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RIAA Pays Tanya Andersen $107,951
NewYorkCountryLawyer writes "Well, Phase I of the RIAA's misguided pursuit of an innocent, disabled Oregon woman, Atlantic v. Andersen, has finally drawn to a close, as the RIAA was forced to pay Ms. Andersen $107,951, representing the amount of her attorneys fee judgment plus interest. But as some have pointed out, reimbursement for legal fees doesn't compensate Ms. Andersen for the other damages she's sustained. And that's where Phase II comes in, Andersen v. Atlantic. There the shoe is on the other foot, and Tanya is one doing the hunting, as she pursues the record companies and their running dogs for malicious prosecution. Should be interesting."
Way to go, Ms. Andersen!
If you haven't been down-modded lately, you aren't trying.
Sacred cows make the best hamburger.
Congratulations, Ms. Andersen. David has slain Goliath, once more.
Bearded Dragon
I think that could be a fitting charge as well.
Interesting bits to note:
ilovegeorgebush
oh, this has the making of a beautiful class action suit against RIAA and the record companies. Can you imagine the beautiful, beautiful damanges?
-- All this knowledge is giving me a raging brainer.
Tell me, Ms. Anderson... what good is a counterclaim... if you're unable to speak?
Monetary damages against corporations will never be enough. Since they are fictitious legal persons we need the equivalent of prison time for them. In the information age it's perfectly possible to 'lock up' a company, suspending their trading and seizing all assets for 60 days would REALLY HURT.
It may even collapse the company. Well, if they can't take the heat they shouldn't be doing the crime. This is the only way to give society and the courts that represent us any teeth against corporations.
Vote for corporate jail time.
If you'd said "The RIAA" not "This city" you might have got modded insightful.
I haven't RTFAs (or not all of them anyway - have you?). But I'm struggling to see why she is described as "innocent, disabled". Does the validity of the case or the settlement depend on her being disabled?
Wow, did I slip into a paralell universe or something? I'm hoisting a glass to the esteemed Mr. Beckerman tonight at JW's as I listen to a local band cover the Grateful Dead.
I hope you can afford that new tie now, Ray ;)
Whatever you're getting out of this, it isn't enough.
mcgrew's razor: Never attribute to stupidity that which can be explained by greedy self-interest
Here are the documents pertaining to her counter-suit,
Anderson v. Atlantic.
One of the claims cites the RICO Act, which I can only imagine spells bad news for RIAA & mediasentry...
www.purevolume.com/martyd
this was on hackaday first... And this isn't the first time that Slashdot has essentially copied their posts
I can see where you might think that, because the Slashdot post was not released until after hackaday. But the reality is that the story was on p2pnet.net before it was on hackaday, and it was on Recording Industry vs. The People first of all. Just because the Slashdot post comes out after it was published on hackaday doesn't mean it was 'copied' from hackaday; it just means the post was in the Firehose and on the editors' screens at Slashdot for awhile, before it was published.
Ray Beckerman +5 Insightful
Something tells me the movie industry won't get behind this story like they did for Erin Brockovich.
*whoosh*
Slashdot is a news aggregator - Every. Single. News. Story. is a copy of a posting somewhere else.
The moral of this story is that you can nto get a fiar trial without $107,000.00.
So, if you have less %107,000.00 but more than $500.00, then buy a gun and get even.
If you have less than $500.00, let them sue you as it won't matter anyway.
Andy
First, congrats to Ms.Andersen for making the RIAA pay for its mistake. But compensation of her legal costs does not count as proper compensation, for several reasons:
For all these reasons, Ms.Andersen deserves a lot more compensation than just legal fees. It's too bad she has to start her own proceedings to get those. It would be better if that were automatic. Get proven wrong in a 'big corp vs. little guy' lawsuit, and be ordered to compensate legal fees plus an automatic percentage for related damages. Otherwise it's just too easy for corporations to bully on ordinary folks (like we see all the time).
(satire) In a related story, the RIAA will be increasing the charges assigned to people who pay to cover the cost of loosing to someof the people who fight back.(/satire)
I just hope this isn't a joke that becomes reality. One of the basic problems with the whole system here is that it's out of balance. It's appropriate to be able to seek redress from someone who violates your copyright; but the amounts involved (the amounts the individuals are being required to pay when they loose) are out of proportion to the damage done, and well beyond any reasonable punative claims.
