Andersen to RIAA: "My turn! Bend over!"

In which the RIAA attempts extortion (read: business as usual), only to be rejected by a disabled, single mom.

(actual entry after the break)

Former RIAA target Tanya Andersen has sued several major record labels, the parent company of RIAA investigative arm MediaSentry, and the RIAA's Settlement Support Center for malicious prosecution.

Andersen is a disabled single mother residing in Oregon. In 2005, she was sued by the RIAA for file-sharing, accused of sharing a library of gangsta rap over Kazaa. She denied the allegations and filed a counterclaim alleging fraud, racketeering, and deceptive business practices by the record labels. Despite the lack of any evidence of infringement apart from an IP address, the RIAA continued to press ahead with the case.

Earlier this month, Andersen and the RIAA agreed to dismiss the case against her with prejudice, making her the prevailing party and eligible for attorneys fees.

The RIAA is also accused of trying to contact Andersen's then eight-year-old daughter without her knowledge. "Knowing of her distress, the RIAA and its agents even attempted to directly contact Kylee," reads the complaint. "They called Ms. Andersen's apartment building looking for Kylee. Phone calls were also made to her former elementary school under false pretenses... Ms. Andersen learned of these tactics and was even more frightened and distressed."

Andersen says that the RIAA acted negligently throughout the proceedings and engaged in fraud and negligent misrepresentation by demanding that she enter into a four-figure settlement for copyright infringement that she never engaged in. The RIAA is also accused of violating both federal and state RICO statutes, the intentional infliction of emotional distress, and invasion of privacy. Andersen seeks statutory and punitive damages along with attorneys fees.

The complaint paints a very unflattering picture of the RIAA and its agents engaging in activity that was in many cases questionable and unethical at best. The history of file-sharing litigation shows that Atlantic v. Andersen was not an isolated case of mistaken identity, and should Andersen get a favorable result here, other former defendants may follow her lead. That could lead to a potentially very costly class-action suit against the RIAA. "You'd have to have a lot of winners," said Vasquez. "If you have enough people bringing charges of malicious prosecution, you could then show a pattern of practices on the part of the RIAA."

news source: Ars Technica

Basically, the recording industry's lobbying organization, the RIAA, has been engaging in these questionable lawsuits for years, and no one has been able to stop them. They find a bunch of IP addresses, use underhanded and shady legal maneuvers to find out the alleged violators' personal information without their knowledge (and without allowing them their right to defend themselves), and then invade their privacy and harass them in an attempt to extort money from them. A defendant in one of these cases has two choices: pay whatever the RIAA demands (usually a four-digit amount), or else face a long, hard court battle where the odds are severely stacked against you whether you're guilty or not. And, if you decide to take them to court, and on the odd chance that you actually CAN prove your innocence, the RIAA's lawyers use every underhanded trick they can think of to get the case dismissed without prejudice... which means that even though the suit was dismissed and you weren't found guilty of anything, the RIAA is also not held accountable for wasting your time and money and essentially ruining your life.

In this particular case, however, Ms. Andersen has somehow managed to get the case dismissed WITH prejudice in her favor, which gives her the opportunity to hit the RIAA where it hurts, and she's taking that chance to call the RIAA on their shady tactics, even going so far as to invoke the RICO Act, which was designed to stop Mafia racketeering schemes. In other words, she's calling them criminal blackmailers and trying to stop them.

Years upon years of watching in dismay as these intimidation and extortion tactics continued with very little backlash aside from a relatively few complaints on internet forums (fora?) have left me with no confidence that this will work out in Ms. Andersen's favor. Still, I applaud Ms. Andersen, and recognize that if ANYONE can pull this off, she seems to be the one to do it. If I believed in any sort of higher power, this would be a worthy cause for prayer, because the crap that the RIAA has been pulling is just plain wrong, and I'm dismayed by how successful it's been for them.

edit: and just because I can, here's a link to the music video for Weird Al's satirical "Don't Download This Song", animated by Bill Plimpton. Enjoy.