Grandmother targets RIAA ‘investigators’
p2pnet news | RIAA News:- Taking a page out of Tanya Andersen’s book, Hurricane Rita survivor Rhonda Crain is also targeting the RIAA practice of using unlicensed ‘investigators’ in its bizarre sue ‘em all marketing campaign.
Andersen, a disabled Oregon mother and her 10-year-old daughter, Kylee, “have for the last three years been living a nightmare, thanks to Warner Music, EMI, Vivendi Universal and Sony BMG’s RIAA,” she says.
Now she’s suing the RIAA (Recording Industry Association of America). “At one point, they even tracked down and called my new landlord,” she says. “I had been living here for only one month. They’ve asked and investigated quite a bit of extremely personal information, which was very humiliating.”
In this latest case against the RIAA, Crain, a grandmother who lives in Beaumont, Texas, says she’s never shared files and now wants to amend her answer to include counter-claims against the record companies for using unlicensed MediaSentry investigators, says Recording Industry v The People.
She’s also demanding a trial by jury, saying the RIAA’s actions “amount to extortion,” a charge also levelled at the Big 4 enforcer by Andersen, whose lawyer, Lory Lybeck, pointed out in a court document:
Pursuant to a secret agreement, the RIAA, it’s controlled member companies and MediaSentry conspired to develop the massive threat and litigation enterprise targeting private citizens across the United States. The RIAA, and his controlled member companies as the years aggressively acted to prevent disclosure of secret agreement.
Recently it has been discovered that as a part of this secret enterprise MediaSentry has for years conducted illegal, flawed and negligent investigations of many thousands of private United States citizens.
These illegal investigations are then used as the sole basis for pursuit of tens of thousands of lawsuits throughout the US.
During the investigation, MediaSentry, without authorisation and under the false pretext of being a PA user, claims to employ secret methods to enter individual computers to surreptitiously and illegally gather information on private citizens. At best, MediaSentry only identifies an Internet protocol( IP) address and which it then sells to the RIAA. The RIAA and is controlled member companies then use this illegally obtained information in its public threat of litigation enterprise.
Stay tuned.
Also See:
Hurricane Rita survivor – Hurricane Rita survivor RIAA victim, November 18, 2006
very humiliating – Tanya Andersen sues the RIAA, June 29, 2007
Recording Industry v The People – Ms. Crain Counterclaims against RIAA for Using Unlicensed Investigators, July 3, 2007
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Tired of being treated like a criminal? They depend on you, not the other way around. Don’t buy their ‘product’. Do bug your local politicians. Use emails, snail-mail, phone calls, faxes, IM, stop them in the street, blog. And if you’re into organizing, organize petitions, organize demonstrations and then turn up on your local political rep’s doorstep, making sure you’ve contacted your local tv/radio station/newspaper in advance. Don’t just complain. Do something!
July 4th, 2007 at 9:50 am
Not buying their product(s) just gives them more fuel to feed the fire they started. They keep using declining record sales (that they claim is due to piracy) to justify these suits, and even worse, to justify lobbying Congress to change laws to allow them even more power and do things (investigative and otherwise) that currently are illegal – including the right to install SpyWare on people’s machines to track and ensure they are only playing licensed music (which since they dont follow us to the stores, is not possible – it only allows them the ability to spy on the public and amass a lot of private information). It’s called the CanSpy Act, and is one of numerous efforts underway all under the guise of stopping the (in their mind) major cause of their declining CD sales.
July 4th, 2007 at 10:26 pm
This could very well be the beginning of the RIAA being sued for extortion. More and more of these law suits are comming…it is only a matter of time before the RIAA should eventually get their head on a platter for extorting indivudials that they KNOW do not have the rescources to fight back….but it looks like they picked on the wrong grandmother this time!
July 6th, 2007 at 12:40 am
This is a very interesting angle….not using licensed investigators…nice one. I wonder why nobody hasn’t thought of that one before. Just goes to show you don’t mess with old people. They have been around the block more than a few times, and some of them actually know the law better than the lawyers.
July 6th, 2007 at 7:56 am
Nice job. She should start a web site to solicit funds to go after these guys, I’d donate. The RIAA thinks they are untouchable… when in fact nobody is above the law.
February 16th, 2009 at 7:23 pm
@ Little boy-
No one is above the law except the rich and famous
And cops.