Category Archives: RIAA Death Throes

The First In What Will Most Likely Be Numerous Cases Of Mistaken Identity – Filesharing Suspect Fights Back Against The RIAA

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Recording industry withdraws suit
Mistaken identity raises questions on legal strategy
By Chris Gaither for the Boston Globe. (Hiawatha Bray also contributed to this report.)
(Thanks, Mary.)

The recording industry has withdrawn a lawsuit against a Newbury woman because it falsely accused her of illegally sharing music — possibly the first case of mistaken identity in the battle against Internet file-traders.
Privacy advocates said the suit against Sarah Seabury Ward, a sculptor who said she has never downloaded or digitally shared a song, revealed flaws in the Recording Industry Association of America’s legal strategy. Ward was caught up in a flood of 261 lawsuits filed two weeks ago that targeted people who, through software programs like Kazaa, make copyrighted songs available for others to download over the Internet.
”When the RIAA announced they were going on this litigation crusade, we knew there was going to be someone like Sarah Ward,” said Cindy Cohn, legal director for the Electronic Frontier Foundation, an Internet privacy group in San Francisco that has advised Ward and others sued by the music industry. ”And we think were will be more.”
The lawsuit claimed that Ward had illegally shared more than 2,000 songs through Kazaa and threatened to hold her liable for up to $150,000 for each song. The plaintiffs were Sony Music, BMG, Virgin, Interscope, Atlantic, Warner Brothers, and Arista.
Among the songs she was accused of sharing: ”I’m a Thug,” by the rapper Trick Daddy.
But Ward, 66, is a ”computer neophyte” who never installed file-sharing software, let alone downloaded hard-core rap about baggy jeans and gold teeth, according to letters sent to the recording industry’s agents by her lawyer, Jeffrey Beeler.
Other defendants have blamed their children for using file-sharing software, but Ward has no children living with her, Beeler said.
Moreover, Ward uses a Macintosh computer at home. Kazaa runs only on Windows-based personal computers.
Beeler complained to the RIAA, demanding an apology and ”dismissal with prejudice” of the lawsuit, which would prohibit future lawsuits against her. Foley Hoag, the Boston firm representing the record labels, on Friday dropped the case, but without prejudice…
Evan Cox, a partner with Covington & Burling in San Francisco who is not involved with the case, said the error most likely happened in one of two ways: Either Comcast matched the wrong customer with the IP address, or the recording industry requested information about the wrong IP address, which is usually more than nine digits.
”If any of those [IP address] numbers are wrong or transposed, you’re going to get the wrong person,” Cohn said.
Whatever the source of the apparent error, it illustrates how difficult it can be to definitively match a person to an online screen name.
A Comcast spokeswoman, Sarah Eder, would not comment, citing customer privacy concerns. Comcast always notifies its customers after a subpoena compels the company to release information about them, she said.
Mistakes are likely, given the number of cases the recording industry has filed, Cox said. The industry’s reputation could hang on how many mistakes surface.
”If there turns out to be a lot of them, it will cast some doubt on [the industry’s] evidence-gathering,” he said. ”They’ll have to either strengthen their efforts or back off.”
The Electronic Frontier Foundation has counseled about 30 of the 261 people sued, Cohn said, adding that some have settled for fear of spending too much money fighting powerful corporations.
Jonathan Zittrain, an associate professor of Internet law at Harvard Law School, said the dismissal shows that the record companies may find it tough to prevail if their lawsuits go to court. Their legal strategy assumes that most defendants will settle rather than fight, and the lawsuits are so damaging to their public image that they cannot afford protracted legal battles with alleged file-swappers, he added.
”This is a very high-stakes strategy for the record companies,” he said. ”It’s either going to work in the short term, or they’re going to have to pull the plug on it.”

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Daily Show On The RIAA’s First Settlement Victim

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This report has great coverage of the situation surrounding Briana LaHara, the 12-year-old girl who was the first to settle one of the RIAA’s 261 copyright infringement lawsuits for $2,000. (However, Jon neglected to mention that filesharers around the world have since come to Briana’s rescue.)

Daily Show On The RIAA’s First Settlement Victim (Small – 8 MB)









The Daily Show (The best news on television.)

The RIAA Subpoenas and Amnesty Program: What’s Real And What’s Make Believe

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I’ve written my first article in almost two years! I’ve got the bug again and there will be plenty more where that came from, promise.
This ones about — you guessed it, the RIAA’s latest bait and switch mechanism for fighting file sharing. Hope you like it.


Commentary: What’s Real and Make-Believe with the RIAA Subpoenas?
By Lisa Rein for OpenP2P.com.

A key issue remains that the RIAA does not even have the right to grant full amnesty in the first place. The songwriters and music publishers that aren’t represented by the RIAA (such as Metallica) could opt to sue infringers on their own. “The RIAA doesn’t have the right to give full amnesty for file sharing. True, they represent 90% of all sound recording copyright owners. But there are still 10 percent out there who could sue you even if you take amnesty program,” said Jason Schultz, a staff attorney at the Electronic Frontier Foundation. “It’s still unclear if amnesty saves you from being sued by the songwriters/music publishers.”
Clean Slate’s Privacy Policy raises other questions. It states that “information provided on the Clean Slate Program Affidavit will be used solely in connection with conducting and enforcing the Clean Slate Program” and not used for “marketing, promotional, or public relations purposes” and will “not be made public or given to third parties, including individual copyright owners,” but then there’s a big exception: “except if necessary to enforce a participant’s violation of the pledges set forth in the Affidavit or otherwise required by law.” This language, translated, means that the affidavit records would in fact be made available to other infringement lawsuits.
“We’re calling it a ‘Shamnesty.’ It’s more like a Trojan Horse than a ‘clean slate.’ It fools you into thinking you’re safe, when the reality is that, if anything, you’re more at risk for participating,” explains Jason Schultz, Staff Attorney for the EFF. “It’s not ‘Full Amnesty’ at all. The agreement doesn’t give file sharers any real peace of mind, because it only covers being sued by the RIAA itself — not any of its member companies. This means that, under the Clean Slate agreement, recording companies, copyright owners, and music publishers can all still sue you. It only means that the RIAA won’t ‘assist’ them in the lawsuit. They are basically getting you to admit to the conduct so your own statement can be used against you later.”

