RIAA sues another grandma
p2pnet.net News:- The Kazaa p2p application has been singled out in another EMI (Britain), Vivendi Universal (France), Sony BMG (Japan, Germany) and Warner Music (US) sue ‘em all case.
But that Kazaa has yet again been named in a p2p file sharing case, this time involving a Kentucky grandmother, is now appropriate.
After years of trying, Kazaa owner Sharman Networks has managed to cosy up to the Big Four, as well as the Hollywood movie studios, with the major software companies in the background. It hopes this will allow it to finally start marketing its lame duck Digital Restrictions Management software, and other ’services,’ to the corporate giants.
Meanwhile, the multi-billion-dollar Big Four labels, under investgation at state and federal level in the US on charges of bribery and price fixing, claim they’re being “devastated” by file sharers, calling them thieves, although nothing has been stolen, and saying file sharing is being halted, although in fact, it’s still on the rise, as it has been for the last half-decade.
They’re using their Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) to wage a bizarre and relentless battle against their own customers, brandishing subpoenas to try to terrorize them into buying product.
It’s been estimated that about 61 million Americans have shared online. But the RIAA has been able to subpoena only around 19,000, disingenuously claiming victims’ IP addresses are enough to go on.
“I really didn’t know …”
Kathy Hartness, a, “grandmother, churchgoer and gardener who had never been in trouble with the law – until she was served with papers in June for something she did more than a year ago,” says The Courier-Journal in Louisville, Kentucky, going on that she and her teenage daughter downloaded music, “after a friend told them about KaZaA” a p2p, “Internet sharing network that lets people download music and other material from another member’s computer for free.”
“I really didn’t know I was doing anything wrong,” the story has her saying. “When they say that 4 million people are on there (KaZaA), it must be OK, or why would there be so many people on there?”
Nor is Hartness alone. It seems most of the RIAA’s victims, including young children, used Kazaa. And many say when they bought the p2p application, they believed they were in effect buying a license to legally download music.
They also say Sharman failed to make it clear that the folder in which Kazaa downloads were stored needed to be disabled so other people couldn’t tap into it. But even if they had known, figuring out how to disable the folder was beyond them, say victims, especially children.
The Big Four use their PR machines to imply thousands of “thieves” have been successfully prosecuted for the “crime” of sharing music, though no such crime exists and not one of the 19,000 RIAA victims has so far actually appeared before a court or a jury, or been found guilty of anything, let alone copyright infringement.
Verifiable parental consent
Patti Santangelo, a single New York mother with five children, will be the first to take the Big Four with their bottomless pockets and highly paid legal teams, on.
“To have the capability to make money and abuse an innocent consumer, or in most cases a child, is beyond my comprehension,” she says. “The owners of Kazaa should be held accountable.
“I’m not sure about the laws of Canada or other countries, but here in the USA we have what is called The COPPA Act (child online protection act). This law was broken by Kazaa. I know this because a requirement of COPPA is have verifiable parental consent for a child to download their so-called ‘free’ service, and this never happened.
“I want so much to be able to stop them from doing this …….”
Meanwhile, “Iola Scruse of Louisville, a 66-year-old grandmother on Social Security, said her three teenage grandchildren downloaded music using an Internet account in her name,” adds the The Courier-Journal.
“Her case ended up as a default judgment because she did not respond to the lawsuit. So Scruse, who also is racking up medical bills for dialysis, must pay $6,000 for the 872 songs her grandchildren downloaded, in addition to court fees.
“Her granddaughter, Direicia Scruse, 17, said she heard about downloading from television and friends. ‘I didn’t know it was illegal. The instructions were on the Internet,’ Direicia said. ‘If it was illegal, why was it on there?’ ”
(Thanks, Ray)
Also See:
cosy up – Kazaa, MPAA alliance, July 27, 2006
lame duck – Altnet ‘extortion’ attempt, January 12, 2006
The Courier-Journal in Louisville – Illegal downloads create unlikely defendants, July 31, 2006
beyond my comprehension – Anonymous p2pnet poster named, June 29, 2006
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August 1st, 2006 at 11:29 pm
I totally agree its lame to claim this as an excuse and the warnings on the networks are sufficiently clear to inform people of the legality; far from supporting Kazaa, I still think its a little unfair to single them out both by RIAA&p2pnet; I mean, this kid couldve been on any network at any time and had just the same misfortune.
August 1st, 2006 at 11:52 pm
The above statement by the 17 year old daughter is just stupid.
