p2pnet - rss feed: RIAA nails family with no computer
p2p news / p2pnet: In their latest sue ‘em all mess, the owners of the RIAA have subpoenaed a Georgia family for allegedly sharing files online, says the Rockmark Journal.
Targeted by the RIAA (Recording Industry Association of America) is Carma Walls and the subpoena states:
“Plaintiffs are informed and believe that Defendant, without the permission or consent of Plaintiffs, has used, and continues to use, an online media distribution system to download the copyrighted recordings, to distribute the copyrighted recordings to the public, and/or to make the copyrighted recordings available for distribution to others’.”
Interesting: “has used, and continues to use”. However, the Walls don’t even own a computer.
The RIAA allegation shouldn’t, though, surprise anyone. Money-obsessed Warner Music, EMI, Sony BMG and Vivendi Universal own it and routinely use it frighten children, hauling them up for ‘depositions’ designed to intimidate their parents.
And in a new tactic, the RIAA is trying to turn friend against friend.
The subpoena, described as a lawsuit in the report, “came as shocking news to the Walls family, who were notified of the lawsuit Friday afternoon by a newspaper reporter,” says the Rockmark Journal.
“James Walls, speaking on behalf of his wife and family, said they have not been served with legal papers and were unaware of the lawsuit.”
After seeing a copy of the court filing, ‘I don’t understand this,” Walls is quoted as saying. “How can they sue us when we don’t even have a computer?”
Walls also pointed out his family has lived at the current address for less than a year, wondering if a prior tenant had Internet access, “then moved, leaving his family to be targeted instead”.
But, the story goes on, the RIAA insists Carma Walls infringed eight copyrights.
By far the vast majority of online music lovers get their fixes from the p2p networks and indie sites, avoiding low-quality, over-priced Big Four ‘product’ like the plague.
The RIAA claims is bizarre subpoena-based sue ‘em all marketing plan is driving people towards the handful of corporate download and downloan its owners back and supply. However, this assertion isn’t even normal PR flim-flam. It’s an outright lie and in fact increasing, rather than fewer numbers, of people are turning to the p2p networks every month.
For example in February, 2006, in the US alone, 6,978,098 were simultaneously logged on the networks at any given moment, says p2p research firm Big Champagne.
In February last year, the figure was 6,181,636 and in 2004, it was 4,039,989.
Also See:
Rockmark Journal - Local family sued by record companies, April 22, 2006
friend against friend - New RIAA p2p terror tactic, April 22, 2006
April 24th, 2006 at 12:46 pm
I’m sure these unfortunate people have only one thing in mind, and that’s getting rid of this lawsuit. But what a perfect opportunity for them to sue the ISP who provided the address associated to the IP without checking if the original subscriber still lived there. It’s also a perfect opportunity to take RIAA up on its offer of a court date, show how ludicrous their blanket lawsuits are and countersue for damages. One can only dream…
April 24th, 2006 at 5:54 pm
Actually, it’s the Plaintiff who should do the checking. The subpoena sent to the ISP likely demanded subscriber information for a particular IP at a particular time on a particular day, or within a particular time-span. The ISP would be correct in providing the service address from which the IP was operational within the scope of the specified time-frames.
What I find strange is if the Walls do not own a computer, why would an ISP even have their name associated with an address? It’s possible that the ISP in question is the local cable company and that the Walls have cable-TV service, but the records should show that they do not have internet service.
Perhaps the RIAA’s counsel (or whatever lackey) did a reverse lookup on the address and stuck the Wall’s name into the document when it didn’t match with the info provided by the ISP?
The links to the original article result in pages with no relevant content, so it’s difficult to get additional information about this situation. The facts as presented, just don’t resolve.
–TG
April 24th, 2006 at 9:57 pm
This just goes to demonstrate that there is no actual checking on a request. There is no system of checks and balances in use.
The ISP only has a set amount of employees. They aren’t legal experts, they aren’t required to do any sort of checking beyond what address an IP has at the time. The RIAA and associated organizations take the info provided as “word from on high” that it is correct. Since these organizations aren’t required to pay for the info, the ISP is under intense pressure to produce “something” for the IP address in the line of info or face legal penalities for not doing so. The organizations should also be facing legal penalities for incorrect pursuit of false allegations.
