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RICO Class Action Against RIAA In Missouri
NewYorkCountryLawyer writes "In Atlantic Recording v. Raleigh, an RIAA case pending in St. Louis, Missouri, the defendant has asserted detailed counterclaims against the RIAA for federal RICO violations, fraud, violation of the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, prima facie tort, trespass, and conspiracy. The claims focus on the RIAA's 'driftnet' tactic of suing innocent people, and of demanding extortionate settlements. The RICO 'predicate acts' alleged in the 42-page pleading (PDF) are extortion, mail fraud, and wire fraud. The proposed class includes all people residing in the US 'who were falsely accused ... of downloading copyrighted sound recordings owned by the counterclaim Defendants and making them available for distribution or mass distribution over a P2P network and who incurred costs and damages including legal fees in defense of such false claims' or 'whose computers used in interstate commerce and/or communication were accessed ... without permission or authority.' This is the second class action of which we are aware against the RIAA and the Big 4 recording companies, the first being the Oregon class action brought by Tanya Andersen, which is presently in the discovery phase."
Here RIAA RIAA RIAA. Come and get me and my 200+ gigabytes of stolen music.
How do you demonstrate that you've been falsely accused? Does that mean you've defended yourself in court against the RIAA and been successful? If so, isn't that a very small class?
Stating the obvious here but it is my very, very strong hope that the judge that presides over this (and the other) case see things through to completion and agree that the RIAA's tactics _do_ amount to RICO violations. It's about time that they get served the counter-justice that they deserve.
We all desire to have the multimedia data streams flow through our entertainment devices. From tither and yon, we coalesce the elements to build complete edited fabrications of the initial entertainment distribution. We consume voraciously the images and waveforms and hunger for even more largess, compiling and building large storage complexes. Until one spills the Tranya onto the devices rendering them non-functional. We cry and feel saddened by our loss, but the Tranya is still there to comfort us in our hour of need.
I wonder how many times has this been pointed out that someone should roll up a RICO class action suit against RIAA?
Great that it is finally coming to life :) Real life imitating slashdot :)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Who_Killed_the_Electric_Car
There a class action lawsuit for us all. Course... the guvermint can't be prosecuted under RICO, can it...
Obviously File Sharer is interchangeable with witch here... VILLAGER #1: We have found a witch. May we burn her? CROWD: Burn her! Burn! Burn her! Burn her! BEDEVERE: How do you know she is a witch? VILLAGER #2: She looks like one. CROWD: Right! Yeah! Yeah! BEDEVERE: Bring her forward. WITCH: I'm not a witch. I'm not a witch. BEDEVERE: Uh, but you are dressed as one. WITCH: They dressed me up like this. CROWD: Augh, we didn't! We didn't... WITCH: And this isn't my nose. It's a false one. BEDEVERE: Well? VILLAGER #1: Well, we did do the nose. BEDEVERE: The nose? VILLAGER #1: And the hat, but she is a witch! VILLAGER #2: Yeah! CROWD: We burn her! Right! Yeaaah! Yeaah! BEDEVERE: Did you dress her up like this? VILLAGER #1: No! VILLAGER #2 and 3: No. No. VILLAGER #2: No. VILLAGER #1: No. VILLAGERS #2 and #3: No. VILLAGER #1: Yes. VILLAGER #2: Yes. VILLAGER #1: Yes. Yeah, a bit. VILLAGER #3: A bit. VILLAGERS #1 and #2: A bit. VILLAGER #3: A bit. VILLAGER #1: She has got a wart. BEDEVERE: What makes you think she is a witch? VILLAGER #3: Well, she turned me into a newt. BEDEVERE: A newt? VILLAGER #3: I got better. VILLAGER #2: Burn her anyway! VILLAGER #1: Burn! CROWD: Burn her! Burn! Burn her!... BEDEVERE: Quiet! Quiet! Quiet! Quiet! There are ways of telling whether she is a witch. VILLAGER #1: Are there? VILLAGER #2: Ah? VILLAGER #1: What are they? CROWD: Tell us! Tell us!... BEDEVERE: Tell me. What do you do with witches? VILLAGER #2: Burn! VILLAGER #1: Burn! CROWD: Burn! Burn them up! Burn!... BEDEVERE: And what do you burn apart from witches? VILLAGER #1: More witches! VILLAGER #3: Shh! VILLAGER #2: Wood! BEDEVERE: So, why do witches burn? [pause] VILLAGER #3: B--... 'cause they're made of... wood? BEDEVERE: Good! Heh heh. CROWD: Oh, yeah. Oh. BEDEVERE: So, how do we tell whether she is made of wood? VILLAGER #1: Build a bridge out of her. BEDEVERE: Ah, but can you not also make bridges out of stone? VILLAGER #1: Oh, yeah. RANDOM: Oh, yeah. True. Uhh... BEDEVERE: Does wood sink in water? VILLAGER #1: No. No. VILLAGER #2: No, it floats! It floats! VILLAGER #1: Throw her into the pond! CROWD: The pond! Throw her into the pond! BEDEVERE: What also floats in water? VILLAGER #1: Bread! VILLAGER #2: Apples! VILLAGER #3: Uh, very small rocks! VILLAGER #1: Cider! VILLAGER #2: Uh, gra-- gravy! VILLAGER #1: Cherries! VILLAGER #2: Mud! VILLAGER #3: Uh, churches! Churches! VILLAGER #2: Lead! Lead! ARTHUR: A duck! CROWD: Oooh. BEDEVERE: Exactly. So, logically... VILLAGER #1: If... she... weighs... the same as a duck,... she's made of wood. BEDEVERE: And therefore? VILLAGER #2: A witch! VILLAGER #1: A witch! CROWD: A witch! A witch!... VILLAGER #4: Here is a duck. Use this duck. [quack quack quack] BEDEVERE: Very good. We shall use my largest scales.
