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RIAA Sues 19-Year-Old Transplant Patient
NewYorkCountryLawyer writes "Just when you think they've reached rock bottom, it seems the RIAA always finds room to sink a little lower. This time they've sued an innocent, 19-year-old transplant patient, hospitalized with pancreatitis and needing islet cell transplants. Although the young Pittsburgh lady claims that she did not infringe any copyrights, she failed to answer the complaint in time, and a default judgment was taken against her. A Pittsburgh area lawyer has stated that he will represent her pro bono and make a motion to open up the default."
If the defendant is served papers and then doesn't request an extension or delay and then doesn't show up, generally victory is granted to the present party. Unless there are extenuating circumstances like these.
Job? I don't have time to get a job! Who will sit around and bitch about being broke and unemployed then?
except that the letters for subpeana have to be witnessed that the person served actually did recieve them, e.g. in the mail isn't good enough to prove that the person they were intended for actually got them. IANAL.
ps. IORAL2.
She was found guilty in absentia. Because she was hospitalised, she was unable to respond to the subpoena. The family claims that the account upon which the downloads occurred were made by the girl's father, who lives at another address. It's all in the articles linked in the summary, but in case you missed them, they're here.
I was just in the Hospital, and one of the nice ladies in the recovery ward had just had surgery was suffering pancreatitis, and she was in quite some pain. Have you ever heard the phrase "kicked in the teeth"? This is a perfect example of that, and I can totally empathize with the victim.
Serves you right, seriously. You do realize that they probably didn't want to waste any more time on small bills, right? You do also realize that those records are public and employers that do back ground screening are going to know about them, right? Is that really worth the couple of bucks you saved by not paying?
Default judgments are mainly for people like you that don't respect the system. A trial can only work if both parties show up, and the default judgment is really the only way of ensuring that both parties do show up.
Had she bothered, in any way, to try and defend herself, to tell them how sick she was, sure, we can accuse them of sinking to new lows.
I had a case where the client suffered from severe Multiple Sclerosis, could only get around in an electric wheelchair, and suffered from severe depression. And the woman was totally innocent, had never even heard of file sharing. We begged the RIAA to drop the case. Even the judge begged them to drop the case. They refused.
I know of many other stories like that.
Ray Beckerman +5 Insightful
You do have a point to the extent that there's definitely additional emotion due to the illness. But by the same token, she would have had to have received the papers in the hospital, only an idiot would assume somebody would be proactively hospital bound to avoid a lawsuit they don't know about.
The implication is that either they didn't properly serve the papers or they knowingly served them to somebody layed up in the hospital.
Then there's the point where the RIAA has been purposefully filing suits pointed at people without the means to defend themselves and ignoring it when their own children are engaging in it. It's not like the RIAA hasn't earned the ill will.
The US court system goes out of its way to royally screw defendants, innocent or guilty.
"Slashdot, where telling the truth is overrated but lying is insightful."
Not purchasing any CDs is stupid if you also avoid buying them from non-RIAA labels. That said, there are a number of labels I like that provide non-RIAA music.
Also: I'll probably be modded down now for suggesting that you should buy music instead of pirate it.
By what name do you wish to be mourned?
For a statement to be slanderous / libelous, it must be believable.
For example, were I to say, "Nasajin is from another planet -- check his car. It runs on plutonium, not gasoline," that's obviously false.
I could also say, "Nasajin is awesome. Once he bought me a car for no reason." That's not libel since it improves your reputation.
If I were to libelously say something like, "I knew Nasajin when we were in college together. He really liked young girls. Once he had a 12-year-old in his room overnight, " then that's potentially believable, so it's libelous.
So, it has to be:
1. False
2. Believable
3. Harmful
Also, slander is spoken; libel is lines (i.e. written)
---
ECHELON is a government program to find words like bomb, jihad, plutonium, assassinate, and anarchy.
I worked for a courier company for a little while and they sometimes served people for things like this. They had to document when they tried to serve someone, but on the third attempt they could, and would leave it on their doorstep. Some of the drivers preferred this because sometimes people got really pissed when they got served in person, even though the driver knew nothing about what was going on and couldn't do anything even if they did know.
Assuming that she IS guilty, what is a fair punishment per song, or per album?
She is not guilty, she is innocent. But to answer the larger question you ask: if a person had committed the copyright infringement alleged, the appropriate damages would be from 1 to 9 times the actual damages sustained, depending on the facts of the case. In most of the cases -- typically with 6 downloaded song files -- the damages would be approximately from $2.10 to $18.90, total.
Ray Beckerman +5 Insightful
How many songs could you buy for the average settlement of downloading songs?
From 3030 to 3797 at Amazon, DRM-free.
Ray Beckerman +5 Insightful
So the bank that charged me over 250$ in overdraft fees for a 5$ overdraft from charge by a company I canceled my account with deserves my money?
How about the water company that told me to stop paying them when my apartment lease switched over to a new management company then sent me a 900$ water bill a year later?
The phone company in europe that charged me 125$ for 3 dialup porn calls at a time when i was living alone and didn't even have a modem in the computer I was using?
I think not.
I have about 4 more of these examples if you really think I should pay my "bills".
You can't take the sky from me.
