Class Action Suit Against RIAA Can Proceed

fourohfour writes "Ars Technica is running a story on Tanya Andersen, who was awarded attorney fees in September of last year after the RIAA dropped their case against her. The RIAA subsequently appealed that award, but a US District Court judge yesterday not only upheld the award, but also upheld the dismissal of her counterclaims without prejudice. They may now be heard as part of a malicious prosecution lawsuit against the RIAA. Andersen is seeking class action status for her lawsuit, so that anyone else who has not engaged in illegal file sharing but has been threatened with legal action by the RIAA may join in. This is the case that alleges that the RIAA attempted to contact Andersen's then eight-year-old daughter under false pretenses without her permission."

Comments

oohhh yeeesss... but...

[blind biker]

I was waiting for this to happen, and finally, it did. Now, my mind races forward, to the end of the suit, maybe decades ahead: up to how much money can the RIAA be held accountable for? What I mean is, how much money can they be fined till they are bankrupt? Can (or should) the RIAA member companies actually pay the fine - in which case we're talking much larger sums?

Re:oohhh yeeesss... but...

[Gat0r30y]

Can (or should) the RIAA member companies actually pay the fine - in which case we're talking much larger sums?
This is a great question. Will the member companies use the RIAA like an umbrella company saying that the liability is the RIAA's or will they take responsibility for filing these frivolous suits?
More to the point, these suits are filed as Record Label vs. some poor joe not as RIAA vs. right? This case is Atlantic vs. Anderson, is Atlantic responsible for the damages? It would certainly seem to me that the RIAA cant claim all the liability when Atlantic's name is on the suit. Any Lawyers out there who know whether the RIAA can be used as an umbrella to protect the label from liability in this kind of litigation?

Re:oohhh yeeesss... but...

[Doc Daneeka]

IANAL, but if the RIAA were to claim liability for the damages to minimize the losses taken by Atlantic, wouldn't that make all member organizations culpable?

The way I see it is Atlantic and the RIAA have two choices:
1) Atlantic takes full responsibility for being a part of an organization that brings spurious claims to court and is the only business to be responsible for damages.
2) The RIAA attempts to intercede, or Atlantic tries to shift blame towards the RIAA, and forces all members of the RIAA to be culpable due to collusion.

Just one last note, the RIAA cannot bring the cases against the alleged copy-right violators because they do not have standing to sue as they are not directly harmed financially by the "infringement". If they did have standing to sue in place of their member businesses then that would make the argument for collusion, price fixing, and monopolization essentially set in stone.

Forget the end result

[riseoftheindividual]

This is going to be the best litigation show on slashdot since the Sco vs. Novell chronicles.

Is it too much to hope for criminal charges?

[iamacat]

Contacting children for legal or financial matters without consent and presence of a legal guardian should carry mandatory jail time for those responsible, at least if their age was apparent at the time of the transaction. It's easy to see how an 8 year old can be persuades to give out parents' credit card numbers, incriminate themselves needlessly, give false testimony in exchange for promise of a shiny new gadget and otherwise be exploited by a malicious adult. This is a far more serious matter than copyright infringement which only results in a financial loss of trivial amounts of money.

I wonder

[Dancindan84]

The RIAA uses a ridiculous method of determining damages per violation. They value damages at $750/song. If the defendants use similar inflation, the RIAA could be accountable for a lot. Anyone know how many people they've accused? And how many songs? I hope the courts don't store damages in a 32-bit float.