Once these organizations have some sort of info, they are like a dog with a bone. They are not going to give it up willingly. Someone, somewhere owes them and that is the only view they have. It is bad enough that they aren’t really taking folks to court but rather these previous allegations are langishing in “no mans land” of legal actions for those that aren’t willing to pay the terrorism tax of legal manipulations. But they continue to log jam the courts with BS in the effort to squeeze yet more from less than quality offerings.
These blood suckers need a lesson in reality.
April 25th, 2006 at 3:02 am
Under the US Federal Rules of procedure, third parties, when responding to a subpoena in a lawsuit in which they are not a party, are entitled to charge a ‘reasonable’ fee to cover the expenses associated with responding to the subpoena. Most states allow this as well. Some use the ‘reasonable’ language, while others have designated rates for hourly charges and a set schedule of fees for services such as reproduction, packaging, delivery, etc.
The fees can cover research (labor cost for searching for the records sought), duplication of the records (photocopying materials and labor, usually a fixed price per page), and delivery of the material (including labor costs for packaging, packaging materials, and delivery fees for postage, courier services, etc.)
Third parties may generally not recover legal fees incurred in contemplation of or from attempting to quash the subpoena, except in the case where the subpoena was issued without any justifiable legal purpose or the underlying case is found to be frivolous.
Some ISPs deliberately set their fees high in an effort to dissuade being issued subpoenas unless the plaintiff believes they have a strong case and the cost is justified. This usually presents no obstacle to deep pocketed corporations like those of the entertainment industry. Less well-heeled plaintiffs can recover these costs as part of an eventual judgement should they prevail.
The truth is that ISPs dislike having to respond to such subpoenas, not as a cost issue, but because it’s disruptive to their operations to have to reassign staff temporarily to respond to them. It’s also a customer relations issue as they don’t like to be viewed as tattling on their customers.
April 25th, 2006 at 4:37 am
So. Who is surprised by this news? Noone? Thought so. I never thought the day would arrive, but here it is, and so i’ll say it.
The riaa is less competent than a pack of politicians.
There i’ve said it. I’m impressed guys, it must have taken a lot of effort to become that incompetent. Keep up the bad work. The politicians will appreciate it if nothing else.
April 25th, 2006 at 12:01 pm
fuck RIAA…
April 25th, 2006 at 4:38 pm
I didn’t get a chance to read the other articles but could they of had the ISP service for an X-Box or a PS2 that both have net connections on them for playing multiplayer games. Would be even worse since the would of had the ISP service but no computer for doing any filesharing.
Kind of wish these ISP would get a little more backbone and tell them that they don’t know what this is doing to thier bussiness but this type of stuff is bad for ours.
April 25th, 2006 at 10:43 pm
Look at those numbers. Does it look like they are getting anywhere by sueing a few people? I don’t think so. It just seems to me that they would save money by legalizing it. That is just my short opinion. And it is not like anyone is loseing money from it.
Thanks
April 29th, 2006 at 3:58 am
here is my say:
first off i have 3 external 300gb hard drives full of pirated music, movies and xxx so i say fuck the RIAA people will always find ways to share shit. look lets follow the history. kazaa, morpheus,bearshare,now bittorrent i would say the riaa has a shit load on there plate closing these places down. see they are going to play murder finding over 10 billion users using bit torrent. If the fuckers show up at my door i will shoot them! point blank no questions asked! if i dont want them here at my house they will have to leave. i have rights and they better fucking believe i am going to use them to my advantage.i would say i have downloaded 3tb of movies games and apps to help another site come up if bit torrent dies! i’m not afraid of the RIAA nothing to fear but fear itself! So keep this in Mind eventually those pricks will give up because they have virtually no way of finding every single person. and if they think suing some family that dont have a computer is going to make me stop sharing or downloading….HA HA HA! they got another thing coming i will share and Download till i Die! now with that being said lets see how long it takes you fucking RIAA pricks to show up on my door first off you got to find my hard drives which you wont no evidence no case…bitches! Peace out
April 29th, 2006 at 10:21 am
Hope the family sues the RIAA and sues them good
I haven’t boughta commercial CD in over 8 years.
With Itunes and the lot, I dont have to pay for songs I dont want to hear on a cd, with only 1 or 2 songs out of 12.