The entire civil legal industry is based on the fact that it costs far more to defend yourself against whatever the plaintiff claim (lie) than to pay what they ask. Plaintiffs are almost never forced to pay the legal fees of the defendant, unless the case is very public AND black and white. It is all a sham and a huge subsidy for sleazy attorneys that know how to work the system, often at the expense of an insurance company, but not always. I found this out the hard way when I made the mistake of selling my home to a sleazeball attorney. They can fuck with you based on the most flimsy of reasons and it costs them very little to ruin your life. The defense attorneys, that burn through their client's life savings by over billing and accomplishing nothing, but still make costly mistakes, are no better. "Justice" is only for the rich. Far worse than the money, is the stress, the fear that my children may not be able to attend college because of it. It should be a crime, but it never will. Who runs the court system? Judges, that are also attorneys. Who makes the laws? Elected attorneys.
oh look, it's mr. fancy pants lawyer.
I think Ray actually prefers jeans.
Wait, you mean /. doesn't have a crack team of reporters writing all these summaries?
I've been duped!
Unfortunately, some of the time it's just a copy of another story on Slashdot.
"Since they are fictitious legal persons we need the equivalent of prison time for them. In the information age it's perfectly possible to 'lock up' a company, suspending their trading and seizing all assets for 60 days would REALLY HURT."
I don't think so.
See, the whole idea of corporations is limited liability.
That's why the people in charge will take the risk and do stuff. That's good for society when they're doing the "good stuff".
Now if the people in charge do really bad stuff, you don't punish the fictitious legal person.
You punish the _real_ people behind it.
Many rich people own multiple companies. You lock one up, or punish one to dust, they have ten others, they write it off as a "cost of doing business".
Whereas if you jail the people in charge that would REALLY HURT.
A rich person isn't going to live much longer than 120 years, by the time they are rich, they've got a lot less than that left. So jail for 5 years does hurt.
While in prison, they can't enjoy the benefits of their wealth as much. No cocktails on beautiful beaches, no luxurious surroundings.
When someone really breaks the rules of the game, no more hiding behind "limited liability" and "fictitious legal persons".
That is what will really hurt, and that is what will "adjust the attitude" of the real persons behind those shields.
this, because it is not a matter of debate. It is a matter of personal values.
There are some people who feel that the suffering and hardship caused to these defendants is strictly irrelevant, and that it is irrelevant whether their ability to defend themselves is impaired by disability or poverty.
As to those of you who feel this way I can only say this:
1. You are not my kind of people.
2. If you are lawyers, you are not my kind of lawyers, and in my opinion you are violating the Code of Professional Responsibility by exhibiting an indifference to the harm you cause.
3. The phrase that 'justice is blind' does NOT mean that it is indifferent to the suffering of those it affects, or that little people can be squashed by the wealthy in court; it means that the justice system has an obligation to protect the poor and the defenseless from the predations of the wealthy and powerful in court.
4. Those of you who are making these remarks about how Ms. Andersen's circumstances are irrelevant are probably the same people who love to dump on lawyers all the time. In point of fact, all good lawyers are compassionate, and will refrain from causing unnecessary harm to others with whom they come in contact. No good lawyer would have pursued the Tanya Andersen case.
Ray Beckerman +5 Insightful
"The facts of the case do not in any way hinge on the defendant...
- being disabled
- a single mother
- on Social Security."
Really? If you're on Social Security, you probably don't have a particularly big income. If you have a child, a chunk of it will go to that child. If you're disabled, you'll probably have additional expenses for that as well. Granted, she may be compensated for the child / disabilities to some extent in terms of money, but how's that going to compensate for all the hours lost that could be spent with her child instead? I haven't checked what disabilities are in play here - but it seems reasonably likely to me that she will be forced to deal with her disabilities more often than without the case. Now you may claim that "that's life, life sucks", but I'd argue that the RIAA made her life suck in that regard.
But let's take the heart out of it, and focus only on the money aspect and your statement "the case [does] not in any way hinge on"; if that were true, don't you think that there would be a greater portion of cases that would go to arbitration / court, rather than being settled? A great number of cases are settled not because the target knows they're guilty anyway (in which case, settling might be the wise thing to do - but I'll leave that for future cases on whether awarded damages to the RIAA are fitting to the 'crime'), but because the target simply does not have the resources (specifically: money) to bring a solid defense - mounting one leading to debts far greater than a settlement does.
