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RIAA, Safenet Sued For Malicious Prosecution
DaveAtFraud writes "Tanya Anderson, the single mother from Oregon previously sued by the RIAA — which dropped the case just before losing a summary judgement — is now suing the RIAA and their hired snoop Safenet for malicious prosecution. (Safenet was formerly known as MediaSentry.) Anderson is asserting claims under the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act and the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organization Act. A reader at Groklaw has already picked up that she is seeking to have the RIAA forfeit the copyrights in question as part of the settlement (search the page for '18.6-7')."
Which also puts the RIAA on the spot to provide a "reasonable" valuation on copyrights for the purposes of settling. Watching the RIAA place one value on copyrights for defending a legal action and a different value for prosecuting could prove entertaining.
Every mans' island needs an ocean; choose your ocean carefully.
I just read through the filing. The RIAA is in big trouble here.
Most of the facts in the case have already been litigated, and the RIAA lost. The counterclaims arise from facts already on the record. The RIAA's actions are a matter of public record. And they did a whole range of things ranging from really dumb to possibly criminal.
First, their investigation unit, SafeNet/MediaSentry, isn't a licensed private investigator. So they don't have any of the immunities a private investigator does. Normally, law firms use licensed private investigators for their investigations, but the RIAA didn't bother. Bad move.
Second, there's a clear case for fraudulent debt collection. It's already been established in court that the RIAA's claims were false, and that they knew they were false, yet they continued collection efforts.
On the harassment front, the RIAA's representatives apparently attempted to contact a 10 year old child's elementary school under false pretenses, pretending to be a grandparent. The court had to issue a protective order prohibiting the RIAA from contacting the kid. That's going to be tough to explain to a jury.
There's more, but the RIAA is going to have a very tough time in court on this one.
Nope. Her asking for every claim under the sun sounds like a seriously pissed off lady whom has been accused of crimes without (sufficient) evidence, threatened, and who fought back. In doing so, the was close to having the court rule in her favor and the other side quited the case. Now she's doubly pissed off thinking the other side is going to walk away without having to face up to their false claims and have it stated in court that the was innocent. Some times people do things for reasons OTHER than money. Not often, and in this case payback might not be motivated just for face (and I'm sure her attorney at this point is on contengency), but give her some credit for wanting the RIAA to have to lose for once, not just to plump up her retirement fund.