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RIAA Walks Away From Another "Discovery" Case
NewYorkCountryLawyer writes "You may recall that the RIAA walked away last week from one of their 'discovery' cases seeking the identities of 'John Does' who attended Rhode Island College. We have just learned that they walked away from another one, BMG Music v. Does 1-14, in Greensboro, North Carolina. 2 of the 14 John Does had settled, but the other 12 — who hung tough — will never be identified to the RIAA lawyers and will not have to pay any 'settlement.' This adds fuel to the debate over whether the RIAA has finally seen the light or is still sneaking around in the dark."
I second that statement.
I actually got a letter a little over a year ago which was one of these you are in deep s$%t for downloading music. Only issue it was addressed to "Occupant". I almost wet myself laughing. In my over exuberance I tore up the letter. I will probably regret that move for many years. It is something to be framed.
The best part is. I have never ever downloaded music from the net illegally. I still like that physical quality of a CD.
Oh Nothing happened. There was ZERO follow up on the letter by the sender.
All that retreat mumbo-jumbo at the moment is just the precursor to what will be brought against the people in 2009 and beyond. Obama has selected an RIAA supporting ass. attourney general with David Ogden and now that the industry has a seat on the presidents team and wan't to "cooperate" with ISPs they don't need these awful lawsuits anymore.
... I sense a great disturbance in the warez.
My piratey sense is tingling
I wish you would have saved it as well. It seems to be a well kept secret of how often this type of intimidation is used under the guise of 'legal threats'.
A year ago, I received a Cease and Desist letter about some domains that I owned. The level of accuracy was similar, as it was addressed to my name but a different address, apparently pulled from the phone book. The letter was threatening all sorts of off the wall things; civil charges, punitive damages, and CRIMINAL charges among others. You can read the letter here sent by
Caton Commercial
Sure, I could have played along and used the same legal system to smack down the lawyer for making such unfounded threats(it would fall under ethical rules of the bar assn), but instead I decided to post it for all to read.
In that period of time, when searching for the name of the company who sent it, the letter comes up in the top 4 results, along with a link to all the court cases the company is involved in in the local county courthouses publishing of cases. According to my logs, almost 10,000 people have read the letter since its posting.
oops...
It is even more fun now that you can vote up/down certain search result. I already voted your site up, I wonder how many votes it would take to get your site above theirs.
Any chance they could sue to get their money back? If the settlement letter they paid off is bogus (and it demonstrably is in this case since the RIAA dropped the discovery and walked away from it, which says they had no intention of following through with prosecution) it seems to me that the RIAA gained the money through something resembling fraud.
I'm not sure if it would be fraud, or extortion, or whatever - but it just seems to me that the RIAA doesn't have a legal claim on the money. "Pay us and we won't take you to court." So someone pays. But they didn't take the non-paying people to court and dropped the case. So the settlement letter is absolutely bogus. Shouldn't be too difficult a point to make in front of a judge. IANAL though, so I might be very wrong, but it seems that way.
Weaselmancer
rediculous.