New win for Tanya Andersen against RIAA
p2pnet news | RIAA News:- It’s another win for Tanya Andersen, the disabled Oregon mother who refused to be terrorised into submission by the multi-billion-dollar Warner Music, EMI, Vivendi Universal and Sony BMG and their RIAA.
The story of her fight against the Big 4 labels reads like a story —- a horror story.
She’s pictured on the right with her lawyer, Lory Lybeck. Together, the two have fought the RIAA to a stand-still.
RIAA (Recording Industry Association of America) heavies tried to frighten her into agreeing to extortion, as the labels called their phoney ’settlement’ deals, even targeting Kylee, her ten-year-old daughter.
"The RIAA has finally dismissed my case with prejudice!" – Andersen emailed p2pnet, going on:
"My counterclaims, however, are not dismissed, and I’m still fighting for those. They just stand on their own now. Plus, I can go after attorney fees and costs. It seems like this has taken forever …what a relief! Anyway, I just wanted you to know."
Now, "The Magistrate Judge’s decision granting Tanya Andersen’s motion for attorneys fees in Atlantic v. Andersen has now been affirmed by the District Judge, Hon. James A. Redden," says Recording Industry vs The People.
"This means that Ms. Andersen will get her attorneys fees …"
All that remains now is, how much?
Said US magistrate judge Donald C. Ashmanskas last September, "defendant incurred substantial fees before the claims against her were dismissed, including those incurred to file her motion for summary judgment and to respond to a motion to dismiss her counterclaims with prejudice".
He went on:
During that time, plaintiffs were either unable to obtain, or chose not to produce, significant evidence to support their claims…..when plaintiffs dismissed their claims in June 2007, they apparently had no more material evidence to support their claims than they did when they first contacted defendant in February 2005…..
Whatever plaintiffs’ reasons for the manner in which they have prosecuted this case, it does not appear to be justified as a reasonable exploration of the boundaries of copyright law….. In this case, plaintiffs dismissed their claims before any rulings on any significant legal issues under the Copyright Act, or the factual issues associated with plaintiffs’ claim. Choosing that course, on this record, should be deterred in light of its potential chilling effect on the public’s access to creative works. If this were to become a more typical course in prosecuting the type of allegations faced by defendant, it is reasonably foreseeable that members of the public would be more hesitant to use the Internet to share creative works in general, regardless of whether their specific conduct violated copyright law or occupied an area yet to be addressed by copyright law.
Copyright holders generally, and these plaintiffs specifically, should be deterred from prosecuting infringement claims as plaintiffs did in this case. Plaintiffs exerted a significant amount of control over the course of discovery, repeatedly and successfully seeking the court’s assistance through an unusually extended and contentious period of discovery disputes. Nonetheless, after ample opportunity to develop their claims, they dismissed them at the point they were required to produce evidence for the court’s consideration of the merits….. this case provides too little assurance that a prosecuting party won’t deem an infringement claim unsupportable until after the prevailing defendant has been forced to mount a considerable defense, and undergo all that entails, including the incurring of substantial attorney fees.
Definitely stay tuned.
Also See:-
even targeting Kylee – RIAA vs Kylee hits the mainstream, March 28, 2007
emailed p2pnet – Tanya Andersen beats the RIAA, June 5, 2007
Recording Industry vs The People – Tanya Andersen to get her attorneys fees against the RIAA, January 17, 2008
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January 17th, 2008 at 11:27 am
Pay up suckers (RIAA)
January 17th, 2008 at 2:07 pm
It’s about time Tanya got some satisfaction for all the crap this group has put her through. It looks to have been one thing on the mind of the RIAA, to try and show to others on the hit list that fighting in court is going to cost you. But then caving in will as well.
Only this time it has backfired in a big way. How nice to see some justice served up for the little guy. WTG Tanya and company!
January 17th, 2008 at 7:37 pm
Very intelligent judge, looking at insert from ruling posted here.
January 18th, 2008 at 1:53 am
Congrats.
January 18th, 2008 at 7:47 am
This is a bad day for piracy. It’s troublemakers like this Tanya Andersen stealing all our content that should be going to jail for a long time, let alone some piddly little $4000 fine. Stupid judge.
January 18th, 2008 at 1:14 pm
It is about time a Judge realized that just because they own an INTERNET account doesn’t mean they did anything wrong.
Up to this point, many, many people have been falsely sued for having downloaded when they never sat behind the desk.
The RIAA felt that if you own a gun, you must have been responsible for the murder. If you own a car, you must have been driving when the hit and run occurred.
Worse, the DOj and courts adopted this belief that no proof of any wrong doing still made you guilty.
We saw that in Iraq but now it has been present in 20,000 federal cases in the US.
Nice to see that for someone to have been found guilty, there will now have to be proof that a person did some thing wrong no thinks to the Justice department
and many other federal judges.