RIAA Sued Under Racketeering Laws

[slx]

Technology - PC World
Stacy Cowley, IDG News Service

Online chat rooms and bulletin boards populated by file-swapping fans are filled with postings comparing the Recording Industry Association of America (news - web sites) to a Mafia-like syndicate. Now, one target of the group's lawsuits against alleged music pirates is asking the judicial system to back that assessment.


A New Jersey woman has filed a lawsuit against the RIAA under anti-racketeering statues, charging the group with using scare tactics to extort money from the individuals it sues.


Scare Tactics Claimed
Michele Scimeca is one of more than 1000 alleged online file-swappers sued by the RIAA since the middle of last year. The industry group filed another batch of 531 lawsuits on Wednesday.


The RIAA has settled a number of those lawsuits--and therein lies the problem, according to the complaint Scimeca filed in the U.S. District Court for New Jersey.


"Instead of merely providing service of the complaint upon the various defendants, including Ms. Scimeca, the Plaintiffs have opted to include a letter discussing and prompting settlement of the copyright infringement action," the complaint states. "This scare tactic has caused a vast amount of settlements from individuals who feared fighting such a large institution and feel victim to these actions and felt forced to provide funds to settle these actions instead of fighting the institution."


The complaint argues that the RIAA's lawsuit campaign's main intent is to extract financial settlements from those sued. It charges the group with violating Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations laws.

more....http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=1093&e=1&u=/pcworld/20040220/tc_pcworld/114863

[eclectica]

mp3 mafia

The RIAA is basing its lawsuits and extortion on the idea that they own the mp3s on people's hard drives. But they don't own the files, so their actions have amounted to racketeering. I hope the Court sees it that way.

[Criminal_Sniper]

corporate law isnt called corporate law for nothing
(2 times in a sentance gotta pick up by now)
we arent going to win by the law
(unless something wierd happens)
say they got investigated and....wait its been done and they were found guilty of overpricing since they started almost
and what about not paying artists?

what about how the recording industry loans artists money to record albums and sure they pay for it (to the people they borrowed it off) and then they are expected to pay back thier loans
most of them dont make money till 2 mill copies of the first cd
i paid 80 bucks to go to a show the other night
and i felt i was doing a good
what is 1 dollar if they get it even?
they are legally running a illegal corrupt monopoly

we have to go underground

( fact 1 prices went down 5% last year i think or two years ago and went up in britain - sounds like the american reccison to me)
so they lost nothing? what are they fighting for now

[eclectica]

Originally posted by Criminal_Sniper
we arent going to win by the law
(unless something wierd happens)

we have to go underground
Blind obedience to the law isn't good because it precludes the process of civil disobedience. Unfortunately a good amount of people are ignorant on the issues at hand, so you often get a government which doesn't represent the will of the people, but instead the will of the lobbyists.

Going underground is the safe solution that has been proposed by many of the known figures in the p2p community. These folks dissapoint me with their advocacy of proxies and encryption. Once we go underground we are condemning our community, because we no longer believe in our own legitimacy. If we don't believe in ourselves then why should anybody else believe in our cause?

[Criminal_Sniper]

i know but we own them and cant controll them and get what we want
fascism sorry democracy at its best
i fucking hate this world and its very deservant of it
in which period of time wouldnt a bad ruler be slaughtered by a mob?
only ours
they dont even listen to our fuycking basic needs and wants
life will only start getting better when WE MAKE IT!
neo cons will never do it
even if make the best of points
these fuckers run the big companies that have trade groups that lobby and they go ok ok
they use the excuse if u dont like it get out
that what big business says to them if they dont fufill their wishes
now if we all went and lived in africa for a number of years?
id rather russia
no american would dare step in there with hostile intent in big numbers
having 28k nukes and all (to the us''s 12k or so lol)