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Class Action Complaint Against RIAA Now Online
NewYorkCountryLawyer writes "Recommended reading for all interested in the RIAA's litigation war against p2p file sharing is the amended class action complaint just filed in Oregon in Andersen v. Atlantic. This landmark 109-page document (pdf) tells both the general story of the RIAA's campaign against ordinary folks, and the specific story of its harassment of Tanya Andersen, and even of her young daughter. The complaint includes federal and state RICO claims, as well as other legal theories, and alleges that "The world's four major recording studios had devised an illegal enterprise intent on maintaining their virtually complete monopoly over the distribution of recorded music." The point has been made by one commentator that the RIAA won't be able to weasel its out of this one by simply withdrawing it; this one, they will have to answer for. If the relief requested in the complaint is granted, the RIAA's entire campaign will be shut down for good."
Great news. Problem is that they'll find something new to annoy people with soon... ;(
It works like that always
Remember, the have more money to have better attorneys.
If they lose, this will 'shut them down', but if they win, we are screwed.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
I for one would like to wave goodbye to our RIAA overlords.
The Mothership
You mean like Tanya Anderson? Yeah, that worked for her. Troll.
The creator of this post (Jacob Smith) hereby releases it, and all of his other posts, into the public domain.
In June 2003, the RIAA publicly announced that it would begin a campaign that
would involve thousands of threats and sham lawsuits against individuals.
It goes on and on like this... plaintiff repeatedly referring to them as sham lawsuits, and in many cases, as above, suggesting that even the defendant acknowledged them as such.
Now don't get me wrong, I think all the lawyers representing RIAA and all principals of the record companies should be in jail (or worse). But this suit reads as inredibly amateurish to me, and if I were the judge I would get pretty irritated by being repeatedly told what to think, rather than the facts of the case.
Don't take my posts literally; it's just code to control my botnet.
but, Ray, as an experienced attorney, what odds would you give that any of this will stick?
The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.
I didn't think so. This is business. There's no room for nicities such as ethics, morals, scrupals, or even laws. The RIAA know better than most how the game is played and they'll continue to play it. And win it.
Heh, that's the funniest thing I've read all day. And some say I'm crazy for setting my default threshold at -1.
Music is an activity, but the problem is more important than entertainment. If people are not allowed to make and share verbatim copies of electronic media, there can be no public libraries. DRM is not an answer to your problem either. The only way to enforce your way of doing things is so deeply unAmerican that no one is going to accept it. We can not allow third party control of our computers because our computers are also our press. What you are left with is reinterpreting the copyright establishment clause of the constitution in a way that still encourages publication. The simple, American solution is 180 degrees of where you are. If someone else makes money with your work, you can demand your fair share. Everything else should be allowed. A simple system like that will be good for everyone.
http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=216934&cid=17629948
The server saw all the nerds coming and had an emotional breakdown.
There is a T missing on page 18, "Oregon Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organization Ac"
I'm sick of following my dreams. I'm just going to ask where they're goin' and hook up with 'em later.
It's easy to take the moral high ground and say, "Don't rip off music that doesn't belong to you." But it really isn't that simple because it begs the question of when does the music "belong" to us. Some of the more senior among us may have bought a favorite song as a 45 rpm record, as part of an album, as a cassette (and if we hit the timing wrong, on an 8-track tape) and then as a CD album. Do you really think we should now go out an buy another version so that we can listen to the same song as an MP3? Many of us will do that or will make an MP3 from one of the versions we already own but, as I understand it, RIAA believes that even "ripping" an MP3 from one of the many versions we've already bought is "piracy." And, the RIAA is run for the benefit of the same group of companies that are telling the composers and performers that they're not due any royalties because the company mysteriously failed to make any profit from the 4 or 5 versions that we've already purchased.
I suggest you keep reading, the best parts have references. Yes, there are about six or seven pages of introductory opinion but by the time you get to page 7 you start to get into the meat of it. They quote three disgusted Federal judges who use terms like, "gamesmenship", "speculation" and "hammer" to describe the suits. By the time you finish, terms like "sham", "illegal" and "outrageous" sound accurate.
http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=216934&cid=17629948
RIAA is legion They do not forgive They do not forget Expect them
That would be an oligopoly, not a monopoly. "Monopoly" means "one seller". We have four fish to fry here.
A-Bomb
Would you consider it moral for someone to tell you "Don't sing other people's music?" or "Don't share other people's music with your friends"? No, the AC is an ass.
No calls now, I'm
Mod parent *sound of wooshing over head*
+5, Truth
Didn't sound like sarcasm to me, but hey, if that's the way you see it...
The creator of this post (Jacob Smith) hereby releases it, and all of his other posts, into the public domain.
From the PDF: "This personal invasion is a crime in virtually every state in the country". So which states do allow unlicensed private investigators to remotely investigate someone else's hard drive to look for music recordings? If none of them did, then the lawyers would likely have been stronger in their claims.
(1)DOCOMEFROM!2~.2'~#1WHILE:1<-"'?.1$.2'~'"':1/.1$.2'~#0"$#65535'"$"'"'&.1$.2'~'#0$#65535'"$#0'~#32767$#1"
The result of the lawsuit that led to this one was that the plaintiff had not, in fact, "ripped off music".
For every problem there is a solution that is easy, simple, and wrong. This is one of them.
Normally we bemoan that with class-action suits, lawyers get rich and the plaintiffs get very little.
In this case, I think I'll be happy as long as the RIAA gets badly bruised. The only way this could turn out badly is if the class-action lawyers accept a payoff by the RIAA before discovery happens.
I'm hoping this goes well and the lawsuits stop... I'd really love to actually be able to buy music again. Till then, I'm off to mininova...
