A California man says the RIAA’s so-called Clean Slate program is “hollow and deceptive”.
Eric Parke is suing the association, saying its offer is designed to get people to incriminate themselves and provide the RIAA “and others” with “admissions” through which they could land in court, in spite of having signed the RIAA affidavit.
Parke, who’s never downloaded music, “decided he’d go ahead and step forward and be brave enough to put his name on this in the public interest,” says his lawyer, Ira Rothken.
Far from getting people off the hook, the so-called Amnesty offer is meant to deceive them through misleadingly worded press releases, program descriptions, and a “deceptively ambiguous ‘Clean Slate Program Affidavit designed to be executed by individuals who have been fraudulently induced to admit illegal wrongdoing by RIAA�s empty promises of ‘amnesty’,” says Parke in a court document filed by Rothken, a San Rafael attorney.
“When you have a situation when the general public, including sophisticated major newspapers, get it wrong and are reporting the RIAA is promising not to sue in return for filing these admissions of guilt, that on its face means you have a deceoptive business practice,” Rothken told us.
“The RIAA�s assurances of ‘amnesty’ for complying with its ‘Clean Slate Program’ are hollow and deceptive, and provide members of the general public with no real legally binding assurance that those individuals who are induced by the RIAA�s empty promises to admit activity objectionable to the RIAA, its members, or other recording companies, will be free from later prosecution by the government or lawsuit by Copyright owners for the very copyright infringement admitted under the ‘Amnesty’ program,” says the court paper, going on.
“The RIAA describes the program as ‘Clean Slate’ but yet does not promise to destroy any data or evidence collected on members of the general public who submit affidavits under the ‘program’ leaving the ’slate’ anything but ‘clean’ for those Copyright owners or Government prosecutors who subpoena such information from the RIAA. This lawsuit seeks a remedy to stop the RIAA from engaging in unlawful, misleading, and fraudulent business practices including advertising an ‘Amnesty Program’ that does not provide real amnesty from lawsuit and a ‘Clean Slate Program’ that does not provide a real ‘clean slate’.”
Rothken hadn’t heard from the RIAA when we spoke with him.
Download the complaint (400kb pdf)
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