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')."
Give up the copyrights? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Give up the copyrights? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Give up the copyrights? (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Give up the copyrights? (Score:5, Funny)
Oh, sorry. I thought you said Crypto-Fascist. My mistake.
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Re:Give up the copyrights? (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Give up the copyrights? (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Give up the copyrights? (Score:4, Funny)
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Let's not believe something's happening just because we really really want it to.
Re:Give up the copyrights? (Score:4, Funny)
Is that the time when
Fucking sweet!
We are finally free from the tyrannical rule of the mods! All rejoice!
Re:You're kidding! (Score:5, Insightful)
The moderation system has issues - that being the human tendency to claim that any conflicting viewpoint, no matter whether it's expressed in a sane manner or not, is "trolling" or otherwise needs to be censored.
We have meta-moderation to try to help, but all that does is show that abuse exists; it comes far too late to reverse it properly.
Re:Give up the copyrights? (Score:5, Informative)
http://www.groklaw.net/comment.php?mode=display&s
Nice going "editors". Oh shit, I'm on the wrong site to be RTFAing aren't I?
Re:Give up the copyrights? (Score:5, Interesting)
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Re:Give up the copyrights? (Score:5, Interesting)
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Re:Give up the copyrights? (Score:4, Funny)
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C//
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Re:Give up the copyrights? (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Give up the copyrights? (Score:5, Insightful)
I hope it works (:
I'm beginning to think the tide is turning on the RIAA.
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If they broke the law then yes. She expects the courts to uphold the law. Besides, since they are so rich, they can afford to pay when they violate the laws they claim to follow.
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Does she seriously expect the courts to award such a devastating judgement against one of the richest IP holding organizations in the country?
If they broke the law then yes. She expects the courts to uphold the law. Besides, since they are so rich, they can afford to pay when they violate the laws they claim to follow.
Spelling correction,
you meant to say
Besides, since they are so rich, they can afford to pay when they violate the laws they write.
It's an easy enough mistake to make.
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And sweet justice, it would be.
How to avoid a jury trial/force a settlement? (Score:2)
Re:How to avoid a jury trial/force a settlement? (Score:5, Insightful)
Which is why you would never be on the jury, because you have already made up your mind about the outcome.
Re:How to avoid a jury trial/force a settlement? (Score:5, Funny)
Mmmmm, jurylicious.
Re:How to avoid a jury trial/force a settlement? (Score:5, Informative)
Actually, The Computer Fraud and Abuse Act and and RICO are both criminal, not civil. In fact, they'll be facing felony charges.
Re:How to avoid a jury trial/force a settlement? (Score:4, Insightful)
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Re:How to avoid a jury trial/force a settlement? (Score:5, Informative)
Re:How to avoid a jury trial/force a settlement? (Score:4, Informative)
1. It comes from caselaw.
2. It would mean those particular sound recordings are no longer copyrighted. It would have no bearing on the copyrights in the underlying song.
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Much appreciated.
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You have a remarkably naive notion of the jury pool, which is typically middle-aged, middle class and small-C conservative. It is the function of the judge to narrow the issues in dispute, define them for the jury - and to de-fang the advocate who plays too much to emotion.
All I know is, if I'm a juror, those copyrights are G-O-N-E.
You
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Courts are judges. Judges are either elected, or appointed by elected officials. And they LOVE smacking corporate America for the little guy. The only thing they like more is doing it for children.
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Re:Give up the copyrights? (Score:4, Informative)
I believe she's suing the individual companies.
Re:Give up the copyrights? (Score:5, Funny)
Even more importantly, do you know how to RTFA?
Re:Give up the copyrights? (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Give up the copyrights? (Score:5, Insightful)
No, she doesn't, BUT, the RIAA is an agent acting on behalf of the label. In that capacity, not only is the RIAA liable for their behavior, the label is on the hook as well. If the RIAA claims this not the case, then all legal actions brought by the RIAA for infringement are falsely represented and that places them on a completely different hook for completely different violations of the law.
Either which way they try to wiggle, this is not a happy place for them, which means it's a very happy place for the rest of us.
Re:Give up the copyrights? (Score:4, Funny)
Hope she has money (Score:4, Insightful)
What really needs to happen is to get a couple of the hawkish Attourny Generals, like NY's, involved and looking into the RIAA's actions. They, actually, have some power to do something about the RIAA's tactics.
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.
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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.
I am sure there is a lawyer who will take your money - and "take" seems the appropriate word here. Judges - appellate judges - do not throw around words like "organized crime" as carelessly as the geek.
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I'll never forget sitting in on a civil case where the impassioned wide-eyed rookie lawyer got up from behind his desk and starting waving his hands in the air like it was Law and Order, asking a question angrily. The bailiff put his hand on his pistol and the judge told him to sit the hell down.
