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Class Action Initiated Against RIAA
NewYorkCountryLawyer writes "Ever since the RIAA's litigation campaign began in 2003, many people have been suggesting a class action against the RIAA. Tanya Andersen, in Oregon, has taken them up on it. The RIAA's case against this disabled single mother, Atlantic v. Andersen, has received attention in the past, for her counterclaims against the RIAA including claims under Oregon's RICO statute, the RIAA's hounding of her young daughter for a face-to-face deposition, the RIAA's eventual dropping of the case 'with prejudice,' and her lawsuit against the RIAA for malicious prosecution, captioned Andersen v. Atlantic. Now she's turned that lawsuit into a class action. The amended complaint seeking class action status (PDF) sues for negligence, fraud, negligent misrepresentation, federal and state RICO, abuse of process, malicious prosecution, intentional infliction of emotional distress, violation of the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, trespass, invasion of privacy, libel and slander, deceptive business practices, misuse of copyright law, and civil conspiracy."
Now is the time for all those who complained about RIAA to join in and take this to a good conclusion.
Abuse of legal system for personal profiteering shouldnt be allowed. I wish this class action lawsuit to go as big as paypal one and this time teach MAFIAA bastards and their hound dog of a lawyers some lesson.
Read radical news here
Can you add sheer stupidity and pigheadedness to that?
Oh, and while you're at it, tell them that we plain old don't like them.
The simple truth is that interstellar distances will not fit into the human imagination
- Douglas Adams
Would this be just by people they hve harassed, or against any potential target? This leaves the door very open to wild interpretation untill we get clarification.
Karma Whoring for Fun and Profit.
RIAA: Yes, we do.
The Schwartz space ain't from Spaceballs.
How can we contribute?
Deleted
Yes, I have been illegally downloading music for years, I want to be a part of this class action suit.
Oh, wait... Umm... nevermind.
How do I get in this class? do I purchase music? do I pose as someone downloading music? can I turn myself into the riaa in the hopes that they can include me in the pay out?
These folks chasing after a 10 year old is one thing, but I seem to recall they went after a dead man as well, can't wait to see how this plays out.
Unix, an obscure operating system developed by bored researchers in an attempt to get a better game playing experience.
Dear RIAA,
Turnabout is fair play, you
rich smokers-of-cocks.
Love, Haiku 4 U
P.S. I look forward to
great music sans you.
....after reading this glorious news it may be the first time I have wanted to leave my cubicle and head out into the streets to shout at the top of my overworked underpaid lungs...
"FLAVOR FLAAAAAAV!"
then I will promptly head back inside and continue to use our company's massive internet bandwidth to keep downloading pirated music.
The RIAA will be sentenced to giving all members of the class $12.67 in music downloads from the Kenny Rogers store (with DRM).
she names a number of other defendants including:
d =20249893
Atlantic Recording Corp.
Priority Records
Capitol Records
UMG Recordings
BMG
And lets not forget that RIAA is just a front organization for a host of others listed here --> http://yro.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=271437&ci
The Association has no product per se, the alleged racketeering is therefore being funded by it's members.
I wish her luck as well a success.
Hope is the currency of fools
This seems a bit overhyped to me. Yes, I want the RIAA to go away, I want the RIAA to stop using brutal tactics, however, they do have the legal right to prosecute people illegally distributing their IP.
Please note that this is specifically for those wrongfully accused. The best we can see from this is getting the RIAA to calm down (a good end no doubt).
For those who are wondering, this will not be the death knell for DRM and the RIAA.
-1 flamebait +1 UnfortunatelyTrue
"Hate is baggage. Life's too short to be pissed off all the time." Danny Vinyard -American History X
$10 says the lawyers are the only winners.
As long as the RI.... Record Companies lose, I'm OK with that.
Corporation, n. An ingenious device for obtaining individual profit without individual responsibility. - Ambrose Bierce
$10 says the lawyers are the only winners.
If you are right, wouldn't that make you a winner too?
I have no problem with your religion until you decide it's reason to deprive others of the truth.
"sues for negligence, fraud, negligent misrepresentation, federal and state RICO, abuse of process, malicious prosecution, intentional infliction of emotional distress, violation of the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, trespass, invasion of privacy, libel and slander, deceptive business practices, misuse of copyright law, and civil conspiracy."
Every time they sue a student who had someone jack his wireless connection in the dorms - I'll be there.
Every time they sue a university for students downloading songs they properly were researching for a thesis paper - I'll be there.
