RIAA Will Finally Face the Music In Court

Falstaff writes "Exonerated RIAA defendant Tanya Andersen is expected to refile her malicious prosecution lawsuit against the RIAA today. The refiling will mark a significant watershed in the RIAA's fight against P2P users because for the first time, the group's tactics, secret agreements, and fee splitting with MediaSentry are likely to come to light, thanks to discovery. Andersen's attorney says he'll be 'digging into agreements between the RIAA, RIAA member companies, MediaSentry, and the Settlement Support Sentry. Part of that will involve looking at compensation, like how much MediaSentry gets from each settlement. "I'd love to know what kind of bounty MediaSentry got paid to supply erroneous identities to the RIAA," Lybeck says.' The judge has barred further motions to dismiss the complaint, which means the RIAA will have to face the music. 'Unlike the thousands of lawsuits filed so far, the RIAA does not have the luxury of walking away from this case if there's a real chance of embarrassing information being released. "Once discovery happens in the cases the RIAA brings, they run," Lybeck says. "This is our case now, and they can't run."'"

If She Doesn't Settle

[j.sanchez1]

The judge has barred further motions for dismissal, so unless the RIAA decides to settle--a move Lybeck believes is in the group's best interest--the case will proceed through discovery and to trial.

Hopefully she won't settle for the carrot that the RIAA would probably dangle in front of her. She has the opportunity to bring all these lawsuits to a screeching halt.

Whale Song

[Himring]

For ages human story, communication -- the very thread of humanities' tale -- has been handed down via song. I learned in linguistics that of the few things which both separate us from other species and that we have in common is song: in common because both humans and other animals use it and separate as we add language and "tale". Odd how, in modernity, something such as music has come to this.

I suppose it is natural. If, for some reason, all humans perished today and whales evolved to become the dominant species and have song and tale and language. If they then go on to develope technology. Will they one day sue?

Settlement should not be an option

[Basilius]

It is common for judges to promote settlement in cases where the victor seems obvious in order to reduce the load on the court system.

In this particular case, pursuing it to the full extent should actually REDUCE the burden on the court system by severely restricting the RIAA's ability to file new suits.

The only way I could see a settlement working in the long run is if it's equivalent to an unconditional surrender with all sorts of guilt admissions. I just can't picture the RIAA agreeing to that, and the plaintiffs should not settle for less.

THIS is the opportunity. Do not let it slip through your fingers.

Re:What y'all cheering for?

[zzsmirkzz]

::Being Rant:: First of all, it is not stealing! It is copyright infringement. I'm damn sick of people confusing the two, they are not the same; they are not interchangeable. Stealing is clearly defined, Copyright Infringement is also defined; downloading music over the Internet is in no way stealing, period. It may, arguably, be copyright infringement, depending on the specific circumstances. ::End Rant::

Second, what does it matter if we have committed copyright infringement? We are still a member of society who has an interest in seeing the innocent not being railroaded by the Music Industry. We still have an interest in stopping the Music Industry from illegally violating our rights, hacking into our computers (Federal crime by the way, much worse than copyright infringement), and extorting people for large sums of money.

Re:If She Doesn't Settle

[AGSHender]

My girlfriend worked for Judge Brown last summer as a law student, and she had a consistently favorable opinion of her. Judge Brown is a Clinton appointee and is on the more liberal side of the bench compared to a couple of the other federal judges working in the same building.

She's fair and doesn't put up with bullshit from lawyers or defendants. If she finds in favor of the RIAA, it's going to be on the basis of the law and not because of pressure on her. At the very least, she's going to be very suspicious of their arguments and have some critical things to say about them and their tactics in open court--even if they do win in the end.

Re:If She Doesn't Settle

[RyoShin]

I agree, and the best way to do this may be societal support. I don't know Ms. Anderson, so I have no idea what qualms she has about a material settlement out of court. She may very well be willing to do this for the long haul, just to make the RIAA STFU & GTFO.

However, even if she's set on this, showing support from the outside will help her (and her lawyer, who I'm sure is hoping for a nice chunk of change) to reaffirm her will. If she's not completely set on it, outside support would help her see that this has effects reaching more than just the time the RIAA forced her to waste.

The best way I can think of to do this is a personal letter. Something short, personally signed, saying "You're fighting the good fight, tally ho!" and made via snail mail. Obviously, getting her home address might not be the best idea. Does anyone know a good way to go about this? Perhaps send mail to the law firm/individual representing her?

Re:If She Doesn't Settle

[Entropius]

So we outbid them.

Get a million people together (shouldn't be hard if all the torrent sites make note of the campaign) to chip in $1 or $10 each to make a matching offer: "We'll pay you to take this to trial."

Even if the RIAA outbids The Internets, it's still a PR coup -- "Look at what they were willing to do in order to hide stuff..."

