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RIAA Sues Homeless Man
NewYorkCountryLawyer writes "In a Manhattan case, Warner v. Berry, the RIAA sued a man who lives in a homeless shelter, leaving a copy of the summons and complaint not at the homeless shelter, but at an apartment the man had occupied in better times, and had long since vacated. The RIAA's lawyers were threatened with sanctions by the Magistrate Judge in the case, for making misleading representations to the Court which the Magistrate felt were intentional. The District Judge, however, disagreed with imposing sanctions, giving the RIAA's lawyers 'as officers of the Court the benefit of the doubt,' and instead concluded — in his 6-page opinion (PDF) — that the RIAA's lawyers were just being 'sloppy' and had not made the misstatements for an improper purpose.'"
'as officers of the Court the benefit of the doubt,'
Wrong!
As officers of the Court they should be held to a higher standard. Sloppy isn't an excuse.
See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.
*** WARNING ***
Link in parent is malicious. Do not click.
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My blog
So make some sanctions against 'sloppy' work. I dissent with the judge's ruling. This is clearly grossly negligent conduct by the lawyers. Any minimal due diligince in this case would have eliminated the error immediately.
I hope some judges (especially those that sign those search warrants) light up in the light of this. Could you imagine something like this in the future?
(cue judge, asked for a warrant)
A search? Why? The RIAA thinks someone's downloading their stuff? The organisation that randomly sues people, from grannies to bums? Get outta my courtroom before I have you thrown out the window!
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
The sad thing is, there are real legal issues here. The RIAA is using the American court system as an vehicle of intimidation, and to give a mask of legality very illegal activities (like investigating people with unlicensed private investigators, shotgun lawsuits that target innocent people, organized extortion, etc.). Meanwhile, the courts seem all too willing to just sit back and let them do it, with no acknowledgement that this is part of an organized campaign. I guess the Supreme Court has more important things to deal with.
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
[sarcasm:enabled]
The damn homeless, always thinking about themselves! This guy clearly can afford to buy this music, as opposed to pirating it. We need to criminalize his actions, so we can keep his kind off of the street!
[sarcasm:disabled]
I mean seriously, this has to be an article from The Onion. I can't believe that TFA is news about what is happening in the real world. I just can't. Someone tell me that it's just a bad joke, two weeks late of "April fools".
I don't know what outrages me more, the RIAA suing a homeless man or the judge for not imposing sanctions.
I can only hope that the judge is elected rather than appointed and that the voters fire him next election. To not lay down sanctions against this agregious behavior is itself sloppy. A lawyer has no more right to be sloppy than a surgeon does.
mcgrew's razor: Never attribute to stupidity that which can be explained by greedy self-interest
How in the world can you sue someone who is homeless and has no internet access, take them to court, get shot down, and then have a district judge say "We think you, the RIAA, had the right intentions but the wrong paper work."? They let murders off for clerical errors, but get caught downloading tunes and its a trip to the financial electric chair.
If this isn't proof positive that our court system is completely wanked, I don't know what is. And people wonder why our society is going to hell in a hand basket.... Kill someone and get off scott free vs. download tunes and go bankrupt paying the fines.
RIAA sues a rock, infringing on the musical style.
Ubuntu- Linux for human beings.
There are few clearer examples of "double standard" than when the deciding party declares that it's different because they're "one of us." Mrrr.
SIG: HUP
"Never attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained by stupidity"
Beauty is in the eye of the beerholder.
I had a few mod points to spend and clicked before it was modded troll. To my total surprise, that link launched X11 (along with numerous popups). How can this be possible? See how naive I can be: since I surfed with Safari 3.1.1 on a up-to-date mac (don't hate me too much, I use Debian at work ;-), I though nothing really bad could happen. I don't think anything bad actually happened, but how come can X11 be launched by a website?! Thanks for any explanation :-D
Animoog.org
...You don't even have to own a computer for them to sue you for downloading music! Hell, you don't even need an address!
