p2pnet news | RIAA News:- Oregon mother Tanya Andersen has been fighting Warner Music, EMI, Vivendi Universal and Sony BMG’s RIAA ever since she was wrongly accused of being a massive online illegal distributor of copyrighted music files in 2005.

What she and her 10-year-old, Kylee, have had to suffer at the hands of the highly paid Big 4 legal teams would make a movie.

Except no one would believe it.

Andersen, who’s disabled, has refused to cave in, suing the RIAA for alleged negligence, fraud and misrepresentation, racketeering and corruption, abuse of the legal process, malicious prosecution, outrage and intention to inflict emotional distress, computer fraud and abuse, trespass, invasion of privacy, libel and slander, deceptive business practices, misuse of copyright laws, and civil conspiracy.

However, federal judge Anna Brown has dismissed Andersen’s complaint, asking her to resubmit it within 30 days, going into more detail on which specific laws the RIAA and MediaSentry are said to have violated.

‘Non-existent crime of file sharing’

The RIAA claims multi-billion-dollar labels Warner Music, EMI, Vivendi Universal and Sony BMG are being "devastated," to use one of its favourite words, by file sharing, calling its own customers, criminals and thieves.

The RIAA is able to bring these lawsuits because not one of its victims has the legal or financial resources to properly defend themselves.

Subpoenas are the RIAA’s weapon of choice says p2pnet here, going on:

They’re merely written orders to appear in court. But the RIAA has been able to spin them until in the eyes of not only the public, but also all too many members of the mainstream media, they’re full-scale ‘prosecutions’ under which ‘guilt’ is a foregone conclusion.

By the time the RIAA had finished Stage One of its sue ‘em all campaign, some 30,000 men, women and children across America had been subpoenaed.

Corporate press reports gave the impression thousands of people had been successfully ‘convicted’ in court over non-existent crime of file sharing.

However, by the end of last year only one person, Minnesota, mother of two Jammie Thomas had actually appeared before a judge and jury.

Her trial was as a travesty, and it’s far from over.

‘They tracked down my apartment manager’

Says Andersen >>>

It has never been in me to give up fighting because I believe so strongly that what the RIAA is doing is so grossly wrong. This lawsuit, to me, is about a whole lot more than money. I feel I definitely should be compensated for all the damage these companies have caused me.

However, to me, these cases have a lot to do with freedom, privacy, and our rights and freedoms as human beings.

When I first got the phone call from the Settlement Support Center, I had no idea who the RIAA was. At first I believed the whole thing was a scam because it was so unbelievable. It was hard to understand why, if any of this was real, I couldn’t even see any proof of what they were accusing. I certainly knew they were mistaken. I wondered how could these companies barge into your life and make outrageous demands on an innocent person. I figured after sending the letter to the Settlement Support Center, to forward to their bosses, they would figure out the error. At that time, I never realized how much my life was about to change.

The people the RIAA are suing are your average next door neighbor, sister, mother, and child. It’s hard to explain to people, who don’t know anything about the RIAA, how devastating these lawsuits really are to the average person. Most people look at you with disbelief. Sometimes you wonder if they think you are losing it (because the story sounds so unreal). Sometimes you wonder if you are losing it. In my case, when this first started, there was very little information available.

I was secretly sued in a case I knew nothing about. Called and harassed for money I didn’t owe for something I never did. I was never allowed to talk to anyone "in charge" about any of this. They just kept calling and demanding money because they said I had to pay or else I’d have a huge Federal Court case filed against me. It was very confusing and stressful to say the least.

Once when they called, I had visitors over and these people called demanding money. It was embarrassing and humiliating.

It felt like the RIAA didn’t really have any interest in looking at my computer, which I offered long before the lawsuit was filed. It felt like they didn’t care if I was innocent.

It took a court order to even get them to examine my evidence. After finding nothing, the RIAA went on to depose my friends, relatives, and my child. They tracked down my apartment manager and asked him questions.

According to him, they weren’t respectful either. All this was extremely humiliating, embarrassing, and frightening. I felt violated and felt like I was being treated like a criminal for no reason other than that they could.

For several years now, because of this, I’ve lived with an extreme amount of stress. It has made my mental and physical health suffer. There have been many sleepless nights, times I just broke down and cried - feeling like I could take no more.

But, you have to take more because there is no choice.

You either fight or pay - it doesn’t matter if you’re innocent - those are your options.

For me, paying them was not a choice, even if I’d had the money. I refuse to pay for something that I didn’t do and I told them that from the beginning. I was, and still am, horrified that they are doing this to people. It is unbelievably wrong.

The people that are fighting these cases go through a lot.

You take all of life’s everyday stresses, emergencies, regular responsibilities, ups and down’s of life, and add a huge lawsuit to it that turns your life upside down. It is a lot to bear. It gnaws at your life every single day.

You wonder if it will ever end.

In my case, no matter how often I told them I was innocent, they just kept pursuing and dragging things out. They still are.

It makes you distracted and sometimes act in ways that you normally wouldn’t. You feel on edge often. The people fighting these cases live in fear. Your privacy is invaded.

I don’t like the fact that somebody, like the RIAA, can walk into your life, take it over, cause considerable financial, physical and mental damage to your life, cause upset to your family life, take away precious moments of your life that you will never get back, and make you live in fear, all for something you have NEVER even done.

Stay tuned.

Slashdot it!

Also See:

refused to cave in - The ‘We’re Not Taking Any More’ club, September 17, 2005
racketeering and corruption - Tanya Andersen sues the RIAA, June 25, 2007
p2pnet - Johan Pouwelse vs RIAA’s Doug Jacobson, February 21, 2008

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This entry was posted on Friday, February 22nd, 2008 at 8:03 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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