[ insider_reports_insider ]
RIAA Ends Suit Against Deceased Man
David Utter
Staff Writer
2006-08-16
 Insider Reports RSS Feed
A lawsuit filed by the RIAA against a man accused of unlawful file sharing took a bizarre twist after the man died and the RIAA asked the court for a 60-day break to permit his family to grieve before continuing the legal action against his estate.
 | | RIAA Ends Suit Against Deceased Man |  |
They are all heart at the RIAA. After the heavily visited Boing Boing blog cited a report from the Recording Industry vs The People website on the sad case of Warner Bros v Scantlebury, coverage of the RIAA response to Larry Scantlebury's death increased dramatically.
The RIAA's lawyer, Matthew Krichbaum of law firm Soble Rowe Krichbaum LLP, offered the family a 60-day break in the case so they could grieve the man's passing. Once the period of time passed, the RIAA planned to start taking depositions from his children about his alleged file sharing activities.
Cory Doctorow at Boing Boing posted a followup to the story. It included this heartfelt outpouring of generosity from an RIAA spokesperson, who also managed to misspell Scantlebury's name:
Our hearts go out to the Scantleberry family for their loss. We had decided to temporarily suspend the productive settlement discussions we were having with the family. Mr. Scantleberry had admitted that the infringer was his stepson, and we were in the process settling with him shortly before his passing. Out of an abundance of sensitivity, we have elected to drop this particular case.
Doctorow followed up with the RIAA spokesperson to see if they might clarify the rationale behind their charitable act:
Where was the "abundance of sensitivity" when the RIAA failed to initially drop its case against the Scantleberry family following the death of the named defendant in the case? Given that this "abundance" only materialized within 24 hours of this story hitting several large news outlets and blogs isn't it fair to say that the RIAA is demonstrating sensitivity to its public image, and not its sensitivity to the Scantleberry family?
The problem with file sharing is that the terms of ownership of a piece of artistic work, like a song, don't seem to be very well defined. The Supreme Court ducked the issue in MGM v Grokster last year, when it faulted Grokster for promoting illegal file sharing without addressing the issue of what a person owns when they purchase a song in the first place.
---
Tags: RIAA, Larry Scantlebury
Add to  Del.icio.us |  Digg |  Yahoo! My Web |  Furl
Get all the updates in RSS: 
About the Author:
David Utter is a business and technology writer for SecurityProNews and WebProNews.
More insider_reports_insider Articles
Insider Reports RSS Feed
|
|
RSS
Archive
Contact Us
Advertise