April 29th, 2006 at 10:25 am
you couldnt be more right my friend
April 29th, 2006 at 1:11 pm
FUCK YEAH!!!!
April 29th, 2006 at 6:57 pm
*quote*i have rights and they better f’ing believe i am going to use them to my advantage.*quote*
Not that I’m for the RIAA but the labels and artists have rights too. If you are stealing their music then they have the right to sue you if they so choose. It doesn’t matter if the majority of music the labels distribute sucks. It doesn’t matter if they overprice it. It doesn’t even matter if the labels are screwing the artists. If you download it without paying for it then you are STEALING from them. Its the same as going into a store, buying a CD and walking out without paying for it.
Sure they are screwing artists but so are you.
ps. I realize you are trying to get the RIAA to change but doing that in a morally bankrupt way isn’t going to get you anywhere. Use your brains people. You aren’t being logical at all.
April 30th, 2006 at 8:51 am
I cannot afford Music Cds and I can’t afford 99$ a song & I’m not a one song downloader. If I’m not downloading it. I’m buying it from the Black Market, so internet or not, I’m still getting music pirated, whether you sue me or not, and I defenitly won’t pay a dime to people who sue me.
I hate the RIAA and one day the people are going to get them, be it arson attacks or terrorist attacks, just wait till they piss off everyone. Not even the police could save them.
RIAA is misusing the system, they are worth millions of dollars and nail familys that couldnt even afford a $300 computer.
I say we send a message to them. Do not fuck with us, be it words be it a bomb in their CEO HQ ( dont worry they have enough to build 10 more and still be rolling in cash ), Because they are taking away our freedom of doing what we want, this is not a dollar a day company, they don’t need more than 2% of the market to survive.
April 30th, 2006 at 8:02 pm
that sounds an awfully lot like a threat…
April 30th, 2006 at 11:57 pm
First: a matter of fact: RIAA is a racketeer organisation. Search in the dictionaries for exact definition. See there the words “extortion”, “intimidation” and so on. Second: the country where they operate is a totalitarian one. Familiar methods, moves, phrases, policies. We here already saw it, we alrealy know how this plague works. I should write whole article about conversion from democracy to tyranny, but have not enough skill in English. All I wanna say: hey there, emergency! You’re gonna awake once morning in United Soviets of America!
May 1st, 2006 at 3:16 am
Vigilance against the RIAA only ruins the cases of consumers who are fighting them in court. There is no better way to deliver the ultimate blow to the RIAA than through the legal system.
May 1st, 2006 at 3:29 am
I think it’s just about time that the braindead government in the US should get its collective shit together and bitchslap the RIAA into oblivion. Wishful thinking I know. But seriously, this is a prime example of how useless this organization is. The USA has become the land of free for those who can afford it. It’s sad to see a once great nation foster corrupt organizations such as this.
May 1st, 2006 at 6:23 am
Dude, you are the kind of guy who makes a post and is awoken at 3am the next day by the police at your door. Duu-uuh.
May 2nd, 2006 at 7:01 am
if it’s a band worth caring about they will be happy that you downloaded their music, cause they really just want people to hear it. they don’t do it for the money
fuck sellouts. peace.
May 2nd, 2006 at 1:43 pm
It’s funny that we have a court system that has a law that states a prison inmate can only make so many outlandish claims of Habius Corpus before they will be punished with monetary penalties or more jail time. Why isn’t there a law against corporate america that says if you sue so many false positives you can not sue anyone anymore. The RIAA is one sick and pathetic organization and should be able to be punished by the law somehow. Or fuck it, let’s all just keep downloading their crap so their profits keep declining.
May 2nd, 2006 at 2:58 pm
Why are you leaving out the rest of the facts.
The plaintiff ADMITS to owning a computer for about 2 months and ADMITS to downloading some songs off the Internet because she thought it was just like recording off the radio when she was a kid.
It’s clearly stated in the original article from the hometown paper.
http://news.mywebpal.com/news_tool_v2.cfm?pnpid=728&show=archivedetails&ArchiveID=1180533&om=1
Sure, I hate the RIAA… but in this case at least print all the relevant info.
