RIAA told to pay legal fees for harrassed defendant Tanya Andersen, a single mother and unlikely file-sharers' champion for hoisting the RIAA with its own petard, has scored another victory. A US District Court judge in Oregon affirmed an earlier decision to award Andersen attorneys' fees for the two-and-a-half year legal pursuit by the Recording Industry Ass. of America, that …
The only good news in this crappy day. But it's a Damn Good One.
Now could you please announce that MS has been dismantled for violating the antitrust laws, and that they will have to pay a multi-million $ fine for making crap software?
Please announce that on... let me check my blackberry... next Tuesday would be great.
With his pending election, I would have thought that this would have been a wonderful opportunity for BPI chief Geoff Taylor to make a comment to Her Majesty's loyal netizens. Perhaps something about progressive agendas and his love for villainy? No?
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/01/16/geoff_taylor_bpi_bites_back_filesharing/
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/01/15/ispa_bpi_villain/
... before the RIAA picked on someone who would take a stand against their draconian policies.
I'm not fond of the litigatious culture in the US (due to the damage it's doing in the UK as we blindly follow this lead), but this is one time i can agree with whats happening.
Good Luck to Ms Andersen !
To complete the fullfilling of my wildest dreams -and my previous comment-, could you also publish soon something about Mister Appleware being caught pants down in some adult man-on-man action in public loos, in the US airport of your choice? Please do that on next Friday, or on Thursday the week after, because I expect a lot of luser-related annoyance on these days. I could use the cheer-up effect.
Alternatively, just tell us the amount of cash that will come out of the RIAA greedy hands to the profit of their victim(s). The same dates would be über-cool.
Why on earth were the RIAA ringing up a 10 year old girl pretending to be her grandmother? I think that alone should land the person responsible in prison. In the UK I am pretty sure it would.
Wierd, sick, twisted bastards.
Well done for the woman for seeing this case through to the end
Well, I suppose there may be some disabled 44-year-old single mother fans of gangsta rap and kids' animé out there (though my loser knowledge shames me, "Goten" is a character in that Dragonball show and "kito" is probably meant to be the Japanese for "forever"). But if I was the RIAA and came across one, I might double-check *just* to make sure so that I didn't end up with a large lawyers' bill.
Then again, I doubt the amount, whatever it is, will so much as dent their budget.
Lawyers never start actions. People hire them for advice. Ms Andersen also had lawyers, and she clearly benefited from their help. Nobody says 'well, of course the only ones who win are the techies, who kept the RIAA computers running' or 'of course, the only ones who win are the reporters, who get big by-lines covering such storiesand jack up their salaries'.
Good lawyers cost a lot. So do all specialists. Some are more rapacious than others (as in every industry), but the majority give good value for money. I use them all the time when I get crap customer service. None of this writing letters for a year and making dozens of phone calls: the offending company gets three letters from me, one crisp letter from the solicitor, and suddenly all issues of delivery/quality etc. are solved as if by magic. Worth every penny to my lawyer.
As hass been pointed out, the lawyers still get paid, and the amount paid by the RI Ass will be small compared to the money they have already -- hell Jamie's probably paying for it with her "garnish".
What needs to happen here is for the correct criminal charges to be brought against these people, I think RICO has been mentioned in the past, so that some of these pointless cocksuckers go to prison -- until then it will still be more appealing to the RIAA to sue than record labels to sell decent music, in decent formats, at fair prices.
Isn't it time that the law was changed so that LAWYERS who threaten an obviously improper prosecution such as this one had to pay compensation, with no ability permitted to pass any of their costs on to their customer?
If we did that, then lawyers would no longer have a licence to print money REGARDLESS of whether they win or lose and they would be slightly more careful about starting threats where they had not already seen and verified the evidence.
Result -- less substantially less unsubstantiable threats -- a good thing all round.
"Titles such as the 2003 Ludacris tune, "Hoes in My Room," in which the artist inquires who invited several undesirable women into his penthouse, and describes them in humorous detail."
I have never felt so white and nerdy in all my life... speaking of which, can you give me a description of Wierd Al's White n Nerdy track too...