I imagine this will take twice as long to resolve as the SCO litigation, unless the RIAA lawyers weasel out of it. I hope she is well supported, financially. A few comments that may be interesting for someone. :)
It may be difficult to enforce judgment against the "Big 4" directly. If I understand it correctly, the RIAA operates as a separate entity from them, and unless it is shown that the corporate veil can be pierced. This is typically difficult, though I imagine there is a smoking gun somewhere in the RIAA-Big 4 correspondence that shows that the RIAA is a front.
Class actions are much more difficult to get a judgment on than regular actions. In general (and in essence), for a Judge to feel comfortable ruling on the class, they must be convinced that the issues particular to individuals in the class are not more difficult to figure out than that of the issues in common. The standard typically ranges from "a class action is the best way to resolve the common issues" to "a class action is the best way to resolve the dispute". The latter is significantly more difficult to prove - the Court must be satisfied that the issues specific to each individual do not outweigh the overall issues the members of the putative class have in common (and there is no way cheaper-than-individual-litigation to resolve these individual issues). That's a mouthful, but class actions inherently balance the rights of many people who do not have legal counsel against a defendant with a substantial interest.
The court will also want a very clear and well defined class of people. Because the judgment of the court may preclude people from bringing future actions against the RIAA, there is typically a requirement of notice to the members of the class. This notice typically includes instructions on how to opt out of the class proceeding so that you can bring your own action (for mandatory opt-in jurisdictions; some are optional opt-out). If you fail to opt out within a specified time period, you may be bound to the judgment. In this case, the class is pretty trivial - people who have been wrongly sued.
That leads to an interesting point: Will the members of the class are people who have been wrongly sued, or those who have been wrongly sued and where the RIAA has already lost.
This action is a minefield for nuanced issues, like the above and others. I wish counsel the best. You can rest assured that if the Big 4 defendants perceive any exposure, they are dumping their excess resources into a legal defence.
In many cases, not only do we own legitimately purchased copies on several different media, but the items in question are out of print. The labels are sitting on a treasure trove of musical heritage, and our only access to many artists is through copies ripped by individuals.
I have a dream of a land where you can listen to music in libraries just like you read books. A library which instead of being filled with encyclopedias, atlases, hard backs and paper backs is filled with records, compact discs and mp3s. Why should there be a price on music while most books are free to borrow? Why should we accept this? What makes music any different than information, stories and poetry?
I think that a worldwide fundraising campaign should be put together to collect as much funding as possible for this fight, and that any lawyers who don't mind doing a little pro-bono work should jump on this one. Putting an end to this mafia is in the best interests of all who love freedom.
i can't believe you used such a low UID to post such fuckin' tripe
there's a purpose for that "post anonymously" checkbox, you know
I am not a Lawyer, but... It sure seems to me that the clearly related actions that associate RIAA & their investigators -with the subsequent lawsuits by one of the Big 4' would make a reasonable case for a -linked conspiracy-. Clearly the actions of the record companies in the actual filing of the lawsuits is not independent/coincidental from the RIAA actions or the actions of the investigators (and it's not clear who those investigators work for. If they're under contract to RIAA and then RIAA transfers the info to a record company, and does this routinely, that's a pretty strong connection...)
But maybe someone with more knowledge of the law can comment on the 'burden of proof' to connect RIAA to the record labels, for the sake of punitive actions (damages and maybe even better/worse...)
dave
I guess even in "the good ol' days", /. had trolls.
Sure, it'll be good to get this abuse of the legal system sorted, but will it address the key problem? Will it undo the damage already caused to people's lives, to the fair use doctrine?
The other question I have is how it will affect the RIAA members, the club the RIAA apparently acts on behalf of. It's not like they didn't know what was going on. If doesn't affect the members they'll be free to set up a new club doing basically the same.
But it's a step in the right direction, and there is hope more judges will eventually 'get it'.
Insert
Sorry Ray, you gotta be complete in your answer :-)
Insert
The cases you describe are the very small minority; and IMO the only situation in which downloading music is justifiable, simply because you already /have/ paid for it.
Unfortunately, the majority of people doing this are simply in the school of "I want it now and paying anything is too much." In that case, it really /is/ that simple. The music is not being given away by its creators, or by the people who control the rights to it. It is for sale at a fixed price. Therefore any excuse you come up with to obtain it without paying for it is just an excuse for theft. Never before in history has it been OK to simply take something that was offered for sale if you didn't want to pay for it. All this noise around infinite supply, the bad contracts, the greedy corporations is just that: noise, thin excuses to justify theft.
One thing that sticks out as a possible vector for the piercing of the RIAA is that when they filed suit, it was never "RIAA vs XXX" it was "Atlantic Records Vs XXX"....
In other words, the RIAA was more or less acting as an AGENT for the Big 4, and MediaSentry, Settlement Support, et al. were acting as agents for RIAA.
Class action is great but what we really need is a RICO victory that would allow the RIAA and their members to be broken up, their assets returned to artists via a trust, and the future marketing of music and songs using a P2P model that allows for fair use copies and for stores to print physical media for a royality payment.
The big fish is the copyright RIAA member organizations put on the CD, Tape or Photograph. It has no artistic merit. It is almost like printing up lables w/ your name on them, sticking one on your car and claiming a copyright on the car.
The real copyright is for the artists, song writer and musicians who create the music, not for the company that pays for the reproduction and marketing of it.
http://www.hawknest.com/
Sweet Emotion, baby!
Dream On Bitches, but if you can Get a Grip, Turn the Page. Before we Eat The Rich.
Absolutely, Amazing.
OK, troll me now.. But admit it, you Don't Want to Miss this for the world.
First rule of holes; When in one, stop digging.
All I gotta say girl;... is, Go Get Em Girl! Stomp it into the ground!! You Rock!
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