Business Week on RIAA vs Tanya Andersen
p2pnet news | RIAA News:- Anyone who still believes Vivendi Universal, EMI, Warner Music and Sony BMG’s RIAA is effective is clearly living on a desert island without radio, newspaper or TV, or a Net connection.
The RIAA (Recording Industry Association of America) started its bizarre sue ‘em all marketing campaign back in 2003, soon claiming it was making a significant impact on the P2P filesharing community.
In fact, nothing could have been further from the truth. The opposite was then, and is still today, true with millions of new P2P enthusiasts logging on almost by the hour.
But that hasn’t stopped the Big 4 extortion outfit from attacking helpless men, women and children across America, accusing them of being massive distributors of copyrighted corporate ‘product’.
One such was Tanya Andersen, a disabled Oregon mother with absolutely no clue about file sharing. And worse, the RIAA even targeted her daughter, Kylee, who was only seven when so-called RIAA investigators first turned up on her doorstep.
But she didn’t cave in. She and her lawyers, Lory Lybeck and Ben Justus, have fought the multi-billion-dollar labels to a dead halt and Andersen has gone from being a supposedly helpless RIAA victim to the Big 4 organised music cartel’s worst nightmare, and a couple of weeks ago she was telling me she’d been interviewed by Business Week.
It wasn’t that long ago that no one in the mainstream media was willing to pay any attention to the victims, instead parroting just about every piece of garbage the RIAA cared to trot out.
But that, too, has changed, with more and more members of the corporate press carrying the other side of the story.
Today, “go here,” Andersen said in an email.
So I followed the link. It points to a major Business Week story and kicks off with >>>
Inside Tanya Andersen’s private war with the recording industry. Hint: She’s winning.
Further on, it says >>>
When the RIAA first set its sights on her three years ago, Andersen was looking after her eight-year-old daughter by herself in the wake of a divorce. It was December, 2004, and she pulled an envelope out of her mailbox. Ripping it open, she found a letter from Verizon Communications (VZ), her Internet service provider, saying it was releasing information about her. With it was a copy of a page from a subpoena. Andersen had earned a two-year legal secretary degree while in community college, but she had no idea what the documents meant. “I thought to myself: “I haven’t done anything wrong,’” she says.
A second, more ominous letter arrived in early February, 2005. The document, from a law firm in Los Angeles, said she was being sued by several record companies for copyright infringement because she had shared their music with others over the Net. “The evidence necessary for the record companies to prevail in this action has already been secured,” the letter states. It informed her that the minimum damages for each copyrighted song shared was $750 and encouraged her to contact the Settlement Support Center to discuss a financial settlement. If she didn’t resolve the issue, she would be sued.
For the first time, Andersen was scared. She tried to e-mail a contact listed in the letter and called the law firm. A few days later her phone rang. “Ms. Andersen, I am calling to discuss settlement,” she recalls the person on the other end of the line saying. “Settlement of what?” she responded. The man explained he was calling from the Settlement Support Center as a representative of the RIAA. He had information that she had been caught sharing songs online. To avoid a lawsuit, she would have to pay $4,000 or $5,000, he said. “You’re going to have to pay us, or this won’t go away,” she says he told her.
“There wasn’t a day that didn’t go by where I didn’t think about and wonder what my daughter and my future would be like, what kind of a future would we have, and after all this mess, if we would even be able to afford the basic necessities of life,” Andersen said last summer, continuing >>>
I wondered often if I would mentally be able to handle all that was happening. The lawsuit affected my daughter greatly. There were times she was afraid what was going to happen.
The lawsuit did a lot of damage to my health, my life with my daughter, and relationships with other people. It made me short-tempered, overwhelmed, nervous and stressed.
At times I would be so edgy and short that I would snap at things I never normally would.
Through this lawsuit, I’ve been humiliated, embarrassed, shamed, and my privacy has been greatly violated by the other side.
They not only deposed my 10-year-old daughter, but, deposed my grown step-kids (who I’ve long been divorced from the father), friends, etc.