The instructions for making a bomb are out there, if you look hard
enough. That is a dumbass excuse, and she knows it.
It is a mistake comparing making a bomb to copying songs.
To begin with normal people do not make or use bombs. These are mostly made by the military industry so as to kill innocent people in countries with oil and an occassionally mad bombers (maybe the two are the same).
Normal people copy things without concern for laws (copyright). Just watch the use of a photocopy machine or a computer printer in a typical lawyer, medical, engineering or any other type of office. These equipment are constantly used to copy copyrightable material. For many, they would be useless if they could not be used to copy ads, technical articles, internet images, press articles, photographs, etc. Simply put, everyone does it: copy, copy, copy. Show me someone who does not use a photocopy machine or printer due to fear, and I will you an animal in danger of extintion, a pecfectly “legal” person. Show me an artist who objects to their picture being copied and I will show you an artist idiot. Show me a company who objects th their ads being copied and I will show you a company with fewer customers. Of course such persons and companies can never be found.
Then there is the cassette and cassette recorder problems. These were used by all to copy the old vynil records and then the cd, before cd recorders became widely available. Never was there any mention that it was even possibly illegal. As a result copying became a tradition. What is traditional falls in the scope of “common law”.
It is beyond my imagination that anyone can think that a 17 year old kid will think that the tradition of copying is a crime.
You must read aother article here on P2PNET, Motion to Dismiss: Denied! New RIAA-inspired travesty. As the article shows, even a judge cannot figure if sharing is or is not infringement.
My interpretation of the law is that simply having shared files in a computer is not infringement. Downloading files also cannot be illegal because it is a tradition. Any law, any jurisprudence that goes against the tradition of the people are laws agaist the people and are thus uneforceable. Additionally the USA copyright law makes no mention of downloading being illegal and experts disagree as to wether it is an infringement in the various countries served by the Internet. Anyway If downloading were illegal, the law would be plainly unenforceable, as computer users could never know what is the copyright status of any files so as to know if copying the file was infringement, and there are no filters (impossible to create for all types of files and for all countries) to prevent the donloading of files with a copyright and a copyright owner. An opinion.
In a few words, a tradition cannot be a crime through an unenforceable law.
Rafael Venegas
http://www.gvenegas.com
This is a
WONDERFUL case for mainstream media. An excellent excuse for
our bought and paid for lawmakers to clamp down on the internet.
Now THIS is a case they will love to showcase.
Congratulations dumb bitch.
August 2nd, 2006 at 12:24 am
I totally agree with that ,
people take this crap too serious man ,
I mean the riaa isn’t the boogyman they aren’t gonna jump out of the closet and get you or come out from under the bed,
if the grandma is smart she’ll do exactly what 4 other people so far have done , fight the riaa in court and they will probably either back down or what ever because so far all the ones that did go to court have one.
which is so much for their gestabo methods , people have been fighting back lately and excuse my language IT’S ABOUT DAMN TIME !!!!!!!!
people are finally , FINALLY sticking up to the tirants of the riaa, putting them back in their place instead of people treating them like their the boogymen.
and I say well done to them for fighting back against a bunch of suits that all they want is money and power and they think they can get it by taking over the internet of music!!!!!!!
August 2nd, 2006 at 8:34 am
the mistake they have made is possibly in admitting who the downloaders really were – if the gma doesnt coff up they will file against the grankids and they have publicly admitted doing it.
August 2nd, 2006 at 6:40 pm
The other problem with your statement is you called the 17 your old a “dumb bitch.” She is only 17. When your young you are not wise. But your points are valad.
August 2nd, 2006 at 7:09 pm
nearly all of the 17 year olds I know ( I know a lot of them,
teenage kids of my own in HS ), think they know everything
until they get caught, then they play dumb, or blame someone
or something else.
August 2nd, 2006 at 7:13 pm
Kazaa going after CHILDREN and Old people? Where are these ‘Protect the Children’ HYPOCRITES now?
August 2nd, 2006 at 7:52 pm
Yes, this young girl is naive.
BUT SO ARE YOU!!! You admit that you are still in highschool and that your peers think they know it all and then act dumb when caught doing something they KNOW is WRONG!!!!!