Re:If She Doesn't Settle

[hAckz0r]

Less we forget that she can still get that $2 million+ at the conclusion of the trial? If the RIAA thinks that a mere $2 million will cut the trial short and hide their dirty laundry, then they have seriously under estimated the wrath of a woman who has been royally PISSED OFF. Knowing what they put her through I can't imagine her settling before the RIAA's bag of tricks are all spread out on the table for everyone to see. Can you just imagine what a jury would think? Thats when the real music (that they don't own) begins to play.

Re:They'll Just Change Tactics

[rijrunner]

    Except, in this case, full discovery is not going to lead to a small win. If it is determined that they have knowingly engaged in illegal activity - and there is a lot of circumstantial evidence that their investigation fits that category - then, they are in a pretty bad spot. A security company not licensed in a state can not engage in investigations in that state. That is illegal. They can not install root kits across state lines, that is illegal also. Hacking is illegal. While the RIAA can claim that they themselves did not commit these acts, it is a reasonable conclusion that they would have encountered any number of these questions in any due diligence prior to awarding security contracts. It is also reasonable that they are aware of the legal issues because of that whole Sony root-kit mess a few years back.

    And lawyers who are providing legal advice how to break laws are called co-defendants, not attorneys and they do *not* have attorney-client confidentiality in conspiracy and RICO cases where they are named as co-conspirators.

    The fear goes away if you know they have no evidence they can present in court.

    The RIAA is a trade organization. If you can crack some of their larger members away - and that is quite possible - then the RIAA loses its ability to speak for the industry. The RIAA has not paid out a single penny from any settlement it has won. Add on a lot of punitive damages and criminal charges and the RIAA can be broken quite decisively.

Re:If She Doesn't Settle

[eiapoce]

It was Clinton who gave us the DMCA. Not just Republican administrations are corporate puppets

And by a mere coincidence was the same year that his wife (Hillary) was collecting cash from the media companies for her run as Governor. http://moneyline.cq.com/pml/home.do [cq.com] http://opensecrets.org/ [opensecrets.org] Not that Barak Obama Ussein is much better. He's collecting from the same corporate tugs.

Do not count all your chickens...

[jskline]

Don't count all your chickens before they're hatched. I suspect that even if you can successfully resist temptation that will be placed in front of you to "settle", they have enough tricks of their sleeves. I for one will acknowledge that people can be bought... And; this includes people in power and the courts. Who's to say that they don't somehow manage to wrangle a venue change and get this changed to another jurisdiction and court somewhere that will be favorable to them.
They still have a lot of money and I would not put it past them to make sure their little cartel stays in good order. They have more average Americans, and even most artists to fleece!

Re:If She Doesn't Settle

[pyrr]

It wouldn't be about selling justice to the highest bidder, it would be about offering someone who was wrongly accused and maliciously prosecuted by the RIAA an incentive to take a gamble and see justice done. If all the RIAA has to do is flash some large bills and have their legal problems go away, then justice isn't served.

The proposal to raise money to encourage the plaintiff to not settle her case and let the courts decide the matter would create a nice hedge for the plaintiff just in case the RIAA makes her a better offer than what a jury might award. It's important for this case to proceed, because without taking the RIAA to task on its methods in a case that forces it to come clean on everything, it's basically a corporate sniper, shooting down one individual after another, bamboozling courts with technobabble, and in most cases the individuals don't really have the resources to take their cases to court even if they may have been wrongly accused. Ever notice how they've been picking on mostly lower-income people, students, the elderly, young families, children, single parents-- the very folks who are the least likely to have the resources to wage a court battle and are most likely to settle whether they're guilty or not?

Airing the RIAA's dirty laundry in regards to its methodology is the only way to help individuals who are being picked-off one by one. And getting together and pooling resources in order to defend the collective of internet users who may find themselves in the RIAA's crosshairs is really our best hope of having a fighting chance to defend ourselves against false, nebulous accusations that could cost any one of us thousands of dollars whether we shared anything or not. If their methods are really that sloppy and inaccurate, nobody should assume that just because you PERSONALLY didn't share, that you're immune. I don't lose sleep over my former roommate's filesharing over my network (my house, I paid the bills for everything, and shared it under the rent), but if the RIAA's methodology isn't airtight (and it obviously isn't), I want the world to know...just in case.

Re:If She Doesn't Settle

[carpe.cervisiam]

Why bother? If they have to cough up a wad of cash every time they are wrong, would that not be more effective?

No, it wouldn't. It would let them buy their way out of a judgment against them that establishes a precedent. Having a precedent cited in future lawsuits would be far more expensive for the RIAA and the MPAA even if the settlement amount in this case were vastly more than what a judge would award to the plaintiff in this particular case. Not to mention the skeletons that would be dragged out of closets during discovery.

DMCA was passed on a voice vote

[IvyKing]

My recollection was that the DMCA was passed on a voice vote, so there is no certainty that a majority of congress was even in favor of it.

Besides, a veto proof majority would have required the cooperation of a good number of Democrats in congress.