Slashdot Mirror
RIAA Will Finally Face the Music In Court
Falstaff writes "Exonerated RIAA defendant Tanya Andersen is expected to refile her malicious prosecution lawsuit against the RIAA today. The refiling will mark a significant watershed in the RIAA's fight against P2P users because for the first time, the group's tactics, secret agreements, and fee splitting with MediaSentry are likely to come to light, thanks to discovery. Andersen's attorney says he'll be 'digging into agreements between the RIAA, RIAA member companies, MediaSentry, and the Settlement Support Sentry. Part of that will involve looking at compensation, like how much MediaSentry gets from each settlement. "I'd love to know what kind of bounty MediaSentry got paid to supply erroneous identities to the RIAA," Lybeck says.' The judge has barred further motions to dismiss the complaint, which means the RIAA will have to face the music. 'Unlike the thousands of lawsuits filed so far, the RIAA does not have the luxury of walking away from this case if there's a real chance of embarrassing information being released. "Once discovery happens in the cases the RIAA brings, they run," Lybeck says. "This is our case now, and they can't run."'"
The judge has barred further motions for dismissal, so unless the RIAA decides to settle--a move Lybeck believes is in the group's best interest--the case will proceed through discovery and to trial.
Hopefully she won't settle for the carrot that the RIAA would probably dangle in front of her. She has the opportunity to bring all these lawsuits to a screeching halt.
Speedy thing goes in; speedy thing comes out.
For ages human story, communication -- the very thread of humanities' tale -- has been handed down via song. I learned in linguistics that of the few things which both separate us from other species and that we have in common is song: in common because both humans and other animals use it and separate as we add language and "tale". Odd how, in modernity, something such as music has come to this.
I suppose it is natural. If, for some reason, all humans perished today and whales evolved to become the dominant species and have song and tale and language. If they then go on to develope technology. Will they one day sue?
"All great things are simple & expressed in a single word: freedom, justice, honor, duty, mercy, hope." --Churchill
It is common for judges to promote settlement in cases where the victor seems obvious in order to reduce the load on the court system.
In this particular case, pursuing it to the full extent should actually REDUCE the burden on the court system by severely restricting the RIAA's ability to file new suits.
The only way I could see a settlement working in the long run is if it's equivalent to an unconditional surrender with all sorts of guilt admissions. I just can't picture the RIAA agreeing to that, and the plaintiffs should not settle for less.
THIS is the opportunity. Do not let it slip through your fingers.
Second, what does it matter if we have committed copyright infringement? We are still a member of society who has an interest in seeing the innocent not being railroaded by the Music Industry. We still have an interest in stopping the Music Industry from illegally violating our rights, hacking into our computers (Federal crime by the way, much worse than copyright infringement), and extorting people for large sums of money.
Except, in this case, full discovery is not going to lead to a small win. If it is determined that they have knowingly engaged in illegal activity - and there is a lot of circumstantial evidence that their investigation fits that category - then, they are in a pretty bad spot. A security company not licensed in a state can not engage in investigations in that state. That is illegal. They can not install root kits across state lines, that is illegal also. Hacking is illegal. While the RIAA can claim that they themselves did not commit these acts, it is a reasonable conclusion that they would have encountered any number of these questions in any due diligence prior to awarding security contracts. It is also reasonable that they are aware of the legal issues because of that whole Sony root-kit mess a few years back.
And lawyers who are providing legal advice how to break laws are called co-defendants, not attorneys and they do *not* have attorney-client confidentiality in conspiracy and RICO cases where they are named as co-conspirators.
The fear goes away if you know they have no evidence they can present in court.
The RIAA is a trade organization. If you can crack some of their larger members away - and that is quite possible - then the RIAA loses its ability to speak for the industry. The RIAA has not paid out a single penny from any settlement it has won. Add on a lot of punitive damages and criminal charges and the RIAA can be broken quite decisively.
Don't count all your chickens before they're hatched. I suspect that even if you can successfully resist temptation that will be placed in front of you to "settle", they have enough tricks of their sleeves. I for one will acknowledge that people can be bought... And; this includes people in power and the courts. Who's to say that they don't somehow manage to wrangle a venue change and get this changed to another jurisdiction and court somewhere that will be favorable to them.
They still have a lot of money and I would not put it past them to make sure their little cartel stays in good order. They have more average Americans, and even most artists to fleece!
All content in this message is copyright (c) 2008. All rights reserved. RIAA is prohibited here.
Besides, a veto proof majority would have required the cooperation of a good number of Democrats in congress.