At one point, they even tracked down and called my new landlord. 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.
As you know, I never did what the RIAA accused me of. There was no need for this lawsuit to ever even take place. I did everything humanly possible from the day I received the first letter to tell them there was a mistake. I even offered for my computer to be looked at from the beginning. They didn’t want to listen. I’ll never under why they continued to put me through the drug out nightmare that they have.
She didn’t, however, give up, naming the RIAA under the RICO act, normally reserved for other kinds of criminal organisations.
Today, having won her case, she’s currently trying to force the RIAA to do what it’s been ordered to do —- pay her what’s owed.
But, Business Week concludes, the RIAA did win a partial victory this week, adding >>>
After a conference call on Apr. 21 with Lybeck and Gabriel, the court struck Andersen’s complaint and asked Lybeck to refine the claims. As a result, Lybeck plans to drop charges of fraud and racketeering, which the judge thought would be tough to prove. “The judge understands what we believe, that there isn’t any merit to these claims,” Gabriel.
Still, Andersen’s case is very much alive. Lybeck plans to file another amended complaint by May 1, including the charges of conspiracy, negligence, and abuse of the legal process. Shortly thereafter, he plans to start deposing officials from the RIAA and its affiliates in preparation for a jury trial. “The trick to making this case stick will depend on to what extent Andersen can show that the RIAA engaged in serial bad-faith lawsuits,” says Richard C. Vasquez, a partner in Seattle at Morgan Miller Blair who is not involved in the dispute.
From her apartment outside Portland, Andersen remains involved in the broader case. She collects files on her suit and tracks other disputes with the RIAA online. One recent winter day, she sipped a Diet Pepsi and watched Tazz jump from the couch and settle on the floor. “You have to find some positive in stuff, too,” she says. “For whatever reason, I have been given a unique opportunity to fight this. I feel a responsibility in a way and want to help others. That pushes me along.”
Was it, though, a victory, partial or otherwise?
p2pnet posted on April 18 >>>
Lawyers working with RIAA victim Tanya Andersen have just filed their third amended complaint in what’s becoming the seminal Vivendi Universal, EMI, Warner Music and Sony BMG case as they and their RIAA continue their mission to hunt down and sue their own customers into becoming compliant consumers.
Andersen and her attorneys, Lory Lybeck and Ben Justus, have so far kept the labels and their legal attack dogs at bay.
Now they’ve further streamlined their case, focusing on the racketeering and corruption, abuse of the legal process, wrongful civil prosecution, deceptive business practices, negligence, fraud, and civil conspiracy components.
Last month, Andersen re-refiled after what amounted to a detailed briefing by federal judge Anna Brown.
However, one of the facets of this and all RIAA cases is delay, delay, delay.
Lybeck is still waiting for his corporate music industry opposite numbers to supply documents and other information which should have provided long ago.
To keep moving ahead with discovery in view of the court’s instructions, they’ve dropped certain class action claims which depend on still-missing RIAA data.
The court has explained the components which have been dropped can be re-entered once the RIAA material is in hand.
Stay tuned.
Jon Newton – p2pnet
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April 26th, 2008 at 12:17 am
That’s a long read and I must admit I haven’t finished it yet, but I’m aware of her story of course. This is what we need, more heroes like her. She and her daughter can be proud for doing a great service to the world, going where few others have dared.
Imagine all the huge bribes she must have already turned down to make her go away, which would have given her a life of wealth and ease, except would not have ease her conscience. Now she has a mission in life and it seems she is going to see it through.
They’d better pray nothing happens to her.
April 26th, 2008 at 2:42 am
Tania is a great american hero fighting for her coutry! We need a lot more people like her to bring down rogues foreign corporations of parasites Such as Vivendi Universal who think that it is open season on The people of America and elswhere.
Thank you Tania! And Congratulation!
April 26th, 2008 at 8:15 am
IMHO it is sad that the story above will not received as much coverage as the stroy in Business Week. But still and all those who should know DO know.