May 2nd, 2006 at 3:03 pm
http://news.mywebpal.com/news_tool_v2.cfm?pnpid=728&show=archivedetails&ArchiveID=1180681&om=1
They had a computer and did download songs!
May 18th, 2006 at 4:46 am
I am the mother of Mr. Walls. This whole thing is stupid. My son did own a computer for just a few months. But when they were served court papers by a newspaper they were stunned. They haven’t had a computer in about a year. They really didn’t know what the paper was talking about. Mrs. Walls called the courts to question the delivery of court papers to them by a newspaper. To show you how poor people can be had, they were told that anyone over the age of 18 could serve court papers. About 4 months ago Carma received a call from a woman saying she represented the RIAA and they wanted to make arrangements for her to pay for songs that she had downloaded on the internet. The sum was an amount of serval hundred thousand of dollars. Mrs. Walls stated she didn’t have that kind of money. The lady then said that they would take an innediate payment of $4000.00. Mrs. Walls stated she didn’t have even that kind of money. Then the lady stated that she could pay with a credit card. Which she also didn’t have. After the call ended and we talked about it we recalled a news report about this same situtation and it being a scam. Also a report from a consumer reporter Clark Howard. Carma is 7 months pregnant. Her husband works 12 hour shifts for $8.00 an hour, and they have 3 other children. This has put a very emotional strain on the family.Cars have been riding by the house, reporters are calling. Lies are being printed about what was said. Our whole concern is that they did not understand about sharefiling. They had no intentions of doing anything illegal. They had their first used computer, they go to a web site and it says free downloads. The short time they had the computer they used for their own personal entertainment. And they sure did make money by sharing. They do not presently own a computer and haven’t in a long time. How can this weathly company go after a poor families instead of these web sites that let you download?
This is the same as the police going after the drug users instead of going after the suppliers, who are riding by police stations to make another sale with their pockets full of money in their new drug cars, and take a quick look at the police and laugh. They know what their getting by with.
Anyway, does anyone know where the Walls family can obtain legal counsel who will work for the publiciy?
Thank for reading the truth.
November 2nd, 2006 at 4:55 am
I was present at the interview of Carma Walls with Atlanta tv station CBS 46. The reporter edited the report, as a result the reporter made Mrs. Walls look as guilty as the newspaper. Mrs. Walls did not say that she had never owned a computer. She said that she hadn’t owned a computer in a year and a half. That is how long it took for this mess to come to light.
Mrs. Walls never distributed any downloads as stated and hasn’t owned a computer in two years. She did download songs when she had a computer for her personnel entertainment.
The part that got her in trouble was not being computer savay, and understanding share filing. How many people in the world can say that they don’t download, and how many can say that they know what share files are?
For the record, Mrs. Walls was never given a court date, never given an oppurtunity to tell her side of anything, and her rights were violated when she has been tried and judged and sentenced by Judge Murphy without due process.
I thought we lived in the United States of America, not Communist China. If you are a hardworking American watch out, the rich only get richer.
Mrs Walls is the mother of 4, her husband works 6 and 7 days a week laying hard wood flooring just to get by. She doesn’t have money to hire a lawyer, and we found out she has 30 days to appeal. So if anyone out there is a lawyer and would consider legal help please e-mail: micomonsdlech@yahoo.com.
Once again, out of all the articles written on this woman, none have told the truth.
November 2nd, 2006 at 5:00 am
You must work for RIAA, because you don’t know anything. I do, I am this woman’s mother-in-law
November 3rd, 2006 at 3:47 am
$6,350 judgement, what a bunch of sleazebags. this case is ended now. The RIAA is an organization of has-beens whose product hasn’t changed in decades. They deserve all the retribution this type of strategy will bring.
November 3rd, 2006 at 3:55 am
RIGHT ON BRO!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I’ve got my 9mm cocked and ready myself. Just keep pushin it, RIAA, you’ll get yours!
November 3rd, 2006 at 4:04 am
Most people like myself have already bought tons of music over the years. First it was vinyl (scratches), then tape (gets eaten by machines), then CD (indestructable? yeah right).
Also, P2p gives unknown bands exposure.
If their product was improved, (ie: Hybrid DVD/CD’s with video footage and special stuff like that) then people would pay for it, like they do with movies that they love (special edition DVD’s).
This is the computer age, adapt or be left behind, RIAA!