News Woman sues ISP for grassing her up to RIAA

The Inquirer has an interesting story about a woman who is taking her internet service provider to court after them passing her details over to the RIAA.

Dawnell Leadbetter, from somewhere near Seattle, claims her ISP, Comcast, was not authorised to hand over her details to snoops from the RIAA who were seeking victims to stiff with big bills for sharing tunes online.

Leadbetter, a mother (sniff), was contacted by some heavies on behalf of the RIAA, who demanded $4,500 and threatened court action if she didn't hand over the dosh. They said she'd have to fork out far more if she was convicted of infringing copyright legislation.

The heavies, from a debt-collection agency named the Settlement Support Center in Washington DC, had tracked the woman down using information the RIAA had extracted from Comcast. ​

Interesting... I wonder where she stands on that? Also, it'd be interesting to see how the UK's own Data Protection act would kick in in a situation similar to this. I guess the question is whether the RIAA have a warrant that gives them the right to information from any source of possible copyright infringements...

Read the full story here.

 

It would be great for the people being sued if she got a better return from the ISP than what she lost to the RIAA. That way, ISP's would seriously have to reconsider there stance on helping them. With their cash in direct jeopardy, im sure its an entirely differant matter for them!

 

Couldn't imagine the same senario here, as like you suggest the data protection act prohibits transfer of information, unless it is directly to the police (even then they can have a hard time obtaining the info).
For an ISP over here to hand over the info, it would have to be part of a police investigation.



I think thats how it works at least

/me goes of to read the data protection act

 

Well, I don't have my Wanadoo contract to hand, but I'd be willing to bet that I've expressly permitted them to hand my details over to a third party without a warrant if they (Wanadoo) have reasonable grounds to believe I've been doing naughty things like illegal filesharing.

 

But dont the police need a warrent for that sort of thing? If it isnt publically available?

 

But they cant just hand it over to anybody they feel like. Only to a legal agency of some sort. Such as the police. And not to a bunch of posturing idiots such as RIAA or its equivalent. The police then has to carry out an investigation and hand over the details to the third party (such as RIAA) only if there is proof that a crime has been committed.

AFAIK that's more or less the correct idea.

 

Wanadoo's Terms Of Use.

 

Well I hope she wins.

In any case, they found out she was doing it by a) uploading the file to her, and tracking her IP, which would make it legal since it was from the original author or b) doing some sort of hacking thing, making their actions illegal.

 

or c: downloading the file from her computer

 

I hope the lady wins, even though I doubt it.. it seems the RIAA is gaining influence in the courts.

 

Not very well it would seem.

Edit: although the BPI did have to go through the High Court first at least.

 

big companies are legaly entitled to hack "within reason" under us law... I know it sucks they don't even need a court order!!!

 

Commiecast (or concast) plain sucks, their tos actually worries me a bit. What I find comforting though, is that nobody in my household has ever had to agree to the comcast contract at all, the bill for our service just changed from ATTBI to comcast.

I hope she wins.

The RIAA has gotten too big, someone or something needs to cut them down to size. They are exerting far too much power for an org that merely is supposed to help artists market their music