When you fish with a net, you sometimes are going to catch a few dolphin ~ Amy Weiss, former RIAA spokeswoman

p2pnet news | RIAA News:- Here’s a story to interest anyone who’s been following Warner Music, EMI, Vivendi Universal and Sony BMG’s fruitless attempts to use legal systems around the world to terrorise their own customers into once again becoming compliant, wholly subservient, ‘consumers,’ as the corporate world contemptuously calls the men, women and children who keep them rich.

This tale is set in America, in South Carolina, to be exact, with the Big 4’s RIAA (Recording Industry Association of America) as the aggressor.

But it could have happened anywhere in the world with the initials RIAA substituted for BPI (British Phonographic Industry), say, or any of the hundreds of similar organisations the labels have set up in most developed countries.

Telling it are Charleston lawyers Jason Scott Luck and John P. Seibels, jr, representing Catherine Njuguna, another woman falsely accused by the RIAA of being a massive online distributor of copyrighted music.

She’s filed her opposition to the RIAA motion to dismiss counterclaims in Atlantic v Njuguna, says Recording Industry vs The People.

“Defendant tried to explain she listened to Christian contemporary music, not the music found in the Complaint, which included songs titled ‘Teenage Dirt Bag’ [sic], ‘She fuckin hates me’ [sic], ‘I touch myself’ [sic], ‘That Nigger’s Crazy’ [sic], and ‘Fuck You Softly.’ [sic],” says the document, leading off with,

“This case is another skirmish in the RIAA’s four-year war to use the Federal Courts to shore up the American recording industry’s failing business model.”

And as in so many other cases Sharman Network’s Kazaa P2P file sharing application plays a central role.

Both it and the RIAA are themselves the subjects of class action applications.

Luck and Seibels go on >>>

In the late nineties, various websites, FTP2 servers, and the infamous Napster software changed the face of music forever. MPEG layer 3 audio files (”mp3s”), a compressed sound file format, made it possible to transfer music via computer files quickly and with little loss in sound quality. These files allowed any music lover with a little Internet aptitude the ability to quickly discover new music and share their music with the entire world. Unfortunately, it also allowed an unprecedented level of unauthorized and illegal duplication of music in violation of the federal Copyright Act.

The wave of internet piracy of music, movies, books, and software has led to a frenzy of hand-wringing, hyperbole, and hysterics on the part of media companies. NBC Universal’s4 general counsel recently went as far as suggesting America wastes entirely too much money policing crimes like burglary, fraud, and bank robbery when it should be doing something about piracy instead. This hysteria is not unprecedented. In 1982, MPAA6 president Jack Valenti said to congress ‘I say to you that the VCR is to the American film producer and the American public as the Boston Strangler is to the woman home alone.’ The VCR did not ’strangle’ the film industry, which now makes very healthy profit from video sales and rentals. In the 1980s, British record companies believed copying albums on equipment like twin cassette decks would put them out of business and launched a ‘Home Taping is Killing Music’ campaign. While a number of unfortunate mix tapes were made by teenagers, home taping didn’t kill the music.

What is different from these previous ‘crises’ is the massive, organized campaign of litigation intended to punish pirates and deter piracy. Since 2003, thousands of lawsuits have been filed across the United States against a wide variety of defendants. These defendants include actual pirates, copying and distributing music for profit without paying royalties, and lazy teenagers that just didn’t feel like they had to pay $15 for a CD to get the one decent song it contained. These defendants have violated the law and the plaintiffs are within their rights to pursue them.

However, the Plaintiffs, and other RIAA-affiliated companies, have also sued dead people, children, the disabled, people who do not own computers, or simply sued the wrong person.

These scattershot tactics have created considerable enmity for the RIAA from the public, and the RIAA’s subsequent treatment of innocent defendants has further tarnished its reputation, leading to a growing number of defendants asserting counterclaims, and one potential nationwide class action.

The Defendant in this action, Catherine Njuguna, is one of the ‘dolphin’ so flippantly described by the RIAA.

Defendant received a letter from Time Warner Cable in January of 2006 informing her that her personal information had been disclosed pursuant to a subpoena issued in an ex parte ‘John Doe’ action filed against several IP addresses in 2005.16 This letter provided her a number to call with any questions. This number was for the ‘record companies’ representatives’ and included the email of info@SettlementInformationLine.com.

These lines of communication connected the Defendant to Settlement Support Center, LLC, (”SSC”) a company employed by the Plaintiffs to negotiate settlements with persons accused by the Plaintiffs of copyright infringement. Defendant called the Settlement Support Center and spoke with a representative, who informed her that they had evidence that a computer with IP address 67.9.63.16, which had been identified as Defendant’s, had shared over 450 music files via KaZaA file-sharing software on October 30, 2005 at 3:22 am. This accusation was troubling to the Defendant, as she did not know what file-sharing was, did not know how to download music, did not have any file-sharing software installed on her computer, and did not have the alleged music files on her computer. She was also in Oklahoma City that night, and her computer was turned off. The Settlement Support Center offered to settle the claims against her for $3750.00, or slightly more if she wished to pay over time. Over the next two months, Defendant attempted to prove her innocence to the Plaintiffs, through Settlement Support Center. She repeatedly argued that the issue must be a case of mistaken identity.

Defendant tried to explain she listened to Christian contemporary music, not the music found in the Complaint, which included songs titled ‘Teenage Dirt Bag’ [sic], ‘She fuckin hates me’ [sic], ‘I touch myself’ [sic], ‘That Nigger’s Crazy’ [sic], and ‘Fuck You Softly.’ [sic]

Defendant, with the assistance of an employee of SSC she had on the phone, searched her computer for the alleged software and music; they found none. She offered to have her computer inspected; her offer was not accepted. SSC continued to threaten to file suit if she did not pay the $3750.00. When Defendant asked how she, a person of limited means, could afford the settlement,the SSC representative suggested she get a credit card.

Plaintiffs filed suit on August 22, 2006, against a ‘Cathryn Njuguna,’ a name the Defendant has never used before and has never seen before. The SSC informed the Defendant that the yes will ever lookwill ever look, no promisessettlement demand was $4500.00, or $4750.00 paid over time.

In March, Defendant began to correspond directly with the Plaintiffs’ counsel. At this point, she was told that another incident of file sharing they attributed to her had taken place in May of 2006. Plaintiffs’ counsel discovered that this incident was a mistake in their records, and in a commendable show of professionalism, informed Defendant of the mistake, but apparently did not inform SSC.

In March of 2007, the Defendant decided the cost to litigate and be exonerated was too high and called the SSC to profess her innocence one final time and settle the case.19 The representative was rude, telling Defendant there was no way she could have not shared music via KaZaA, as they now had evidence of two incidents. Defendant attempted to explain that the second incident was a mistake on the Plaintiffs’ part, but said explanation fell on deaf ears. The representative became progressively ruder, and eventually told Defendant that she would face criminal prosecution should her infringement continue. After this conversation, Defendant boxed up her old computer and purchased a new one; she then retained counsel.

Click here for the full document.

And meanwhile, stay tuned.

.Slashdot it!

Also See:
another woman falsely accused – Marie Lindor, RIAA copyright crook, September 14, 2007
Recording Industry vs The People – Defendant fights back in Charleston, South Carolina, in Atlantic v. Njuguna, Defends her Counterclaims, September 12, 2007
class actions – RIAA named in first class action, August 16, 2007

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This entry was posted on Friday, September 14th, 2007 at 11:13 am and is filed under RIAA News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.

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