Do YOU know anything at all about the United States Constitution? Not many younger people (those under 25/30) do any more because it simply is not taght in schools any more. I suggest you GET a CLUE yourself and LEARN about the Constitution:
http://www.usconstitution.net/
I doubt SERIOUSLY that the young girl in question really DID know about her Constitutional RIGHT to not incriminate herself: The Fifth Amendment to the Bill of Rights. Her grandmother didn’t know about filesharing being ‘illegal’, either!!! I didn’t even know about the RIAA and their nazi/gestapo tactics [against those who can least afford it] until I saw a link to p2pnet.net in another message board less than a year ago! FYI I’m 48 years old. But then again, I’ve never used a p2p site, either. I prefer the quality and longevity I get from BUYING my music on CDs!!!!! I don’t buy things online and NEVER will!!!…THIS includes MUSIC!!!
Put that computer of yours to GOOD use and RESEARCH the RIAA/MPAA. Research Sony/BMG and the Rootkits they surrepticiously wrote into the code on their CDs/DVDs that infected any computer that CD/DVD was played on and made it vulnerable to all sorts of attacks from everything from hackers to viruses. Research every single angle of Politics in the United States (Democrats, Republicans, Independants, Libertarians, The Constitution Party) as well as World Wide politics like The United Nations, the European Union, what is going on in China as well as mainstream subjects like Iraq/Iran. Research events like 9/11, “The ‘War on Terrorism’ “, the Histories of Jihad, Islam, Christianity and the other Humanities/Religions.
Research, research, RESEARCH!!!!! ONLY through KNOWLEGE do people have TRUE power! When our government finally gets its way and we can no longer LEARN what they are and how they are NOT serving us like the public servants that They REALLY ARE (according to the US Constitution) we will finally be in a completely totalitarian society.
August 2nd, 2006 at 8:32 pm
“Ultimately knowledge is power, and the best way to get knowledge is to figure it out on your own. Sometimes you might even come up with a better way of doing things by ‘thinking outside the box’.” ~Shawn Hogan
http://p2pnet.net/story/9503
August 2nd, 2006 at 8:44 pm
” BUT SO ARE YOU!!! You admit that you are still in highschool and that your peers think they know it all and then act dumb when caught doing something they KNOW is WRONG!!!!! ”
ummm, reread my post …
“nearly all of the 17 year olds I know ( I know a lot of them,
teenage kids of my own in HS ), ”
Now ….
Think carefully, and slowly.
It just might sink in that I am a parent of teenagers in highschool.
( BTW, I did know of the constitutional right to remain silent, when
I was high school age ).
“do any more because it simply is not taght in schools any more.”
Sure it is, My kids took the test, along with basic spelling, which
But, then again, as a parent
they passed with flying colors
I won’t rely 100% on the schools to teach my kids. When they
allow RIAA lackey’s into the schools to teach their “facts”, it
tends to discredit the whole .. education .. thing.
Now,
1 .. I don’t think she did anything wrong by downloading
2. . It has never been proven that P2P hurts sales at all
in fact, it seems to boost them.
3. Blaming it on ‘teh intarweb’ is just plain stupid.
doing it publicly, and giving an already “foaming at
the mouth” ,fundamentalist, constitution ignoring
administration a perfect excuse to push censoring
and regulating the web makes her a …. dumb bitch.
It’s like those morons that shoot people and blame
Video games.
“Her grandmother didn’t know about filesharing being ‘illegal’, either!!! ”
Because it’s not. Filesharing is not illegal.
Sharing certain files without the owners permission MAY be
copyright infringement, but filesharing is not or never was illegal,
no matter how badly some may want people to believe that it is.
Research research research.
( I must have pissed off some know it all teen ..lol )
Now kindly git off ma lawn.
August 2nd, 2006 at 8:56 pm
They are trying busy trying to censor the internet, so
“illegal” stuff can’t be found on the evil internet anymore.
But, seriously,
Except for us regular web surfers and techies …
MOST PEOPLE DO NOT KNOW THIS IS GOING ON.
It’s being patently ignored by mainstream tv and press ..
( not coincidentally owned by the SAME set of companies
that control the record labels ).
They corporations know EXACTLY what they are doing.
We can tell as many people as we want, bring them to
these web sites, and show them just how bad it is but,
Most of them simply will not believe it, simply because it
doesn’t get any “real” news coverage.
If FOX or MSNBC aren’t talking about it, then it must not be
true.
It’s taking a LOT of work to convince people that this stuff is
REALLY happening, so it’s a very slow frustrating process.
Knowledge IS power, but to so many sheeple in this country ..
Ignorance is Bliss.
They don’t WANT to know.
