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The 83-Year-Old Dead File Swapper 446

Posted by CowboyNeal from the posthumous-distribution dept.
93,000 writes "Gertrude Walton, a deceased eighty-three-year-old woman, was named as the only defendant in a federal lawsuit filed by a group of record companies. They claimed Walton made more than 700 pop, rock and rap songs available for free on the Internet under the screen name 'smittenedkitten.' Needless to say, the suit has since been dropped."
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The 83-Year-Old Dead File Swapper More

The 83-Year-Old Dead File Swapper

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  • From TFA (Score:5, Funny)

    by k4_pacific ( 736911 ) <`moc.oohay' `ta' `cificap_4k'> on Friday February 04, 2005 @03:50PM (#11575370) Homepage Journal
    "Walton could not be reached for comment."

  • They dropped the case? (Score:5, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday February 04, 2005 @03:50PM (#11575372)
    Man, the RIAA is getting soft.

  • Well that's (Score:5, Funny)

    by CodeHog ( 666724 ) <{moc.liamg} {ta} {rekcals.eoj}> on Friday February 04, 2005 @03:50PM (#11575376) Homepage
    one way to keep from getting sued for swapping mp3s.

  • Gertrude Walton has been up to a lot of things (Score:5, Funny)

    by bigtallmofo ( 695287 ) on Friday February 04, 2005 @03:50PM (#11575379)
    She's also reported to have voted in the last presidential election in OH.

  • Let that be a lesson to you, (Score:5, Funny)

    by scrame ( 767779 ) on Friday February 04, 2005 @03:50PM (#11575384) Homepage Journal
    file trading kills.

  • Cause of death? (Score:3, Funny)

    by Bongoots ( 795869 ) * on Friday February 04, 2005 @03:50PM (#11575387)
    Does anyone know what the officially recorded cause of death was?

  • let it go to court! (Score:5, Interesting)

    by grub ( 11606 ) <slashdot@grub.net> on Friday February 04, 2005 @03:50PM (#11575388) Homepage Journal

    From the article: Chianumba said she faxed a copy of her mother's death certificate to record company officials several days before the lawsuit was filed. She said she did that in response to a letter from the company regarding the upcoming legal filing.

    She should have let the whole thing go to court. It would make the RIAA look far sillier when a computer illiterate dead woman's name is cleared in front of a judge rather than before hand.

    • Re:let it go to court! (Score:2, Insightful)

      by dAzED1 ( 33635 )
      yeah, because when my mom dies, the very most important thing for me at that point will be to make the RIAA look silly. I'll want to actually show up in court with the bother and hassle that involves, show the judge the document, and get my kicks out of my mom's death. Yeah. That's what I'd do.[/sarcasm]

    • Re:let it go to court! (Score:5, Insightful)

      by renehollan ( 138013 ) <rhollan@@@clearwire...net> on Friday February 04, 2005 @04:04PM (#11575573) Homepage Journal
      She should have let the whole thing go to court. It would make the RIAA look far sillier when a computer illiterate dead woman's name is cleared in front of a judge rather than before hand.

      IANAL (Surprise, surprise, surprise!), but I'd think the judge would be rather upset if one of the parties could have taken simple, reasonable, steps, that would have a good chance of the suit being dropped before hogging the court's time. Faxing a death certificate looks like a simple, reasonable, step. (Personally, I'dve sent a notarized copy by registered mail as well).

      Armed with that evidence, the defense would probably have a good chance at having the case dropped with prejudice by a pissed off judge if the plaintiff decided to pursue it anyway.

      • Re:let it go to court! (Score:3, Informative)

        by sfjoe ( 470510 )
        Faxing a death certificate looks like a simple, reasonable, step.

        Although corporations own nearly every facet of American life, we are still free to ignore correspondence from them. Subpeonas are still necessary to compel a response.

      • It wouldn't have been thrown out (Score:5, Informative)

        by donutello ( 88309 ) on Friday February 04, 2005 @04:32PM (#11575860) Homepage
        This was a civil, not a criminal case. In the event that the RIAA had won the case, any judgement would have been awarded against the defendants estate. You don't need to be alive to be sued in civil court.

        The RIAA didn't need to drop the case just because the defendant was dead.

        However, this was mostly a PR case. The lawsuite was not filed with the purpose of recovering damages. The real reason they filed the case was as a PR suit to make an example of the person and with the person being dead, the only PR results would have been to make them look like bigger scum than they already do. That's why they withdrew the case.
        • ALL of the RIAA's lawsuits are PR cases. What, you think they need the money? It's all a bogus dog and pony show designed to impose guilt and fear on those who enjoy music and aren't slaves to the RIAA's (exploitative) distribution channels.