The really good lawyers a
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Re:Hope she has money (Score:4, Funny)
I hope you don't bill $250/hour for your arithmetic time.
Re:Hope she has money (Score:5, Informative)
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I'll take it as a general rule that it is better to go into court with a rifle than a shotgun.
Malice - in the legal sense - can be damn hard to prove.
Re:Hope she has money (Score:5, Insightful)
Nope. It's better go in with a shotgun and a carton of videotape. Rifles are for D.A's, programmers, and writers. When you're wronged, you want to slap as many people as you can.
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It is often the attorney's job to tell you that what can be done is not what you want to do. The D.A. choses the rifle because he is paid to hit the target - not stroke his client's ego.
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You should RTFA.
Finally someone brings up RICO (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Finally someone brings up RICO (Score:4, Insightful)
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One of the claims is that private investigators in Oregon need licensing. MediaSentry was not licensed in Oregon, and KNEW this (or SHOULD have known, since they claimed investigative expertise). Thus EVERY MediaSentry investigation in Oregon (and other states) broke the law. Systematically. Since the investigations where illegal, the demand for compensation is extortion, and ORICO applies.
And the complaint goes on... (this is just one of the goodies).
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Rights not Copyrights (Score:5, Informative)
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It's a nice thought though.
Copyright abuse IS one of the charges. (Score:5, Informative)
Given that Count 13 IS "Misuse of Copyright Laws" and, in that count, paragraph 18.6 claims "Such actions constitute a misuse of copyrights, and lead to a forfeiture of the exclusive rights granted to defendants by these laws." I'd say the conditions you ask for are met.
"Who shall watch the watchers?" is a problem posed millennia ago. In the case of police violating the fourth and fifth amendments, the answer the courts found was: "If you cops/prosecutors break the law in collecting evidence for a case, all that evidence - and all evidence collected as a result of it - is thrown out. Keep YOUR act clean or you lose the case."
Similarly congress has said: "Copyright gives you certain exclusive rights for a (long) time. It's hard to play 'whack a mole' with all the infringers, so we're giving you draconian penalties to make an example of those you do catch, to make examples of them and scare off others. If you misuse these rights, you lose them - not just for THAT case, but FOREVER."
If the court rules "You misuse the copyrights, you lose the copyrights" it will, IMHO, be correctly interpreting the law. Setting up a situation where the RIAA and its members get judgments when they go after a real copyright violator but lose the copyright on the songs involved if they maliciously or negligently prosecute an innocent non-violator would create a DANDY incentive for the RIAA to abandon its reign of terror and do their best to be squeaky-clean on any cases they pursue.
One possibility (Score:3, Interesting)
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It can be really, really, difficult to successfully frame a lawsuit as a class action.
The RIAA want to pray very hard... (Score:2)
It would also be a major victory for piracy in general, because it would mean that if the RIAA want to call pirates criminals, the playing field would then be level...which would also make the RIAA hypocrites.
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.
Re:She's going to win, too (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:She's going to win, too (Score:4, Informative)
They already tried intimidation. Not only didn't it work, now there's a protective order. If they try that again, someone goes to jail for contempt.
Re:The RIAA don't have copyrights.. (Score:5, Informative)
Yes,the slashdot summary should have made that clear.
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Cheers,
Dave
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For all of these cases, statutory damages should be off the table. They are infact a form of extortion that represent values that are grossly inappropriate for the given accused.
Re:This woman should just leave it alone... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:This woman should just leave it alone... (Score:5, Insightful)
It is, indeed. And threatening people who can't defend themselves unless they pay $4000 sounds to me an awful lot like a moneymaking scheme.
Just because it serves the dual purpose of "deterring" copyright violation doesn't mean it isn't extortion.
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most civil disputes begin and end in an offer of settlement. extortion doesn't have the same meaning to a judge as it does to the geek.
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"Such a nice shop you've got here. Be a shame if anything were to happen to it, you know what I mean?"
And since the RIAA lawsuit's boil down to:
"Such a nice house you've got there. Be a shame if you were to lose it in, say, a lawsuit by a multinational cartel against your family. Now, how about an out of court settlement for a few thousand,
Re:This woman should just leave it alone... (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:This woman should just leave it alone... (Score:5, Insightful)
Groklaw is irrelevant. The RIAA were dead wrong in this case, and now she wants them to pay for their mistake. She has every right to do so. That's how the legal system works in the US.
Re:This woman should just leave it alone... (Score:4, Informative)
Not to put too fine a point on it, but like hell they didn't. It's pretty clear these guys see the "threaten 'em all into paying" strategy as a moneymaker and a way to set an example. Both interests are served by bankrupting average Joes and Janes.
