Music industry sues cadaver for piracy

BRIEFS FOR the music industry thought they were onto an easy winner when they sued a little old 83 year old lady from Charleston, who they were sure was a file-sharing pirate.

According to their sterling legal and technical efforts the investigators had worked out that Gertrude Walton was by day a sick old woman who hated computers, but by night was a an evil high-tech file sharing pirate called "smittenedkitten".

No matter that she was 83. After all the same legal teams has taken children and probably even babies to court. The briefs felt they had enough evidence to name Gertie as the sole defendant in a federal lawsuit, claiming she made more than 700 pop, rock and rap songs available for free.

What they should have known, if they had done their paperwork is that Gertrude had been buried at Greenwood Memorial Park for two months and was unlikely to show up for her court case on account of her being dead.[Couldn't she be subpoenad? Ed.]

Her daughter, Robin Chianumba faxed a death certificate to the briefs in the case to tell the muso-briefs that her mother was dead and to leave her alone But the notice must have been duly ignored as the lawyers thought they scented blood.

Chianumba told Boston News that her mum had a long illness before her death and was not into rap or rock music. She objected to having a computer in the house and even if she did want a crack at file sharing, she didn't even know how to switch a computer on.

Chianumba said that if music companies are going to set examples they need to do it to appropriate people and not dead people. A spinner for the Recording Industry Association of America spokesman refused to admit defeat saying that Walton was only "likely not" the smittenedkitten it was searching for.

It was prepared to dismiss the case... we assume because the old lady will not do it again. However the question remains as to how good is the evidence the RIAA has on other file sharers? You can read about the full mess in this thing. µ