A family member of mine is being sued by the RIAA http://www.riaa.com/news/newsletter/102804.asp My whole family is scared to death right now.. Does anyone have any links, advice, or know of any lawyers who would work a case pro bono? I am absolutely begging here.
with the large number of people being sued by the RIAA for file sharing, what's the worst that could happen?
my brother will probably have to sell back the engagement ring he just gave his fiance, and this probably means no grad school for me.
DonnyMost -- Contact the Electronic Frontier Foundation. They should be able to help in some way or another. This page will be particularly relevant to you.
How does this solve the RIAA's problems? How is this justice? HOW It's just making good, decent people suffer unduly. How does this punishment fit the "crime"? We have given plenty back to the artists who have entertained us, and this is what we get? I want to vomit.
These bastards are making examples of out random people just to scare people from downloading music. **** them.
Good thing the RIAA is cracking down on you people, I don't think I could sleep knowing Britney Spears lost more money. Seriously, I know a law's a law, but the RIAA are coming off as some royal pricks. A simple cease and desist letter would probably scare more than two thirds of filesharers straight.
I would suggest starting with either the Electronic Frontier Foundation or the ACLU of Texas. They both believe in the issue, and wouldn't try to fleece you Johnny Cochrain-style. At the very least, they could help point you to an appropriate lawyer, and at best they could take up your case for free. I beleive the EFF even helped raise money to pay the fees for that 8 year-old girl that was sued by the RIAA. If worse comes to worse, start a cc.net anti-RIAA fund. I know I'd probably chip in something. F*** the RIAA. Also, read this article by Courtney Love which details how the RIAA screws both the consumer and the artists they claim to be protecting.
It's no good that your relative is being sued.... but I don't see how you all can be ticked off at the RIAA.. Remember who broke the law.. it wasn't the RIAA
anti.. it'd be one thing if they were suddenly sueing people.. but they've been doing this for quite a while now.. there were plenty of warnings.. they went after several people from my school last year.. it seems people end up settling for a lot less than they are sued for... I remember on the news when it first started happening the people settling for under 10k.. a lot of money but not near what they were being sued for initially
donnymost... I feel for your family, because out of all the people it's no good that they had to be the ones getting caught.. but I do support the right of the companies to use laws to stop illegal downloading If your family member is being sued that would lead me to believe they are probably downloading tons of music.. not the average amount.. Some of these people broke hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of copyright infrigement by sharing etc... settling for less than 10k does seem reasonable considering that they could probably win a suit against you for all of it... they know they probably won't end up getting the cash from most people, but if it went to court.. I dont see any reason they wouldn't win the full amount against a person
by the way, I do hope this cost your family as little as possble.. and it may be wrong of me to assume that they were involved in tons of illlegal music..
My only comment is that he needs to find a decent lawyer and if he is lucky one that may do it pro bono. As posted above, Electronic Frontier Foundation and ACLU would be a great place to start. At the least, hopefully these organizations could give him a rough idea of where he stands.
I took a Security in Info. Sys. class and my prof. had once talk about people losing their jobs at work for downloading p*rn. This one guy was caught w/ p*rn on his work PC and denied that it was his. He said that some one must have hack into his machine and placed it there and the held up in court. People are constantly be hack into and using there own PC to host a website or download music. See where I am headed with this?