DID YOU GET that thing.... i sent you? *fart*
No! No I didn't! I never get that thing you sent me! I never gotten that thing you sent me and I'm beginning to wonder if you ever sent me anything! While I'm at it, if I HAD gotten that thing you sent me, EVER, I doubt I'd be interested in what it said.
I'd love to see the feds swoop in and seize all the RIAA's 'base'. If they can do it to you and me without a conviction, why can't they swoop on the RIAA right now?
Tiller's Rule: Never use a word in written form that you've only heard and never read. You will end up looking foolish.
I mean, how hard is that... really? :)
SIG: HUP
I must have woken up in the wrong parallel universe.
Hi there. I'm new here.
Now let's see if they can actually make this stick.
If they do, I'll be clapping till my hands fall off.
Chas - The one, the only.
THANK GOD!!!
these RIAA guys have been acting like burglars on crack for a long time, and now they have to defend themselves.
if this is supposed to be a new economy, how come they still want my old fashioned money?
In a related story, Mitch Bainwol has been called as Lori Drew's first character witness.
The issue of RIAA RICO has been discussed at least twice before here and here on Slashdot and Ars wrote an article last year explaining why a RICO suit was unlikely to succeed against the RIAA, scumbags though they may be.
So for discovery I would like a complete inventory of all material the RIAA claims domain. This inventory is to include the original recording information, who, where, and contracts. All assignments and associations since the original recording that have resulted in the present rights claims. Also this list is to be updated quarterly during the proceedings of the trial.
In addition a complete copy of the material is also requested. They can make it available directly to my iPod id.
there's gotta be a rat somewhere feeding information to the feds. i grew up in the old school, where made RIAA guys would never flip.
RIAA is gonna start to mean Really Inept Attorney Actions as they become bankrupt by the different RICO actions against them and probably with more to come.
Beer is proof that God loves us and wants us to be happy.
The RIAA can claim that they have a reasonable belief that they've sued are the right people.
Most of their legal paperwork is of the John Doe variety. By its very nature they are saying "we know something bad happened, but we're not sure who did it." I don't think that argument would hold much water.
They can argue a reasonable belief that they will prevail in court.
The vast majority of their legal actions are dropped in their extortion racket. "Pay us $3k and we'll go away."
If they really believed they could win in court, why offer these settlement notices up front? Especially when they claim damages far in excess of $3k? Who throws money away like that?
RICO was made for just such a circumstance (IMHO, IANAL, and so on).
Weaselmancer
rediculous.
It's time the law stops working for the RIAA's abusive tactics and start working to protect the people that do not have money from being unduly burdened with legal cost for nothing.
Years ago, I had a cable modem. In the beginning, all customers had static IPs. I had several lengthy outages that ultimately led to ditching cable in favor of slower but more reliable DSL. One of the more interesting problems occurred when someone else decided (or was mistakenly assigned) to use my static IP address. Obviously, I had service trouble (as I suspect the other person did as well). The ISP's solution was to assign a NEW address to ME.
The interesting part is this: On some networks, it is possible to assume a static address that you did NOT receive via DHCP and it just might work. It may or may not be subject to somebody else's DHCP lease. Even if it is, the other person's computer may be off. In my case, it all happened by accident. Maybe it's not always an accident.
