- Sunday, 12 July 2009
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With Microsoft and Intel, we're the holy trinity - Jerry Sanders III+
Music weasels pay Tanya Andersen
THE MUSIC MAFIAA has finally coughed up the dosh to disabled single mother Tanya Andersen, to the tune of $107,951.
That's the compensation a US federal court ruled that the RIAA member companies had to pay Andersen and her attorneys for forcing her to defend herself and her young daughter Kylee against years of vicious legal attacks and harassment by their lawyers, unlicenced private investigators at then Media Sentry and retired cops working as collections goons.
The music weasels and their minions had accused Andersen of downloading copyrighted tunes from peer-to-peer file-sharing service Kazaa. They threatened her with legal action and suggested that she could settle quietly by paying them a few thousand dollars to go away. But she hadn't downloaded any music tracks, it wasn't true, so she refused to pay.
The music mafiaa then sued Andersen in US federal court, but she wouldn't be bullied and hired attorneys Lory Lybeck and Ben Justus to contest the RIAA's false allegations. When the copyright extortionists couldn't find any real evidence to support the false accusations, they were forced to withdraw the lawsuit, with prejudice - legalese for "we were wrong."
Andersen then asked the federal court to require the RIAA to pay her attorneys' fees and costs, plus interest, and US Magistrate Judge John V. Acosta so ruled.
The RIAA's lawyers tried to get Andersen to settle for $30,000, a fraction of her costs, but she refused. Then they offered to pay $80,000, but she refused.
US District Court Judge James A. Redden affirmed the entire award amount, plus interest.
So at last the RIAA member labels Atlantic Recording, Priority Records, Capitol records, UMG Recordings and BMG Music have finally paid Tanya Andersen what they owed her.
Andersen's attorney Lory Lybeck told P2pnet, "Maybe more lawyers will be encouraged to take on these difficult cases as more courts assess fees for the false prosecution of these sham cases."
But the music weasels' trouble with Tanya Andersen is still far from over. She has filed a lawsuit of her own against them in the same US federal court for malicious prosecution. µ
See Also
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Hey now, don't you go besmirching the name of a goodly group of men just trying to protect their "families" and get a little "respect". No, not the RIAA, the Mafia!

Come to think of it, I believe most of the executives in the RIAA were once upon a time mouthpieces for Mafia bosses and probably figured they could cut out the middleman and hold up people directly.

And those RIAA arisholes probably still think she's guilty of stealing "their" property and the judge was a fool for listening to her lawyers.

Can't wait to see what she gets when she wins the case for malicious prosecution.

Too bad it's not a criminal case with RIAA "executives" facing long jail terms. Maybe even an execution or two, or three dozen.
I hope that she is successful in her malicious prosecution lawsuit. RIAA should have to pay her and the other people in the suit the same $ rate per alleged MP3 that is levied against a pirate in a successful prosecution. That would be several thousands dollars per file IIRC.
I mean, I'm glad the MPAA got screwed, but the really sad thing is that Tanya Anderson didn't get squat.

It's her lawyers that got the $107K "in legal fees". Where are the punitive damages??

Damn, this really sucks... :(