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Court Appoints Pro Bono Counsel For RIAA Defendant
NewYorkCountryLawyer writes "In what could be a turning point in the RIAA's litigation campaign, a Michigan judge has decided to appoint pro bono counsel to represent college student Brittany Kruger, who is being sued by the RIAA in SONY BMG Music Entertainment v. Kruger. As this article points out, 'if other judges follow suit, things will change dramatically.' That is because the RIAA's entire litigation campaign is based upon economic inequality of the litigants: almost none of those sued by the RIAA can afford legal representation, and the RIAA has a huge economic incentive to fight cases to the death, while the defendants have no economic incentive greater than the 'settlement' amount, which they often pay even when entirely innocent. If the courts follow the lead of District Judge Timothy P. Greeley [PDF], and appoint pro bono legal counsel, the RIAA will no longer be able to achieve the easy pickings default judgments and 'settlements' it's routinely obtained in the past."
This assumes the appointed pro-bono counsel is competent and interested in the welfare of his/her client, which may or may not be the case.
ELOI, ELOI, LAMA SABACHTHANI!?
I know I shouldn't feel this way, but I just don't care any more. The RIAA has worn me out. I hate all music now. I never want to buy any of their crap again.
I'll just eat the magical fruit and toot myself to death.
When you buy music, make sure to check http://riaaradar.com/ to see if the album is from a company that funds the RIAA. If they do, don't buy it and stick it to them a couple dollars of lost earnings at a time.
its great news, but doesn't fix the problem.
I guess now all the RIAA will do is shift their efforts to people that earn too much to get Pro Bono, but still dont earn enough to be able to defend themselves against being hounded with litigation. In fact this is probably most of us.
What if we created a union of RIAA suit defendants? So we'd all pre-emptively buy in to a reasonable number - say enough money to go to court against RIAA if they sued 5% of everyone in the union. So say there's 1000 members, they'd contribute enough to the pool so that if 50 of the members get sued, they should have enough resources to go to court. Every time a case is lost against the RIAA the defendant will have to reimburse the pool.
I think this would level the playing field too. The idea is that everyone who is sued and is in this union is able to defend, instead of succumbing to debt. And the pool is only losing money proportional to how much the RIAA is losing. And if the RIAA legitimately have a case, the pool doesn't get diminished.
Isn't that happening with pro bono counsel every day?
"Additionally, because criminal behavior on the part of the Plaintiffs may have occurred, I require assistance for qualified counsel appointed by the Courts."
"I has already filed 'in forma pauperis" documentation with the court."
Well played.
Pro bono for the defense. Sonny Bono for the plaintiff.
Anybody want a peanut?
U2 is overrated.
Utilizing the synergization of benchmark e-solutions to pre-workaround action items!
magical fruit tooting is copyright material under the protection of the recording industry association of america. unless you cease and desist infringing via magical fruit toots we will be forced to bring you to litigation
sincerely,
Magical Fruit and the Toots, Inc.
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
Had a parse issue at first glance and suddenly found myself wondering what a "Pro Bono" (like the U2 frontman) and if there were amateurs out there ;)
Just speaking of the US now, it is rare, but it *is* possible and has happened for private parties to bring a RICO suit against another entity, a corporation or group say. A large enough pool of people (in this case, legitimate music consumers) could self fund such a suit, perhaps also working with some sympathetic team of lawyers/paralegals/law students to help keep costs down. In other words, this basic idea of a music/movie lovers union is sound, just don't wait to get sued, go on the offensive and sue them.
Why this hasn't happened yet against the music and movie industries is a puzzler to me, price fixing, payola, "hollywood acounting" like what was brought up in the Tolkien article, etc, various other scumbag industry practices like suing people who don't even own computers, fishing expeditions, coercive threats against poor people and students, yadayadayada, but it would be possible. Here is the wiki ref, you can see what I am talking about in the fine print there RICO
Perhaps NYCL or other lawyers here might chime in on this idea. The best defense is a good offense, as they say....
I was wondering if U2 went bankrupt if Bono needs a to have his lawyer appointed by the court.
She said she'll take the case pro boner.
In my area, I have yet to see a pro bono lawyer or public defender put up a good case. I hope Brittany wins this one, but am not encouraged.
...to, you know, "haunt" the RIAA a bit?
Or is Freddy friends with other demons from "deeeep down under"? ^^
Any sufficiently advanced intelligence is indistinguishable from stupidity.
Reality bites. We're all required to obey the law. Most religions requires that their practitioners lead a moral life in accordance to respective teachings. But guess what, people still commit crimes, breach the teachings of respective religious belief and commit "sinful" acts. Thus expecting all lawyers to obey rules of ethics is at best a flight of fancy. We would not be enduring this much bullock from MP/RIAA if their lawyers "lead a moral life."
Offtopic, but Dottians should make a list of those who AAL so that famous acronym can DIAF.
Really, is that so tough?
1. Review poster handle
2. Review Resident Counsel List
3. Profit!
My first Journal Entry ever, in 8 years! http://slashdot.org/journal/365947/aphelion-scifi-fantasy-horror-poetry-webzine
Have I got a case for you! :-)
You may be pro Bono and that is your choice. I, however, think he is a meddlesome turd.
I hate the greedy RIAA, it is about time someone turned the tables on them. They go after people who can barely pay the settlement nevertheless for counsel. If this starts happening around the country, the RIAA will have no easy targets and greater lose the power of fear.
Just because you are wrong and I called you out on it doesn't mean I am a Troll.
Because EVERYONE is innocent, aren't they? I mean, just because their wired internet connection was used to download copyrighted materials, they have these materials on their personal computer, and the same computer was then used to upload said materials to thousands of other people, they couldn't possibly be guilty of anything. It must have been somebody else who broke into their house and used their computer to download music.
I'm curious as to what's going to happen when you keep claiming "it MUST have been SOMEBODY ELSE! (tm)", the RIAA/MPAA keep suing, and soon you run out of "somebody else"'s to blame.
The RIAA's campaign of litigation terrorism is exactly why. Also, the RIAA should be entitled to actual damages only. In other words, they should be required to prove up exactly how many sales were lost to file sharing.
I am talking about a different Bono - U2 is the clue
"their", not "there"
I've wondered why someone hasn't baited the RIAA into a faulty lawsuit with a hard drive loaded with non-membership music. One of the provisions rejected was that the RIAA didn't have to qualify which recordings belonged to their membership before filing a lawsuit - expecting Congress to agree that all mp3's were illegal. If you look at the cases, out of tens of thousands of recordings found on the hard drives, only a handful of songs are included in the lawsuits - eventually. The initial charges are filed before they discover which songs to sue for. Baiting the RIAA with songs they don't represent would waste a lot of their resources. As it is, NONE of the money collected from all the settlements reimburse musicians. The RIAA also collects money for independent musicians if a song goes commercial - TV show, movie or ad. They don't reimburse them either. All recordable media - DVD and CD's included are taxed to defray the lost income from copyright infringement and yet individual artists never recover that either. Plain and simple, the RIAA and MPA are TRADE ORGANIZATIONS with corporations for membership. They have created NO content and don't represent or reimburse individuals. I'd like to see them being called on this bluff.
I don't follow, where's the ???
Security is mostly a superstition... Avoiding danger is no safer in the long run than outright exposure. - Helen Keller