Between the static address, DHCP leases, ISP bumbling on the management of either one, combined with both intentional and unintentional user mistakes about configuration, there is more than a reasonable doubt about the identity of ANYONE based on simply an IP address. And of course a MAC address can be easily faked.
A friend of mine received an RIAA nastygram sent by his cable ISP. Fortunately, this guy kept logs of his DHCP address assignments and quickly proved the ISPs records to be false. It seems the address used for the downloading was assigned to my friend AFTER the alleged downloads took place. The cable clowns never bothered to compare the date/time of the alleged activity with their logs; they just launched a nastygram to whoever had the current address. Morons.
So what happens if the RICO action succeeds? Do all those who settled/lost get their money back?
That sinking feeling deep in your gut when you KNOW you screwed up bad summed up with: {head desk} {head desk}
the RIAA who has no proof that aledged actions were committed by the plaintiffs in this case. Basically has to prove that their product was stolen to claim that they didn't falsely accuse these people. Because they don't "ACTUALLY" have any "evidence" that it occurred and they aren't likely to come up with anything moving forward on the past infractions "havening already occurred". Wont that also make them party to some sort of obstruction as well... I'm no legal expert but ... it doesn't look good for anybody on that leagal team.
If someone has paid their $1000 to avoid the threat of being sued into oblivion, can they take part in this class action? I would imagine there's a clause in the settlement agreement indicating the agreement is void if the accused participates in any future legal action regarding the claim.
I would be shocked if the RIAA legal team didn't do their damnedest to prevent this case.
I can only hope they get maybe some fraction of the inconvenience, fear, or needless pain that they have caused to THOUSANDS AND MILLIONS OF OTHERWISE INNOCENT PEOPLE WHOM THEY UNLAWFULLY HARASSED.
Hang these RIAA bastiges high! Law and fucking order. Gotta say, karma feels good.
I sort of got a bit of a bad rap for a post I made yesterday calling for extreme disrespect and outright harassment against lawyers and executives involved in these law suits. Let me restate my position with a little more of my thinking so my point is a little more clear.
These organizations are performing acts of terror. They aren't using bombs, they are using the courts.
They bribe (oops, "lobby") politicians to pass outrageous laws that defy common sense.
They use the immense power and legal shielding of multi-billion dollar multi-national corporations to bully innocent people who have no hope of defending themselves. Destroying lives with no conscience what so ever.
Because of the legal liability shield of the corporation, they get to do this to people with complete impunity.
Why do we let F*&^*ckers like this do that? If a bully picks a fight with you, do you fight him on his home turf? No, you move the fight where you can better defend yourself. In our case, that's the street.
Ruin their lives, make them pay for what they do. Do you think the courts will? Do you think the politicians will?
These people are worse than any mugger. They are worse than any street thug. They walk around in expensive suits and ruin the lives of helpless people they accuse without credible evidence merely to create fear.
It isn't until it is clear that unethical behavior will not be tolerated by society and that there is a price to pay for it, will we ever regain the freedoms we have lost to corporations like this. They can buy the politicians, but they can't buy the good will of society that human beings need to survive. Reject them everywhere. Shun them. It is the *only* way we will ever rid ourselves of these parasites.
Now let's go after the oil companies, banks, auto makers and congress.
I imagine many of the accused are indeed guilty. Jammie Thomas, for instance.
But the RIAA has been so convinced of their objective guilt that they've failed to see why they should have to prove it. Everyone knows everyone is guilty of filesharing, right? Why do we need to prove anything? And consequently some genuine innocents have been snared in the dragnet.
The RIAA has really made a mess of what case they had in the court of public opinion, which ultimately counts for the most. "Of the people, by the people, for the people." How about them apples if they manage to get the public so riled up that a constitutional amendment like the 21st (revocation of Prohibition), or the 13th (abolition of slavery), gets rammed through? We're nowhere near a revocation of intellectual property, yet, and I think that's primarily because it isn't possible to enforce their vision. And they still have some brainwashed masses on their side. For the most part the people on the RIAA's side are the ones with dreams of becoming authors or musicians, those who have not yet experienced the realities. And those who have been convinced that copying is stealing.
This RICO lawsuit can only make the RIAA look even worse. Just the mere fact it has been filed is big, never mind the outcome.
Intellectual Property is a monopolistic, selfish, and defective concept. It is "tyranny over the mind of man"
As in price fixing and collusion, then it could be open to all legal music purchasers. Where are the *cheap* legal downloads, and the much cheaper music on disks, that modern technology indicates is quite possible? And no, 99 cents for a few megs download is not cheap. They could have sidestepped most of this piracy nonsense if they would have radically dropped prices "per song unit" as technology changed and made it dramatically cheaper to "manufacture" and distribute digital copies.
