Class-Action Suit Claims Copyright Enforcement Company Made Harassing Robo-calls

An anonymous reader writes Morgan Pietz, one of the lawyers who took on Prenda Law, has a new target in his sights: copyright enforcement company Rightscorp. In a class action suit (PDF) Pietz claims the company made illegal, harassing robo-calls to people who were accused of illegal downloading and by doing so Rightscorp broke the Telephone Consumer Protection Act, which limits how automated calling devices can be used. "They robo-called Jeanie Reif's cell phone darn near every day for a couple of months," Pietz said. "And there could be thousands of members of this class."

Comments

If the FCC actually did its job

[Rigel47]

and weren't a complete waste of taxpayer money these robo calls would never happen. I have for YEARS been getting the same pre-recorded message call to my cell phone promising me to lower my credit card payment. Searching the internet shows hundreds of folks complaining about the same -- down to the very spoofed caller ID number. I've filed numerous complaints online at the FTC and yet fuck all happens.

Citation

[ProzacPatient]

Very rarely do news articles saying "X is against the law" ever actually cite the law in question. The applicable law in this case, if I understand correctly, is 47 U.S.C. 227.

Re:Citation

[Bengie]

Based on another site, the issue seems to be that this company is claiming to be able to call under the pretenses that they are a debt collector trying to collect the "debt" of paying for infringements or face a lawsuit. The problem seems to be that because this is a civil issue, there cannot be a "Debt" until they win a lawsuit. They put the carriage before the horse. They can sue, then attempt to collect debt, but not the other way around. Because there is no official debt, they are not allowed to robo call.