Tuesday, December 02, 2008

RIAA sues transplant patient

Just when you think they've reached rock bottom, it seems the RIAA always finds room to sink a little lower.

This time they've sued an innocent, 19-year-old, transplant patient, hospitalized with pancreatitis and needing islet cell transplants, according to a report on p2pnet.net

Complete article at p2pnet.net
Complete article at WTAE-TV PittsburghChannel.com

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Keywords: lawyer digital copyright law online internet law legal download upload peer to peer p2p file sharing filesharing music movies indie independent label freeculture creative commons pop/rock artists riaa independent mp3 cd favorite songs intellectual property portable music player

28 comments:

Anonymous said...

What I'd like to say about this, probably wouldn't pass Ray's 'nice filter'!

Don't these guys have any clue as to who they are suing?

I really feel ashamed to be a member of the same species as these RIAA jerks!

Anonymous said...

Obscene.

This is yet another example of how they have no idea who they sue as long as they can squeeze money from innocent people. Hopefully Mr. Brink can get the case reopened and dismissed. I'd like to say that this would be a good case to countersue, but these people clearly don't have the means to take the emotional pounding that these people enjoy dishing out so much.

Anonymous said...

...and they continue to dig their own grave. i'm not sure how much further the public opinion of the RIAA can dip.

-B

Anonymous said...

Does it appear that the majority of lawsuits (both Doe and personally named defendants) filed by the RIAA target women? Does the RIAA's information gathering technique primarily target women? Are they farming demographics for a reason? It would be interesting to see what the break down along the lines of sex looks like on a large scale. Are there any statistics available?

Anonymous said...

Uhh... oops? Maybe if they did some research on the defendants before filing, this would not happen.

The funny thing is that this makes absolutely no business sense, no matter how liable she is. There is no way they can recover enough money from her to make up for the enormous reputation damage they suffer by filing in the first place.

I really feel the negativity is starting to become palpable, as so many people are disgusted by their tactics. It doesn't take many customers refusing to buy your product out of sheer spite before the bottom line gets bad.

Ghastly.

Anonymous said...

I really feel the negativity is starting to become palpable, as so many people are disgusted by their tactics. It doesn't take many customers refusing to buy your product out of sheer spite before the bottom line gets bad.

I doubt they care in the least. Why should they? They're just fourth-rate lawyers being paid to do a job.

That's why I think it's so important to look past the RIAA to the member companies that support them (Sony, BMG, Universal, etc.) That's the thing, you see: nobody is refusing to buy media products from these guys even though they're the ones responsible. People just aren't making the association between the RIAA and big music (remember, the RIAA doesn't sell anything ... other than horsehockey and they're overstocked on that.)

If people really thought about this for a millisecond, they'd realize that the RIAA is only as powerful as the people who hold the copyrights they've so successfully weaponized. They are the ones who need to be convinced to stop this madness: the RIAA won't quit until they're told to by their foreign masters.

Anonymous said...

One piece of good news, though, might be that the word is surely getting out if more mainstream avenues of media are willing to report the damage the RIAA inflicts. Here the judges can still see no relevance as to how the defendants are consistently trapped and ruined by the efforts of copyright enforcers, and the stories go completely unreported aside from individuals who know the involved lawyers on a personal basis. Spread out enough, this shovelful of dirt from the ever-deepening grave might even take down the delusion in Tennessee a notch or two.

raybeckerman said...

Screwmaster, I respectfully beg to differ. I think the statistics will show you that the market share of the Big 4 is diminishing rapidly and that indie music is the place to be right now.

dts, apropos of what you said, here is a report which just came out today in South Carolina. You and I know that this is just another typical RIAA suit, but these folks in South Carolina aren't taking too kindly to it.

Anonymous said...

Actually, Ray, I should have been more specific. I meant that people aren't avoiding purchasing music from the big boys because of the RIAA's lawsuit campaign, not that they aren't failing of their own accord.

Really, there's not a lot of media attention being paid to this. Other than sites like Slashdot, you really don't see much mention of it. The few stories I have heard are so slanted towards the media companies to qualify as lies, "In other news, attorneys for Universal Corp put the screws to yet another individual using illegal filesharing software to distribute copyrighted music files" and so forth. Does John Q. Public know what's going on? Does he care?

You'd think that if an old lady with coffee burns could be in the headlines for weeks, someone who just had their life ruined over a few MP3 files would be newsworthy as well. That's particularly true considering that apparently we're all potential targets, regardless of whether we infringe on anyone's rights at all.

Anonymous said...

The Harvard Law School team that is representing Joel Tenenbaum in his case against the RIAA started a facebook group.
Join it. It will ultimately be one of the platforms on which the team will issue some calls to action.
http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=37707326867

Matt Fitzpatrick said...

Heartbreaking stuff. These lawsuits are just so traumatic to so many people. Someone ought to start a support group.

Re: statistics: I suspect more women than men have their name on the phone/cable/Internet bill. Since that name's the only thing file sharing plaintiffs have to go on...

raybeckerman said...

Screwmaster, what you refer to as "the media" is shrinking too... along with the "big 4" record companies and the "big 6" motion picture companies...

"the media" is us...

Anonymous said...

Actually, I was referring to just that in my first post: people I know are refusing to buy mainstream music because of the conduct of the RIAA.

When I look down the aisle at Best Buy, I can't help but see those discs as just more funding for an old, creaky, evil machine.

There aren't that many groups represented by RIAA that I'm interested in buying new material from. For those, I buy used.

raybeckerman said...

notmercury, i think there are a lot of people who are thinking along the lines you are...

also there are a lot of musicians thinking that way as well... they are
tired of being ripped off by record companies they no longer need....