They knew, exactly what they were doing. And IMHO they deserve to pay the price, far more than some kid who innocently downloads a song and gets taken to the cleaners for $4000 neither they nor their parents can afford.
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Re:This woman should just leave it alone... (Score:5, Insightful)
Mod Parent UP (Score:2)
Can't you can disagree with someone without trying to supress their opinion?
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Flamebait and Troll vs Insightful and Informative. (Score:5, Informative)
Now, given that someone was dragged to court, despite the evidence saying that said person was innocent of all wrongdoing, and the case was pushed, in the hope that they'd run out of money and fold..
Given also that rather than face a judgement against them that would set a precedent that they were dead in the wrong, the RIAA just drop the case, and walk away with the premise that there's no comeback at all.
The GP poster just says effectively "She got away lightly", despite having to fork out legal fees.
That is a highly inflammatory remark to make. The defendant did NOT get away lightly. She was harassed, threatened, and abused. By all measures, it is quite possible that the RIAA will be found guilty of extortion in this case (not all, by any means, but a strong possibility in this, as discovery has already uncovered a lot of illegal processes performed by the RIAA and their agents).
Modding the GP poster as a 'Troll' in this case would probably be better served by a 'Flamebait'. Whether by lack of understanding of the issues, or a deliberately crafted attempt, it serves the purpose of largely being both wrong in the detail (though there are mitigating parts, such as mentioning that not all cases are wrongly brought; the GP just doesn't follow through the logical progression and admit that this case WAS wrongly brought and prosecuted, thus bringing it into the realms of extortion. They merely say that some cases were correctly brought, thus all cases are warranted, which is NOT correct) and in the conclusion.
Now, modding up says that a post is insightful, informative, or similar. Given that the post uses spurious logic (taking a false premise, and building a logical chain of sorts on top of a false premise; in this case that given one case is valid, all cases are therefore valid) AND presents the resulting conclusion in a manner that can be deemed inflammatory (an innocent person harassed and hauled through the courts with the aim of wrongfully obtaining money is deemed to have got off lightly when charges are dropped), modding the post up as insightful OR informative is just plain wrong; it is plainly neither.
I'm all for debate; There are posts on here that I vehemently disagree with, but as they're presented with a rationale that fits facts, I concede they have a point, and have to re-think my own opinion. Sometimes the facts support many opinions. And that's ok.
However, when the opinion does not fit the facts, it is wrong (and thus can't be either informative, or insightful).
Presenting the falsehood in an offhanded, condescending fashion is, like it or not, either flamebait, or plain trolling (attempting to derail incisive discussion by presenting falsehood likely to produce a vehemently emotional response rather than an educated an well thought out one).
Re:Flamebait and Troll vs Insightful and Informati (Score:5, Informative)
Jorghis, they lost. They sued Andersen knowing their process was error-prone, and they lost on the merits. This has already been litigated.
They supposedly had an IP address, gathered by an unlicensed private investigative company. One of the problems is that they didn't know whether or not it belonged to her, and they knew of that flaw. What's more, they were presented evidence that their claims were in error, and they sued anyway.
Just because nothing was found on the computer doesnt mean she is innocent, it isnt hard to completely remove some files from a computer. Logically, their presence may prove guilt but their absence proves nothing.
It's a lot harder than you seem to think. Anyone who has ever analyzed a hard drive knows that the wiping of specific evidence can be pretty glaring.
Of course, in this case we're talking about the absence of ALL evidence. There was no evidence she had done this. None. No pattern or history of filesharing; no connection of the unique Kazaa name to her (actually, identifying the likely culprit was pretty simple with a Google search), no similarity between Andersen's obvious music taste and the files that were shared. Simply an IP address, which may or may not have been hers at the time. History indicates that the matching of IP addresses after the fact to individuals is actually a rather flawed process.
And the RIAA knew all of this, and even admitted as much. Did you read the filing?
So perhaps you still wish to condemn her because she didn't "prove" her innocence. Of course, that's not the way our justice system works. But you'd have to be pretty hard up to see her as suspect to insist that she could be guilty, regardless.
Logically, their presence may prove guilt but their absence proves nothing. As long as they found her IP address sharing copyrighted material I dont see what the problem is.
Then you haven't read the filing, and aren't familiar with this case.
If they couldnt get enough evidence on top of that to get a guilty verdict that doesnt necessarily mean that suit was motivated by malicous reasons.
Then you haven't read the filing, and aren't familiar with this case.
I mean come on, it costs WAY more than 4000 dollars to go through with a lawsuit like this, if she was innocent they would have no logical reason to pursue it.
Oh, really? How about their explicitly-stated rationale that they didn't want to encourage others to defend themselves? How about the fact that they still hoped she would settle, and they could chalk up another "win" on their record?
