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RIAA Defendant Cross-Sues Kazaa And AOL
NewYorkCountryLawyer writes "In what appears to be a first, RIAA defendant Michelle Santangelo, the 20-year old daughter of Patti Santangelo, has made a motion for leave to serve a third party complaint against Kazaa and AOL, as well as against someone who installed Kazaa software, in Elektra v. Santangelo II. Her proposed third-party complaint (pdf) alleges that any injuries plaintiffs might have sustained were the result of the third party defendants' "negligence and breaches... in the defective design of Sharman Network's program, "Kazaa" which was a dangerous instrumentality in its each and every use as it existed in 2002-2004; the trespassing and reckless installation by Matthew Seckler [the person who allegedly installed the software without authorization] of such program; the failure to warn by AOL and Sharman; the failure to block the downloading of such files by AOL; the improper blocking of alleged (RIAA) warning messages by AOL and Sharman; and, the secretive file sharing system of and by Kazaa.""
Not exactly.
1) "Big tobacco" arranged a deal where they donate X billion dollars and promote an anti-smoking campaign, and in exchange they would be protected against future lawsuits.
2 & 3) To my knowledge, a lawsuit has never been won against either fast food or guns. I believe there are now Federal protections in place for gun manufacturers.
https://www.eff.org/https-everywhere
The English version I've seen goes, "Kill 'em all and let God sort them out".
This has been discussed here before, and as far as I know this has never been clearly established in USA nor in other jurisdictions (please correct me if I'm wrong here!)
Title II of the Communications Act of 1934 dictates what constitutes a common carrier. Short answer - AT&T the phone company is a common carrier. AT&T the ISP (different company altogether) is not. There's not much practical reason for an ISP to try to claim CC status nowadays - the protections of more recent legislation (the DMCA, for instance) give most of the protections of CC status to ISPs anyway, without placing upon them the duties that real CCs bear.
I personally think that we'd benefit from ISPs having true common carrier status, but at present they don't.
Please stand clear of the doors, por favor mantenganse alejado de las puertas
Dig a little deeper than 2003 (when your ref's happened). There have been many cases of firearms mfg.'s being successfully sued in conjunction with shooting trials over the past several decades.
Basically, anything that SHOULD fall under common sense is being taken to civil court to avoid personal responsibility during the past several decades.
If you look at civil/liability court cases from oh, let's say 1980 onward, you will find an alarming increase in what I call 'lack of common sense/personal responsibility' cases being brought to court.
The attitude of 'it's not my fault due to X' is taking over our society like stink on shit.
You can see this attitude all throughout the posts on this article...blame AOL, Blame MS, Blame Kazzaa, Blame other users, Blame Goatse, Blame God, etc.
I hope she gets her ass handed to her on a platter over this. Kazzaa, AOL, and my intro...MS are not to blame here. She either needs to restrict her PC access to trusted users, or learn WTF...just like driving a car needs a certain minimal knowledge and responsibility to use or loan out.
Too tough on the user you say?? Balderdash...look at the amount of articles that hinge on the fact that clueless PC users cause so many problems. Until this is dealt with, this kind of shite will keep happening.
No different than the mess that 'Product Warning Labels' have been causing due to the fact that as a society ALL humans deserve to cheat the Darwin's Awards, and lower our intellect as a whole.
Down With Slashdot BETA!!! I've been around the corner and seen the oliphant; you can only abuse me from your perspecti
I believe AOL is on there because they didn't forward the RIAA's 'we have your IP and you're screwed unless you cough up' emails/letters.
Remember kids, it's all fun and games until someone commits wholesale galactic genocide.