Ray, although what you say is true, it should be your 3rd answer, not your first. Here are the first two:
1) Because the defendant's precarious personal situation directly determines the direct damages suffered by the defendant.
2) Because the RIAA campaign of intimidation and extortion relies on the weakness of their targets making them settle under pressure.
These two points are much more important than the fact that the RIAA lawyers are rat bastards. 1) and 2) support the case directly.
Keep on plugging away at them, Ray. They must suffer personally and professionally for this, not just in the form of business losses.
"The question of whether machines can think is no more interesting than [] whether submarines can swim" - Dijkstra
Media Sentry is a program that piggy backs on fake files that you download. It then looks at your file index looking for key word file names and types. then sends the info to a server for review. That is illegal.
Oh look, it's mr paid anonymous fancy pants music industry troll. Ray's a hero around these parts, son, and he has my utmost respect.
If you ever go through a divorce or bankrupcy you will learn to appreciate a good lawyer.
mcgrew's razor: Never attribute to stupidity that which can be explained by greedy self-interest
This assumes of course that the primary motivation of theses artists is financial. I'm all for giving the artist their due. I've recorded music and played clubs, coffee shops, book stores, etc. It's not easy, and if someone goes to all that trouble, and I like their music I'm going to compensate them for it. I still make music. Mostly just recording at home, and then I release it to the internet. I do it because I like writing, playing, and recording. It's the same reason I come home after working all day, write software and release it. I enjoy it, and I already have a full time job that pays my bills. Great music is going to exist as long as you have artists that really want to make music as opposed to corporate pawns like Britney Spears et al. If anything fades away I would suppose it would be those that are only in it for the money, and to them I say good ridence we didn't need that anyway. You also seem to be indicating that once an artist releases a CD that the consumer has no right to format shift, mix and match tracks etc. I do this all the time, and surprise I still listen to it closely as I'm driving down the freeway. I like mixing tracks, it breathes new life into them. Another thing I like to do is take an artist that has a bunch of albums, and fade the tracks into each other as I'm recording to a reel. I patch 2 cd players into my mixer and fade tracks together. It's like listening to the radio without commercials and every song is from the same artist. It doesn't mean I have any less respect for the music I just like listening to it in that way. I don't give it away to anyone else, upload it to the internet, or otherwise reduce the artists ability to sell albums. I don't see the problem with that. Now obviously that doesn't work for every album. The Moody Blues have several albums that tell a story, and to rip a track from one another is like picking a chapter from several different books and expecting it to make sense. It doesn't work for those types of albums. But take Crosby, Stills, and Nash where each song tells a different story, and it's fine. I've heard the argument that it's not the way the artist intended it. Well tough. If I record an album and sell it to you. It's yours. If I decide I want to sell it and make a living at it I have the right to demand that you don't distribute it to others diminishing my ability to make a living, but what you do with it in your own home is up to you. It's called fair use, and it's a beautiful thing. If anything I think giving the consumer what they want the way they want it is the way to keep people interested.
I don't believe in karma, I just call it like I see it.
Seriously, it seems everyone is in agreement here on that the system is broken, so what can we do to change it? I hear some people say "revolution" or some sort of extreme action (riots, killing people, etc), but there has to be a better way. I'd like some good suggestions, writing letters apparently doesn't work.
15 simple suggestions.
Ray Beckerman +5 Insightful
Fascinating that you suggest that "proper music" and "highly-skilled artists" cannot exist without the existence of controlled technologies. This means that that neither such music nor such artists existed prior to approximately 1877 when the phonograph was invented.
Hopefully the dead rising from the grave won't happen or else the RIAA might start a more vigorous lawsuit campaign in suing even more dead people http://www.theregister.co.uk/2005/02/05/riaa_sues_the_dead/
Actually, the undead are working for the RIAA, as its attorneys.
Ray Beckerman +5 Insightful
I've been duped!
s'okay - so have most of the stories around here. ;)
Quo usque tandem abutere, Nimbus, patientia nostra?
Ms Anderson.Welcome back. We missed you.
Eclipse PDE and Me
And here's to you, Mrs. Andersen,
Slashdot loves you more than you will know.
CowboyNeal Bless you, Mrs. Robinson.
