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!"
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.
It all depends on what is *really* legal vs what they say is illegal. These bastards have so muddied the waters that even judges don't know anymore.
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.
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.
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.
Actually I think you have it backwards. You are guilty in the eyes of the law until proven innocent. Why else would they arrest someone and hold them in jail awaiting the trial. If you were presumed to be innocent then you would be free to go do as you pleased because everyone believes you to be innocent until proven otherwise. In fact the whole thing is an oxymoron, how can one say that "we presume you to be innocent, yet we must believe that you are guilty otherwise we wouldn't be trying to prove that you were guilty"
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.
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.
Don't get them to agree to settle. Make it go all the way through a jury verdict so that there's no hiding the terms of the settlement.
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.