Steaming Turd

Fossilized shark eats fossilized crocodile eats fossilized fish.

I know a way these folks can reduce their carbon footprint to zero.

The RIAA scourge has struck close to home. Eleven unidentified CWRU community members are being “sued” by the RIAA in their typical fishing expedition ploy to gain information about those defendants without the defendants being a party to the proceedings. The ploy is to file one large suit against a large number of people whom they claim were sharing music files (despite the fact that the activity they allege isn’t being alleged to happen as one conspiratorial act, meaning they should be filing individual suits in each case, not one large suit), sneak it through the courts by getting the subpoenas ex parte (without the participation of the defendants), and then drop the suit. They then refile individually against the defendants named in the response to the subpoena, hoping to pressure the defendants into settlements in the thousands of dollars even though the actual damages (if there even are any) could not possibly approach that amount.

From the RIAA’s perspective, this is supposed to go off without a hitch, largely because nobody targeted by the subpoena is supposed to find out about it until well after the subpoena has been served. But at least one of the defendants in question found out about this one somehow, and now the RIAA faces a court fight to even get that far.

Best of luck to Doe #9 and the ten others named in fighting yet another legal sham.