A nickle or dime *tops* is a way more reasonable cost, and they could have been making their profit on much larger volume sales all along. And not annoy their customers. What's the sense of society developing our first real widespread sort of star trek level replicator technology if the consumer side of society doesn't get to benefit from it to the exact same degree as the producer side? Where is it carved in stone that old per unit last century pricing based on expensive tangible copies has to be maintained in the face of orders of magnitude cheaper new digital tech advances? The absence of much cheaper prices that reflect that from any of the majors smacks of collusion and wink wink nod nod price fixing.
Modern societies are founded on laws. You can't go around getting vigilante revenge on these scumbags, that's immoral and not how a civilized society should function.
If you don't like what they're doing (or the laws they've lobbied for), you should either find some way to use their own system against them (like this RICO class action), or else get involved in politics and try to have the system changed.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
I changed my routers MAC address to DE:AD:BE:EF:BA:BE
The problem is, I forgot all about it for roughly 2 years.
Right up until the time I had to call my ISP about something. The tech on the other end asked me what kind of router I had and when I told him, he says "No, you don't have (brand x)". I'm thinking "wtf is he talking about?" because the router is, literally, right there in front of me. So we argued about it for about 10 minutes and I finally got done what I needed.
After we hung up, I realized why he was asking....
Now, I can't help but wonder whose router he THINKS I have? Who the hell would use DEADBEEFBABE as a default MAC address?
When the government uses RICO they invoke a pre-prosecution confiscation of all your property. Will that happen this time too?
If so, then we don't need to wait for the trial to start rejoicing. (And probably might as well celebrate now, as I bet that they'll just disband the RIAA, and the backers will start a new organization.)
I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.
Worthless? Are you mad? Have you see the US Tbill prices lately? hint: they are sky high, which makes the yield ridiculously low. If they were "worthless", as you state, they would have a LOW price and a high yield. Your claim doesn't even pass the smell test. (ps: Here's a whole thread about it.)
The fact is, they "own" nothing but US Govt paper and currency. The Fed no more answers to them as it does to me. The Fed's job, as you have stated, is to manage Monetary policy. And that's exactly what they do - they manage the money supply with coordination from the US Treasury and Commercial Banks.
They "own" the US like Iceland "owns" the UK. IOW, it doesn't. Any claim to the contrary is disingenuous at best. You are confused in your understanding of how the system works and who the players are.
One way to fight stupid vague overly-invasive laws is with *other* stupid vague overly-invasive laws.
Table-ized A.I.
If a song download was ten cents rather than 99, I would probably spend much more on music that I do now. I suspect that would be true for a number of people. In the earlier days of VHS, a movie typically cost $80 or so. Video rental stores were the primary buyers, and most people simply rented them. The price per movie was simply too high for most consumers to contemplate spending. However, when the price of a movie dropped to $20 (the first was "Pretty Woman" IIRC), it sold an incredible amount. Sure, the drop in per-unit profits were significant (especially when you consider that there was now a retailer as well as a distributor acting as middlemen), but when you consider the volume increased by a couple (or three, I'd wager) orders of magnitude...let me do the math...carry the 2...they made a shitload. Before long, consumer-friendly prices were the norm and the profits from video sales were no longer chump change--they were a major part of the revenue stream.
This was the same industry that tried to stop the VCR. Fortunately for them, they lost and once they figured out that consumer-friendly prices were a good thing, the VCR (and started the habit that continues with the DVD, etc.) made buying movies routine and #4. Profit!
A similar industry tried to stop the MP3 player. Fortunately for them, they lost. But they still haven't figured out the secret about pricing. Apple knows that selling more units at a lower profit margin makes you more money, but they labels haven't figured that out yet and keep trying to push the prices up. At ten cents, more people would buy, and they would buy much more. Also, fewer people would bother with pirating; at that price buying is more attractive than searching the sharing networks and downloading crap rip after crap rip.
I don't know what the magic number is. Ten cents sounds about right, but it might be a bit more or a bit less. But it is much less than 99 cents, and much, much less than what the labels want to charge.