Heaven holds a place for those who pray,
Hey, hey, hey
Random Thoughts From A Diseased Mind (Not For Dummies)
Okay, I'm glad we've found some commonality because I'm also a Moody Blues fan & they, to me, are a typical album band so we agree on something - again, I can't pick out tracks from their albums, "On The Threshold Of A Dream" is one of my favourites and is equivalent to "Dark Side Of The Moon" or "Sgt. Peppers" in that you cannot get the best out of it unless you listen from start to finish.
But, to me, appreciating a good album is no different to an art enthusiast who can stand for a half a day staring at a painting as opposed to a tourist giving the same painting a brief glance and then moving on to the next thing. In both cases there's a the same single painting but you can't appreciate it fully unless you spend time exploring it.
And like you, I don't share music - the worst I do is donwload an album I fancy the look of from Usenet, listen to it & buy the album or delete the downloads. I'm old fashioned, I like discs & sleevenotes.
Likewise, I don't deny your right to fair usage - I just don't understand why anyone would want to hack about with good music in much the same way as I wouldn't want to paint a longer nose on the Mona Lisa, for example. In other words, it not really *any of my business* to fiddle about with something someone else has created - sure, if I was a musician myself I might emulate another artist or draw influences from them but that's totally different. All I have to do is decide how much I like it & enjoy it as it unaltered as it was supposed to be.
Gentoo Linux - another day, another USE flag.
Her child was being researched by the RIAA. They would call about Ms. Anderson's daughter at work and at child's school, looking for her. Now, I am no parent, but, that would really scare me and fear for my child. As such, her mental state was suffering from these court cases, and she took leave from work and skipped court days sometimes.
Pigs, the lot of the MAFIAA.
Anderson has a lot of guts to stand up to them even after that. Cheers to her and her courage. Hope this helps put an end to the music and movie court cases.
In the "grand scheme of things" you mention, we all (in the US) operate under a very elaborate regime of exploitation fondly known as capitalism. (Pick your favorite scheme - they all amount to one form or another of exploitation.) Fact.
People decided that an organized way of dealing with this (i.e courts) was preferable to the alternative - which is pretty much to not deal with it.
The "grand scheme" and the court system are both full of people like you and me, who are in no way perfect. Ergo, you will have corruption.
It is idealistic bordering on crazy to think that it's even possible for people to not attempt to exploit anything and everything they can. Especially those with the resources at their disposal to do so.
The brainy thing (which I've seen lots of folks here and elsewhere allude to, so this isn't just me thinking!!) to do as citizens and as a civil government is to be aware of this reality and to be prepared for it. In terms of the government, that's supposed to mean regular elections (i.e. turnover) for the participants and checks and balances in the power held by them. Our two-party political system has worn down these safeguards to the nubs though, so big abuses (like Enron, Katrina, Microsoft and the RIAA) have a lot better chance of growing than they should.
If you need a good example, use the Founding Fathers. They had this good sense to implement checks and balances. At the same time they were acting with perfect human nature in their combined vision of Manifest Destiny. This is the trend that's basically been on repeat ad infinitum since the dawn of man, I suppose. Very seldom if ever does the fix come before the abuse.
It's also interesting to look at this from the point of view of the concentration of power and the corrupting influence that phenomena can have.
RIAA is obviously the best example here. On the face of it, there's nothing wrong with these record companies' position - that people who are taking their things for free that are only offered for sale should be stopped. If they were to go about that individually, it's unlikely a major abusive effort could result even if they were wrong. However, they strategically pooled thier resources and power in the RIAA.
power+resources+corruption=today's reality for the RIAA
Keeping in mind that the RIAA is still relatively a very very small group, it's not hard to imagine the results of larger concentrations of power and resources such as those which happen all the time in both government and business.
That's all for now.
-Matt
Boy, it is very obvious that YANAL. Say you have shareholders in a company that makes no decisions about how the company is run. Now say one executive in the corporation does something illegal without the shareholders knowledge or permission. You want to punish the shareholders for the actions of someone else when the shareholders have absolutely zero to do with the action? That is about the craziest interpretation of the law I have ever heard.
"But this one goes to 11!"
Temperatures in hell will continue their plummet well below the freezing mark.
The facts do not determine the whole outcome of a court case. Judges and juries - people - do.
