RIAA Strikes - Sues Dead Woman!

Once again, the RIAA (Recording Industry Association of America) has opened its mouth and managed to stick its big feet in.

They have sued an 83-year-old dead woman for copyright infringement who never liked computers and a copy of her death certificate was sent to the lawyers who initiated the legal proceedings. Yet the case went forward anyway at first.

Music Industry Sues 83-Year-Old Dead Woman

Fri Feb 4, 5:09 PM ET

CHARLESTON, W.Va. - Gertrude Walton was recently targeted by the recording industry in a lawsuit that accused her of illegally trading music over the Internet. But Walton died in December after a long illness, and according to her daughter, the 83-year-old hated computers.

More than a month after Walton was buried in Beckley, a group of record companies named her as the sole defendant in a federal lawsuit, claiming she made more than 700 pop, rock and rap songs available for free on the Internet under the screen name "smittenedkitten."

Walton's daughter, Robin Chianumba, lived with her mother for the last 17 years and said her mother objected to having a computer in the house.

"My mother was computer illiterate. She hated a computer," Chianumba said. "My mother wouldn't know how to turn on a computer."

Chianumba said she faxed a copy of her mother's death certificate to record company officials several days before the lawsuit was filed, in response to a letter from the company regarding the upcoming legal filing.

"I believe that if music companies are going to set examples they need to do it to appropriate people and not dead people," Chianumba said. "I am pretty sure she is not going to leave Greenwood Memorial Park (where she is buried) to attend the hearing."

A Recording Industry Association of America (news - web sites) spokesman said Thursday that Walton was likely not the smittenedkitten it is searching for.

"Our evidence gathering and our subsequent legal actions all were initiated weeks and even months ago," said RIAA (news - web sites) spokesman Jonathan Lamy. "We will now, of course, obviously dismiss this case."

Information from: The Charleston Gazette, http://www.wvgazette.com

Way to go, RIAA! It's nice to see you scoring big public relations points with the public!

Yup, and now the Motion Pictures Association is trying to ask the U.S. Supreme Court to reverse its decision on the Sony Betamax case that allowed people to record shows off TV on their own recorders because now the technology has changed and it's DVD instead.

The weak reasoning presented was that DVD is far more accurate in recording copies than Betamax or VCR ever was and that it helps piracy.

Wrong.

What helps piracy is that the motion pictrure industry charges too high a price in the first place. And it won't stop people from getting free those who never intended to pay in the first place.

The same arguments I brought forward about the music industry apply here also. You are not going to get blood out of a stone.

If you force people by lawyers toting briefcases to gain market share, you'll find your market share shrinking awful fast. People don't need movies to live. They'll wait until it comes to DVD, to a video store, or even longer - to television.

In other words, don't anger the public upon whose money you depend to stay in business in the first place.

Hollywood: You ain't no "Holywood".