everything to lose by standing up for themselves. They know this, and they're doing it anyway.
That's where I draw the line. Straight to that special place in hell with you.
Karma: Chameleon (mostly due to the fact that you come and go).
They sit on the networks at scan for what are likely copyright violating files (after that they should have to download the files to prove that their copyright has actually been violated, though as far as I know no one has argued this point in court). Seeing what IP addresses connect to them wouldn't get them anywhere for two reasons: 1. Being on a P2P network and connecting to other nodes isn't illegal nor does it constitute a copyright violation in and of itself. 2. Since they are the holder of the copyright, if their P2P client offered it for download (even if it wouldn't actually send that file) that'd be like giving anyone who searched for it a free license to download it since as far as the end user can tell the owner of the copyright is making it available for free download. So if you don't want to be caught, you don't share files.
Their history of false accusations supports this method. Most people here probably remember when they sued a professor named Usher a few years ago for distributing his lectures in mp3 format on P2P.
IANAL BTW.
1. Don't blame Cowboy Neal, I wrote the heading and take full responsibility for it.
2. I don't consider it misleading. The cases are brought by the RIAA on behalf of 4 big record companies. The cases are controlled strictly by the RIAA. I use "RIAA" as shorthand for "The four major record companies who have authorized the RIAA to bring suit on their behalf". It would be way too time consuming and space consuming to keep on referring to the 4 suing companies + the dozens of affiliated labels who wind up as plaintiffs in these cases. So technically it's the record labels that appear as the plaintiffs who have been sued, but I think just about everybody knows what I'm talking about, especially if they read the article.
3. How would you have written the headline within the space constraints of a Slashdot headline (approximately 5 or 6 words)?
Ray Beckerman +5 Insightful
First, she isn't, but others have already answered that.
Second, the RIAA comprises those companies. There is no difference between saying "the RIAA" and listening its members. If you and I started a company, calling it by name or calling it "JSG and Builder, Inc." would both be accurate. In either case, it's the same thing.
Dewey, what part of this looks like authorities should be involved?