Tuesday, November 28, 2006

Elderly Survivor of Hurricane Rita Sued by RIAA in East Texas; Represented by Lone Star Legal Aid

An elderly survivor of Hurricane Rita, Ms. Rhonda Crain, has been sued by the RIAA in Beaumont, Texas, in SONY v. Crain. Ms. Crain and her husband were displaced by the hurricane.

Ms. Crain had never heard of the songs she’s accused of downloading and sharing, much less downloaded them, she’d never heard of “file sharing” before, and she didn’t even know that kind of thing was possible before getting sued for allegedly doing it.

She is fighting back and has asserted a counterclaim against the plaintiffs, saying that the RIAA's actions "amount to extortion, reciting a litany of other similar cases brought by the RIAA.

Ms. Crain has also asserted the defense, first raised in Arista v. Greubel, that the plaintiffs' have been fully compensated by the $115 million settlement they received from Kazaa.

Answer and Counterclaim*

Ms. Crain is represented by John Stoneham in the Beaumont, Texas, office of Lone Star Legal Aid.

Commentary & discussion:

boing boing
p2pnet.net

* Document published online at Internet Law & Regulation

Keywords: digital copyright online download upload peer to peer p2p file sharing filesharing music movies indie label freeculture creative commons pop/rock artists riaa independent mp3 cd favorite songs

8 comments:

Alter_Fritz said...

Counterclaim Paragraph 10 examples a-z and aa-ss
I have this strange feeling that I saw that list somewhere else....
:-P

(Lets hope for Mr. Stoneham that Ray and Ty as authors don't get infected by the RIAA copyrightinfringement virus and sue for usage of a database without paying licence fees to them.) ;-)

raybeckerman said...

We want people to use our stuff.

RumorsDaily said...

I don't know her situation, so I'm not willing to go too far with this, but isn't the phrase "survivor of Hurricane Rita" a little bit odd. I mean, I've been through a couple of hurricanes, but it would be a stretch to call me a "survivor." Did she have a tougher time than usual in going through the hurricane?

Anonymous said...

Mario, go drink some coffee or something. It says "Rita." It does not say "Katrina." The RIAA is on a terror campaign trying to scare everyone they can. The RIAA, Sony, BMG, Arista, etc are only making themselves look like monsters by attacking people that cannot or can barely defend themselves. They are doing their best to kill innovation and creativity. I have not seen anyone sued in China or North Korea for file sharing yet have you? Microsoft and Apple can take their DRM crap and shove it too. Just another instance of big money making stupid moves. How do these companies think that they are losing money when the people downloading these files more than likely were not going to buy their precious music anyway? What is next? A slot for money on my car radio? OH wait that's what those annoying commercials are when I switch over to my MP3 collection.

Anonymous said...

Boycott everything Sony!

raybeckerman said...

SONY's just one of the plaintiffs. It's the whole gang of 4 that should be boycotted.

CodeWarrior said...

I agree Ray...
hence the site
http://www.boycottriaa.com

raybeckerman said...

She and her husband were displaced from their home by the hurricane.