If it does not directly affect them … they don’t care.
It’s shameful.
AND it’s not a uniquely american trait either.
It’s human nature.
None of this will change unless more people start to care,
and decide they WANT to know.
I will never stop trying, but , I think we’re screwed.
August 3rd, 2006 at 3:02 am
This is a slow process, getting the word out. However it is working. More and more people are finding out on their own that the traditional media isn’t telling the true story. In turn, they are leaving those traditional medias to find out a more unvarnished version of the news. One that might actually tell it like it is.
Surveys run by advertisement companies back this up that there is a slow drop in readership/viewership and that they expect it to continue to decline. As a result traditional media is looking for ways to recover some of that loss. Since all indications are that those losses are going to the net, those media companies will be certain to follow in order to keep the money flowing back into their pockets. Many things point to this. Newspapers are increasing having their own websites. TV, movies, songs, art, and news are all showing up on the Internet in wide variety. Completion is never a desirable event to established corporations and this means that most will try to find some way to control some niche of the web to be their own little corner of the world.
More and more you are finding that news organizations want contributions (on their terms of course) from the public. They want Joe Citizen to give them the photos and news to publish but want to keep the rights to those submissions much the same as utube does. That is after all the very thing the cartels want; control over the Internet so that their virtual shelves won’t be challenged any more than independents can challenge air play time on the radio. To do that requires that they control the source and be the only distributor so that they receive the majority of the money.
However there is a bright side. Starting from the simple idea that these cartels are using the politicians to help them restrict the methods of use can be fought provided they are fought on those grounds. They can bribe politicians only as long as those politicians don’t see their own political survival at stake. Once grass roots reaches critical mass, those politicians in the pockets of the cartels will either change course or lose their standings. That is what is behind all these pirate parties and the political activities that are beginning to happen. People are beginning to hear about it and what they are hearing they don’t like. This is what creates critical mass at the grass roots level.
August 3rd, 2006 at 9:23 pm
Your original post, if I found the right one and read it correctly, had entirely no indication that you were in *fact* a “parent”. The post was poorly written; as if by a teen.
However, *this* particular post seems much more mature, with exeption to the last comments containing the expletive.
Good for you that you knew about constitutional rights when you were a teen in school. And good for you for making sure your teens know about them as well. It’s too bad there are not *more* “parents” like you out there. (BTW: Exactly *what* did “your high school” teach your teens about the constitution? Was it as our Founding Fathers *meant* it to be taught or was it slanted towards the current governmental trends?)
I do agree with your list, particularly #3. “Blaming it on ‘teh intarweb’ is just plain stupid.
doing it publicly, and giving an already “foaming at
the mouth” ,fundamentalist, constitution ignoring
administration a perfect excuse to push censoring
and regulating the web makes her a …. dumb bitch.
It’s like those morons that shoot people and blame
Video games.”
However, your immaturity comes through again in that statement with its misspellings, mispunctuations and then there is that extremely immature name calling expletive.
Have a nice day! @};-
August 3rd, 2006 at 9:58 pm
“However, your immaturity comes through again in that statement with its misspellings, mispunctuations ”
I guess that makes us “even”
August 5th, 2006 at 3:41 pm
They didn’t know how to disable the shared folder? That’s total crap!
That’s what the options are for, and the help files are present. If these kids are smart enough to install it, then disabling the sharing should not be a problem. I can’t believe that people would try to run this kind of defense.
August 8th, 2006 at 1:54 pm
Ask Brian at this e-mail addy why he feels it’s a good idea
to spam p2pnet ?
September 21st, 2006 at 4:28 pm
As I was reading this, I found it disturbing. I am not a supporter of the lawsuits, but I do find the latest round of “I had no idea!” to be astoundingly stupid, arrogant and just poorly thought up.
Take for example the grandmother, if 4 something million people are doing it, how could it be illegal? Sigh, over 4 million people in the world are most likely illegal drug users; I know of no case in which “Well everybody else smokes pot, so why can’t I?” that actually worked as a defence.
The 17 year old granddaughter, found instructions for doing it on the internet; great! She can read. I’m positive at some point during her “education”, she was made aware of the lawsuit campaign, did she ignore it? think it can’t happen to her?
Please, don’t get me wrong, I do not support what the riaa is doing, but if your going to take the risk and you get caught, why look insanely stupid as well?
Also, your article is wrong, a lady who had her hard disk wiped breaking court order has lost her case against the riaa for tampering with evidence.