RIAA Give Grieveing period

[Dubh Aingeal]

According to the blog Recording Industry vs The People, the RIAA, gracious as ever, will allow the children of the deceased Michigan resident Larry Scantlebury a 60 day grieving period before they proceed to depose them in the case of Warner Brothers v. Scantlebury. Mr Scantlebury passed away on June 20th, 2006. You can read the motion for the 60 day stay here (PDF). Recording Industry vs The People credits Michigan lawyer John Hermann for pointing them to the story. Hermann represents several victims of the EMI, Sony BMG, Warner and Universal sue 'em all marketing campaign.

In an earlier article written by Mr. Hermann, he points out: "The RIAA's strategy appears flawed in that they once they've identify a person sharing and/or downloading a suspect file, they're only able to determine the IP address and username associated with the peer system registry. This alone isn't enough for them to be able to distinguish if the account holder, or someone else, was using his/her account and was responsible for the activity. Although these facts are easily discernable by the RIAA, they simply don't care about the underling truth of the matter. Once they identify the activity as being linked to an internet account, they typically argue (without any legal authority) that the account holder is responsible for all activity on the account."

Although written in October of 2005, Mr. Hermann's comments jibes nicely with a recent article at TechDirt in which Mike writes "If you want to win a lawsuit from the RIAA, you're best off opening up your WiFi network to neighbors. It seems like this strategy might actually be working. Earlier this month the inability to prove who actually did the file sharing caused the RIAA to drop a case in Oklahoma and now it looks like the same defense has worked in a California case as well. In both cases, though, as soon as the RIAA realized the person was using this defense, they dropped the case, rather than lose it and set a precedent showing they really don't have the unequivocal evidence they claim they do. The RIAA certainly has the legal right to go after people, even if it simply ends up pissing off their best fans and driving people to spend their money on other forms of entertainment -- but, if they want to do so, they should at least have legitimate evidence. It's good to see that some are finally pointing out how flimsy the evidence really is."

[Dubh Aingeal]

At first after reading I thought that since they weren't able to get dad they were going to go after the kids. Nope, they are going after the estate. All though if the defendant is not able to defend himself how can they go after the estate? Its not like they already have a judgment against him.

[Onyx]

ack. Crappy people.

[Troy Spiral (13)]

Does seem odd that it sounds like they are trying to make a dead guy pay up even though hes dead. It MUST be that the "estate" is / will be owned/managed by >whoever

[Der Nister]

It comes down to this - the RIAA are nothing but a group of asshats that couldn't care less about the song writers or their customers. Plain and simple. most artists are lucky to get 6 cents on the dollar per cd sale - the bands that the RIAA claim are hurting from file sharing actually make their living from ticket sales and merchandise sales while on the road.

The only people that are hurting from file sharing are the corporate assholes that are screwing bands out of money to begin with.

I wish more people would take more notice of the fact that artists/groups (aside from Blars dulrich) aren't going after anyone for doing this activity (file sharing).

In a recent article the artist Moby admited the he downloaded his own music hoping the RIAA would go after him and in the same article Sharon Osbourne stated that Ozzy is trying to break free of his contract with CBS/Jet records and will release his next cd on the internet for everyone to share for free.

The RIAA has almost no one backing them in these lawsuits and just about every artist (well almost) are smart enough to not sue their own fans.