p2pnet - rss feed: Tanya Andersen sues the RIAA
p2pnet.net news:- Tanya Andersen, a disabled Oregon mother, and her 10-year-old daughter, Kylee, have for the last three years been living a nightmare, thanks to Warner Music, EMI, Vivendi Universal and Sony BMG’s RIAA.
But now Andersen is turning the tables on the Big 4 enforcer, going after it and other intimidation units for malicious prosecution.
She’s suing Atlantic Recording Corporation, Priority Records, Capitol Records, UMG Recordings, and BMG Music; the RIAA (Recording Industry Association of America); MediaSentry owner Safenet; and, Settlement Support Center, says Recording Industry vs The People.
“They made life horrible and did a lot of damage,” she told p2pnet. “People need to fight back. It’s really wrong they can abuse their power like this. It was three years - two years for the lawsuit and a year when they were harassing me. It was horrible.
“It’s really important for me to tell people what they’ve done and I’m really thankful that I’m able to do that.”
Says Andersen’s lawyer, Lory Lybeck, in a court document:
Pursuant to a secret agreement, the RIAA, it’s controlled member companies and MediaSentry conspired to develop the massive threat and litigation enterprise targeting private citizens across the United States. The RIAA, and his controlled member companies as the years aggressively acted to prevent disclosure of secret agreement.
Recently it has been discovered that as a part of this secret enterprise MediaSentry has for years conducted illegal, flawed and negligent investigations of many thousands of private United States citizens.
These illegal investigations are then used as the sole basis for pursuit of tens of thousands of lawsuits throughout the US.
During the investigation, MediaSentry, without authorisation and under the false pretext of being a PA user, claims to employ secret methods to enter individual computers to surreptitiously and illegally gather information on private citizens. At best, MediaSentry only identifies an Internet protocol( IP) address and which it then sells to the RIAA. The RIAA and is controlled member companies then use this illegally obtained information in its public threat of litigation enterprise.
“The flaws in MediaSentry’s investigations have been well known to defendants three years,” says Lybeck.
A Dutch court ruled the MediaSentry’s investigation protocol was insufficient to state a claim for copyright infringement because it couldn’t actually name a specific individual engaged in the alleged activity.
The man who shredded MediaSentry’s evidence in Holland was Delft University professor Johan Pouwelse, a visiting scientist at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) who was recently hired by Ray Beckerman, defending home health aide Marie Lindor, to demonstrate conclusively why ‘evidence’ derived by RIAA expert Dr Doug Jacobson is worthless.
“Through this lawsuit, I’ve been humiliated, embarrassed, shamed, and my privacy has been greatly violated by the other side,” Andersen says. “They not only deposed my 10-year-old daughter, but, deposed my grown step-kids (who I’ve long been divorced from the father), friends, etc.
“At one point, they even tracked down and called my new landlord. I had been living here for only one month. They’ve asked and investigated quite a bit of extremely personal information, which was very humiliating.”
How do the RIAA and MediaSentry investigators manage to get away with it?
Simple, says Andersen. They just break the law.
“The illegality of the private investigations is also known to defendants,” says Lybeck in the court document.
Most states require licensing or registration of private investigators. In Oregon, unlicensed investigators are subject to civil and criminal penalties. These licensing laws are well known to reputable investigators. On information and belief, MediaSentry and his investigators are not and have not been licensed to conduct private investigations of private citizens in Oregon or any other state. Their investigations are illegal.
For years, the RIAA and its member companies have been using flawed and illegal private investigation information as part of their co-ordinated scheme and comment enterprise to threaten, intimidate and coerce payment from private citizens across the United States.
Meanwhile,”There wasn’t a day that didn’t go by where I didn’t think about and wonder what my daughter and my future would be like, what kind of a future would we have, and after all this mess, if we would even be able to afford the basic necessities of life,” Andersen told p2pnet in mid-June.
“I wondered often if I would mentally be able to handle all that was happening. The lawsuit affected my daughter greatly. There were times she was afraid what was going to happen.”
Stay tuned.
Also See:
Recording Industry vs The People - Tanya Andersen Sues RIAA for Malicious Prosecution in Oregon, June 25, 2007
shredded MediaSentry’s evidence - Pouwelse: witness in RIAA case, May 14, 2007
p2pnet - I lived a nightmare: RIAA victim , June 14, 2007
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Tired of being treated like a criminal? They depend on you, not the other way around. Don’t buy their ‘product’. Do bug your local politicians. Use emails, snail-mail, phone calls, faxes, IM, stop them in the street, blog. And if you’re into organizing, organize petitions, organize demonstrations and then turn up on your local political rep’s doorstep, making sure you’ve contacted your local tv/radio station/newspaper in advance. Don’t just complain. Do something!
June 25th, 2007 at 8:02 pm
FINALLY! Now we can see if the law that is supposed to stop extortion really has any teeth.
June 26th, 2007 at 7:20 am
Perhaps that “extort ‘em all” scheme wasn’t so smart, after all.
Now if we can just get Congress to restore some sensibility to copyright law, we’ll be a little bit back on track. One step at a time.
June 27th, 2007 at 8:16 pm
http://www.oregonlive.com/news/oregonian/index.ssf?/base/news/1182914724179260.xml&coll=7
yeh, just copy and paste it since it’ll probably be broken anyway
July 2nd, 2007 at 5:07 pm
[…] literally persecuted for three years by the RIAA (Recording Industry Association of America). Her much-publicised experiences are all too typical of those of other victims whose stories are being told not by the traditional […]