Anonymous said...

Ray,

The Common Man notes that the South Carolina case you link to in your comments ("here") against the Charter Communications subscriber is the first non-college/university suit mentioned in a long time. It indicates that the RIAA isn't exclusively focusing on the academic area, and that Limewire continues to get attention along with KaZaA at the moment.

{The Common Man Speaking}

raybeckerman said...

anonymous Common Man.... wasn't the transplant patient case a non-college case as well?

the riaa's always gone after limewire as much as kazaa... my theory as to why there were less limewire cases than kazaa cases is that limewire may have had cleaner software which did less to trick its users...

Anonymous said...

As a victim of the RIAA it's time to start our education of the American people as to what the RIAA is doing in these lawsuites. For the last Three years my daughter and I have worked the music isles of our local big box stores showing the music shoppers the lawsuite and settlement papers. Amazing how little the american public knows about their actions. But it sure brings a smile to my face when I see the people put the CD's back on the shelf. I'll never forget what hell those people if you can still call them that put our family through.

Anonymous said...

As a victim of the RIAA it's time to start our education of the American people as to what the RIAA is doing in these lawsuites. For the last Three years my daughter and I have worked the music isles of our local big box stores showing the music shoppers the lawsuite and settlement papers. Amazing how little the american public knows about their actions. But it sure brings a smile to my face when I see the people put the CD's back on the shelf. I'll never forget what hell those people if you can still call them that put our family through.

eZee.se said...

Hi Ray,
Would appreciate a link back to our article on this subject.

The article is at:
http://ezee.se/articles-blog/2008/12/03/riaa-hit-new-low-shatter-previous-records/

Thanks!
Ryan

raybeckerman said...

eZee.se, no need to ask me to 'link back' to your articles.

Your site is on my radar.

Because I don't have the time to do much in the way of commentary, I keep my eyes open for other people who are doing worthwhile stuff based on my blog posts, and include it in my 'commentary & discussion'.

So save your energy for more good 'commentary & discussion'.

eZee.se said...

eZee.se, no need to ask me to 'link back' to your articles.

Your site is on my radar.


Heh! Thanks!
Just didnt think our humble site would be on your radar considering the limited amount of time a guy like you must have (there are just so many hours in the day :) ).

Your blog has been a huge inspiration for us over here and we have to touch it at least once a day to see if we can expand on any of your posts because we know you have the real skinny on stuff without the spin (that people from a certain camp are known for).

We also come here regularly to get the latest news on the "vexatious" case proceedings.

Although none of us are on the RIAA's sue'em all list (because we are in Sweden) we do appreciate your blog and know the info and work here must be magnified by hundreds (if not more) times by people who have/are being sued by those gangsters.

I guess what I am trying to say is, thanks and keep up the great work fighting the good fight for 'the little guy'.

Cheers!
Ryan
www.eZee.se

raybeckerman said...

Thanks, Ryan.

I came to the conclusion a long time ago that (a) there's just so much time in the day, (b) I have to prioritize, (c) the most important thing I can do is bear witness, and get the hard news out there and online so the rest of the world has access to it. So I'm counting on you, and other good sites, to digest this material, and to provide the commentary and discussion and deliberative thought we need.

So you keep up the good work too!

eZee.se said...

Thanks Ray, I appreciate the thumbs up.

One of the problems we find is that most of the people who visit this blog and others like p2pnet are the ones that are already "enlightened" or are facing a lawsuit so have come online to research their options.

We are working on some ideas that will hopefully get people to other parts of our site, and thus slowly expose them to our articles/copyright/riaa/mpaa etc sections.

New service opening this Dec 7th, wish us luck and hope to see you there :)

Have a good one!

Cheers!
R

dating-talk said...

I'm a former a&r for a major label...
Here's how I see it...
The music industry is still run at its core by the old generation, some of whom are the same people that took advantage of artists back in the 60's...
they'd sell their wrinkled old mother's out of their graves to make a profit...
And the decent ones well they still feel that downloading recordings online is a crime, they'd rather have you buy the CD.. well duh... but people have recorded music off the radio for many years and they don't see the marketing potential in it, not all people are thieves and many people will pay (their porfits are growing... explain that if everyone is stealing the music)
however... the RIAA is mostly lawyers not the labels themselves and they're greedy bastards. They don't so much as do any research before they file a lawsuit and its a numbers game, if you file enough of them you're bound to collect on some just like any debt collector. They've now become the equivalent of a used car salesman...
Now what needs to happen is some entity needs to file a large class action for damages to the tune of 100's of millions of dollars, and fine a good legal team to work on it.... Harvard university might be interested...

Anonymous said...

Wow, is the RIAA run by a crack team of cartoon super-villans? They've attacked sick teens, children, grandmothers and dead people. They just keep coming back for more. I dont think they're trying to fight piracy, seems more like they're out to become the most hated entity in the universe (maybe to harness the energy into a WMD?!).

Also, what is wrong with American law where nobody in the system has seen this case and said "Hang on, this seems a tad wrong". Are lawyers required to have no soul/moral compass?

Anonymous said...

Ray, which RIAA members are contributing to this particular suit? I can't find any of the legal papers anywhere. I'd just like to know which particular labels to blame for this outrage, even though I know to blame Vivendi Universal, EMI, Warner Music and Sony BMG for the RIAA.

raybeckerman said...

Dear Anonymous

1. I don't have the litigation documents.

2. It doesn't matter. You've named the culprits.

Anonymous said...

The RIAA is the sole reason I do not purchase CDs.