RIAA Filed 62 New Cases In April Alone

NewYorkCountryLawyer writes "Based upon a quick examination of the records in PACER, I detected 62 new cases brought by the RIAA against individuals in the month of April alone. In December, 2008, the RIAA had represented to Congress that they had 'discontinued initiating new lawsuits in August [2008].'"

Comments

Surprising

[count rostov]

The RIAA, lying? Who saw that one coming?

Re:Surprising

[futureb]

Everyone hates lawyers until they need one. If you are ever served with a complaint, I would welcome you to the Guild and would look forward to your learning civil procedure in the time given to you to file your answer...if you know how much time that is.

Re:Surprising

[TheGratefulNet]

remove the NEED for lawyers, then.

you guys are not very smart, are you? you can't quite see that you created this monster and are still arguing that the monster 'needs' to continue living.

so that the monster can continue.

circular, huh?

simplify the laws, put normal 'thinking' people in charge as judges and we could NOT do a worse job than is being done now. not joking about it either, the system is just too complex and needs to be totally broken down and redone.

lawyers are slime and the fact that you 'need' them indicates a bigger social problem.

Re:Surprising

[Anonymous Coward]

Sure. Simplify the laws. Good answer.

You know what happens in any game, be it online, tabletop, sport, or whatnot? You lay down a simple rule, it will get abused. You tell people they can't do something in general, they'll argue for specifics. If anybody disagrees, without a specific rule to account for the situation, it's all bitch, bitch, bitch.

Now, that's just in terms of games. Which don't mean shit. Move that to the real world, where things matter. Someone spilled hot coffee on themselves? Well, they certainly don't want to be embarrassed, so they'll take advantage of a lack of explicit warnings on the cup and sue the restaurant! Broke into someone's house and tripped over something they left out? Technically, you're in a legal grey area regarding trespassing, and besides, there's nothing in the trespassing law saying you don't have to clean up your junk, so sue the homeowner!

People will fight that much harder to abuse any law you give them until it's spelled out in such explicit detail that they can't find loopholes in time. And thanks to these assholes abusing the "simple" laws, we need to staple more laws on top of them to shut them up when they're being assholes. And that's what's happened. Lawmakers make a law that should be simple, some asshole wants to abuse it for kicks, judges set precedents to attach more detail to laws, repeat cycle.

If you simplify the laws, you'll get nothing but an army of assholes abusing them. Either they'll get their way or they'll keep arguing you to a stalemate, and seriously, what else are they going to do with their day? You've got important things to do and they don't. They'll win. And regardless of your personal views of how reality works, you'll have that army of assholes whether the laws are "simple" or "complex" or if we "need" lawyers or not.

The laws and social norms are the only things keeping some overly creative asshole with too much time on his hands from picking you at random, finding some way to empty your life, and getting away with it scot-free. Yes, even if you think anarchy is teh bestz!!!!1!1 and we'd all be better off if we just did things your way. The legal system didn't make society into what it is. People did.

Unless it's your plan to eradicate all of humanity?

Re:Surprising

[Anonymous Coward]

I really wish people would stop abusing the McDonald's coffee case, it's basically the hallmark of people who refuse to fucking pay attention. She didn't sue because there wasn't a warning the coffee was hot, she sued because it caused 3rd degree burns in under 5 seconds, as it was kept 60F _above_ what was industry standard.

They've gone to the reverse psychology defense

[ravenspear]

Bainwol: Lying? Baseless. We merely "made available" to Congress our statement that we would stop. You have no proof that we actually had intention to do so.

Re:No *new* lawsuits

[plasmacutter]

Either way.. so long as the lawsuits they file are legitimate (ie. the person being sued actually broke the law) I, personally, have no problem with it..

Because the laws they bought are "legitimate"?

I hereby propose a law stating D_Jedi may never own a car, see his mother, or use the internet again.

Lawsuits against you will follow.

Re:The RIAA didn't really promise anything...

[NewYorkCountryLawyer]

What I don't understand is why the RIAA is conducting these lawsuits in a quasi-stealth mode.

I'm guessing it's because they promised some politicians they would stop, but they can't get over their addiction to picking on defenseless people.

Re:The RIAA didn't really promise anything...

[NewYorkCountryLawyer]

The story isn't about them continuing to bring lawsuits. That would be like the Saturday Night Live bit with Chevy Chase where he would announce that Francisco Franco is "still dead".

The story is about them lying to Congress.

They represented to the House and Senate Judiciary Committees that they had "discontinued initiating new lawsuits in August". That was a flat out, bald faced, lie.

Re:The RIAA didn't really promise anything...

[Swanktastic]

First, it doesn't say that the RIAA "stopped" doing anything. To "discontinue" does not mean to "stop," it means "to break the continuity of."

Quickly! We need to repaint all the octagonal red signs in this country to say "DISCONTINUE MOTION."

Otherwise I predict severe, permanent traffic problems.