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."

Comments

Wierd

[Anonymous Coward]

How is it tha I pirate music all the time and nobody comes after me, but the RIAA seems to go after many people who clearly have no evidence against them?

Re:Wierd

[Anonymous Coward]

Surely they own the copyright, so you aren't breaking any laws by downloading from them though?

"But your honour, I traced their IP using exactly the same techniques they used to find me, found out they owned the copyright, and intepreted them sharing the media as an open invitation to download it, obviously I wouldn't take any steps to download from anyone not in posession of the proper legal redistribution rights"

Maybe the RIAA will back off a bit?

[Firethorn]

Sounds like a case for having the RIAA back off a little.

Loosing cases like this would only embolden piraters(according to RIAA thinking). Even massive amounts of having to pay attorney's fees won't slow the RIAA down, that's chump change. Still, being forced to pay the fees is a bad sign for them. Not only do people see them loose, but loose so badly they have to pay the person back, making them more or less whole.

Re:Does she really?

[deblau]

Mod parent down. The very first line of TFA: "Dawnell Leadbetter, the successful defendant in Interscope v. Leadbetter, has brought a motion for attorneys fees against the record company plaintiffs, Interscope Records, Capitol Records, SONY BMG, Atlantic Recording, BMG Music, and Virgin Records." RTFA (in before you must be new here).

Also, mod CowboyNeal down for misleading article title.

bittorrent

[GregNorc]

Has anyone who wasn't seeding massive amounts of people on bittorrent ever been sued? All the cases I hear about seem to involve P2P services like limewire, which seem to me at least to be what only a small percentage of people use to get music and movies, most people use torrent sites like the Pirate Bay.

See a Breakdown of Just Who do they Sue?

[Nom du Keyboard]

I'd like to see a breakdown of just who do they sue, based on number of files shared, newness of files shared, and P2P system in use.

Do they go after people with lots of files shared as they once said they did? Seems to me that number of shared files, once said to be >1000, is now <600, and maybe much lower still.

Are certain songs, artists, and/or new hot sellers more likely to draw lawsuits? The supposition is that the are telling the truth when they say they log into P2P systems like any other user, search out specified files, and then list out entire shared directories. When they pick a target, they download one or two dozen files as "evidence", copying down the apparent IP address and time. What files seem to attract their attention? And what if you just didn't let any single user d/l more than 2 files from you. Might they stop by not being able to collect enough "evidence"?

What P2P systems are they searching? KaZaA? Yeah! Limewire? Apparently on occasion. What other systems have they sued people for using, and how often?

There are now reportedly 30,000 cases they've pursued far enough to identify users and attempt to extort settlements from. An analysis of all that data, which must be available in the John Doe ex parte lawsuits used to identify these users, ought to prove interesting enough to someone writing a paper about it and sharing their findings by now.