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RIAA Shamnesty Program Challenged In The Courts: Clean Slate Is Just Plain False Advertising

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By Stefanie Olsen (with contributions from John Borland) for CNET.

Under the RIAA’s “Clean Slate” program, file swappers must destroy any copies of copyrighted works they have downloaded from services such as Kazaa and sign a notarized affidavit pledging never to trade copyrighted works online again.
But Ira Rothken, legal counsel for Parke, said after reviewing the RIAA’s legal documents that the trade group provides no real amnesty for such file swappers. With the legalese, the trade group does not agree to destroy data or promise to protect users from further suits, Rothken said.
“The legal documents only give one thing to people in return: that the RIAA won’t cooperate,” Rothken said. “The RIAA’s legal document does not even prevent RIAA members from suing.”
The suit asks the court to enjoin the RIAA from falsely advertising its program.

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File Sharers Save The Day – Pay Fine For 12 Year-old Target Of RIAA Suit

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Yesterday, a 12 year-old girl became the first to settle with the RIAA in one of its witch hunt lawsuits. She lives with her mother in public housing, and they were going to end up on the street as a result of settling the suit. This was apparently OK with the RIAA.
File sharers to the rescue! P2P United has now stepped in to pay the fine. How nice. Way to stick together!

File sharers pay 12-year-old’s music piracy fine
From AFP.

But “P2P United” has stepped in, offering to pay Brianna’s fine.
“We don’t condone copyright infringement but it’s time for the RIAA’s winged monkeys to fly back to the castle and leave the Munchkins alone,” the group’s executive director, Adam Eisgrau, said.
He says “they’re using 150,000 dollar-per-song lawsuits and a squad of high-paid lawyers to strong-arm $2,000 from single mothers in public housing”.
Mr Eisgrau says others charged include a 71-year-old grandfather and a Columbia University senior, whose father recently died of cancer.
His group, formed in July to protect the rights of people who file share and the industry, represents Streamcast Networks, Grokster, LimeWire, BearShare, Blubster and EDonkey.

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Article In Salon On RIAA’s Shamnesty Program

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We don’t need your stinkin’ amnesty!
File sharers scoff at the recording industry’s offer of forgiveness for repentant downloaders.
By Farhad Manjoo For Salon.

Lisa Rein, a blogger at On Lisa Rein’s Radar
I would not participate in this program under any circumstances.
I don’t feel comfortable with the privacy policy — which has a pretty big exception, that the information would not be divulged, “except if necessary to enforce a participant’s violation of the pledges set forth in the Affidavit or otherwise required by law.”(Meaning if the RIAA receives a subpoena from another party.)
The RIAA doesn’t have the right to give full amnesty anyway — you could still be sued by the individual copyright owners/song publishers (like Metallica).
So they are collecting a big database of individuals that can be turned over to other individuals who will then sue the file-sharers anyway. And the file-sharers will have admitted to it, thinking they were getting amnesty. Forget it!

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RIAA Subpoenas Raise New Privacy Concerns

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Protecting privacy from the ‘new spam’
By Peter Swire for the Boston Globe.

Overlooked in the heated rhetoric has been a victim of the RIAA’s campaign – the privacy of all those who surf the Internet or send e-mail. On the RIAA view, your sensitive personal information on the Web would be available to anyone who can fill out a one-page form. Congress can and should step in to fix this problem immediately.
The problem began in late 2002, when the RIAA demanded that Verizon Online, an Internet service provider, identify one of its customers based on an accusation that the person may have violated copyright laws by swapping files.
Verizon declined, citing the threats to customer privacy, due process, and the First Amendment. Was Verizon overreacting? No.
The new process starts when any website operator, recipient of an e-mail, or participant in a P2P network learns the Internet Protocol address of the home user. These IP addresses are automatically communicated by the nature of the Net, but until now only the ISP could usually match an IP address with a user’s identity.
When a copyright holder fills out a one-page form, however, a federal court clerk must now immediately issue a subpoena. That subpoena orders the ISP to turn over the name, home address, and phone number that matches the IP address.
This procedure violates due process. There is no judicial oversight and only the flimsiest showing of cause. Furthermore, Internet service providers risk large penalties if they even question the validity of a subpoena.
Privacy is destroyed because it becomes so easy to reveal the identity of Internet users. The First Amendment is undermined because of the chilling effect if every e-mail and every post to a Web page can be quickly tracked back to a home address and phone number.
The early use of these subpoenas has shown startling mistakes by copyright holders. One recording industry subpoena this spring – based on a patently incorrect allegation – nearly closed down a college astronomy department’s Web server in the middle of exam week. A major studio has sought a subpoena based on the careless assertion that a tiny computer file was a copy of a Harry Potter movie. (It was a child’s book report instead.)
An even greater risk is putting this subpoena power in the hands of anyone willing to pretend to have a copyright claim. These fraudulent requests will be impossible to distinguish from legitimate ones.
This flood of legally sanctioned harassment will quickly become the ”new spam,” with the kinds of abuses as limitless as the Internet itself:
The most common use may be that of website operators who want to identify their visitors for marketing purposes or for more nefarious reasons, including identity theft, fraud, or stalking.

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