A lady in Beaverton, Oregon has filed a federal lawsuit against the Recording Industry Association of America, alleging she is the victim of “abusive legal tactics, threats and illegal spying as part of an overzealous campaign to crack down on music pirating.”

Oh…did I mention she is a disabled single mother?

The RIAA sued Tanya J. Andersen, 44, in 2005, saying she violated copyright laws by illegally downloading music onto her computer. Andersen claims in her countersuit that the recording industry refused to drop its case after its own expert confirmed her computer had not been used to download music. Yet attorneys still demanded that she pay money before they would drop the case.

She also says officials threatened to interrogate her 10-year-old daughter, Kylee, if she didn't pay thousands of dollars. These slimy bastards even went so far as to get a woman claiming to be Kylee's grandmother to call her former elementary school inquiring about her attendance.

The recording industry finally dropped its lawsuit June 1….right about the time she launched her F-You suit to recover legal costs from the RIAA’s suit.

You go, girl.

In related news:

"A Texas grandmother targeted by the music industry association for file-sharing is countersuing and accusing the RIAA of extortion and illegally employing unlicensed investigators.

"[The RIAA and MediaSentry] agreed between themselves and understood that unlicensed and unlawful investigations would take place in order to provide evidence for this lawsuit, as well as thousands of others as part of a mass litigation campaign," reads the motion. Her attorney argues such actions constitute "civil conspiracy" under Texas law and led to her suffering much undue distress.

Oh, did I mention that the defendant, Ms. Crain, is a Hurricane Rita survivor and says she'd never even heard of file sharing before she was named in the suit and the RIAA came looking for a $4,500 payout."

A federal judge recently denied the RIAA’s motion to conduct ex parte discovery to determine the identities of seven students at the College of William and Mary. This is a big setback in the organization’s battle against copyright infringement on college campuses as it makes the task of identifying the culprits more time-consuming.

Hahahahahaha!

In case you ain’t a weasel…er, lawyer, ex parte discovery is what allows the RIAA to file a John Doe lawsuit based only on an IP address. Many people question this method as it allows them to sue people without actually bothering to do the research to see who they are and where they live (hence why children and grandmothers sometimes get sued).
Jerks…er, judges typically have been willing to issue subpoenas forcing ISPs to turn over the name and address of the subscribers in question without being able to contest the subpoena.

But this time those bastards got shut down by hero/judge Walter D. Kelley, Jr. who said that the RIAA is NOT entitled to immediate discovery because it is using the incorrect law as the basis for its request.

In their motion, the record labels cite the Cable Communications Policy Act of 1984 as the authorization for its ex parte subpoenas. Judge Kelley says that the College of William and Mary is not a cable operator, and even if it were, "only 'a government entity may obtain personally identifiable information concerning a cable subscriber pursuant to a court order.'” Basically, the judge said "not only did you cite the wrong law as the basis of your request, but even if this law applied to colleges, you wouldn't be entitled to the information anyway."