Family Sued By Riaa For Ilegal Filesharing, But No Computer Is Owned

[psychiccyberfreak 0]

http://news.mywebpal.com/

A Rockmart family is being sued for illegal music file sharing, despite the fact that they dont even own a computer.
A federal lawsuit filed this week in Rome by the Recording Industry Association of America alleges that Carma Walls, of 117 Morgan St., Rockmart, has infringed on copyrights for recorded music by sharing files over the Internet. The lawsuit seeks an injunction and requests unspecified monetary damages.

[serverph 0]

"Oops! the lawsuit went off target!" maybe RIAA is playing darts blindly. that will give them a visible blackeye in the eyes of the public (not that the public eyes them with great regard anyway.)

[wariorpk 0]

Wow I do not understand how this lawsuit will possibly be won by the person sueing the family. It seems that music companies just are mad about filesharing and they will go after anyone who can. I think this is just as bad as some of the world's worst dictators have done as far as saying people have done things they actually didn't. One of the people who did this the most was Joseph Stalin. Can the music industry really sink this low?

[brainless 0]

serverph: something like this happens every other month, check out http://forums.xisto.com/no_longer_exists/ ("RIAA vs The People") and https://w2.eff.org/IP/P2P/MPAA_v_ThePeople/ ("MPAA vs The People") ... and unfortunately, many people couldn't care less

[SqlByte 0]

haha... good RIAA bravooWhats the chance that they sue someone who don't have computer :lol:I'm starting to think that they can sue anyone of use just by guesing...Or maybe not, i dont care i live in Serbia, here they dont even have specialist about computer criminal.Well i think they have one man but he is probobly overbucked with work... ilegal copys and stuff. Here you hack some of the ISP and none even care abut it.

[lawmatchmaker 0]

haha... good RIAA bravooWhats the chance that they sue someone who don't have computer
I'm starting to think that they can sue anyone of use just by guesing...
Or maybe not, i dont care i live in Serbia, here they dont even have specialist about computer criminal.
Well i think they have one man but he is probobly overbucked with work... ilegal copys and stuff. Here you hack some of the ISP and none even care abut it.

hahaha I agree,over here in Asia man.......pirating is 'the norm' lol we pirate everything from clothes,movies ,songs, software, even mobile phones, and in china....this is the real bomb...they even pirate formula milk.....which means babies fed with this formula are malnurished and sometimes even sick because most of the time we really don't know what the pirates put into the formula.....probably the cheapest stuff that taste the same.....but its getting way dangerous there.

Well, as to these companies who sue...they are the ones who are making TONS of money and so are their employers the artists........so I really feel that they are being mean when they deprive poor people access to their products by overpricing. I mean honestly, if their products are reasonably priced the incentive to pirate will not be there as pirating is quite hard work I think... sometimes its really a matter of give and take.

[dreus 0]

they even pirate formula milk.....which means babies fed with this formula are malnurished and sometimes even sick

That's just wrong. One must really ask, how low are human beings sinking just to save a few bucks?


Although I find the whole 'file-sharing is illegal' thing a little overplayed, I do see and well... respect the standpoints of those who object to this. Music, movies, games, whatever were originally made with the intent of those products being sold to the public (yes and I can already hear the opposition's arguments e.g. it should be accessible to everyone, an artist creates for art itself and not for profit etc.) but yeah, lawsuits targetting people who are file-sharing isn't completely unjustified.

I download/share quite a bit myself. Do I feel guilty about it? Sometimes. I guess that makes me a hypocrite (which I won't deny) but yeah, I guess there are times when pirating would seem justifiable and other times not so. It's a sketchy topic of discussion.

I'd like to see how the RIAA approaches this one though. I can almost imagine the courtroom scene:

RIAA "So yeah... downloading is wrong. You're bad people and should be made an example of."
Family "But we don't own a computer to download with"
*dead silence. owls and crickets can be heard in the background*

[Madkat-Z 0]

Gee and I thought I had bad aim. I guess the RIAA needs to do a tad bit more research before they try to pull a lawsuit on people. I find it hard to believe that there is a family in the US without a computer however, but still that was a really bad hit on the RIAA reputation.

[Johnny 1]

This is an example of incompetence at it's best.

[Cool_Freaker 0]

This is an example of incompetence at it's best.

Yep. While they're complaining about lost sales, they're using a hell of a lot of funds on expensive lawsuits. Not to mention, not every illegal download equates a lost sale as they seem to believe.

[uiop 0]

That really is quite funny!! What did the family do, let their friends borrow a CD?!?If we could only get this news story on CNN or an AP wire...

[WarFact 0]

I, too, can understand the arguments of the RIAA concerning filesharing; however, if they are going to try and stop it, filing just a couple lawsuits will not help too much. It is my thinking that it is almost impossible to stop filesharing now. With as many people doing it, and the price of lawsuits, it just seems unreal.But yes, I do agree that they should have done a little bit more research before just sueing the family. They might as well have just kicked themselves in the shin.

Edited June 16, 2006 by WarFact (see edit history)