RIAA to grieving family: We depose your children in 60 days
(Blogspot via BoingBoing) The RIAA brought a file-sharing lawsuit against a guy who died; they offered the departed’s family a 60-day grieving period before they began to depose his children for the suit against his estate.
3. Plaintiffs do not believe it appropriate to discuss a resolution of the case with the family so close to Mr. Scantlebury’s passing. Plaintiffs therefore request a stay of 60 days to allow the family additional time to grieve.
4. In the event the parties do not reach a resolution with Mr. Scantlebury’s estate or the other family members involved, Plaintiffs anticipate amending the complaint following depositions of members of Mr. Scantlebury’s family.
Mystech: The RIAA expressed disappointment at an initial ruling that disallowed them from exuming the body and placing it on a pike in front of a local record store.
In Michigan, in Warner Bros. v. Scantlebury, after learning that the defendant had passed away, the RIAA made a motion to stay the case for 60 days in order to allow the family time to “grieve”, after which time they want to start taking depositions of the late Mr. Scantlebury’s children:
Motion for 60-Day Stay and Extension of “Deadlines”
Thanks to John Hermann, the great Michigan lawyer who’s been fighting the RIAA there, for bringing this to my attention. John’s contact info: 2684 West Eleven Mile Road Berkley, MI 48072 248-591-9291 Email: JTHermanos@Earthlink.net
By the way the lawyer who signed the motion is the same lawyer who was representing the RIAA in Motown v. Nelson, in which a 15-year old girl testified that Mr. Krichbaum tried to put words in her mouth at her first deposition.
Here is a profile of the late Larry Scantlebury.
1. Mr. Scantlebury had accused the plaintiffs of “telephoning him at his home, masquerading as ‘settlement counselors’, adopting as actual aspects of the law never litigated or resolved by an Appellate Court and expressing those non resolved factors as established guidelines”; and
2. Mr. Krichbaum’s partner withdrew from the case, back in May.
I firmly believe that we should all create rude audio commentary files directed at the RIAA and it’s bottom-feeding lawyers, make the file size equal to that of popular “pirated” songs, replicate the name of those files and tip off the RIAA to the presence on our servers.
There has got to be a way to send these graverobbing bastards down a rabbit hole that would cost them more money than they would recover – just to get them off the backs of typical Americans who happen to have a few songs on their hard drives. I’m not talking about pirates who are burning disks and selling the work of musicians for a profit; but dammit, if I bought a CD, I should have the right to move that music to any format I want. Case in point: these CDs with DRM that will not allow you to play them on a computer.
Update, the RIAA has had the case dropped and slithered back under their rock this time.