April 26th, 2008 at 8:24 am
‘naming the RIAA under the RICO act, normally reserved for other kinds of criminal organisations.’
other kinds of criminal organisations – right on
April 26th, 2008 at 10:37 am
I would like to take a moment to give thanks to Jon for covering this story so superbly since its inception in 2005. I’m glad mainstream media are finally starting to get caught up to it, but Jon has been our leader in getting the word out.
And more than just keeping his readers abreast of legal developments, Jon really helped us to get to know Tanya Andersen and her daughter and what they were going through.
And more than just telling us about Tanya, this story has helped give people insight into the suffering that has been inflicted on every family that winds up being victimized by the ghouls, stormtroopers, clones, and running dogs in the hire of the RIAA.
Thank you Jon for telling the story.
And thank you Tanya for living your life with courage.
April 26th, 2008 at 11:44 am
(Blush)
Thanks, Ray.
To anyone else harbouring similar thoughts, actually, it’s all down to Tanya for having the courage to stand up and tell it like it was, despite the terror – and I use the word advisedly – she was experiencing, and to Lory and Ben for their dedication which wasn’t, I promise, inspired by financial considerations.
All I did was report.
Cheers!
April 26th, 2008 at 12:15 pm
“All I did was report” on this and a ton of other scandals. Good on ya Jon
April 26th, 2008 at 9:50 pm
Every single day I feel a great deal of gratitude for all the help I’ve received. Back when my ordeal first started, I had absolutely no idea what to do. It was through the very few websites that existed at the time, like P2Pnet and Recording Industry vs. the People that I was able to find information to educate myself.
My opinion is that these people who are helping people with these cases, i.e., lawyers, internet community, writers, media, tech people, EFF and many many others, work harder than anybody could ever possibly imagine to stand up for what is right. They go above and beyond and keep doing it over and over again. I am grateful.
These cases concern a lot more than “just another day at the office” or “business as usual.” This has to do with real, normal, every day regular people that are not unlike your mother, sister, brother, or yourself. I know my life will never be the same. RIAA victims, like me, read many of the comments people write on sites such as P2Pnet and others. The supportive and thoughtful comments people have left have meant a whole lot to me. I really want to thank people for that. I still feel like people can and are making a difference.
April 28th, 2008 at 5:13 pm
Good luck Tanya!
May 1st, 2008 at 4:01 am
Well said Tanya. Keep the faith!
May 1st, 2008 at 11:01 pm
Big cheers to all of you who are fighting this case and other like it. Power to you all to prevail in difficult times.
May 1st, 2008 at 11:21 pm
I just read the whole story and boy what a read. Where do these guys come from really? This Gabriel character must have been asleep all along. “We took the high road by dropping this case” …. WHAT? You guys have the computer and not a shred of evidence. I’d like to see you sell that to a jury.
May 4th, 2008 at 8:43 pm
Well, one has to understand that it is Gabriel’s job, or part of it anyway, to paint his organization and it’s position in as positive a light as possible. My perception, however, has largely been that Gabriel is only lying when his lips are moving.
May 5th, 2008 at 1:16 pm
Gabriel does not speak he lie.
Once someone is so consistant at lying at least you know one think:
Whatever it says is no true.
May 8th, 2008 at 4:54 am
This woman should just be given a default judgment in court, and the judge should say “No more appeals!” which, unknown to most people, they are allowed to do in anything except capital murder cases without the say of the person who has the judgment put against them.
May 8th, 2008 at 1:36 pm
It is heartening to read of the courage and tenacity of Tanya Anderson’s struggle against the corporate juggernaut. For each of us facing the decision of whether or not to stand up against the injustices of powerful corporate greed, Tanya’s spirit is encouraging. Our gratitude goes out to you, Tanya, for strengthening our resolve to not be silenced. For every Tanya may there be hundreds, nay thousands more, inspired to engage the wrong.
May 21st, 2008 at 4:09 pm
0_o omg this is so sweet that RIAA got screwed
this is the greatest day for all “peers” in the world! CONGRATS TANIA! lets hope that all ppl who’s going to get sued by riaa will do same thing tania did, and make it bankrupt!