Every time they pretend to be agents of the FBI to get in your door without a warrant - I'll be there.
Every time they act as if 90 percent of the wireless access points on my street can't be used by everyone at the two coffee shops and three bars at the end of my street - I'll be there.
Because, let's face it, RIAA is just a plot by the middlemen who are upset that most consumers now buy their music DIRECT from the musicians and cut them out of the loop - so that the band gets $5 of the $10 that I pay them for their CD instead of $0.01 of the $12 that they would get if I bought the CD at anything other than any independent music store (the latter give them about $1 to $2).
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
If only lawyers win, and he wins, HE'S A LAWYER
Watch out!! *hides*
(wow, glad I previewed, I almost called him a LAYER)
"Hate is baggage. Life's too short to be pissed off all the time." Danny Vinyard -American History X
"Class Action...RIAA." YES, YES, YES, OH GOD... I will never wash these pants again.
"Downloading is theft!"
/.? Because you know your browser downloads the pgae, right?
SO you commit theft when you came to
Or perhaps you really mean Downloading a product whose copyright doesn't allow it is theft?
of course, that's just plain wrong to. That's why there is a different rules and laws for it.
DO you mean "Copying copywrited material without permission is a crime"?
That Can be true, but there are even exceptions to that.
Now do you see why it's different?
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
(IMHO) It ain't about the money, its about really hurting the recording industry and all the greedy no-talent clotheshorses with multi-million dollar contracts who produce increasingly non-musical drivel at inflated prices.
I killed da wabbit -Elmer Fudd
The lawyers may be the only ones to PROFIT from this case, but the fact that a verdict against the RIAA will have ripple effects in hundreds of cases, state and federal laws is something to watch. This case could determine the future of how piracy can be legally tracked, what kind of effort a company is allowed to put in to protect intellectual property, what lines are drawn as far as "harassing prosecution:" is concerned, and more. Even if the RIAA wins the action, on many levels they will also loose, most importantly, many of the methods they use will be once and for all ruled on by a judge and many of their powers will be stripped (and thus so will the powers of many other companies). The simple existence of this case is a great victory for internet freedom fighters. If we're really lucky, this could even legitimize many types of P2P systems, or have whole portions of copywrite and DMCA law changed or erased.
There is no contest in life for which the unprepared have the advantage.
Certainly the same shoddy, and likely illegal, MediaSentry investigative methods were used against all defendants. And the Settlement Support Center refused to dismiss anyone from a lawsuit who didn't pay them the extortion tax regardless of the evidence -- or lack of it. And even innocent defendants had large legal bills if they fought. Plus all had their computers, privacy, and reputations besmirched by the RIAA publicity steamroller regardless of the outcome of the suit -- with no apologies offered afterwards.
But is this enough in common to qualify as a class? While I hope so, the legal system doesn't operate with the same kinds of logic I employ in ordinary, everyday life.
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
As much as I want to sock-it-to-'em, I think this lady is asking a wee bit too much, and this will do more harm than good in the long run.
Remember folks, many, if not most, of the *IAAs victims are technically guilty. True, the RIAA and friends are coming down on them unnecessarily hard, but it's not like they are truly innocent. It's the innocent ones that, thankfully, get the nice press.
The fact that many or most of the defendants are actually guilty will greatly weaken any class-action suit.
A much better solution is to make judges nationwide aware that just because the RIAA/MPAA say someone is violating the law doesn't make it so. Many judges are already waking up to this fact and stopping the mafIAA from taking the "easy road to victory," ending ex-parte motions and other dirty tricks.
If the RIAA think my IP address is stealing, then get a court to order my ISP to order me to contact the court and, after hearing from both sides, let the court decide if the RIAA is entitled to my contact information. Allow my lawyers to subpoena records from the ISP before the RIAA gets my personal information. If the judge denies the RIAA's request, or if they eventually lose at trial, make them pay all my reasonable and actual expenses. If the suit was done with malice, with reckless disregard for the facts, or as a fishing expedition, have the court fine the RIAA for wasting everyone's time.
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
In my opinion, the great threat of the RIAA and the age of digital music is not just downloaders, but also their legal, pay-per-track alternatives...
/. has reported on many occasions about the "falling profit gaps of the recording industry," and how "legal downloads are not filling this gap," as if there was ever any chance of this happening.. This is a question of economics, not piracy...
Why have the record companies fought Apple for higher prices? Why have some companies refuted the potential profits of a deal with iTunes?
It is the a la carte concept of iTunes, allofmp3, kazaa, napster, etc... you name it that's the real issue at hand here...
