Pay up! Dawnell Leadbetter tells RIAA. Again.
p2pnet news view RIAA | P2P:- Regular p2pnet readers will recognize the name Dawnell Leadbetter.
She’s the Seattle-area mother of two teenaged children who sued Comcast for disclosing her name and contact information.
She also features in the ‘We’re Not Taking Any More’ club, an early p2pnet story on mothers who’ve had the courage to stand up to Vivendi Universal, EMI, Warner Music and Sony Music RIAA thugs.
In the Comcast case, an RIAA ‘Settlement Support Center’ used information the RIAA, “obtained in a Philadelphia lawsuit over the illegal sharing of digital music files,” Lory Lybeck, the lawyer representing Leadbetter, said in Reclaim the Media.
“But no court authorized Comcast to release names and addresses of its customers, or notified his client that her information had been given to an outside party.”
Now, “In Interscope Records v Leadbetter, where the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals had affirmed the lower court’s denial of Ms Leadbetter’s motion for her attorneys fees, Ms Leadbetter has filed a petition for rehearing, arguing that the Court overlooked certain facts and legal precedents,” says Recording Industry vs The People.
Terrorised by RIAA
Two West Coast mothers were demanding Warner Music, EMI, Vivendi Universal and Sony BMG’s RIAA pay their attorneys’ fees after it unsuccessfully tried to sue them, labelling them online criminals, said p2pnet in 2005.
Tanya Andersen and Dawnell were each terrorised by RIAA and its investigators for two years, “before the organised music enforcer finally abandoned its attempts to paint them as thieves who’d been ’stealing’ copyrighted music and ‘massively’ distributing it online,” we said.
Tanya, also represented by Lory, has since become famous around the world as an ordinary woman who took on the RIAA and won, forcing them to pay attorney fees it’d been desperately trying to wriggle out of.
Not that the corporate music extortion unit has finished with her.
“I‘m still fighting with the RIAA,” she told p2pnet last month. “This still isn’t over. I did win the lawsuit the RIAA had against me; however, I have the class action case against them. It’s still in discovery at this time.”
And the RIAA is using the same dirty tactics that are now hallmarks of its sue ‘em all campaign, we said.
“So far, they’ve subpoened records from my medical providers, past employers, government records, and many others,” says Tanya, adding:
“It feels like more humiliation and invasion of privacy. Most recently, I’ve learned that they are calling me in for yet another deposition. The last deposition was close to six hours long and extremely stressful. So, here we go again.”
But, Tanya promises, “I won’t give up. It’s just too important.”
‘Shoot first and sort it out later’
Leadbetter, too, was asking the court to award her attorneys fees, and in his brief for Leadbetter, Lory states, “She and her son were caught in the same abusive ’shoot first and sort it out later’ approach the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) had employed in tens of thousands of cases around the country.”
He also pointed out similarities between Dawnell’s case and that of Debbie Foster, an Oklahoma nurse who also had the RIAA’s case against her dismissed and who also went through hell and high water to force the RIAA to pay her what it owed.
Disingenuous means insincere or calculating, and that’s how Judge Lee R. West labelled a claim by the RIAA, said p2pnet, continuing:
“Oklahoma mother Debbie Foster, accused of being an illlicit distributor of copyrighted music online, and her lawyer, Marilyn Barringer-Thomson, fought the RIAA to a standstill and in the process were awarded was attorneys’ fees.
“Now the RIAA is doing everything it can to get out of paying.”
Foster was sued solely because she’d paid for a Net account and the RIAA later attempted to plead “secondary liability” without any factual basis, but its tactic was repudiated by judge Lee R. West in Capitol v Foster as “marginal” and “untested”, and in his later decision denying the RIAA’s plea for “consideration,” said Recording Industry vs The People’s Ray Beckerman.
Falsely sued as ‘massive’ online distributors of copyrighted music files
In another story, the RIAA should pay for Dawn Leadbetter’s two-year legal ordeal, “fighting a baseless file-sharing lawsuit,” p2pnet quoted the EFF (Electronic Frontier Foundation) as saying.
“Quite right, as far as it goes,” we thought, going on »»»
But it doesn’t go nearly far enough.
