Iola Scruse, 66, of Louisville, who is on Social Security and paying bills for dialysis, “must pay $6,000 for the 872 songs her grandchildren downloaded, in addition to court fees.” Scruse “said she has no idea how she will pay the fine or what her next action will be.” Self-employed engraver Michael Brown paid $5,000 “because his teenage daughter had shared nearly 900 music files with others”. And: “No lawsuits anywhere have gone to trial, said Jenni Engebretsen, a spokeswoman for the Recording Industry Association of America, a trade group that files the suits on behalf of the companies. … ‘We hope that what is coming out of these lawsuits is that parents are having conversations with their kids,’ she said.” (Amy H. Trang, “Illegal downloads create unlikely defendants”, Louisville Courier-Journal, Jul. 31). The recording industry had sued a Ypsilanti, Mich. man for unlawful downloads; after he died, “the RIAA made a motion to stay the case for 60 days in order to allow the family time to ‘grieve’, after which time they want to start taking depositions of the late Mr. Scantlebury’s children”. (new blog Recording Industry vs. the People, Aug. 13; see David Berlind, ZDNet, Aug. 14).
Relatedly, Brad Templeton (Interesting People message list, Aug. 19; via Boing Boing) has coined the term “Spamigation” for litigation or threats of litigation mass-generated by automated processes:
The RIAA strategy is an example of a new legal phenomenon that I have dubbed “spamigation” — bulk litigation that’s only become practical due to the economies of scale of the computer era. We see spamigation when a firm uses automation to send out thousands of cease and desist letters threatening legal action. We saw it when DirecTV took the customer database for a vendor of smartcard programmers and bulk-litigated almost everybody in it…
The RIAA uses systems to gather lists of alleged infringers, and bulk-sues them. It has set a price that seems to be profitable for it, while being low enough that it is not profitable for the accused to mount a defence, as they do not get the economies of scale involved.
4 Comments
For information concerning RIAA cases and status of various suits, you might want to take a peek at this site.
http://recordingindustryvspeople.blogspot.com/
Ultimately, the RIAA is going to pick on the wrong defendant and get its head handed to it.
I personally would like to thank the RIAA for their continuing “Copyright Holy War”.
When I founded Boycott-riaa.com in 2001(since sold) I swore to not buy RIAA members music. Being a music fan who always has something playing in the background, I thought this would be difficult. However I soon discovered there is a wealth of independent music out there every bit as good, if not better, Less expensive, and the money goes to the musicians, not an international conglomerate.
Thank you RIAA for turning me on to independent music.
“Ultimately, the RIAA is going to pick on the wrong defendant and get its head handed to it.”
SO? That would cost, what, $50,000? Maybe even $500,000? That wouldn’t be enough to get their attention.
This is yet anothr exampl of how badly we need “loser pays”.