How successful are the RIAA Copyright Infringement Lawsuits that have been occurring lately? What advice do you have for those undergoing lawsuits due to the illegal downloading of music? Is there any way around these lawsuits?
Thanks soo much.
-Alex
Well, if you’re the subject of one of those lawsuits, my advice would be: Speak to a lawyer.
To my knowledge, just about every case in which the RIAA has taken action has been settled out of court, usually with a payment and a promise not to illegally download music ever again.
As far as i know, the first (and possibly still only?) RIAA case to actually go to a jury trial was the case of Jammie Thomas, a woman from Minnesota. She lost the case, as was ordered to pay over $200,000 to the RIAA. But just a few weeks ago, the judge from that trial declared a mistrial, saying that one of his jury instructions was an error of law, and that the case would have to be tried again, with new jury instructions.
I started a thread about the mistrial issue a couple of weeks ago, but no-one was interested enough to participate. There’s a story about the judge’s decision here.
IIRC, the EFF (http://www.eff.org/) had some advice, but the site appears down or overloaded right now.