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

"falsely accused"?

[Otter Popinski]

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?

Re:"falsely accused"?

[UnknowingFool]

There already many cases where this has occurred. Lindor, Anderson, Foster to name a few. However these people that actually persevered in court had to spend years and tens of thousands in legal fees to clear their name. Add to that the documented cases where the RIAA sued people who didn't have computers, dead people, etc. Most people I suspected just paid the fine instead going through the whole ordeal. While it may not be successful, the discovery process may unearth what we have long suspected: The RIAA does not adequately investigates someone before suing them, does not dismiss lawsuits when it appears that they may have erred, and will continue to abuse the legal system in this way.

Re:"falsely accused"?

[NewYorkCountryLawyer]

1. You obviously don't work for MediaSentry.

2. You are a consulting practice not an investigative company.

3. It is not at all obvious why you are anonymous, since your claims are self-laudatory.

In any event, of course the term 'instructions and parameters' could be interpreted in different ways. However, if you'd read the declaration of the RIAA's Bradley Buckles you'd know that in this case it has to be interpreted in the bad way, not the good way. In the innocent way, there would have been nothing to conceal. E.g. if RIAA lawyers said "we would like you go on the internet and catch people who are downloading or distributing our copyrighted song files" -- which would have been perfectly innocent "instructions and parameters" -- there would have been no need for the secrecy that Mr. Buckles was seeking to invoke. But they didn't say that, they said something like "this is how we want you to do it", which is why they needed to keep it secret.

Stating the Obvious

[whisper_jeff]

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.

Real life imitating slashdot.org

[rzei]

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 :)

Re:While yer RICO'ing...

[megamerican]

Could I suggest a RICO against the Federal Reserve?

Bloomberg tried suing the FED under the FOIA to disclose who it gave $2 trillion to. They claim they don't have to disclose under the FOIA because they technically aren't part of the government.

Fun with IP addresses

[dcavanaugh]

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.