RIAA Promises Not To Incorrectly Sue Woman A Second Time If It Doesn't Have To Pay Her Legal Fees

from the sorry-about-that dept

It seems like the RIAA is increasingly having to tuck its tail between its legs and run and hide, as more of the people they’re suing are fighting back (and winning). While some have succeeded in getting the RIAA to pay their legal fees, the RIAA is still fighting against that. In one case, the recording industry lawyers are now promising to a judge that they absolutely won’t sue a woman again on the same claim, so long as they don’t have to pay her legal fees for wrongly suing her in the first place. It’s not clear what kind of bargain that is, or why a judge should go for it. If they made a mistake in suing the woman, they should pay her legal fees and promise not to sue her again on the same claim.


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Comments on “RIAA Promises Not To Incorrectly Sue Woman A Second Time If It Doesn't Have To Pay Her Legal Fees”

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39 Comments
Paul says:

RIAA Promises Not To Incorrectly Sue Woman A Secon

Just when you think you’ve heard everything…

I’ve thought about what would happen if they came a knocking on my door. Screw em, send me to jail. Let’s every single one of us go to jail and take up what little space is left. I think I could stand up for myself and fight rather well, but, why? Why not just get everyone together on this issue and stand up as one against the RIAA.
Hey my son downloads on my computer as well, want to take him away too. Oh wait, so has my wife. Think we would get a cell together? Hope not… Bubba just might be a welcomed sight. My son is now in training, 1 2 3 drop the soap, 1 2 3 drop the soap… Good boy, keep up the great work.
Look, I serve my country for 20 years and retired. I’m 47 and I work hard. I can’t afford $3000.00 nor do I have it. So bag me and make my family suffer. Thanks Judges of America, maybe you can help us stand up too.
Here’s another thought too. Do you honestly believe that out there in the music world there is not one artist, band member, back up, or management person who isn’t downloading illegal copy righted material. Find those and bring them in front of the judge, wouldn’t that be a shot in the heart of the RIAA.

Hey everyone, have a great day….

Paul J Pappas says:

RIAA Promises Not To Incorrectly Sue Woman Again

Oh, I’m sorry. What was the question again? Get the feeling I can’t stand the RIAA? In regard to the article, They should pay her fee’s and not be allowed to try her again.

While they’re at it, ask the RIAA if their face hurts when they say stupid shit.

Again, everyone have a great day… I know I will.

Bignumone (profile) says:

This is just silly

Not only do I think they should pay her legal fees and not sue her again, but pay the court costs and pay her for her time spent in court and preparation (The greater of $10/hour or her current wage).
We are not talking about a simple misunderstanding but a shot gun approach to law. This seems to be happening enough that a prescedent should be set. Remember, they are using tax-payer funded resources and taking up people’s time.
It just isn’t right!

icepick314 says:

cut bait and scram.....

RIAA KNOWS they don’t have a chance to win so they want to cut loss and end this but longer they drag this, more they’ll pay at the end…

just end the case and pay the lawyer’s fee before it goes even higher…

i’m sure the defendant’s lawyer is smiling EVERYDAY as the fees go higher and higher everday with such an easy case…

Sanguine Dream says:

Re: Lawyers

That is the problem these days. It’s not about lawyers on two sides of a case with each trying to prove the other wrong anymore. It’s about trying to get paid. Having to pay lawyers such outrageous fees is why people go for such huge settlements in court these. Won a $30mil settlement? The firm that did your case will get at least $10mil off the top. And after taxes and legal fees you are lucky if you walk away with 7-10mil.

SomePerson says:

Re: Technicality?

—[ So if they promise not to sue her again for downloading, say, song “XYZ” … what’s to stop them from going after her tomorrow for downloading song “123”???

Something tells me they would do it too…
]—–

Of course they would. This is the “MAFIAA” we’re talking about… They’ll do anything in their power to treat all their “customers” like criminals and piss everyone off so much, in 5 years, no one will be buying music anymore. But I guess that’s what they want. Hey MAFIAA…Keep pissing us off and soon you won’t be able to afford those silly lawsuits. I can’t wait for that day to come.

