How Your Local Paper Finds Out the RIAA Is Suing You

Every time the RIAA sends out a batch of lawsuits, articles appear in newspapers across the land that confuse "uploading" with "downloading," so that you end up reading about some guy who got sued for downloading music – even though that has still never happened.

A user called zbeast posted a link to a news story reporting that someone named Jhonnatan Gonzalez had been sued for sharing music (thank you to reporter Ron Sylvester of the Wichita Eagle for explaining the situation, rather than mistakenly conflating sharing with downloading).

zbeast made a good point. If "Gonzalez could not be reached by telephone, and records show he has not yet been served with the lawsuit," as the article claimed, how did Sylvester find out that Gonzalez was being sued? zbeast speculated that "rather than just filing thelawsuit, they send it out to the person's local news paper as a 'pressrelease.' What, [is the RIAA] now trying to use shame as a way to preventfile trading?"

This email from reporter Ron Sylvester explains that although the RIAA did send a notice to the newspaper about lawsuits, he dug up the defendant's name himself and confirmed it with the RIAA. So the RIAA isn't sending out names of defendants to local papers, although it may have made one Jhonnatan Gonzalez drop out of school and flee to his native Columbia:

"Eliot: Thanks for your interest. We received notice from theRIAA that it had filed a list of suits across the country, includingKansas, but it didn't list any specific case. I cover the state andfederal courts for the Eagle, so I was able to look up the lawsuit in thecourt files to get Mr. Gonzalez's name.

"I could not find anywhere that Gonzalez had been served (there's usuallya receipt of return). It is up to the plaintiffs to make sure thedefendant is notified he's being sued. I Googled Gonzalez's name,
since it has an unusual spelling, and found a young man in Hays mentionedon a high school web page. It said he went to Fort HaysState. I tried to contact him through the university but did noteven get a returned phone call or e-mail from the admissions department,
who apparently just ignored my request. Even though I'm pretty surethis was the same guy, I couldn't confirm it, and couldn't use theinformation, including that he may be a resident of Colombia, and not theUnited States.

"After several calls to the RIAA, they were able to provide me with anaddress they had. It was in Hays. I was not able to run downa phone number and Hays is across the state from Wichita, so going thereunder the deadline crunches I had was not possible. I did not havean e-mail for him, which I had hoped maybe to get from theuniversity. If he is a student there, I don't believe they did himany favors by not returning my inquiries, because I really wanted to talkto him.

"I know that court rules say he has to be served within 120 days. I
included that, just in case he had moved back to his home country, whichmight make pursing the lawsuit tough.

"We'll see what happens."

(Image from the Thomas More Prep-Marian online yearbook)