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RIAA Lied To Congress About New Filesharing Suits

Posted by timothy on from the honestly-they're-all-at-the-cleaners dept.

NewYorkCountryLawyer writes "On December 23, 2008, the RIAA's Mitch Bainwol sent a letter to the Judiciary and Commerce Committees of both the House and Senate, falsely representing to them that the RIAA 'discontinued initiating new lawsuits in August.' A copy of the letter is online (PDF). In fact, as many of you already know, the RIAA brought hundreds of new lawsuits since August. See, e.g., these 40 or so cases which just represent some of the cases brought in December." Maybe they're just taking a broad view of the world "initiate."

8 of 204 comments (clear)

  1. Is lying to Congress illegal? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Is lying to Congress illegal? Is it considered perjury?

    1. Re:Is lying to Congress illegal? by OutSourcingIsTreason · · Score: 3, Interesting

      And if you're a president lying to Congress about Saddam Hussein trying to buy yellow cake uranium in Niger, and thereby causing thousands of deaths, it's legal?

      --
      "Fascism should more properly be called corporatism because it is the merger of state and corporate power." -- Mussolini
  2. Promissory estoppel? by Andy_R · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Does this make promissory estoppel a defence in these new cases? (I didn't know what it was either until it was mentioned on /. a while back, basically it's legalese for 'hey no fair, they said they wouldn't sue if I did it'.)

    --
    A pizza of radius z and thickness a has a volume of pi z z a
  3. I say we take up arms... by macraig · · Score: 3, Interesting

    ... and use good old-fashioned violence. The effectiveness of physical violence in achieving goals is much underrated these days. I seem to recall the American Revolution involved a bit of violence, didn't it, and we trumpet the success and worthiness of that violence in every classroom in the country, right? A second revolution in these not-so-entirely-United States seems a bit overdue. We have more than a few barons and overlords and Captains of Industry just begging to be introduced to a guillotine. I think the folks in Texas would readily understand this notion that some people just need killin' (http://bennettandbennett.com/blog/2007/11/texas-murder-sentences-probation-to.html).

    What sort of revolutionary vigilante violence might we visit upon the RIAA's clients and its sympathizers in Congress?

    1. Re:I say we take up arms... by commodore64_love · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Shoot the RIAA CEO in the head. I promise you his replacement will be afraid and discontinue the extortionate letters to citizens.

      --
      "I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - historian Evelyn Beatrice Hall
  4. Re:Steal this song by troll8901 · · Score: 2, Interesting

    One day, far in the future, we'll look back at the past (c. 2050), and shake our heads, and wonder why greed and other sins were so prevalent.

  5. Re:Somehow I doubt by johanw · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Dumping their dollars (and losing their value in the process) is still far cheaper for them than to start a conventional war. And what other are those dollard good for otherwise? It's not that they have any realistic chance of ever spending most of them for real products or services.

  6. Re:And this is news??? by Ihmhi · · Score: 2, Interesting

    My inner geek wonders if there's a way to have several desktops of the same landscape with different weather and have it change based on the real weather pulled from AccuWeather.

    --
    Random Thoughts From A Diseased Mind (Not For Dummies)