Anonymous Coward says:

This is almost as bad as getting parking tickets for parking on the street near where I work. All the available street parking reasonably close is 2-hour parking, but my company’s parking lot isn’t nearly big enough for all its employees, nor is there any room to expand it. There is no logical reason to make it 2-hour parking, except that they know it will be a cash cow due to people working downtown being forced to park there during work hours.

It’s the same thing with the RIAA. It’s pretty obvious that all they’re doing is trying to hand out parking tickets and rake in the big bucks from honest people. You know, I think there should be some sort of quota limit or something, where a company can only file so many lawsuits per year, like 20 or so. That’d fix ’em.

DeTOX says:

Kill the RIAA

I hope this woman slams them and has them pay every bit of her fees plus time for lost wages and even better for emotional distress. Hmm I’d say that might be worth 1mil or more total. These people have ran wild long enough, oh yeah maybe they don’t want to pay because they claim they are a not for profit org. Well I don’t know of any not for profit trying to strike up deals with people and have them pay. If they have had people pay up for their accusations where does that money go, I bet not to any artist. Fuck’em. The internet will take them down. Don’t fuck with the internet Mafia.

Anonymous Coward says:

ATTN Paul: (first poster)

If you don’t want to go to jail, don’t steal. Just because it’s not a physical CD doesn’t mean that the same time and energy was put into making those MP3’s you download as the plastic CD you wouldn’t walk of a record store with under your coat.

I’m sure there IS a band member somewhere that doesn’t pirate illegal music…how do I know this? Because I don’t pirate and I’m in a band.

Stop whining. Sure the RIAA has a very very bad business plan but don’t hate them because they’re against illegally downloading music.

Paul says:

Re: Anonymous Coward

I never said I didn’t want to go to jail. I said go ahead and put me in jail moron. Although you may not download illegal music I’m sure that for each one of you who don’t there is one who does.

Technically speaking, if I can copy music which is broadcast over the radio to a tape and share it with a friend what is the real difference. The fact that laws are out dated in regard to technical advances. If you want to put an end to the IRAA then lets work to find a way to bring everyone together on this issue just as non-smokers have to gain their rights to a smoke free environment and stop them. The power is with the people and numbers, something most have forgotten.

Peter says:

Re: Re:

Downloading a song from the net is not stealing, a copy is made, the original song is still there at the web site. Granted there might be copywrite infringment but there was no theft.
Merriam-Webster Online
Main Entry: steal
Pronunciation: stl
Function: verb
Inflected Form(s): stole /stl/; sto·len /st-ln/; steal·ing
to take the property of another wrongfully and especially as a habitual or regular practice

ASCAP says:

Dear RIAA (above)

Dear RIAA-
You our out of your jurisdiciton. You do not own the rights to any lyrics. You are there to protect the copyrights of recorded works. Lar3ry’s singing the cover of WAR’s ‘why can’t we be friends’ in no way violates any of your protection rights, and Lar3ry has the right to sue you for harassment.

However, we have contacted Lar3ry, and as he has claimed to sing the song himself as a parody, he has broken no copywright laws. He has paid his royalties through us to the publisher for the song’s use. He has chosen to record that parody with a local recording agency which you represent, you are now legaly obligated to protect Lar3ry. However, attempting to falsely sue one of your own artists is a breach of your contract with the local recording agency, and you will be recieving a counter suit.

Have a nice day,
ASCAP, the enforcers of published words

hi says:

against illegally downloaded music?

so…exactly how long has LEGALLY downloaded music been around?
As long as downloaded music has been around?
Hell, no.

It took Apple, which isn’t even a music company, it’s a freakin’ hardware company, to start selling MP3s. And sometimes I think you can’t even consider that a viable legal option to downloading music because of all the DRM restrictions.

Let’s be clear about this. The RIAA isn’t against ILLEGALLY downloaded music, they’ve been against downloaded music, period, for about seven years now. And that’s just ridiculous.

