RIAA, Safenet Sued For Malicious Prosecution 337
DaveAtFraud writes "Tanya Anderson, the single mother from Oregon previously sued by the RIAA — which dropped the case just before losing a summary judgement — is now suing the RIAA and their hired snoop Safenet for malicious prosecution. (Safenet was formerly known as MediaSentry.) Anderson is asserting claims under the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act and the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organization Act. A reader at Groklaw has already picked up that she is seeking to have the RIAA forfeit the copyrights in question as part of the settlement (search the page for '18.6-7')."
The RIAA don't have copyrights.. (Score:1, Interesting)
Re:Give up the copyrights? (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Hope she has money (Score:5, Interesting)
I'll give $10.00 to anyone that sues the RIAA about their mafia tactics.
I am sure another 10,000 people would do the same and yes a hundred grand will go a long way in fighting organized crime like the RIAA.
Re:This woman should just leave it alone... (Score:2, Interesting)
One possibility (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Give up the copyrights? (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Give up the copyrights? (Score:5, Interesting)
She's going to win, too (Score:5, Interesting)
I just read through the filing. The RIAA is in big trouble here.
Most of the facts in the case have already been litigated, and the RIAA lost. The counterclaims arise from facts already on the record. The RIAA's actions are a matter of public record. And they did a whole range of things ranging from really dumb to possibly criminal.
First, their investigation unit, SafeNet/MediaSentry, isn't a licensed private investigator. So they don't have any of the immunities a private investigator does. Normally, law firms use licensed private investigators for their investigations, but the RIAA didn't bother. Bad move.
Second, there's a clear case for fraudulent debt collection. It's already been established in court that the RIAA's claims were false, and that they knew they were false, yet they continued collection efforts.
On the harassment front, the RIAA's representatives apparently attempted to contact a 10 year old child's elementary school under false pretenses, pretending to be a grandparent. The court had to issue a protective order prohibiting the RIAA from contacting the kid. That's going to be tough to explain to a jury.
There's more, but the RIAA is going to have a very tough time in court on this one.
C'mon, I want a poll: (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:One possibility (Score:2, Interesting)
The unnamed party (Score:1, Interesting)
Re:This woman should just leave it alone... (Score:2, Interesting)
Consider that the way that the US is set up, the President of the United States will not make money, e.g., when you only consider the salary, the office operates at a loss because it takes hundreds, if not thousands of times as much money to get elected.
The positions are all about power and influence. For as long as the music industry survives in its present configuration, having the RIAA on one's resume makes for excellent connections, and not only in the actual part of the American music industry that produces and distributes music. It's an excellent springboard to lobbying and other high-paying gigs.
Further, I'm pretty sure that the positions in the RIAA map pretty well to positions in the Federal Government: the higher-ups are already wealthy, and the grunts are the ones who actually take risks. If this woman's case makes a difference, it's not the RIAA executives who'll pay the price. It'd be the people who'd be looking for a job who would be inconvenienced.
Something tells me that the hedge that the RIAA's power and influence will win out include lucrative speaking fees for the potential winners, and book deals in case the whole thing falls apart. Kind of like the way that the loser of a professional boxing match still comes out of it with millions of dollars--unless he misbehaves and is fined and/or sued.
I think they didn't seriously consider the risk of countersuits; they almost certainly thought they'd be greeted as liberators.
Re:uw (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Give up the copyrights? (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Give up the copyrights? (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:How to avoid a jury trial/force a settlement? (Score:2, Interesting)
Evidence, please. I have actually been working on experimental measures of the impact of erroneous or irrelevant information, and no singly study I am aware of has shown general education level to factor in at any significant degree. In fact, most of those that have conclusively shown irelevant information to have an effect have been performed on undergraduate and graduate college students (say, Zillman, D., Gibson, R., Sundar, S. S., & Perkins, J. W. Jr. (1996). Effects of exemplification in news reports on the perception of social issues. Journalism and Mass Communication Quarterly, 73, 427-444).
This is not to say that eventual studies may find an effect for educational level, but on the absence of such evidence nor any adequate conceptual ground, your statement is just an expression of prejudice. In other words: what you say makes you a snob, and I don't care for what you say that you're saying.
And, BTW: I have no sympathy for trial by jury. I prefer a professional judge to deal with the inevitable subtleties, but that is because having people serve in jury duty requires society to train them each time in the specifics, not because they are mentally or emotionally inferior for lacing a degree in Law.