A mother and father involved in a class action suit against Sharman Networks’ notorious Kazaa p2p application, may inadvertently be adding a powerful new weapon to the anti-p2p arsenals of the very organizations that are victimizing them.
In February, Sally and Jim Wilson learned they were being sued by Big Music cartel’s RIAA (Recording Industry Association of America), “because their two teenage daughters had downloaded 653 songs – and that they could be liable to pay $750 for each,” says the Cincinnati Enquirer.
They didn’t have almost half-a-million-dollars, or even the, “$5,000 recording-industry lawyers said they wanted to settle the copyright-infringement lawsuit filed in Virginia,” says the story, going on: “The Cold Spring couple has agreed to settle for $3,000. Next week, the Wilsons plan to sue an Australian-based company, Sharman Networks Ltd., whose popular peer-to-peer Kazaa software the girls used.”
In entertainment industry cartel parlance, ‘settlement’ means forcing ordinary people with minimal financial or legal resources, to in effect buy their way out of possible civil law suits.
Whether they’re guilty or not of any wrong-doing is beside the point. The multi-billion-dollar industry’s aim is to create a picture in which it’s being ravaged by hoards of wicked mom-and-pop file-sharing criminals, and their children.
And the legal corner-stone of ‘innocent until proved guilty’ goes by the board.
The multi-billion-dollar industry claims it’s being devastated by file sharing, which it calls ‘thieving,’ despite the fact that file sharing isn’t a crime, that no money changes hands and that it’s never been shown that file sharing has meant the loss of even one sale.
Moreover, not one of the close to 10,000 people subpoenaed by Big Music has ever appeared in a court. They have to settle because they literally can’t afford to take the music industry, with its limitless financial resources and teams of highly skilled lawyers, on.
However, the fact an action has been started allows the industry to imply that file sharing is a crime, which it isn’t, and that thousands of people have been found guilty of it, which they haven’t.
Read the story @ P2Pnet News
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