  • Wow, just wow... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by MattyCobb ( 695086 ) on Friday February 04, 2005 @03:50PM (#11575389)
    Shouldn't they be held liable (for more than just court fees) for wasting our justice system's already limited time with junk like this? After all, this isn't the first time something like this has happened :/

    • Frivolous lawsuits are destroying America! (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Thud457 ( 234763 ) on Friday February 04, 2005 @03:57PM (#11575482) Homepage Journal
      Oh, wait this was a corp suing a citizen, not the other way around.

      carry on...

  • I wonder... (Score:3, Interesting)

    by |>>? ( 157144 ) on Friday February 04, 2005 @03:52PM (#11575402) Homepage
    if there is now a way that this can be used to stop these kinds of lawsuits althogether, in that it shows that the whole concept of going after file swappers in this way is bogus.

    • if there is now a way that this can be used to stop these kinds of lawsuits althogether, in that it shows that the whole concept of going after file swappers in this way is bogus.

      It doesn't invalidate the concept of going after file swappers. It does demonstrate that the *AA's don't actually have a clue of how to do it or that it's not very practical.

      However, once they demonstrate they're completely incapable of doing it themselves, they'll buy a law that says since they couldn't it's now up to law enfo

  • Just proves.... (Score:3, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday February 04, 2005 @03:52PM (#11575403)
    that file swapping is a grave matter.

  • What's more disturbing? (Score:4, Funny)

    by HarveyBirdman ( 627248 ) on Friday February 04, 2005 @03:52PM (#11575408) Journal
    That they are trying to sue a dead person, or an 83 year old woman called herself "smittenedkitten"?

    *shudder* The horror... the horror...

    I guess she was "smittened" with something terminal.

    Ha hee heh hee... computers... terminal... I crack me up. :-)

    • Re:What's more disturbing? (Score:5, Funny)

      by Tackhead ( 54550 ) on Friday February 04, 2005 @04:04PM (#11575569)
      > That they are trying to sue a dead person, or an 83 year old woman called herself "smittenedkitten"?
      >*shudder* The horror... the horror...
      >I guess she was "smittened" with something terminal.
      >Ha hee heh hee... computers... terminal... I crack me up. :-)

      "Every time you share an MP3, [RIAA chairman] Mitch Bainwol kills a kitten. Please, think of the kittens."

      (You want disturbing? I almost typed "Hilary Rosen". My head asplode, my Fark account surrenders, and after a Hilary Rosen dead kitten joke, you really don't want to think about what your dog wants.)

    • Her screen name could have been "necrokitten"...

      *ducks*

  • the "it wasn't me" defense (Score:5, Insightful)

    by BaldGhoti ( 265981 ) on Friday February 04, 2005 @03:52PM (#11575413) Homepage
    Since she (obviously) didn't offer those files for download, and since this isn't the first such case of mistaken identity in these matters, doesn't this negatively affect the RIAA's potential success in future lawsuits?

    Of course, I don't think anyone's been convicted of anything yet--people have only settled out of court, right?

    • Re:the "it wasn't me" defense (Score:4, Informative)

      by ari_j ( 90255 ) on Friday February 04, 2005 @03:58PM (#11575504)
      I don't think anyone's been convicted of anything yet--people have only settled out of court, right?

      You're confusing civil and criminal law. This was a civil case. Criminal cases have convictions and acquittals. Civil cases have judgments for either the plaintiff or defendant.

      In reality, this has done nothing to militate against the RIAA's potential success in future lawsuits. This is actually the equivalent of settling out of court, albeit very early on in the process and with no money paid by the defendant.

  • Yeah, really! (Score:3, Funny)

    by MissTuxie ( 722948 ) <laura@prado.gmail@com> on Friday February 04, 2005 @03:52PM (#11575414) Homepage Journal
    Bah, she probably just faked her death to escape freaking **AA. I know I would.

  • Tin Foil? (Score:4, Funny)

    by phaetonic ( 621542 ) * on Friday February 04, 2005 @03:52PM (#11575416)
    This proves what I've been saying for months. RIAA will kill you if you share more than 700 songs on a P2P application.
    • This proves what I've been saying for months. RIAA will kill you if you share more than 700 songs on a P2P application.

      If that is in RIAA numbers, it means that anyone actually sharing over 120 songs is a target!

