The RIAA is Sued for Hacking - Oh, Sweet Justice
Tanya Andersen, a 41-year old disabled single mother living in Oregon, has countersued the RIAA for Oregon RICO violations, fraud, invasion of privacy, abuse of process, electronic trespass, violation of the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, negligent misrepresentation.
Why did it take so long for someone to do this? The RIAA uses illegal practices to invade your computers (well, Windows users anyway) and find out personal information about you so they can sue you for file-sharing. The problem with collecting evidence this way? Um, it's illegal, and done so without due process or probable cause. Oh, and the RIAA is a PRIVATE company and not some government agency with the authority to act in this manner.
Below you'll find a news excerpt which is the bulk of what's awesome about this story...
The RIAA falsely claimed that Andersen had been an "unnamed" defendant who was being sued in federal court in the District of Columbia. She was never named in that lawsuit and never received service of a summons and complaint, she said.When Andersen contacted Settlement Support Center, she was advised that her personal home computer had been secretly entered by the record companies’ agents, MediaSentry.
Apparently she had been up at 4:24am downloading "gangster rap" music under the login name "gotenkito@kazaa.com." Andersen does not like "gangster rap", does not recognize the name "gotenkito", is not awake at 4:24 a.m. and has never downloaded music.
This is gonna be fun. I hope this will bring to light some of the shit the RIAA is doing so someone, anyone will stand up and do something about it. I mean think about it... Illegally hacking a computer to get information about illegal activity is the equivalent to Sears sending a small, armed, task force into your home while you sleep to look for any stolen merchandise because you were considered suspicious during your last visit to one of their stores.