RIAA Faces Major Class-Action Piracy Lawsuit
FEATURE NEWS
Posted: August 31, 2007
The lawsuit by Tanya J. Andersen claims the association and a company called MediaSentry "conspired to develop a massive threat and litigation enterprise targeting private citizens across the United States."
The lawsuit also accuses the association of violating state and federal racketeering laws.
The complaint filed August 15 in U.S. District Court in Portland claims that MediaSentry has admitted it has misidentified people suspected of illegally downloading music.
As a result, the lawsuit claims the association — composed of four multinational companies and subsidiaries — "have clogged and abused the federal courts for many years with factually baseless and fraudulent lawsuits."
The complaint expands a lawsuit Andersen filed individually against the association claiming that industry representatives threatened to interrogate her 10-year-old daughter if she didn't pay thousands of dollars for downloaded music that was actually downloaded by somebody else.
Recording Industry Association of America officials said they could not comment on the details of the class-action suit but will seek to dismiss it.
"We are confident that these claims have no merit," the association said in a statement. "In all our cases, we seek to follow the facts, and be fair and reasonable in resolving pending claims."
Andersen, 44, a disabled, single mother from Beaverton, said a Los Angeles law firm sent her a letter in 2005 on behalf of unidentified record companies accusing her of illegally downloading music in May 2004. The letter referred her to the industry's Settlement Support Center, part of its campaign against piracy.
But when Andersen called the center and complained that she had not downloaded the music, she was told she must pay $4,000 to $5,000 or be ruined financially.
It turned out the music had been downloaded by a young man in Everett, Wash., who Andersen tracked down with the Internet name the industry claimed she had used.
The recording industry sued her, even though the man admitted that he illegally downloaded the music and an industry expert confirmed that her computer had not been used to download the music. The lawsuit was dropped in June.
The class-action lawsuit notes the Recording Industry Association of America "publicly claims to exercise an actual monopoly and control over 90 percent of the sound recordings sold in the United States."
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