I think the big motivating factor for downloading music is NOT based on an unwillingness to pay a small fee for the songs you want, it's based on an unwillingness to pay $20 for at most 3 songs that you want...
Since the glory days of the music industry, they've primarily sold albums as it was the most convenient and economical form of distribution. This method suited the consumer well as he didn't have to rush out to the store everytime a new song came out, it suited the musician well as it allowed to him to make a good hour or so of music, then go on tour and wow the crowds, and it suited the industry well because even if only 1 or 2 of the songs on the album became hits, people would still shell out the full price of the album for those songs they wanted.
Fast track to the present, and the internet has tipped the economic balance in favor of the consumer. Although the album system is still convenient in the ways listed above and many not-listed...(for instance "branding"), consumers appear no-longer willing to buy full albums for the most part.
So, I find it funny that
People are not rushing out to the cd store anymore. Hell, I haven't stepped foot in one in over a year. People are downloading the SONGS they want, and that's it...or they're waiting for their friends to get it and send it to them. In my opinion though, these people are not thieves, just opportunists, responding to a large imbalance in price between the traditional cd, and the legal or not-so legal per-track alternatives.
Why else has it taken so long for legal download services such as iTunes to come about. How many years after Napster's destruction did it take? Why didn't the RIAA look at the story of napster (after they sued the piss out of it) and build their own legal alternative? Because they know what it means...it means they can no-longer fleece the consumer with the album like they've been doing for a loooong time.
So, although the album will likely remain a convenient unit for musicians and for "branding" purposes, I see the concept of consumers purchasing full albums a fast-fading one.
The album....is dead
I thought you got modded down because you inferred Madonna has talent.
If society as a whole continually and blatantly breaks a law, the law is unjust. The ramifications are not to be taken into consideration, society has already spoken and are willing to accept the consequences of their actions. What is really sad are the people who are trying to hold on to the last grasp of something that society is not willing to accept any longer.
Hmm... So, if only the lawyers win, you win $10, which means that the lawyers AREN'T the only winners, so you shouldn't win your $10. But then the lawyers would be the only winners! Now if only they'd all disappear in a puff of logic...
...let's hit them where it *REALLY* hurts. Stop buying their overpriced, outdated, low quality, (and in some cases.. Sony) dangerous products. Contrary to popular belief, everything the RIAA ever collected a royalty on could vanish from planet earth with little or no consequence. Lets face it, most commercial music products just aren't very good anyway.
Now she's turned that lawsuit into a class action. The amended complaint seeking class action status (PDF) sues for negligence, fraud, negligent misrepresentation, federal and state RICO, abuse of process, malicious prosecution, intentional infliction of emotional distress, violation of the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, trespass, invasion of privacy, libel and slander, deceptive business practices, misuse of copyright law, and civil conspiracy.
What is interesting that each and every individual amendment will need to be addressed to be thrown out. The legal proceedings will not be able to 'carte-blanche' throw out the case on a single motion, it needs to address 'malicious prosecution' and 'trespass' and every other complaint, similar to someone convicted of multiple felons. It's quite an all-encompassing CAS - RIAA will have a very very hard time trying to survive it because I'm sure she's not willing to settle out of court. She's pretty PO'ed and will want the whole gambit in court. But I'm making that assumption...
Management is doing things right; leadership is doing the right things. - Peter F. Drucker
I do not believe in stealing music at all. However, it's clear beyond any doubt that the record companies have failed consumers and hurt the marketplace. They've clearly broken numerous laws. They need regulated and reeled in - and a substantial legal judgment against them would help everyone involved: us, the musicians and the companies. Until they realize the crack-like selling days are over and cds have to cost $5 - then it won't work. I don't want 3 million dollar videos, I want a $5 cd by a real artist that's recorded well. Hollywood delivers the goods on movies, why can't the music industry get their shizz together?
The vast majority of class actions are neither won, nor lost, but settled. In this case, I would imagine that the defendants' shareholders are already starting to wake up to the reality that they have been played for suckers by their lawyers, and the companies will be most eager to settle.
Ray Beckerman +5 Insightful
IANAL, but if RIAA's practices are found to be illegal, can the artists sue to regain their rights?
If I have some intellectual property, sell the copyrights to someone else, and that person then uses those rights to break the law, do I have any way of rectifying that? Or, at the very least, can I sue for damages against the copyright holder?
