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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."
Exactly, these people were targeted by the RIAA who has no proof of infringment and abuses the system.
Whether or not they are actually guilty, the RIAA should be providing proof, which they are incapable of.
I'd say that NYCL has enough information there (see my sig) to show that everyone who has been accused was accused under false pretense, without evidence, or accused for what someone else had actually done. While there certainly has been file sharing, and accordingly some loss of revenue to the recording industry. Neither the amount of the loss nor the act of copyright infringement via distribution has been proven. Both are exaggerated by the RIAA legal team. The only thing they have to show is that their assignees accessed other people's computers and downloaded copyrighted works. If you ask me, that's not cricket!
The RIAA continues to show the style and grace of a skydiver with a ripped chute and no backup plan.
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I don't know. RICO was originally designed to go after organized crime rackets which could otherwise... oh, wait, my mistake. Carry on.
Here's the thing, though. The RIAA does have some information. They're not suing people at random--they're suing people that they believe have done something wrong. Their methods are almost certainly unsound, and their theory of what constitutes infringement is questionable. Their evidence for infringement is generally weak. And their attempts to strong-arm people into settlements is also unsettling.
However, whether this constitutes criminal behavior is also questionable. The RIAA can claim that they have a reasonable belief that they've sued are the right people. They can argue a reasonable belief that they will prevail in court. And they can claim their settlement offers are reasonable within the standards the law currently provides. The RIAA may be wrong about all these things (and probably are), but that doesn't necessarily mean what they're doing is illegal.
Not everyone who brings a lawsuit and loses is a criminal.
With enough money at my disposal, I can reasonably believe I'll win any lawsuit I care to file, regardless of merit.
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.
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.
Copying music isn't something that really leaves fingerprints and you certainly can't get caught with the blood on the knife.
In many cases an IP can identify a household (assuming they don't have someone exploiting their WiFi), but it can NEVER identify the individual, it's impossible to get proof for that without 'breaking' into someone's computer and finding relevant material, and even that's difficult to prove hasn't been forged because it'll always be the same 1s and 0s.
This is also a civil case, unblemished authorities aren't here to collect blood samples and take pictures of the murder scene, there's no trustworthy neutral party like there normally is (or is expected to be) in a murder/theft/whatever investigation. It's Citizen VS Citizen, and the RIAA has yet to prove that it has any legal right to conduct the investigations it has.
What's worse is they're targeting colleges and dial up users, and even some DSL and cable users' IPs change often. You have to get another entity involved in these situations, so it becomes Citizen VS Innocent Mediator when the RIAA tries to get service providers involved, something that hasn't really happened much historically in anything.
It is absolutely vital people distinguish the RIAA separately from qualified agencies. The RIAA is another you and me, not an organization we voted for or was appointed into existence by those we voted for.
"Most people, I think, don't even know what a rootkit is, so why should they care about it?"
Yes, but the point was that the RIAA is accusing you of criminal copyright infringement. If you accuse me of being a thief, you'ld damned well better have a court record saying I was found guilty of stealing or I'll slap a slander suit on your ass so fast it'll make your head spin.
And unlike stealing or copyright infringement, slander IS a civil suit.
Free Martian Whores!
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.
you're bang on there. The Federal Reserve's first mandate is to control the US currency. Said currency is backed against itself (ie worthless) and guaranteed by treaty to the European banks.
IOW, National Westminster, Barclays, HBOS, Lloyd's TSB, Credit Suisse, etc, etc, etc, owns all your Yank arses and every cubic inch of American soil, which they could call in any time they want but won't because they know that as long as they don't call in that loan made in the Teens they own you. The Federal Reserve answer to /them/, NOT the US Government.
Operation Guillotine is in effect.
Here's the thing, though. The RIAA does have some information. They're not suing people at random--they're suing people that they believe have done something wrong. Their methods are almost certainly unsound, and their theory of what constitutes infringement is questionable. Their evidence for infringement is generally weak. And their attempts to strong-arm people into settlements is also unsettling.
However, whether this constitutes criminal behavior is also questionable. The RIAA can claim that they have a reasonable belief that they've sued are the right people. They can argue a reasonable belief that they will prevail in court. And they can claim their settlement offers are reasonable within the standards the law currently provides. The RIAA may be wrong about all these things (and probably are), but that doesn't necessarily mean what they're doing is illegal.
Not everyone who brings a lawsuit and loses is a criminal.
The problem is that when you use illegal means to gain information to then use to coerce an individual into an unfavorable settlement, else they face great financial damages executed by your behalf against them, and you do this to a great many people, that is called racketeering or extortion. Which is illegal.
What the RIAA is doing is in effect the same as a Mob boss shaking down businesses in an area for "Protection" money.
This is the readability police. Step AWAY from the thesaurus.
Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
While there certainly has been file sharing, and accordingly some loss of revenue to the recording industry.
That's not a proven fact. As Lawrence Lessig says in his book (I just read it last week) Free Culture (link is to HTML version of the book, which is published under a CC license),
Free Martian Whores!
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.
"With enough money at my disposal, I can reasonably believe I'll win any lawsuit I care to file, regardless of merit."
You are wrong. See: SCO
What the RIAA is doing is falsely accusing large numbers of people, knowing that only a small number are possibly actionable. This "drift net" technique is indeed "suing people at random" and is not allowed by any court's procedures. They then exercise ex parte discovery (i.e. without the accused being able to answer the charges in court) which is basically rounding up bunches of people and asking them to turn out their pockets on the hope that they'll catch someone.
They then drop the nonproductive suits (after costing them a packet on legal fees) focus on the remainder, bring suit to assess egregious civil damages, which is counter to the principle of the 8th Amendment, in the core document of US law. Read NYCL's article on the subject at his web site - he's the authority on their techniques.
So I have to disagree with you -- it does necessarily mean that what they're doing is illegal.
"Excessive bail shall not be required, nor excessive fines imposed, nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted." -- Eighth Amendment to the US Constitution.
Do not mock my vision of impractical footwear