In a court case where the RIAA tried suing the mother of a 13 year old when her daughter shared music over a file-sharing network, the court forced the RIAA to dismiss the case. In order for the RIAA to sue the child, a Guardian Ad Litem (guardian appointed by a court to represent a minor) must be appointed to protect the interests of the child. While the mother had no experience or knowledge with computers, the RIAA claimed that she was indirectly liable for allowing her daughter to use her computer to illegally share music online.
While the
case was dismissed, the mother had to pay legal fees as the Judge refused to
award her attorneys fees. The reason is that the plaintiffs’ lawyers had
taken the appropriate steps in trying to prosecute the mother and that the
mother used tactics to obstruct the Plaintiff to efficiently prosecute
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The case was dismissed with prejudice, which prevents the case from being advanced against the defendant. Finally, the RIAA tried asking the Judge to amend the judgement in order to allow them to sue the child through a Guardian Ad Litem. However the court denied this RIAA’s request. Thanks to both adderal and RTV71 for using our news submit to let us know about the following
news:
Well, at least it is nice to see the RIAA finally lose a case for trying to sue an adult or child when a minor ends up sharing music online. However, this does not stop them from issuing further lawsuits against children with guardians to present the minors. In my opinion, the RIAA should not be allowed to target young minors with lawsuits, especially since most cannot afford to purchase music as it is, let alone have a credit / debit card to use legal services.
A more reasonable approach would be first send a warning to their parents about what is going on, since in many cases the parents don’t understand what’s going on. For example, if one forgets to pay a bill for a product, the company would not suddenly go filing a lawsuit against the customer, but instead issue a warning to let the customer know what they have done wrong.
Source: Digital Music News
13 Comments
)[edited by drpino on 23.09.2005 19:38]


[edited by Rhelic on 25.09.2005 17:18]
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