David Kravets
Security

RIAA Maintains Woman's Guilt Even After Dropping Case

The Recording Industry Association of America is calling an Oregon woman a copyright pirate despite the RIAA dropping its lawsuit against her for lack of evidence. The RIAA is claiming Tanya Andersen, 44, is a purloiner as part of its legal jockeying to avoid paying Andersen perhaps several hundred thousand dollars in legal fees. In […]

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The Recording Industry Association of America is calling an Oregon woman a copyright pirate despite the RIAA dropping its lawsuit against her for lack of evidence.

The RIAA is claiming Tanya Andersen, 44, is a purloiner as part of its legal jockeying to avoid paying Andersen perhaps several hundred thousand dollars in legal fees. In recommending to a federal judge that defense fees should be awarded, a lower magistrate judge ruled (.pdf) the RIAA "rejected or sought to suppress evidence to the extent it tended to exonerate defendant."

The RIAA dropped the case this summer months after an analysis of the woman's hard drive came up empty. Her lawyers cried foul, and demanded fees based on what they described as a "frivolous" lawsuit.

Here's what RIAA attorney William Patton wrote in court papers (.pdf) in trying to sway an Oregon federal judge from awarding opposing legal fees:

The shared folder at issue in this matter contains over one thousand sound recordings belonging to many different genres, including the country and rock genres that defendant admitted to liking in her deposition. …At her deposition, defendant admitted to being familiar with or listening to music by artists including Bryn Adams, Chris Isaak, John Cougar Mellancamp, Tom Petty, Travis Tritt, Trisha Yearwood, Everclear, Steve Miller, Alabama, Aerosmith, Phil Collins, Sting, Billy Idol, Beck, Lil Kim, Rob Zombie, Nelly and Poison, among others. …Multiple sound recordings by each of the above-listed artists appear in the shared folder at issue in this case.

As noted above, 'gotenkito' is associated with a character from the anime series known as Dragonball Z. In her deposition, Lindsay Andersen, the half-sister of defendant's daughter Kylee Andersen, testified that Kylee is a fan of Dragonball Z and that she 'talks about it a lot' and 'really likes it.'…It is impossible to ignore the possible link between defendant's daughter and the 'gotenkito' username on the Kaza shared folder distributing sound recordings through defendant's internet account. __It would be an extraordinary coincidence indeed if this defendant had nothing to do with the infringement at issue in this matter. __-- (Emphasis added.)

"It makes me mad. I never had anything to do with this. It was a big mistake in identity," Andersen tells THREAT LEVEL in a telephone interview from her home in Beaverton, Oregon.

Andersen has countersued, filing a lawsuit (.pdf) seeking class action status to represent "those who were sued or were threatened with suit by defendants for file-sharing, downloading or other similar activities, who have not actually engaged in actual copyright infringement."

The lawsuit alleges "the class is comprised of many thousands of individuals."

If Andersen is awarded legal fees, the cashisha would fuel her class-action. To quote the RIAA's Patton, that "would be an extraordinary coincidence indeed…."

Full story at Wired News.
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