RIAA members sued for racketeering

[TS | Thomas]

Michele Scimeca received a notice from the RIAA in December after her child used the Kazaa networks for a school project. She has countersued labels Sony, Universal & Motown by claiming that the demands for reimbursement of $150,000 per infringement falls foul of the 1970 Organized Crime & Control Act, better known as the RICO statue after Title IX of the Act: Racketeer Influenced & Corrupt Organizations Statute.

Would you like to know more?

 

[Strakian]

Can someone who speaks law decipher this snippet for the lame ones? thanks... :grinthumb

 

[Per Hansson]

racketeering?

 

[TS | Thomas]

(I think) the basic argument is that they're suing for an overwhelming amount of money per infringement (Copyrighted track downloaded), knowing that rather than try fight against them in court you'll settle with them for significantly less money (Thousands as opposed to Hundreds of thousands or more). & that's illegal, well, hopefully, it was used a lot against organised crime.

 

[MaskedBurrito]

Man I hope this blows up in the RIAA's face..

 

[MrGaribaldi]

Well, Mitch Bainwol and Cary Sherman doesn't really remind me of Al Capone, but hopefully that won't stop the US courts to find them guilty...

 

[TS | Thomas]

I guess a decent analogy would be this. If you steal a CD Album from a store, can you expect to be sued for $1 million or so? No. But if you downloaded it you can. That's just crazy.

 

[groucho]

The case has absolutely no merit...the RICO act is applied when criminality is involved. While the RIAA's business acts may be reprehensible, they are not criminal.

 

[MrGaribaldi]

When the damages claimed are so astronomical that almost noone can pay them if they loose the case, you might actually call that racketeering...

But it's more of a white collar crime...