"We receive as friendly that which agrees with, we resist with dislike that which opposes us" - Faraday
Well it seems that the RIAA has itself been blatantly breaking the law, in junction with its hit man Media Sentry. Breaking into people's computers, for whatever reason, is illegal. Claiming to be a grandmother to get a little girl to talk to you is illegal. If they're going to try to claim the moral high ground, they should first try standing there. Don't question someone else's ethics until you've question your own. I own every recording in my possession.
And as long as you're an Anonymous Coward, you're still a coward. You know who I am.
I have points to mod you up, because your comment is certainly not flamebait... but then I could not reply to you and I think it is important to tell you how wrong you are.
First of all, RIAA does not care about IP, they care about distribution rights. They do not care about the artists as their contracts are always shady and a scam. The problem with RIAA is that their business model does not fit in this new era and they are trying to criminalize everyone of us.
But not content with that, they are suing common people to spread fear. They think everyone in the Internet is a burglar and that they have the right to do ANYTHING to stop us from stealing them. So as the old Sony rootkit did, they can mess with your computer and erase any file in it without a court order as they tried to with the patriotic act of GWB. Their acts of hate escalates so high they are trying to force us to use special devices or DRM so we loose the right to hear a purchased song after a while, or after a number of times we have heard it. Or to restrict us to listen a song we have paid for, only on one device.
Law is made in the interest of society. Society makes the law, not the RIAA. And the RIAA will face the people and this is going to hurt. Oh Yeah!
Donde Ser Geek No Duele
Perhaps it would be more of an indication that the speed limits were set wrong. Either way, if the speed limit is 45 and everyone is going 75, there's a problem there. People don't often go faster than they feel safe going (cf. the imbecile who flies past me on the straightaway and then slows down over 20mph from his previous speed on a gentle curve), and if there's no increase in the number of accidents, the speed limit is quite obviously set wrong. Whether it's a means to generate revenue via tickets, an incompetent traffic engineer, whatever, it's still wrong.
My blog. Good stuff (when I remember to update it). Read it.
Absolutely. If society says speeding is okay, what is the point of the law?
Are you a lawyer? Did I touch a sore spot? ;)
I get that the lawyer is the one putting the effort into winning the case. My point is that the lawyers are the ones that benefit in these cases, not the victims. Class action lawsuits penalize the defendants and reward the lawyers. The general public does see a benefit though in that the threat of class action suits will (hopefully) discourage large entities like corporations from screwing the little guy who would otherwise have little legal chance against them.
BTW: I do not consider myself to be a victim in the MS issue. It was about some legalese loophole or something from the late '90s. The check I got was essentially found money. Not enough to buy a meal, but better than a stick in the eye.
For some reason the song "The Final Countdown" popped into my head. The worst part is, now I have to go buy a whole album so I can get it out.
Novel theory: Modern Man evolved from psychopath
When you can obtain something of value immediately, with little to no chance of being caught and punished, then it just means the potential reward dramatically outweighs the potential risk.
It's why people don't steal albums from the store. It's not that it's more ethical or moral not to do so, it's that with guards and cameras and security devices your chances of being caught and thrown in jail are much, much higher. Not worth the risk.
And you can't tell me that plenty of people wouldn't do it if they could, as the fact that all of those security measures exist argues otherwise. If they weren't needed, businesses wouldn't pay for them. As such, people are not "accepting the consequences of their actions", because at their level they perceive that there ARE no consequences.
Finally, "society as a whole" doesn't continually and blatantly break the law. Because if "society as a whole" did so I doubt Apple would have sold 3 billion-plus songs out of their online store.
What's really sad, IMHO, are all of the people who think they're automatically entitled to whatever they want, whenever they want it...
Any sect, cult, or religion will legislate its creed into law if it acquires the political power to do so.
That's pretty much the point of the class action statutes. Theres no effective way to remedy 20 million people who were all ripped off for 12 cents each by a megacorp, yet doing so would be incredibly profitable for said megacorp. So you simply make such behavior have a huge financial penalty for the megacorp to try and set an example that ripping off lots of people a little at a time is not a wise business decision, because in aggregate the sums involved are very attractive to an attorney working on contingency for the class.
Recursive: Adj. See Recursive.
Ray Beckerman +5 Insightful
People aren't COMPLETELY retarded. Only mostly. If there's an increase in accidents, people will slow down. And the solution is to put a speed limit NEAR what people are going through the area at. If people are going 50 past a school zone, yeah, that's an issue. But if it's a limited-access highway and everyone is going 75 even though the speed limit is 45? That's just poor design or greed. If you're concerned about safety, set the speed limit there up from 45 to 60 or 65. That way people will have a reasonable top speed they'll want to go, you'll keep people slightly slower overall, and everyone is happy. Commuters get where they're going faster, and ambulances still have very few people to scrape off the retaining walls.
