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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.
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 :)
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.
If you have something that you dont want anyone to know, maybe you shouldnt be doing it in the first place -Eric Schmidt
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.
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?
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.
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.
Would the FBI then say "All your base are belong to U.S.?"
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.
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.
I'm no legal expert but ...
Don't worry. Neither are the RIAA's lawyers.
Ray Beckerman +5 Insightful
1) Introduce entire copyrighted catalog of RIAA as material evidence
2) Request public records of proceedings
3) ????
4) Profit!
sheer elegance in its simplicity!
under construction
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.
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?