News

RIAA sues ailing 19-year old girl, deals with counter-claim from Harvard law professor

7:34 p.m. · December 4, 2008 · by Matthew Richardson

19 year-old Ciara Sauro has pancreaitis and must be hospitalized every week because she needs an islet cell transplant. On top of the mounting medical bills her family is already dealing with, Sauro is facing a possible 8,000 dollar fine because the RIAA is accusing her of illegally sharing ten songs.

Sauro spoke to Pittsburgh news channel WTAE, saying "I already have severe depression. I mean it's so hard to sit there and think that I have to get in trouble for something that I didn't do. It's not fair."

In an entirely separate case, Harvard law professor Charlie Nesson is defending graduate student Joel Tennenbaum in the RIAA's lawsuit against him, accusing him of illegally sharing seven songs. Nesson and Tennenbaum has also filed a counterclaim, essentially claiming that the RIAA's activities and the 1999 law that supports them are unconstitutional, forcing the federal government to be the RIAA's collection agency. This analogy from Nesson probably explains it best:

"First you need to imagine a private police force which is financing itself by passing out speeding tickets, and has gotten the license from the legislature to pass out tickets to speeders for 750 dollars for every mile they go over 60, but if they're speeding willfully, 150,000 dollars for every mile over 60. And they can lay these tickets on as many people as they can find with absolutely no limit, using some internet search to find them by the thousands. And they can then force them to submit to federal civil process which amounts t0 three years of litigation, an avalanche of papers, a torrent of abuse, and at the end of that, hold it over their heads the threat that they might actually lose at the end, and suffer a bankrupting judgment of, what difference does it make, here it's a million dollars."

Lol, "torrent of abuse." Listen to an interview with Tennenbaum and Nesson here.

[RIAA vs People/Boingboing]