RIAA Sues Woman, and She Sues Back
This could be the start of some real momentum against the coercive and (arguably) extortionary RIAA lawsuits. A mother in Oregon, Tanya Anderson, fits in between the 13,000th and 14,000th lawsuit victim, with the notable distinguishing fact that she has counter-sued the RIAA for fraud, invasion of privacy, abuse of process, electronic trespass, violation of the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, negligent misrepresentation, and deceptive business practices.
The list of assertions is extensive (and extensively repetitious, which I suppose is the lawyer’s way of covering every point from evey angle. A few excerpts follow. (By the way, the assertions mention MediaSentry, allegedly a software tool used by the RIAA to spy on Anderson’s computer, no fewer than 11 times. That’s either great or damning publicity.)
11. Settlement Support Center also falsely claimed that Ms. Andersen had “been viewed” by MediaSentry downloading “gangster rap” music at 4:24 a.m. Settlement Support Center also falsely claimed that Ms. Andersen had used the login name “gotenkito@kazaa.com.” Ms. Andersen does not like “gangster rap,” does not recognize the name “gotenkito,” is not awake at 4:24 a.m. and has never downloaded music.
15. An employee of Settlement Support Center admitted to Ms. Andersen that he believed that she had not downloaded any music. He explained, however, that Settlement Support Center and the record companies would not quit their debt collection activities because to do so would encourage other people to defend themselves against the record companies’ claims.
18. No downloading or distribution activity was ever actually observed. None ever occurred. Regardless, the record companies actively continued their coercive and deceptive debt collection actions against her. Ms. Andersen was falsely, recklessly, shamefully, and publicly accused of illegal activities in which she was never involved.
40. The record companies knowingly represented materially false information to Ms. Andersen in an attempt to extort money from her.
63. The record companies directed its agents to unlawfully break into private computers and engage in extreme acts of unlawful coercion, extortion, fraud, and other criminal conduct.
64. The record companies and their agents stood to financially benefit from these deceptive and unlawful acts. Proceeds from these activities are used to fund the operation of the record companies’ continued public threat campaigns.
65. These unlawful activities were not isolated. The record companies have repeated these unlawful and deceptive actions with many other victims throughout the United States.
Z said,
October 3, 2005 at 1:49 pm
Go you powerful woman you, fuck em up.
No seriously, good on her, i hope she wins.
Whole system needs a wake up shock, this randomly sueing of small people to scare public is unrealistc and unfair and yeh probably illegal.
That is all.
jackingoffkills said,
October 5, 2005 at 3:43 am
fuck the RIAA. 1 they will never stop “piracy” its fucking impossible, 2 they are some retarded fucks, they have no idea that piracy in general boosts sales, think about it, how many peolpe out there go through the trouble of finding every song from a CD on the net, your typical fucking teenager/middle aged housewife hears a song on the radio on or their favorite fucking show, then they go and search for it, half the time not even knowing who the fuck sings it, so WHEN they do find it, AND the name of the band responsible for it, its liek an automatic future sale for that band, the fuckers will go to the mall or walmart later on, and when they see the band responsible for “their” song, they buy the fucking cd. 3 how can you sue a single individual yet allow big companies and former pirator’s to make money off of mp3 sales? it sounds pretty fucked up, napster used to be like kazaa, it was as i recall the first decent p2p it made it big off of illegal downloads, NOW its a fucking company making millions, oh and who invented the mp3 format? shouldnt he/she be given royalties for every song an artist converts to mp3, in order to sale online?
blueheadbob said,
October 17, 2005 at 12:08 pm
Too bad we can’t organize a class action lawsuit on the same grounds.
The RIAA are some shit-eating pricks all right.