James Delahunty
15 Apr 2005 21:23
A Seattle-area woman is suing Comcast, one of the United States' best cable TV network operators for disclosing her personal contact information to the Recording Industry Association of America. Dawnell Leadbetter who has two teenage children was contacted by a debt collection agency telling her she had to either hand over $4,500 for downloading copyrighted music or face a lawsuit that could mean she would have to pay up hundreds of thousands of dollars.
Leadbetter later learned that the company, Settlement Support Center was using information that they obtained from the RIAA in a Philadelphia Copyright Infringement lawsuit. Just like thousands of other Internet users in the United States, Leadbetter was accused of illegal file sharing through P2P networks. However, no court authorised Comcast to hand over her contact information and Comcast didn't even contact her to inform her that they had.
"Comcast should respect the rights of privacy who pay them monthly bills," Lory Lybeck, the lawyer representing Leadbetter said. Also the debt collectors, Settlement Support Center, had apparently informed her that she had to pay the $4,500 for downloading copyrighted music. This is strange because generally the lawsuits filed by the RIAA are against people who are sharing copyrighted files illegally (not Download… but Uploading!). I'm sure that is what she is really being accused of. The RIAA has filed thousands of lawsuits against P2P users in the United States so far in its campaign against illegal file-sharing.
Source:
News.com