RIAA gives allegedly phony rap to innocent manFrom the WebOctober 16, 2006 12:18Chicago (IL) - In yet another wave of suits filed against illegal music downloaders, the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) has filed a suit against various people in the Northern district of Illinois. However, one man seems to have gotten caught in the pirating web for no reason - and was able to convince the RIAA to withdraw the suit.Paul Wilke, an Illinois resident, has been named in the suit, even though a hired professional systems expert confirmed that no peer-to-peer clients existed on his computer, according to a story on p2pnet.Despite all the claimed victories the RIAA has seen in the past year, the issue with peer-to-peer music downloading still remains a problem, and the national organization continues to take legal action against people who own and share music illegally through P2P clients.One of the problems is that lawyers of the RIAA assume that everyone with any amount of music files on their computers has gotten them illegally. At least, that's the situation that Wilke is supposedly facing. Apparently, he has some volume of music stored on his hard drive, but he claims they were all digitally obtained in a legal manner, through Itunes, or burned from CDs that he still owns, and that he is not illegally sharing the files with other Internet users. Wilke countered the accusation that he distributed those files on the Internet with saying that he never used file sharing software on his computer.His attempts to resolve the claim brought against him were unsuccessful at first. He reportedly tried to dissolve the legal action through the Settlement Information Line, since he could not get through to the RIAA directly, but was only offered an opportunity to settle for $3750. However, the organization apparently was surprised by Wilke's move to consult an attorney who requested evidence from the RIAA in the framework of a summary judgment. The RIAA replied that it does not have enough evidence to prove its claims and agreed to a dismissal of the case.
Judge orders RIAA to justify its piracy charges$750 for a 75 cent song is taking the WiiBy Nick Farrell: Friday 10 November 2006, 15:31A US COURT is forcing the Recording Industry of America to explain why it charges people it catches pirating $750 a single rather than the 70 cents they flog them to retailers for.In the case UMG v. Lindor, Judge Trager has allowed Ms Lindor, who the RIAA claim is a pirate, to challenge the $750 a track it wants in damages.The RIAA fought to prevent the amendment to Ms Lindor's case, claiming it was not up to her to decide damages. They said that her complaint about the level of damages was without merit and if the amendment went ahead it would prejudice them.Of course it would. If the RIAA was forced to claim back the real market value of the music that was nicked by pirates it probably would not be worth the effort. It also looks better on a press release if they can claim that a pirate stole $7,000 worth of music when they actually only stole $7.Judge Trager was not buying it either he said that the RIAA lawyers could not cite any case law to justify its position whereas Lindor could.Lindor could also prove that the RIAA was only out of pocket by 70 cents a single and not $750.Now it was up to the RIAA to show m'learned friend how it came up with its $750 figure. If it can't manage the task then it is pretty likely that the robed but not wigged one will rule that the amount of damages the RIAA is seeking is unconstitutional.