My blog. Good stuff (when I remember to update it). Read it.
Ray Beckerman +5 Insightful
The problem with the record industry is they do not understand how to make profit in the Internet (they should read Slashdot ;-). They are lost at sea and they want us to be a hostage to be milked until they figure out a way to get more money.
Donde Ser Geek No Duele
Want to really hit RIAA members hard?
Stop buying their crap. They will either adjust to the market AND acknowledge and provide for Fair Use and also embrace viral marketing, or they will die. It really is that simple. What I _do_ buy, I buy used now, and there are really only a few acts I buy any more. Spend your money elsewhere.
I went from buying a CD or two every other day during the height of Napster to buying _maybe_ one every other year. In the last six years, I've bought maybe two brand-new CDs: David Gilmour's On An Island, and Pink Floyd's Is There Anyone Out There (the wall live album). Oh wait, there was another one: a Tijuana Brass album. I do want to buy Weird Al's latest album, and I want to buy Roger Waters' Ca Ira, but I'll wait until I can find a pristine pre-owned(used) copy. There is lots of other stuff I'd love to buy, but I'm pretty much standing on my principles and giving the RIAA the finger.
Now, instead of listening to hard rock and pop stations, I'm listening to talk (NPR, christian radio, or other talk stations) and sometimes oldies, classical, or classic rock stations (I have almost all the classic rock I want on CDs, and I've ripped most of them to SD cards so I can bring my collection with me when I travel). I avoid exposure to new material the best I can, lest I be tempted to buy it, or be tempted to download it and contribute to viral marketing. Sorry, I'm just not interested in promoting the continued existence of the music cartel as it exists today.
The Christian Right is Neither (Christian nor right). See: Matthew 23, Matthew 25, Ezekiel 16:48-50
I would just like to clarify, however, that simply "Allowing others to download from you for free" would not necessarily be an "unauthorized distribution" under the Copyright Act, the elements of which are spelled out in 17 USC 106(3). To qualify as a Copyright Act "distribution" there must be
(I) dissemination of
(II) actual copies
(III) to the public
(IV) by sale or other transfer of ownership, or by rental, lease, or lending.
See reply memorandum of law in Warner v. Cassin (pdf), especially pages 3-4, and initial memorandum of law (pdf), especially pages 3-6.
Ray Beckerman +5 Insightful
In fact this is how speed limits are supposed to be determined, it's called the 85th percentile speed, the speed at or below which 85% of traffic moves. There's a good article here explaining how it works. One pertinent quote is this one:
Contrary to popular belief, lower speed limits do not necessarily improve safety. The more uniform the speeds of vehicles in a traffic stream, the less chance there is for conflict or crashes. Posting speed limits lower or higher than what the majority of drivers are traveling produces two distinct groups of drivers: 1) those attempting to observe the speed limit and 2) those driving at speeds they feel are reasonable and prudent. These differences can result in increased crashes due to tailgating, improper passing, and reckless driving.So deliberately posting a speed limit below the 85th percentile speed is not only greedy, it's likely to get more people killed as well. The only benefit is to allow more tickets to be written. Personally I'd prefer to see less people wreck.
Laws on speed limits are modeled after this, and should be nearly the same in all states in the US. As someone pointed out on Slashdot before (which is where I learned all this), you can often get out of a speeding ticket by asking if a traffic survey has been done recently on the road in question. (These have to be done every so many years to ensure the speed limit is still at the 85th percentile speed, it can change over time.) If one hasn't been done in the required time the speed limit's not valid as far as enforcement goes, and if the speed posted doesn't agree with the survey you're also likely to have your ticket dismissed. I've never tried this myself (I try not to speed nowadays myself) and it'll probably vary somewhat depending on where you're located and also on the judge you deal with, but speed limits are supposed to make sense so that only the truly dangerous drivers are breaking them. If everyone's speeding then it's definitely not the 85th percentile speed.
IANAL... but here's a layman's guess to justify the claims....
===
By the way, THANK YOU NewYorkCountryLawyer for your time and energy to bring these stories to Slashdot and for your pursuit of change within an industry that is so important to us. It is more than music that is at stake... it is culture... and without that then life become one big huge business - and it wouldn't be any fun for anybody.
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