The infamous Joe says:

PI*r^2 jerk.

I’d like to point out to anyone that paid attention to the troll (AC #21), that downloading music isn’t stealing. The only reason anyone connects it to stealing is because the RIAA used their considerable money to run a black propaganda campaign and link the two in your mind. Downloading music, regardless of how much you hate it, is copyright infringement.

Don’t be fooled by double speak. The RIAA is double plus ungood for us all.

I’d humbly propose that we all get together in this: The next time you download a CD or handful of tracks.. send the artists some token of money for the tracks you like. Mail it directly to them, saying that you downloaded their music illegally, you enjoyed tracks x, y and z, and that you’re sending this check to compensate them for their time and talent.

I’d like to see the RIAA go after someone for hurting the artists then the artist made more money from the illegal download versus a legal sale.

Good day.

teknosapien (profile) says:

Wait what was that?!?!?!

Ok This just reeks of dumbness and I cant believe that this has as far as it has. They state that they wont sue her again — does this mean that they wont “wrongfully sue her again”. what about a counter suit is that even possible ?

To beat the bastards at their own game start getting your music from http://www.archive.org all legal all the time

Wyndle says:

parking

Go to your local Chamber of Commerce and find out if there are any plans to build more parking garages. In my area, the downtown used to be the worst for parking but now has two pay garages and recently opened the fifth free garage. Sure, you’d have to walk two or three blocks but the cost of your time to walk is likely to be less than the cost of all of the parking tickets. Or look into mass transportation – Dallas has the DART system and constantly adding new lines. There is plenty of free parking at the far stops.

cb says:

1. Last night I recorded a movie off HBO. Stealing or OK ? Fair use ? Yes ?
2. Today I recorded a song from my cable. Stealing or OK ? Fair use ? Yes ?
3. Now I just recorded as song off my FM radio. Stealing or OK ? Fair Use ? Yes ?
4. Now I record a song off of my XMRADIO. Stealing or OK ? Fair Use ? Yes ? No?
5. I download a song off the internet. Stealing or OK ? Fair Use ? Yes ? No ?

I paid for all the services except for the FM radio signal. So how can I be stealing if I’ve already paid for it ?

The infamous Joe says:

Re: cb... Charlie Brown??

IANAL.

It’s not stealing. If I said “How many goals did the Red Sox score last night?” You’d look at me like I’m retarded. If you were in front of me I’d be giving you that same look now. 🙂 It’s copyright infringement, my yellow and black shirt wearing friend, not stealing. You have not taken anything from anyone, you have merely made an exact replica of said thing. Theft is not about getting something that doesn’t belong to you so much as taking something that doesn’t belong to you from someone else. Since my Vanilla Ice mp3 is still on my hard drive, you haven’t taken anything from me, so you aren’t stealing.

As for your questions, it’s all fair use. They don’t care about people who download, they care about the uploaders. Look at it like a junkie/dealer thing. The quickest way to stop the “problem” is to remove the source. Ah, but therein lies the rub.

Most p2p software sets by default that when you download something, you allow others to download it, in turn, from you. In fact, with the wonderful creation of bit torrent software, your upload to download ratio can affect your download speeds. (That means that if you don’t upload, your downloads will take forever) When you’ve gone from making a personal copy for personal use to distributing it across the world digitally, regarless of if you knew or meant to do so, they can get you for copyright infringement. (not stealing)

Again, I am not a lawyer by trade in any form or fashion.

NotAFileSharer says:

RIAA settlement offer...

Though I don’t belong to any file sharing networks (and never have), I have no reason to believe that the RIAA won’t sue me at some point. That means I’ll end up having to bring a countersuit against the RIAA for slander and defamation of character. To that end, as this will undoubtedly cost the RIAA and it’s members massive amounts of money (not to mention legal fees) when I win, I’d like to offer the RIAA a pre-litigation settlement offer. I’m a reasonalble person. I’m sure we can reach a settlement that both parties feel is equitable. Please contact me at notafilesharer@youshouldnthavesuedme.com for information on where you can send the settlement check.

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