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."

Comments

Re:"falsely accused"?

[matazar]

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.

Re:"falsely accused"?

[zappepcs]

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.

Re:"falsely accused"?

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Re:"falsely accused"?

[mweather]

With enough money at my disposal, I can reasonably believe I'll win any lawsuit I care to file, regardless of merit.

Dear Lord.... Use a Line Return or 84....

[autocracy]

:% s/\([A-Z]\{3,}\)/\r\1/g

I mean, how hard is that... really? :)

Someone discovered justice in legal system?!

[jsse]

I must have woken up in the wrong parallel universe.

Hi there. I'm new here.

I'm not so sure about that

[Weaselmancer]

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).

Re:I'm not so sure about that

[NewYorkCountryLawyer]

This is without a doubt a protection racket.

You mean like the RIAA telling Ohio University that if the university pays $76,000 to the RIAA's expert witness's company, the letters will stop, and then the university pays, and then the letters suddenly stop?

Re:I'm not so sure about that

[Weaselmancer]

I think it's a fine line. Most lawsuits are settled, and they're settled precisely because both sides hedge their bets and realize that they have a lot to lose by going into an all-out court battle. It's hard for me to accept that offering a settlement up front is inherently wrong to do.

Yeah, you make a good point there. True. Settlements do not imply an unwillingness to sue. I hadn't really thought of it in that way, and you're right.

But there is also a counter point hidden in your argument:

Furthermore, the sheer impossibility of going through with a full lawsuit for every person that the RIAA finds to be sharing files is a problem.

By your own argument, it would be impossible for the RIAA to follow through with every threat they send out. Therefore they must be filing at least a percentage of these fraudulently.

For instance, if you have ten lawyers, and a lawsuit takes about a month, then you could reasonably file 120 cases a year. If you file 200, you are possibly committing fraud. If you file 400, you are probably committing fraud.

Now, I'm not sure of their exact numbers - but I'll bet they don't have the resources to follow through with every single complaint they file.

I'm pretty certain they've moved into the fraud category.

Re:I'm not so sure about that

[Sancho]

Fair points, all. The question now becomes whether or not an expected settlement is cause enough to spread your resources this thin. When I first heard about the lawsuits, my first thought was that it would be a long time before anyone fought it out, since that would be so costly. Now it turned out that people started fighting them earlier than I expected. That's pretty cool. It may have caught the RIAA off guard, too.

I suspect that you're right. I suspect that the RIAA is intentionally abusing the system. I think that their intent is probably not to go through with any lawsuits (they expect everyone to settle, after all), but that's different from a willingness to go through with it. So far, they've mostly gone through with lawsuits for people who fought. In the cases where they've dropped it, there's usually a good amount of evidence that the defendant has a case (at least, in the cases which we've heard about.)

So is intent enough to get them? I don't think that it should be, but in our system, it probably is.

Of course, we may find out. If they're found guilty of racketeering, they'll have to either go through with lawsuits or stop suing. I don't see the latter happening.

Re:"falsely accused"?

[Aphoxema]

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.

Re:"falsely accused"?

[mcgrew]

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.

Re:"falsely accused"?

[Marful]

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.

Re:Litigating.

[roc97007]

This is the readability police. Step AWAY from the thesaurus.

Re:"falsely accused"?

[Nefarious Wheel]

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.