RIAA victim wants case dismissed
p2pnet.net News:- Marie Lindor, the Brooklyn, New York, home health aide accused by the Big Four Organized Music cartel of illegally distributing their music online, is demanding that her case be dismissed.
The Big Four Organized Music family’s RIAA has any number of tactics it uses to try to scare victims into ‘settling,” as it calls its consumer extortion scheme.
Among them is the Hard Drive ploy under which it demands that victims allow a so-called RIAA ‘expert’ to rummage around in their hard drives.
The hope is the expert will find proof that the victims have indeed been “distributing” digital music files online and in the process, the RIAA also has free reign to snoop.
Big Four “settlement” official Mark Eilers accused single-mother Tanya Andersen of “illegally” downloading music files, demanding the usual blackmail payment to make the RIAA (Recording Industry Association of America) go away.
Andersen, who sued Organized Music’s RIAA under the RICO (Racketeering Influenced and Corrupt Organization) Act, more usually reserved for Organized Crime, said she didn’t know what Eilers was talking about and told the RIAA to check her hard drive if they didn’t believe her.
But they didn’t want to know —– until one day, out of the blue, they changed their minds.
However, Andersen was by then considerably wiser about the ways of the Big Four labels and she and her lawyers, Lybeck Murphy from Mercer Island, Washington, “refused to give carte blanche access,” and judge Donald Ashmanskas told Andersen to hire her own independent private forensic expert to look for specific files, also ordering the RIAA to foot the bill for the examination, p2pnet posted.
Marie Lindor is another RIAA victim who says the RIAA is completely wrong in its claim that she’s been illegally distributing copyrighted music files online, and so she freely gave the organization permission to mirror her drive.
But that was close to three months ago and nothing has happened.
Now, “We respectfully request an order dismissing the complaint herein, based on plaintiffs` cavalier disregard of their discovery obligations throughout this proceeding,” says her lawyer, Ray Beckerman.
In a letter to judge Robert M. Levy of the U S District Court, Eastern District of New York, “The hard drive mirror image was made on August 10th, 2 ½ months ago,” he says, going on:
On September 12th I told plaintiffs` counsel I wanted to schedule the deposition of the hard drive expert. He responded that it would make sense to wait for the report and that the report would be ready in 30 days. I agreed to that time frame. When I responded that I would docket it in for October 12th, he said ‘not sure if Oct. 12 itself will work, but that time frame will’.
On October 9th, when I followed up with him, he responded ‘On the report, because I will be traveling all week, I am probably going to be a bit later than I anticipated shooting for next week). I apologize again for the delay.’
When I followed up with him today, he acted as though the time frames we had discussed were mere ‘professional courtesies’ and ‘suggestions’, and took the position that the only ‘deadline’ he needed to concern himself with was the December 31st discovery cutoff.
Stay tuned.
Also See:
usual blackmail payment – RIAA p2p file share defeat, March 19, 2006
Organized Crime – Victim sues RIAA under RICO Act, October 1, 2005
completely wrong – RIAA MediaSentry controversy, October 22, 2006
Ray Beckerman – RIAA Balks at Producing Report of Hard Drive Inspection in UMG v. Lindor, October 24, 2006
p2pnet newsfeeds for your site.
rss feed: http://p2pnet.net/p2p.rss
Mobile – http://p2pnet.net/index-wml.php
