Slashdot Mirror
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."
...even though the lawyers will take the lion's share of the money awarded in such a lawsuit, I hope that the sum awarded the plaintiffs is large enough to deter the MAFIAA from prosecuting under such dubious "John Doe" discoveries in the future.
Militant Agnostic: "I don't know, and damn it, neither do you!"
Counts us all out then
If I had an Ass, I'd call it Fanny Bottom, then I could slap my Ass; Fanny Bottom, on the Arse.
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?
"The agriculture ministry is not in charge of Gundam" - Japanese ministry official.
Trying to contact the young daughter without permission, what did they do, offer her candy to get into a van with them? RIAA-pedos.
The end result?
RIAA loses. Everyone gets a coupon worth $1 off the latest (DRM laden) Britney Spears CD.
General Relativity: Space-time tells matter where to go; Matter tells space-time what shape to be.
From TFA: "Her complaint contains some very disturbing allegations, including one that labels attempted to contact her then eight-year-old daughter under false pretenses without Andersen's permission."
Hi, Sally, this is Mr. Nice calling, is your mommy home? No? Good... I mean, uh, well then can I just talk to you for a minute instead? Tell me Sally, how would you feel about living with a foster family after we toss your mommy in the clink? I mean, she's subjecting you to gangsta rap, for Heaven's sakes, we'd be doing you a favor!
The House Between - Original Sci-Fi Series
I would hope that the Malicious Procecution judgement would make it easier to procescute under RICO statues, given that the extortion has been proven in a court of law, and that the class action suit would further canonize the scope of their extortions into case law. I'm not a lawyer, but it seemed like the Federal case against Michael Vick made the state's case and open and shut event. This seems like the same kind of thing.
Then they should hammer the media companies on conspiracy charges because they are the ones knowingly financing the RIAAs shenanagins, that have already been proven illegal.
Forgive my spelling from time to time. I'm often posting during short breaks.
This is going to be the best litigation show on slashdot since the Sco vs. Novell chronicles.
Patriot - A fan of expanding government power and spending while not wanting to pay higher taxes.
Depending on the scope of the penalty, it may make more individual labels re-evaluate the risk-to-reward ratio that being a member of the RIAA represents.
IOW, this could be yet another nail in the coffin of the RIAA. The bright side is that it could lead to a wider variety of marketing schemes, competition, and better prices for the consumer. The dark side is that it will likely just turn into a series of buyouts until we wind up dealing with the 'Ma Bell' of the recording labels that owns everything that used to be other major labels. But that's capitalism for ya, surf on.
-Rick
"Most people in the U.S. wouldn't know they live in a tyrannical state if it walked up and grabbed their junk." - MyFirs
Bearded Dragon
We have an article about how a class action suit can proceed against the RIAA. Scroll down a bit and there is a story about Microsoft opening up their binary formats. For free. Download them from their webpage. Scroll down a bit more and there is an article about a trial finally being set to see what SCO owes Novell.
What gives?
Did I slip through some wormhole in space and land in a universe where wishes are granted? Is it April 1st? Next thing I expect to see is a release date for Duke Nukem Forever.
I may just buy some lottery tickets on the way home tonight, just to see if the streak continues.
Weaselmancer
rediculous.
The title of the story seems to indicate that a class action suit is underway against the RIAA. That is not the case. The judge's dismissal of the case without prejudice simply means that she can now file a lawsuit and attempt to have her class certified. Class certification is a very complicated process and probably won't happen.
Unfortunately with the ludicrous lawsuit the people of New Orleans filed against the federal government (I mean in terms of how much money they want), other lesser lawsuits will surely be ignored just on their lack of ostentatiousness.
The only way the class action suit against the RIAA can make any progress is if they sue for One novemdecillion dollars!!
Just the name of the number itself inspires awe.
Think about it.
I have nothing compelling to say
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.
From TFA: "Her complaint contains some very disturbing allegations, including one that labels attempted to contact her then eight-year-old daughter under false pretenses without Andersen's permission."
... what are you doing? Why don't you have a seat over there.
RIAA: Hello little girl...
Chris Hansen: I'm Chris Haaaaansen
Unless, of course, the settlement is 5 coupons for CD's.
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
That appears to be a good thing, but I do not think it will necessarily be an easy class to certify. While each jurisdiction with class action legislation has its own version of the following, often with rather concise tests for each element, the general idea is as follows:
A court will certify a class proceeding where there is:
1. An identifiable group
2. With a cause of action that has a triable issue
3. With an appropriate class representative
4. Whom all have common issues
5. and Whose conflict is best resolved by a class action.
In this case, on 1:
Is the identifiable group people who have been sued by the RIAA? The more it is a subset of individuals who have not just been sued by the RIAA, but a subset of that group that has suffered other behaviour and that other behaviour is key to the group, the less identifiable the group is (so to speak).
On 2:
Is there a cause of action for just being sued by the RIAA? If everything that the plaintiff pleads is true, and this would not give rise to a legal judgment, then the action may be dismissed at certification. This is often just a screener to certification of frivolous claims, and some jurisdictions do not have it.
On 3:
Is this lady the best class representative? Can she fund the litigation (in part, though not to the end)? Does she have any interests averse to that of the class?
On 4:
If the case requires more details of how the RIAA treated each individual, then there's an argument that the individual issues predominate over the common ones.
The stronger the case that the RIAA bringing a suit against any individual gives rise to legal remedy,the more the RIAA had a documented pattern of behaviour, the better.
On 5:
If a class proceeding is not the "best" way to resolve a conflict, sometimes it will not be certified. Alternatives including bringing a test case, individual cases, and alternative dispute resolution.
Again, the tests vary significantly from jurisdiction to jurisdiction, but that's the general framework of the hurdle that the plaintiff will have to get over in order to certify her action as a class action.
Ha, what do you want ? That was expected.
What the RIAA should do is throw us all off guard and say
"you're right! fair use! we're wrong, you're right! here take our ill-gotten gains and here have our Samauri sword and please please please be swift and merciful!
Then everyone would be completely confused, erase their file sharing software and run to Wal-mart to buy CDs.
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.
"Always forgive your enemies; nothing annoys them so much." - Oscar Wilde
...is to have the RIAA compensate this individual for the full copyright-violation value of every last song they alleged that she infringed on. The law should have no mercy, just as they've argued Jammie should have none, and they must pay around $10,000 per song for every song they alleged that Tanya downloaded and shared. Maybe even treble damages, in that their investigation and prosecution was allegedly malicious. After all, if they refused to listen to reason and harassed this woman and her daughter for months, and screwed-up their lives and forced the woman to risk what few assets she has to pay for lawyers, it's only right that the judgment stings the RIAA and the record companies that collaborated with them just as they were trying to sting the woman they victimized. There should be no lawsuits of the nature of what the RIAA pursues without substantial risk should they lose because they failed to do their due diligence in building an airtight case.
Aren't you, simply by virtue of the fact of being in possession of RIAA "controlled materials" constantly under threat of falling under one of their malicious and frivolous lawsuits? It's bad enough that I've started looking for their stamp on any music I buy and refusing to purchase anything with their seal of approval - solely based on the fear of becoming a victim of one of their lawsuits.
I'll take my check in a large please.