The current promotional model (probably) wouldn't work at this price, but even now it doesn't really work except for the few artists a label chooses to promote (most of their catalog gets no love). At this price, an album is $1-$1.50 or so. With the purchase of the album, toss in a handful of songs by similar artists. If I like them, I'd buy their albums without blinking. There are a lot of little things like that which would be cheaper than the current promotional model and (at that price) much more effective.
allofmp3.com used to cost 1c/MB at the beginning up to 3c/MB at the end (of course without any DRM nonsense). That was approx 10 cent per song @128kbps before they were choked off by the MasterCard and Visa cartels. Quite fair and reasonable. 99c/song (and to add insult to injury with a premium for non-DRM versions) is WAY too high to gain substantial market share. Had the RIAA followed the pricing model of allofmp3.com, they could have survived, and even made a decent profit through sheer economy of scale. But, greed-driven, they preferred to drive people to free file sharing altogether. It's too late now: they can't undo the damage they've done to themselves.
cpghost at Cordula's Web.
Step #1 doesn't work because most people don't understand the problem yet.
So let's continue our quest to educate people to avoid buying anything from those greedy bastards, because every time someone buys a CD, or a DVD, or a song online from a label that belongs to this conglomerate, that money is ultimately being diverted to sue defenseless people into bankruptcy.
As they said with drugs: just say NO (and don't buy their stuff). There are enough good Indy production studios who are not so rabid. Let's encourage them, and ignore the RIAA/MPAA/IPFI extortion cartel.
cpghost at Cordula's Web.
Are the RIAA's defendants merely asserting RICO violations as an "unclean hands" defense, or are there actually going to be criminal charges filed by Big Gov?
..if you look at the street vendor disk pirates pricing,(1-3$ for about anything you can think of on a disk), which reflects true basic manufacturing costs plus some profit, a simple dollar over their street cost per disk would be a fair price for the producers profit in a theoretical legal version. And that dollar is probably more than what the artists get today with 10-20 dollar disks most of the time, and they'd sure sell more. I know I started buying music in the 50s, right up through the mid 90s or so (in other words a fair and long term customer) and I just finally quit, when I saw they were getting as much for a cheap stamped Cd as an expensive tape...the price gouging is just way too blatant and I won't support it. And digital copies, they want how much??? Ludicrous. Thousands of % markup. Nuts. And DRM is just wickedly stupid and lame anyway. I neither download/pirate NOR purchase new full price, I just reject the whole industry for being out to lunch on pricing. And music in particular, copies are to get fans, it's advertising, treat it that way, sampling and advertising, fans come to concerts, they make their loot working concerts and selling schwag, and that's how it should be if they want to be pros at it. At most we buy a few used disks or tapes a year now (music or movies), that's it. Because that's what they are worth, 10 cents to a buck or two.
Notwithstanding, I am a "huge pirate" too :P
for keeping us up-to-date on these important issues.
This is both good and bad, I guess... I don't visit EFF at the depth I used to, because now a lot of the news is coming to me.
Just not quite as often as I used to.
... that I am reading the counterclaim of course. So far it seems pretty well put together. A tiny bit of legalese vs English in spots, but better than most. Actually, now I think about it, not even that... a plural here and there when a singular would have been appropriate and vice versa. Nothing to squawk about at all. I hope the judge is a fair person.
106. Defendants acted with malice and with evil motive and reckless indifference to Plaintiffs' right to full disclosure and the truth.
Yeah, man!
IANAL, as you know. Even so, it seems to me that there is a missing argument here. Would it not bolster RICO to argue that these defendant corporations joined together to form these organizations, in order to support their common interests, even though they would normally be in competition?
I thought that was a big part of demonstrating RICO. Is it something so obvious that it need not be mentioned? (Seems unlikely to me.) It is very strongly implied in other places, but I did not see that specific argument anywhere in the counterclaim. If it is a valid argument and if it were me, I would be sure to include it.
If that is off-base, do you have time to indulge a layman and explain why? (Maybe I am confusing this with price fixing.)
I'll admit to using Kazaa, but I quit using it after 2002. Too much risk, RIAA's "secret music police" and this thing called Torrents were starting to catch on.
Hopefully this girl will make it out of the trial as a minmium $750 per item fine is down right crazy! If a person downloads 12 songs, that is well over $9000.
It's time for RIAA to grow up and hit the road.
The Rapture is NOT an exit strategy.
Dear Lord . . . I actually understand that.
Not well enough, or you'd note that the closing curly brace is not escaped (the opening one is), and that you'd really want newlines (\n) instead of returns (\r) or else the new next is going to overwrite the old text when you cat(1) it...
What's this "out" you speak of?
APC article
And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.
This guy GOT IT! Anyone else who didn't needs a life.
Anyway, RIAA is getting what's coming to them, finally.
Previewing comments are for sissies!
This guy GOT IT! Anyone else who didn't needs a life.
Anyway, RIAA is getting what's coming to them, finally.
No I'm pretty sure we're the ones that need a life.