Class Action Complaint Against RIAA Now Online 176
NewYorkCountryLawyer writes "Recommended reading for all interested in the RIAA's litigation war against p2p file sharing is the amended class action complaint just filed in Oregon in Andersen v. Atlantic. This landmark 109-page document (pdf) tells both the general story of the RIAA's campaign against ordinary folks, and the specific story of its harassment of Tanya Andersen, and even of her young daughter. The complaint includes federal and state RICO claims, as well as other legal theories, and alleges that "The world's four major recording studios had devised an illegal enterprise intent on maintaining their virtually complete monopoly over the distribution of recorded music." The point has been made by one commentator that the RIAA won't be able to weasel its out of this one by simply withdrawing it; this one, they will have to answer for. If the relief requested in the complaint is granted, the RIAA's entire campaign will be shut down for good."
Re:Simple Solution (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:This could backfire (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:unprofessional (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:This could backfire (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:This could backfire (Score:5, Insightful)
Are their new laws making it a criminal offense to even think about IP violations? Do we have federal IP cops going door to door to inspect everyone's computer that has internet access? Do we have them stopping people on the street to look at MP3 players? Do we have mandatory 'restricted access clients' installed on our PCs that have a internet connection to monitor our traffic PRE-encrypted and our files?
Yes, it CAN get worse. ( and will if we don't get this thing derailed in time )
Re:This could backfire (Score:4, Insightful)
No..., If they win.. everything will as it is right now... It can not get worse than this.
As a general rule that is almost infallible, there is nothing on God's Green Earth that "can't get worse." Maybe the sun exploding and wiping out the planet....that might qualify. Anything short of that, though.....Re:Simple Solution (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:This could backfire (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:This could backfire (Score:5, Insightful)
You're making the assumption that the RIAA's attorneys care about that. I think it's been demonstrated that their activities center around scaring people away from acquiring music illegally via the Internet, rather than recovering "damages" due to copyright infringement. Suing innocent people just makes the RIAA's lawsuit mill appear even more intimidating.
Re:Easy, simple, and wrong. (Score:-1, Insightful)
Comments (Score:3, Insightful)
It may be difficult to enforce judgment against the "Big 4" directly. If I understand it correctly, the RIAA operates as a separate entity from them, and unless it is shown that the corporate veil can be pierced [wikipedia.org]. This is typically difficult, though I imagine there is a smoking gun somewhere in the RIAA-Big 4 correspondence that shows that the RIAA is a front.
Class actions are much more difficult to get a judgment on than regular actions. In general (and in essence), for a Judge to feel comfortable ruling on the class, they must be convinced that the issues particular to individuals in the class are not more difficult to figure out than that of the issues in common. The standard typically ranges from "a class action is the best way to resolve the common issues" to "a class action is the best way to resolve the dispute". The latter is significantly more difficult to prove - the Court must be satisfied that the issues specific to each individual do not outweigh the overall issues the members of the putative class have in common (and there is no way cheaper-than-individual-litigation to resolve these individual issues). That's a mouthful, but class actions inherently balance the rights of many people who do not have legal counsel against a defendant with a substantial interest.
The court will also want a very clear and well defined class of people. Because the judgment of the court may preclude people from bringing future actions against the RIAA, there is typically a requirement of notice to the members of the class. This notice typically includes instructions on how to opt out of the class proceeding so that you can bring your own action (for mandatory opt-in jurisdictions; some are optional opt-out). If you fail to opt out within a specified time period, you may be bound to the judgment. In this case, the class is pretty trivial - people who have been wrongly sued.
That leads to an interesting point: Will the members of the class are people who have been wrongly sued, or those who have been wrongly sued and where the RIAA has already lost.
This action is a minefield for nuanced issues, like the above and others. I wish counsel the best. You can rest assured that if the Big 4 defendants perceive any exposure, they are dumping their excess resources into a legal defence.
Re:This could backfire (Score:4, Insightful)
But I would assume that there's a difference between "can get worse" and "likely will get worse."
You see, the fact that this case is now going forward IS progress. it's taken this long just to get the courts to notice that these evil rat bastards have been exploiting every loophole to keep their campaign going.
They have been using delay tactics for a very long time, trying to make it so inconvenient to continue the fight that we give up. It's nice to see that that is not going to work.
And you can say that if they win, it's over and we lose, but that's not true. This case will likely force people to take notice, and it's very likely that even if the RIAA were to win, they would likely be shut up and shut down by people higher than them, without any laws being passed and without any real paperwork trail.
Re:This could backfire (Score:3, Insightful)
Firstly, the RIAA must be bitch-slapped. Hard. We need to show them what we do to groups who abuse the court system. No matter how much cause they have to be angry, we need to show them tough justice.
Secondly, all those pirates must also be bitch-slapped. Their contribution to this mess must not go unnoticed and unpunished. We need to make copyright infringement a criminal matter, and institute heavy penalties. They need to know that leaching off other people's work is not acceptable, no matter how much they hate their victims. It's simply not good enough that enforcement is left to a group of corporations like the RIAA. We've seen the consequences of this already.
Thirdly, copyright law must be fixed. There should be different penalties for sharing amongst friends and sharing amongst strangers, there should be significantly shorter copyright terms, and we should redact anti-circumvention clauses in the DMCA.
Re:This could backfire (Score:3, Insightful)
Keep also in mind that the RIAA is not in charge here: they're a front organization for several large media companies. Those assholes couldn't care less about damages