See why we don't RTFA?
The linked blog does not make it clear whether or not the man was sued for filesharing that occurred after the date he lost his place of residence/computer. Without reading the 6 page order, what's the real deal? The kneejerk from everyone is to think this man could not possibly have done P2P since he's now homeless. What's the real answer? How did they come to accuse him in the first place? Blog and summary seem short on details.
It's a shame that Lou Dobbs or some other "crusader" type TV pundit hasn't jumped on this saga yet.
You realize there are only 4 major media companies in the world right now. Lou's bosses reports to a producer who works for a company that is owned by one of these media conglomerates, who also owns several major recording labels. The moment Lou reports that the RIAA is doing something evil, Lou and his producer immediately get fired for casting the company in a bad light and Lou gets blacklisted.
Now... I am surprised that the BBC and NPR haven't picked up on this yet. Maybe they have, but can't devote a 2 minute segment to it each and every day so I may have missed one of their special reports, but considering there are, seriously, more important stories to run such as olympic protests, government upheavals, elections here and abroad, etc, I'm not entirely surprised. It sucks, but put into perspective of US National and world news, is it as important?
"All great wisdom is contained in .signature files"
Seriously, when it became obvious that this guy was homeless (what, he totes around a laptop, getting mobile Internet access using Sprint or AT&T???), the RIAA should have dropped the case as this is an amazing case of "getting blood from a turnip." The RIAA seems dumber by the day. Let's see...
1) RIAA physically finds homeless man to sue. Serves with papers.
2) RIAA extorts (er, "offers settlement") to homeless man.
3) Homeless man appears in court for trial, maybe even with pro-bono attorney. (Free heat, maybe even free food. Could judge offer temporary housing--like sequestering a jury???)
4) Homeless man loses case big time, owing hundreds of thousands of $$$.
5) Homeless man declares bankrupcy.
6) Homeless man sues RIAA for mental stress.
Seriously, under what circumstance could the RIAA win? Bragging rights?
Windows 3.1x calc: 3.11 - 3.10 = 0.00
Ray Beckerman +5 Insightful
You know the lawyers at RIAA are insane when actual headlines like these read like if they were from The Onion
I'm amazed nobody has asked the real question yet.
Namely: how much money did the MafiAA pay the district judge for this ruling?
Here I thought *I* was a dick.
Freedom isn't free; its price is the well-being of others.
Essentially, yes it does... For example, a lawyer can make a claim in a court and the judge can ask that the jury disregard it for a technicality... But, how do you forget? It still plays a role at decision time even if it "officially" isn't part of the record or decision.
Further, if thee lawyers bring another flimsy case forward, a review of precedent can show the same lawyer bringing frivolous cases forward in the past and eventually that will lead to harsher punishments by the courts.
And if nothing else, if the lawyer goes for a job with a new firm, then a review of that lawyer's previous cases will show that a judge had it entered into the court record that he/she was incompetent.
Ray Beckerman +5 Insightful
Or a really, really sloppy lawyer.
Personally, you and I know that the judge in this case has heard about the stories of the **AA's actions around the country
That's not likely. First and foremost he's vested in keeping his job so that means he's up to his eyeballs in the political machinations of his region and processing cases as quickly as possible. Unless it's some sort of hobby for him like it is for NewYorkCountryLawyer.
Which takes less time, giving prosecutors a free-pass or generating MORE work calling the RIAA lawyers out on their shennanigans? Which one gets him re-elected?
We're talking about "The Law" and intellectual property machinations where 2 + 2 can equal 5. It's quite likely he's vested in the RIAA's pablum.
http://www.maxineudall.com/2010/02/should-economists-be-sued-for-malpractice.html
Link in parent is malicious. Do not click. AVG just shit a break about that page containing a worm/virus/trojan.
Adding to that... in years past, judges were elders with vast wisdom about virtually all facets of life. Now they're just referees.
Move all sig!