  • Why "needless to say"? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by redelm ( 54142 ) on Friday February 04, 2005 @03:53PM (#11575429) Homepage
    It is perfectly possible to sue the estate of a dead person for torts they committed while alive. A bit tougher if the estate has passed probate, but there are also limitations (typ 2 yrs) on any tort claim.

    • I agree. However, I think that the plaintiff here realized from the fact that the named defendant was 83 years old and dead that she probably had not swapped enough mp3s around for the case to even have jurisdiction in anything but small claims court (most general-purpose trial courts have a minimum dollar amount which must be in controversy, and although you can inflate your numbers in the complaint, if they were way off and you knew they were off and lied about it to get into that court, you're going to

    • However (Score:3, Insightful)

      by paranode ( 671698 )
      The whole legal strategy of the RIAA is to settle out of court and that's harder to do with a dead person. They know full well taking it to trial would not be in their best interests.
  • Did anyone else read that and think that maybe she was swapping Dead [dead.net] tunes ?

  • TFA text, site getting slow. (Score:4, Informative)

    by NetNifty ( 796376 ) on Friday February 04, 2005 @03:55PM (#11575458) Homepage
    Gertrude Walton of Fayette County hated computers, her daughter said.

    That did not stop the recording industry from accusing the now deceased 83-year-old Mount Hope woman of illegally trading music over the Internet.

    More than a month after Walton was buried in Beckley, a group of record companies named her as the only defendant in a federal lawsuit. They claimed Walton made more than 700 pop, rock and rap songs available for free on the Internet under the screen name "smittenedkitten."
    - advertisement-

    On Thursday, a spokesman for the Recording Industry Association of America acknowledged that Walton was probably not the smittenedkitten it is searching for.

    "Our evidence gathering and our subsequent legal actions all were initiated weeks and even months ago," said RIAA spokesman Jonathan Lamy. "We will now, of course, obviously dismiss this case."

    Walton's daughter, Robin Chianumba, lived with her mother for the last 17 years of her life and said her mother objected to having a computer in the house. Chianumba said she didn't know anything about the record company's claims. And she said she does not know anything about the screen name.

    "My mother was computer illiterate. She hated a computer," Chianumba said. "My mother wouldn't know how to turn on a computer."

    The case demonstrates the imperfections of the record industry's two-year old effort to hunt down and sue people who put hundreds, even thousands, of copyrighted songs onto file-sharing networks on the Internet.

    The industry tracks down file-swappers using the Internet Protocol addresses attached to their relatively anonymous screen names.

    The IP addresses are useful because they identify computers on the Internet. But investigators cannot use the numeric codes to figure out who is using a particular computer. Often, they can only use the IP address to learn who is getting billed for the computer's Internet service.

    In more than a handful of cases, the record industry has sued a person for file-swapping, then later learned that they were really after the defendant's child or grandchild.

    Chianumba said she faxed a copy of her mother's death certificate to record company officials several days before the lawsuit was filed. She said she did that in response to a letter from the company regarding the upcoming legal filing.

    "I believe that if music companies are going to set examples they need to do it to appropriate people and not dead people," Chianumba said. "I am pretty sure she is not going to leave Greenwood Memorial Park [where she is buried] to attend the hearing. I don't know if this is a scheme to get money, I just don't know what's going on. I am concerned."
    - advertisement-

    When Walton died on Dec. 11 after a long illness, she was survived by eight children, 24 grandchildren and 23 great-grandchildren, according to her obituary.

    Could smittenedkitten be one of them? The RIAA declined to say.

    To contact staff writer Toby Coleman, use e-mail or call 348-5156.
    • On Thursday, a spokesman for the Recording Industry Association of America acknowledged that Walton was probably not the smittenedkitten it is searching for.

      Weak-minded fool!

  • smittenedkitten (Score:5, Funny)

    by clem ( 5683 ) on Friday February 04, 2005 @03:55PM (#11575459) Homepage
    Bet this new information has left certain folks out there feeling a little queasy after having taken up smittenedkitten's requests to cyber.
    sirL@nc3@lot> Ok, got the knitting needles. What do u want me to do now?

  • Smittenedkitten is dead?!? (Score:5, Funny)

    by winkydink ( 650484 ) * <sv.dude@gmail.com> on Friday February 04, 2005 @03:56PM (#11575468) Homepage Journal
    WTF? She told me she was 18, blonde, slender and hot!

