p2pnet.net News:- The Big Four Organized Music family has already lost an important case in which it tried to steamroll RIAA victim Tanya Andersen into giving a so-called ‘investigator’ carte blanche access to her hard drive.

But that doesn’t mean the RIAA, short for Recording Industry Association of America but owned by EMI (Great Britain), Vivendi Universal (France), Sony BMG (Japan and Germany) and Warner Music, the only US company, will stop trying it on with other men, women and children it’s trying to sue into becoming compliant consumers.

The RIAA now wants to pull the same shabby stunt on Kimberly Arellanes, the wife of serving US Army sergeant Frank Arellanes.

Did it also plan to try to pillage a computer once owned by ex-Vietnam helicopter pilot Larry Scantlebury, another victim? We’ll never know because Scantlebury died in June and public outrage then forced the Big Four to drop the case before they could terrorize Scantlebury’s surviving children.

Andersen, a single mother living on a disability pension and accused by the Big Four Organized Music gang of being a download ‘criminal’, had for months been asking the Big Four’s RIAA to go through her hard drive so they could see for themselves she wasn’t the thief they said she was.

The labels ignored her until without warning, they suddenly wanted a court order for unfettered access to her hard-drive. But to their chagrin, judge Donald Ashmanskas ruled Andersen could hire her own independent expert to look for specific files and further, also ordered the RIAA to pay Andersen’s expenses.

More recently, the RIAA said it wanted to copy Arellanes’ entire hard drive, looking for ‘proof’ that she’d been, “engaged in copyright infringement on a massive scale”.

“Ever since the RIAA started taking on file sharing, it’s always acted as if it were entitled to all sorts of things it isn’t: access to the names associated with IP addresses without filing lawsuits, private info on the people they’re suing and even the aid of the FBI in what’s clearly a civil, not criminal, dispute,” says TechDirt’s Mike, going on:

“The latest case involves someone accused of file sharing. The RIAA wants to examine her computer, and for very good reasons, she feels uncomfortable with just letting them scour her hard drive.”

The person under discussion is Kimberly but with the Andersen experience still vividly and (for them) unpleasantly in mind, RIAA lawyers are desperately trying to claim this should only be done, “by someone who Plaintiffs have confidence will determine whether a peer-to-peer network was used,” says a court document linked to on Recording Industry vs The People.

Moreover, “An additional expert, who Defendant suggests should be paid by Plaintiffs, is an unnecessarily expensive exercise when Plaintiffs have a right to call an expert of heir own selection.”

Will the Dark Side prevail? Stay tuned.

Also See:
tried to steamroll – RIAA p2p file share defeat, March 19, 2006
same shabby stunt – RIAA goes fishing, August 11, 2006
public outrage – RIAA forced to drop Scantlebury case, August 15, 2006
TechDirt – RIAA Still Feels Entitled To Scour Everyone’s Hard Drives, September 1, 2006
Recording Industry vs The People – In SONY v. Arellanes, RIAA Opposes Appointment of Independent Expert; Insists on Having its own, September 1, 2006

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This entry was posted on Saturday, September 2nd, 2006 at 1:41 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

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