The RIAA, record labels, radio, mp3 sites, etc. could take bold step and encrypt every track on every new CD or download with a code that would give an accurate accounting for every radio play, download, etc. However, then the whole system would be much more accountable and they would have to pay all the little people! ASCAP and BMI could downsize - the whole shell game of accounting would be much more transparent.
RE: Blaim The Lawyers!! arguments.
I dislike lawyers as much as the next man -- but it must be remembered that lawyers are, in effect, attack dogs. To my mind, it is still the owner of the attack dog's fault for letting the dog attack anything it wants to. If it wasn't for morons like those in the RIAA there wouldn't _be_ lawyers out there.
Lawyers may be odious parasites -- but they're not the instigators of this whole thing, and are no more to blame for it than a rotweiler that's encouraged to eat a baby. Getting rid of lawyers is still going to leave us with greedy, lazy, criminal scum like the RIAA -- they would just go back to other criminal activity to make money.
Nice , a pity the cheap lawyers at RIAA cut corners to undervalue her original win by 50% by being mean cheap and niggardly and undervaluing her lawyers pay rate from specialist to far less then the court approve para-legal fees , for they be cheap fools who failed to distinguish the finer points of law and the differences in both Federal and State Civil Case law thus becoming permanent adherents of the "Peter Principle" for life !
That being so in an absolute moment of stupidity , I recall the Judge presiding over that case was extremely caustic after giving his final ruling on the fees when they still tried to avoid paying them and then some what less intelligent manner of absolute incompetence they then very deliberately delayed payment beyond the agreed settlement term and sent her the monies directly rather then her lawyer who was entitled to monies in order to cause her problems with the local State and Federal Taxes as well ! Malicious idiots they be as well as thick and stupid !
As for the life of me when they were losing , had no legs to stand on so as to speak thus as to why their agents chose to impersonate and falsely represent themselves as other people when seeking to attempt to illegally serve a minor is well beyond the scope of gross incompetence when similar tactics had failed miserably in California showed themselves as totally clueless planks of wood first class !
This time around due to civil suit litigation liability limits laws across Amerika in both Federal level (Drug & Insurance Companies lobbied for that one) and in many States as well , I presume that is the chief reason for seeking class action status to multiply at least one hundred thousand fold or more any penalty that would be awarded thus far !
Her opponents have for the second time around no real legal legs to stand upon so as to speak , but one wonders why the Oregon State Attorney General has failed to file real criminal charges of fraud and numerous other broken laws as well against the idiotic miscreants involved RICO inclusive for the second offence given the numerous State and Federal laws they have clearly broken at the time of the offence ! Or are they waiting for the civil case to deliver a case that only a fool or a total idiot could lose in the much flawed Yankee Criminal Injustice System !
Oh well were warned about these incompetent idiots back in the late sixties , so what price Idiocracy indeed ?
Well without lawyers to tell you how to make up a case that, though ridiculous, will get past a judge, what would you do?
So, yes, they are to blame.
They are supposed to be members of the court system and NOT trying to subvert the law and court systems.
I was asked by a law student why lawyers were so hated. I couldn't think of anything better than "because you're all lying sacks of shit" so said nothing but later that day I thought, too late, of this explanation:
Lawyers make the powerful more powerful.
Think about it: the best lawyers cost the most. So who can afford them? Rich people. The states attorney (or appointed counsel in the UK) will be someone junior and in any case only gets given you in a criminal case. Copyright is currently persued as criminal but prosecuted as civil. Best of both: police help and "balance of probabilities". But in any case, the more expensive lawyer is available to the rich. But in a capitalist system, rich==powerful. So they have less need of a good lawyer, unless they are attacking/being attacked by another rich person.
To get around this: solicitors can only be reimbursed to the lower of the two parties. Double if they've won.
@gianni tell that to the New York Times when the book in question made the best seller list for well in excess of forty weeks when first released and the millions plus that have since read the same tome !
As they say one should tell it like it is or else the idiots just keep on multiplying add infinitum !
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