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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.""
Take responsibility. Stand up and declare your rights.
Don't weasel out by blaming the other guy.
How we know is more important than what we know.
Is everyone suing everyone for everything? It's getting to the point where if I hear about a lawsuit my first thought is that the plaintiff is trying to take advantage of someone. If that a sign that I'm an extreme cynic or that there's something really wrong out there?
The speedometer on my Jeep goes up to 100mph. Does that mean that if I get pulled over doing 100mph in a school zone that it's Chrysler's fault and not mine? Did Chrysler take measures to prevent me from speeding in a school zone?
Generally, I'm excited when anyone fights the maFIAA, but in this case, I hope she loses badly so she'll learn about pointing fingers.
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No, AOL should not block files that I am downloading at all.
Under the influence of Post-Cyberpunk Gonzo Journalism
I hope this chick loses. If she wins this idiotic suit, it would set legal precedent that it's the ISP's responsibility to police its users. That's just about the worst possible idea ever.
REM Old programmers don't die. They just GOSUB without RETURN.
We've done a very good job of engineering a rights-based society here in the United States. But unfortunately for us, there has been little-to-no mention of any kind of responsibility. And as the legal profession has slowly figured that out our society has grown more and more responsibility averse.
There is no motivation to take responsibility for anything since you aren't forced (or even encouraged) to. By freely granting all rights without associating any responsibilities we've created a system that doesn't have enough incentive for good behavior. And we're reaping it with every frivolous lawsuit that bogs down our legal system.
I hope either we eventually figure this out and evolve to a system with a good rights/responsibilities balance, or after our country eventually declines that future generations will take the lessons we've learned to heart and not make the same mistakes.
Sure, sounds silly. You have Kazaa on your computer, so who's responsible for the downloads?
If Kazaa was a trojan, it wouldn't be the user. So I'm quite interested in seeing how this turns out. Is ignorance a defense? It is usually in the case of computer malware, where you can act as irresponsible as you want and click on anything and everything. You're not liable for it, whether you become the spamchucker of the week, another drone in a DDoS attack or a launching point for more malware, you're off the hook. You're too dumb to understand it, so you're not liable.
I'll be waiting for that verdict. Is ignorance an excuse? Are you responsible for your computer's actions? I could well see this becoming an interesting turning point in the question who's liable for your computer's actions.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Second Kazaa as it once existed tended to at least attempt(if you didn't actively tell it not to, which if she didn't install it she didn't get a chance to choose) to share pretty much every music file on your PC. If she had a legitimate music file on her PC Kazaa would have attempted to share it with the outside world leading to infringement. This was always bad design in every program tham implemented it(it's alright in a media player, but not in a file sharing utility, it'd be like having apache automatically make all your documents available.
Thirdly the RIAA is presumably alleging that they sent warning e-mails to this girl or her parents, and the girl and/or her parents are apparently alleging that they didn't get them. The suit against the ISP means that the ISP will be required to prove whether those e-mails got through or not and wether they ever got to them in the first place. If they did block them then there's a case there, if they didn't arrive then the RIAA loses their "she knew it was wrong and kept going" angle and look more like vultures going after a little girl who didn't know what she was doing.
Her suit about the ISP blocking the files is of course bollocks and should and likely will be tossed out(presuming that the ISP wasn't offering some sort of parental filtering service at cost in which case there's a case there too).
Wasn't this precident set when tobacco companies were sued for lung cancer?
and fast food for obesity?
and gun dealers for crime?
I think ISP's fall more along the lines of something like a telephone company. Does the telephone company get in trouble if you use their service to make prank calls? No, not as long as they assist the police when someone misuses their service.
Looks like entrapment by AOL. Elektra sues AOL for subscriber records... oh wait, Elektra IS AOL, or was at the time. Elektra is owned by Warner music, meaning owned by Time Warner, which as everyone knows, was bought by AOL during the dotcom boom... So, new business model:
Provide internet access.
Monitor usage.
Allow users to download music freely
Profit!!! (Sue users who download AOL music. Put competitors out of business with illegal downloads)
That's just dirty... By the way, before anyone says Kazaa is pure as the driven snow, keep in mind that the Grokster case pretty firmly established that it IS their responsiblilty as far as US law is concerned to police copyright infringement on their network. Also keep in mind that Kazaa is infamous for bundling malware with their product. If Kazaa was installed, who knows what kind of backdoors were left open by their "product."
Personally, I feel sorry for the kid. Too many lawyers and greedy bastards all the way around. If the kid had stolen a physical cd, it would have been a minor issue, not years of misery and thousands of dollars in court. Whatever happened to having the punishment fit the crime?