The RIAA should pay for all the legal battles being fought by all the American mothers being falsely sued as “massive” online distributors of copyrighted music files.
And the same should apply to the fathers, brothers, uncles, grandmothers, grandfathers and even dead people who’ve been wrongly sued by the RIAA, short for Recording Industry Association of America which is more than a little ironic given only one of the companies behind the corporate music extortion organisation is based in the US, and even that’s run by a Canadian.
Tormented for years
EMI (Britain), Vivendi Universal (France), Sony BMG (Japan and Germany) and Warner Music (US), the members of the Big 4 organised music cartel, are suing their own customers in a fruitless bid to force them to buy overpriced corporate product.
Dawnell Leadbetter is accused of illegally downloading copyrighted music and the EFF says it and attorney Derek Newman of Newman & Newman LLP have just filed amicus brief in the US District Court in Seattle to support Leadbetter.
Together with Patti Santangelo, Tanya Andersen, Leadbetter was one of the first American mothers to openly refuse to take any more from the Big 4, also suing Comcast for disclosing her name and contact information to the RIAA. And she’s incurred significant attorney’s fees, says the EFF.
The same applies to all the other estimated thirty thousand or so RIAA victims, of course.
It takes an immense amount of courage and resolve for someone with little or no legal or financial resources to stand up to the multi-billion-dollar music label bullies, but more and more people are following the example set by the three single mums who’ve been tormented for years while the children of powerful big music executives have been let off scot-free.
The ‘bright line’ of ‘moral responsibility’
During an interview, “We asked Edgar Bronfman, the head of the world’s fourth largest music company, at the Reuters Summit whether any of his seven kids stole music,” said Reuters, and, “I’m fairly certain that they have, and I’m fairly certain that they’ve suffered the consequences,” Bronfman stated, going on:
‘I explained to them what I believe is right, that the principle is that stealing music is stealing music. Frankly, right is right and wrong is wrong, particularly when a parent is talking to a child. A bright line around moral responsibility is very important. I can assure you they no longer do that.’
The clip is from a photograph in the Reuters story showing Bronfman (left) chatting to Adam Pasick.
What did the “bright line” involve? Whatever that was, it certainly had nothing to do with moral responsibility and, “I think I’ll keep that within the family,” evaded Bronfman, the Canadian who heads cartel member Warner Music.
One thing is 100%, solid gold, carved-in-rock certain, though. Neither he nor his children will ever be sued, or loudly and publicly harassed by the RIAA for copyright infringement.
But there are no bright lines for Dawnell.
She’s still waiting for what’s owed to her by the RIAA. And waiting. And waiting.
The US government should long ago have stepped in to put a stop to these appalling and undeniable abuses of not only the US legal system, but of ordinary innocent Americans and their children.
Instead, president Obama has appointed RIAA henchmen to important Department of Justice posts.
Stay tuned.
Jon Newton – p2pnet
Recording Industry vs The People – Dawnell Leadbetter asks 9th Circuit to reconsider attorneys fees decision, files petition for rehearing, March 11, 2009
p2pnet – RIAA victim seeks attorney fees, June 22, 2007
trying to wriggle out of – Tanya Andersen awarded $108,000, May 15, 2008
I’m still fighting with the RIAA – RIAA: still harassing Tanya Andersen, February 13, 2009
hell and high water -RIAA must pay Debbie Foster $70,000, July 17, 2007
p2pnet – Judges labels RIAA claim ‘disingenuous’, April 24, 2007
Recording Industry vs The People – Judge Denies RIAA “Reconsideration” Motion in Capitol v. Foster, Calls Plaintiffs’ Counsel “Disingenuous”, Motives “Questionable”, April 24, 2007
EFF – RIAA Should Pay for Single Mom’s Two-Year Ordeal, July 6, 2007
Dawnell Leadbetter – The ‘We’re Not Taking Any More’ club, September 17, 2005
estimated thirty thousand – Ohio U failing students in RIAA attacks, May 25, 2007
Reuters – The most dangerous download of all, December 1, 2006
online bounty hunter MediaSentry – Tanya Andersen sues the RIAA, June 25, 2007
RIAA henchmen – RIAA gang at the DoJ, February 9, 2009
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