Do you really believe that they were sueing her just to be dicks? It makes no sense.
Partially, yes. Partially because they know their "threaten-em-all" PR campaign is a house of cards into which they're totally invested.
I have a very cynical reaction to cries of "person XYZ was sued by the RIAA and is innocent". I mean, its so easy to find people who are guilty that it just seems ridiculous that they would go after someone who has done nothing in spite of all the costs involved.
Then you haven't read the filing, and aren't familiar with this case. The RIAA's actions weren't what you seem to think they were.
All that being said, if she actually is innocent I hope she wins, but I doubt that is the case and if it is she is a very small minority among the people getting sued.
As I said above, for all intents and purposes the RIAA lost on the merits, and there's absolutely, positively no evidence Andersen did anything wrong. By contrast, there's significant evidence the RIAA knowingly pursued baseless allegations in furtherance of a PR campaign.
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Re:This woman should just leave it alone... (Score:5, Insightful)
If someone intentionally runs you down with their car are you lucky if they run away when the cops arrive? (for the metaphorically impaired: I'm equating the cops arriving with the impending summary judgments that led the MAFIAA to drop their case). Wouldn't you try to sue them for you medical bills? How is that any different from her suing them for the legal bills they caused her to incur to defend herself against their bogus charges?
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From what I understand here the RIAA didnt really want to bankrupt this woman.
No, they just picked someone who didn't have the money, and gave them a choice between losing some money, or losing more. Without really providing any evidence -- notice the part where they dropped the case right before having a summary judgment issued against them. They knew the case had no merit.
The cost of running this whole operation dramatically exceeds whatever they could make in settlements and verdicts.
Right, but
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Re:This woman should just leave it alone... (Score:5, Insightful)
First, they file John Doe lawsuits, then use the discovery privileges they attain as a result of having those lawsuits filed to gather more information. As soon as the necessary information is gathered, the drop the original lawsuit (and offer settlement or go to court for a real lawsuit etc). The important thing here is that the John Doe lawsuit is never meant to be anything other than an abuse of process to give them wider investigative powers - definitely a violation of the spirit of the law.
Secondly, you get a knock on the door with a lawsuit from a multimillion (billion?) dollar company with the lawyers to match. Whether you've done something wrong or not, the temptation will be to buy the next couple of years of your life back by forking over 2 or 3 grand - the alternative is to fight for a year or 2 in court at great risk and expense... I think we'd all accept that the US litigation system favours he with the deepest pockets - so right or wrong, you still stand a shot of losing.. they know most folks will not take the risk for a couple of grand - that makes it extortion as plain as the hairs on my arse.
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Re:This woman should just leave it alone... (Score:5, Informative)
Well...
The bad news for the record companies is that the first three items in that list can't really be disputed -- a court has already issued a finding as to their truth. Proving the final item is all that's needed to inflict ruinous damages on the RIAA and its member companies, and there's quite a lot of evidence to back that one up.
Re:This woman should just leave it alone... (Score:5, Informative)
Fraud, abuse of legal process, and malicious prosecution
Extortion, fraud, abuse of legal process, and malicious prosecution
Invasion of privacy, fraud, abuse of legal process, and malicious prosecution.
Deceptive business practice, racketeeering (Oregon and federal).
Is that illegal enough for you? One item not mentioned: They publicly declared that she was a "thief" and listed all the songs that supposedly she stolen which made her out to be racist while knowing that they did not really have any evidence against her. That would fall under libel and slander.
Re:I would have probably modded you down too... (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:donations (Score:5, Informative)
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OT - Re:Gaah, my eyes!! (Score:3, Funny)
True story:
In the early days of OCR, one of our attorneys wanted to see if he could scan a ton of his old hard copy docs into the computer and said he'd heard how wonderful scanners were. In spite of my repeated explanations of how immature the tech was (think 1.0), he insisted, so I had him send down a couple of docs for a test.
Needless to say, the resulting OCR scan was a ridiculous mess. The "old fashioned" font used for "United States District Court for the Northern District of Georgia" came out as:
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I find it interesting that not one person in IT (except for those that actually had illegal songs on the sys - they usually were admins running repos for p2p anyway) have been sued by the RIAA. I can't help but wonder if these vultures don't reseach their victim with the explicit notion of avoiding people with technical background (save the admin running a music p2p sys).
I personally don't think it's an accident, but I think it's attributable to the facts that
-all the cases are based on FastTrack, which technically sophisticated file sharers apparently haven't been using for years
--no technically sophisticated person bent on copyright infringement would be using his own computer, his own internet access account, his own wireless signal, etc.
--any technically sophisticated person engaged in 'copyright piracy' would probably be using dummies, zombies, slaves, whatever...