-Matt
RIAA does not represent musicians or artists
"Sounds a lot different" because it is a lot different. No deal.
-Matt
Yes, it's true. This man has no dick.
"pr0n": An anagram of "porn," possibly indicating the use of pornography. - www.microsoft.com
Spoken like a true /.'er!
Thanks for keeping us up to date and this breath of fresh, sweet air. *inhales deeply* Ahhh...fresh flowers and.. OMG!! Ponies!
Now let us hope that phase two works in Ms. Anderson's favor also, then we may be able to start seeing the RIAA monopoly crumble, or at least a better business model from them. Both for our sakes, and especially for the artist's sakes.
One of my best friends is a professional musician in a band, and they checked out signing with RIAA affiliated labels.(about four years ago) It would actually have cost them money to sign instead of make them money.(unless by some miracle they became popular overnight) Being smart guys,the band finally started their own distribution in addition to signing with an independent label that allows them to continue to do so. They are making a decent living with their music now instead of paying some label to be musicians.
Down With Slashdot BETA!!! I've been around the corner and seen the oliphant; you can only abuse me from your perspecti
--You know, lawyers soliciting victims of RIAA harassment for the easy pickings. (Precedent!)
Self-punishing evil. Karmic law in action.
-FL
Spoken like a true /.'er!
Thanks for keeping us up to date and this breath of fresh, sweet air. *inhales deeply* Ahhh...fresh flowers and.. OMG!! Ponies!
Now let us hope that phase two works in Ms. Anderson's favor also, then we may be able to start seeing the RIAA monopoly crumble, or at least a better business model from them. Both for our sakes, and especially for the artist's sakes.
One of my best friends is a professional musician in a band, and they checked out signing with RIAA affiliated labels.(about four years ago) It would actually have cost them money to sign instead of make them money.(unless by some miracle they became popular overnight) Being smart guys,the band finally started their own distribution in addition to signing with an independent label that allows them to continue to do so. They are making a decent living with their music now instead of paying some label to be musicians.
New book just came out on that very subject: how musicians can make more money by NOT using record labels.
Ray Beckerman +5 Insightful
man, I wish she was MY mom! This lady doesn't take sh*t from anyone!
I would just like to give myself credit yet again, considering I came up with her defense in 2003.
http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=77984&cid=6926062
Your welcome, Ms Anderson.
RIAA? Die.
-- "Government is the great fiction through which everybody endeavors to live at the expense of everybody else."
Good, but weren't those directed to judges?
But I guess you're trying to say, "bring these points up whenever you're a target of an RIAA member company lawsuit!"
"We are Microsoft. You shall be assimilated. Competition is futile."
The RIAA is like a completely inept mugger:
They threaten people to hand over their money to them at the proverbial gunpoint, but instead of brandishing a Colt .45, they decide use a Flash Gordon ray gun.
What Mrs. Andersen is doing is the equivalent of taking the ray gun away, breaking as many bones of theirs as she can, and then taking *their* money. The RIAA has been trying to take people's money with largely baseless lawsuits for a while. Now, they get to see what it's like being on the business end of one of those lawsuits, with the exception that the other lawsuit is actually a *really* good one.
Sometimes I think that the RIAA's lawyers know they have no case (or at least a very shakey one), but just continue following orders because, regardless of the judgement, they still get paid. However ,the same cannot be said for the RIAA.
Knowing Google's lust for data collection, the Soviet Union is still alive and well inside the psyche of Sergey Brin....
Good, but weren't those directed to judges?
Yes.
But I guess you're trying to say, "bring these points up whenever you're a target of an RIAA member company lawsuit!"
Yes but more than that. Only a handful of people get targeted. The rest of us need to fight in any way we can. Most importantly, (1) contribute money to the defense funds, (2) if you're a techie get involved in helping the lawyers, (3) write letters to congresspersons and to publications. And if you do get targeted, fight back.
Ray Beckerman +5 Insightful
Up to this time, they'd had the practice of taking the hand of each slain opponent, but there was some question as to whether the hands belonged to men, women, or even their own dead. Solution: bring back the severed uncircumcised penises of slain war dead.
It won't be from a woman - and the Egyptians practiced circumcision (evidence dating back to Sneferu - long before the children of Israel/Jacob left). IMHO, it's quite possible, likely even, that the Israelites picked up the practice of circumcision from the Egyptians)