  • Good for Gertrude (Score:4, Interesting)

    by seniorcoder ( 586717 ) on Friday February 04, 2005 @03:57PM (#11575477)
    I personally lament Gertrude's passing away. What a great memorial. Just prior to death, put a file server away in a hidden closet in a house with many years of ISP paid for in advance. Serve up those files with no possible recourse from RIAA and other leeches. Maybe a foundation could be started such that the file repository is transferred from near-death person to near-death person. As the slow wheels of the RIAA start legal proceedings, the person becomes beyond even their reach. Not so much the "make a wish" foundation as the "make a statement" foundation.
    • Better yet- put it in a concrete box- completely sealed except for power & ADSL connection....

    • Re:Good for Gertrude (Score:3, Insightful)

      by ari_j ( 90255 )
      Bad bad bad bad bad idea. This civil lawsuit was dropped by the RIAA of their own free will, and could have proceeded against the estate of the deceased regardless of her livelihood. They dropped it as a PR matter and because an 83-year-old obviously almost certainly didn't share 700 mp3s on the Internet. Had they wanted to and had they the proof to do it, the RIAA could have pursued the matter against old Gerdy's estate. What you are suggesting would make your heirs one very poor lot of people.

  • Shocking. (Score:5, Insightful)

    by InvalidError ( 771317 ) on Friday February 04, 2005 @03:57PM (#11575478)
    The RIAA/MPAA/etc. have been making fortunes off dead people's backs for decades, it would be a logical next step to eventually extend this to dead customers.
  • Just because some old lady died they're not going to sue her anymore?

    This needs legislation!

    Just because you die doesn't mean that you shouldn't be sued!
  • ...probably caused brain tumors and killed her.
  • say it ain't so!

    John-boy, wipe that grin off'n yer face!

  • The RIAA's legal counsel (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Infonaut ( 96956 ) <infonaut@gmail.com> on Friday February 04, 2005 @04:04PM (#11575571) Homepage Journal
    I'm not sure if Jenner & Block [jenner.com] is the only firm the RIAA uses, but they are already drawing increasing flak from some people in the ALA (American Library Association) for potential conflicts of interest, as the ALA uses Jenner & Block as well.

    One wonders how a big, powerful law firm staffed with smart people could have made such an enormous blunder, if in fact Jenner & Block was the firm doing the work on this.

    I'd be interested to find out how many lawyers the RIAA employs and/or keeps on retainer.

    • They exist for only ONE purpose. To keep the RIAA around.

      Long dead musicians or fools who signed their rights away are the RIAA's stoc in thare.

      Anything 'new' is hyped, churned, produced in such a way as to bankrupt he musician (see/hear Wall*Mart,) and put into the remainder bin.

      That's why you have Golden Oldies stations.

      It ain't good music. Its merely the most profitable.

      The RIAA is to music what a Mortician is to a beauty parlor.

  • Man, smittenedkitten is dead? Where the hell am I going to get that Benny Goodman and Frank Sinatra now? I am so bummed. Damn mortality anyway.

  • More than a month after Walton was buried in Beckley, a group of record companies named her as the only defendant in a federal lawsuit.

    When Walton died on Dec. 11 after a long illness, she was survived by eight children, 24 grandchildren and 23 great-grandchildren, according to her obituary.

    If the RIAA had done a little more research, they could have had 55 defendants instead of 1.

    Anyone who disagrees with the RIAAs tactics should boycott legal music downloads on April 1, 2005.

  • ...sorry, I just can't finish this crap joke.

  • inspiring (Score:4, Funny)

    by sacrilicious ( 316896 ) <qbgfynfu.opt@recursor.net> on Friday February 04, 2005 @07:34PM (#11578171) Homepage
    Gertrude Walton, a deceased eighty-three-year-old woman, was named as the only defendant in a federal lawsuit filed by a group of record companies. They claimed Walton made more than 700 pop, rock and rap songs available for free on the Internet under the screen name 'smittenedkitten.'

    I'm just glad Walton had the balls to demand a trial rather than knuckling under and paying the typical $3,000 settlement.

  • What’s the problem? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by nasor ( 690345 ) on Friday February 04, 2005 @08:08PM (#11578486)
    Although the article says that this woman was computer illiterate and "objected to having computers," it never actually says that there wasn't a computer in her house. It's curious that although the article spends a lot of time talking about how she didn't like/know about them, it never explicitly states that she didn't have one in the house. It also states that she had family members living with her, and that she has 24 grandchildren and 23 great-grandchildren. Odds are that one of them were using her internet account for file-sharing, so she was busted for it. The fact that they filed the suit even though they had already received a copy of the death certificate can be attributed to the ordinary bureaucratic mix-ups that happen routinely in large offices, and shouldn't surprise anyone who has ever worked for a company with more than ten employees.

    I don't see the point of this being on slashdot.

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