Slashdot Mirror
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."
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.
No..., If they win.. everything will as it is right now... It can not get worse than this.
Even judges aren't beyond simple marketing mind-altering tricks. It's really simple, state enough times that the lawsuits are sham and whomever reads your document will automatically agree.
I think the point is whether they win or lose, RIAA will have to submit to discovery, which should have the effect of uncovering all sorts of dirt about their legally questionable methods of finding people to sue.
Cant get worse?
Are their new laws making it a criminal offense to even think about IP violations? Do we have federal IP cops going door to door to inspect everyone's computer that has internet access? Do we have them stopping people on the street to look at MP3 players? Do we have mandatory 'restricted access clients' installed on our PCs that have a internet connection to monitor our traffic PRE-encrypted and our files?
Yes, it CAN get worse. ( and will if we don't get this thing derailed in time )
---- Booth was a patriot ----
No..., If they win.. everything will as it is right now... It can not get worse than this.
As a general rule that is almost infallible, there is nothing on God's Green Earth that "can't get worse." Maybe the sun exploding and wiping out the planet....that might qualify. Anything short of that, though....."Every great cause begins as a movement, becomes a business, and eventually degenerates into a racket." -- Eric Hoffer
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.
compared the dwindling resources, food and oil shortages we're facing, the sun exploding would be a mercifully quick end. in reality though, humans have made their bed, and must lie in it. don't think i'm being self-righteous or anything, i'm no different. personally, i would rather be vaporized in a massive solar event or by a nuke than have to stick out what's waiting down the road for humankind.
"If for any reason you're not satisfied with our service, I hate you."
What I still don't get though, is how they ended suing guys without computers.)
You're making the assumption that the RIAA's attorneys care about that. I think it's been demonstrated that their activities center around scaring people away from acquiring music illegally via the Internet, rather than recovering "damages" due to copyright infringement. Suing innocent people just makes the RIAA's lawsuit mill appear even more intimidating.
The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.
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.
Or every atom in the entire universe could spontaneously split...
But I would assume that there's a difference between "can get worse" and "likely will get worse."
You see, the fact that this case is now going forward IS progress. it's taken this long just to get the courts to notice that these evil rat bastards have been exploiting every loophole to keep their campaign going.
They have been using delay tactics for a very long time, trying to make it so inconvenient to continue the fight that we give up. It's nice to see that that is not going to work.
And you can say that if they win, it's over and we lose, but that's not true. This case will likely force people to take notice, and it's very likely that even if the RIAA were to win, they would likely be shut up and shut down by people higher than them, without any laws being passed and without any real paperwork trail.
If you can read this, I forgot to post anonymously.
Firstly, the RIAA must be bitch-slapped. Hard. We need to show them what we do to groups who abuse the court system. No matter how much cause they have to be angry, we need to show them tough justice.
Secondly, all those pirates must also be bitch-slapped. Their contribution to this mess must not go unnoticed and unpunished. We need to make copyright infringement a criminal matter, and institute heavy penalties. They need to know that leaching off other people's work is not acceptable, no matter how much they hate their victims. It's simply not good enough that enforcement is left to a group of corporations like the RIAA. We've seen the consequences of this already.
Thirdly, copyright law must be fixed. There should be different penalties for sharing amongst friends and sharing amongst strangers, there should be significantly shorter copyright terms, and we should redact anti-circumvention clauses in the DMCA.
You know, there is a difference between trolling and pointing out the flaws in your reasoning. Just saying.
I think you missed my point. Recovering damages for actual copyright infringement is secondary to the goal of trying to reduce the perceived quantity of infringement. Given that they don't care whether or not actual infringement occurred, only that they have the appearance of infringement, indicates that true redress of grievance is simply not the idea. Out-of-court settlements extracted from terrified people that haven't had their day in court aren't damages ... they're extortionate. Besides, all those settlements do is provide funding for the lawsuit mill: they don't repay the artists a penny with them.
... they care about deterrence.
Keep also in mind that the RIAA is not in charge here: they're a front organization for several large media companies. Those assholes couldn't care less about damages
The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.