Please, Ray, for the benefit of those of us playing at home who may not have your superior moral knowledge and judgment, at what point should we wash our hands of legal recourse against a person for personal issues?
Interesting sophistry, but neither you nor I can discuss the entire universe of legal rights and wrongs and remedies. It suffices to say that anyone with half a brain who's been paying attention already knows that, wherever we want to draw the line, the RIAA lawsuits against ordinary people are way over that line.
Ray Beckerman +5 Insightful
the crux of the problem is that there are still legal questions here. Now that she's in this legal fix, what is her recourse? Is there an effective legal defense that that would help her?
Thanks, Jeff. Well there is a strong public policy against default judgments, and she has a capable pro bono attorney, so it is a foregone conclusion that the default judgment will be vacated. And assuming the facts are as stated in the Pittsburgh article, she has a complete defense, and will win the case. The problem is her attorney will have to work like a slave, without compensation, to make that happen.
Ray Beckerman +5 Insightful
You are presumed innocent until proven guilty.
Until the court rules, you are merely nothing.
"It is possible to commit no errors and still lose. That is not a weakness. That is life." -Peak Performance
The judge hadn't determined her innocence. He was just asking the RIAA to drop the case because of the woman's serious medical condition.
Ray Beckerman +5 Insightful
Privileged in the legal sense means confidential.
It is also used in the sense of something being immune from suit.
Ray Beckerman +5 Insightful
The first amendment protects the free expression of ideas and opinions in a peaceable manner on PUBLIC property only.
No, that's wrong. The First Amendment simply says that "Congress shall make no law [...] abridging the freedom of speech." There is no mention of public or private property. Congress cannot pass a law restricting free speech on private property. A private property owner is not restricted by the First Amendment, but it's certainly not true that the First Amendment ceases to apply on private property.
lawyers don't even fight 'right and wrong'. those are concepts for kids. lawyers fight legal vs non-legal (in criminal) or 'can I sue you can win' in civil. its only *sometimes* about such grand concepts as Right(tm) and Wrong(tm). am I right? ;)
No you're not Right. You're Wrong.
Ray Beckerman +5 Insightful
No, you would have to be threatened to be sued and offered the settlement and actually take it to come out ahead.
A settlement means that you settled without the courts imposing judgment. Otherwise it would be a judgment. RIAA generally shows the intent to sue then offers the settlement before complaints are actually filled. Anyways, if you get sued, it could backfire and you could be out a lot more then the typical settlement which would make the 4000 songs still a loss for you.
You spread a lot of misinformation in a relatively short post.
1. They don't have to file the lawsuits.
2. The lawsuit in the post isn't about getting information, it's a lawsuit to recover damages and an injunction.
3. There is no "crime". These are civil cases.
4. Most of the judges have NOT required the RIAA to come up with "evidence".
5. Most of the judges have not required the RIAA to come up with "identifying information".
6. The court does not "decide whether or not to push for discovery".
Ray Beckerman +5 Insightful
True, but people who serve papers do that for a living. In addition, they sign statements under penalty of perjury that they performed the service of those papers as stated. How long do you think they'll be in business once it gets out they lie about service and cause the attorney and client more expense, grief and effort?
Not too long methinks. . .
Which isn't to say the process server in this case did things on the up and up, just let's not jump to conclusions without the information (oh yeah, I forgot - this is slashdot, where facts never get in the way of a good conspiracy theory).
*laugh* Happy Monday!
Ah, but it turns out that people who serve papers in person (process servers) only have to present them to an adult living at the address they are paid to serve to. The adult doesn't even need to accept them. (How do I know? Someone tried to serve me shit for a roomie, I declined to accept, the mangy asshole dropped them outside my door and filed it as having been served.)
Service by Fed-X is even easier, since they now don't actually require signatures for "home" deliveries.
So papers for someone can be served by Fed-X to their old address, without forwarding, to no one at home, and it counts as valid service. When you get notice at your new address of the default judgment (because they'll always find the right address when they have a judgment in hand), and say "what suit?", they'll smugly say "We served you, you didn't respond, pay up." You then have no recourse, you've been fucked over.
It is very easy for a corporation, like RIAA, MPAA, or any collection agency, to use the civil courts to financially fuck you so hard that you have jizz coming out of your nose for months.
IANAL, of course.
use Sig::Witty;
Well, not in this case. The RIAA approach you with a promise to end legal threats concerning the specifics in question. So it wouldn't be quite a threat or extortion. The settlement is the settling of the legal question/cllaims which they asserted as the threat or threat of intents so there is a give and take away from it directly related to the case even if it hasn't been filed.
Imagine it this way, I enter your property and because you removed the snow but didn't remove the ice, I mistake a snow removed shoveled sidewalk as safe then slip and fall injuring myself. I threaten to sue for my injuries and damages. You offer to pay my bill and compensate me for being laid up and off work. You have settled my claims without me having to file them with a court. This is the same thing except the person notifying you of the claim has taken the added step of including what it would take to stop me from going to court. Either way, the outcome effects my legal position and would settle the question if you chose to comply with my wishes.
I'll grant that it gives the appearance of extortion. In fact, I would suggest that the settlement amounts could be argued as evidence of the real and actual damages from a copyright claim making the larger statutory amounts excessive and not in line with reality.