I'm not saying the Recording Industry Association Of America are losing it, but, well, judge for yourself. The RIAA is suing a 23 year old man from Maine for allegedly distributing five songs online. Yes, that's right, five songs. The RIAA's anti-P2P litigation in the past has generally been limited to those who share 100s or even 1000s of tracks via P2P, the logic being that if you start suing casual file sharers you end up having to sue half the country. The man, one Scott Hinds, who says he no longer listens to any music online, said to the Associated Press this week: "Why choose me? Every single person has done this". To be fair, not *every* single person has done this - I haven't for one, and I'm pretty sure my Mum hasn't either, but still, pursuing litigation for such mild piracy seems rather foolish on PR grounds. As I said yesterday, there is a reason why the public tend to take Steve Jobs' side whenever he has a DRM or price model dispute with the majors. It's because the majors are funding a dumb ass trade body whose legal department are really out of control.
Talking of the dumb-ass RIAA, the trade body had another PR knock this week when a court in the US ordered them to pay the legal fees incurred by one Deborah Foster in her defence of a recent anti-P2P lawsuit.
Foster was targeted with a lawsuit after her 'screen name' was linked to illegal P2P file sharing on her home PC. The file sharing had, in fact, been undertaken by Foster's daughter Amanda. The RIAA initially said Deborah Foster should be held liable for the file sharing anyway, for failing to stop her daughter from sharing copyright music and for allowing her screen identity to be used. But she disputed the claim and the RIAA dropped their case, although they did subsequently win a default judgment against the daughter.
Once the case against her was dropped, Deborah Foster sued for legal fees claiming the RIAA were wrong to target her with legal action in the first place. Yesterday Judge Lee R West supported that claim, and ordered the trade body to pay Foster $55,000.
The importance of the case is of debate. The RIAA are keen to write off the Foster judgement as an isolated incident, but some lawyers who have been defending those facing P2P lawsuits reckon the decision sets an important precedent which could stop the trade body from pursuing anti-P2P lawsuits where their evidence is questionable, as well as encouraging more of those being sued to mount a defence.
Variety quote one of those attorneys, Ray Beckerman, as saying: "The decision is of great significance [because] it reinforces a number of important principles. It reinforces the holding of MGM v Grokster on secondary liability, establishing that the lack of affirmative encouragement or inducement is a complete and total defense, and it makes clear that the RIAA's driftnet strategy, of targeting innocent people in order to conduct an investigation or in order to extract a settlement, is going to have very expensive consequences for the RIAA".