Andre Yoskowitz
15 Aug 2008 3:07
The Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) has fully paid $108,000 USD restitution to P2P defendant Tanya Anderson for lawyer's fees incurred during Tanya's year long winning case against the group.
Over the years, the RIAA has sued tens of thousands of file sharers and many have settled for, on average, $3000 USD. However, a few accused file sharers have fought back and let the cases go to court. Recently the RIAA has suffered a few setbacks in their quest to stop piracy through lawsuits however, including the case of Tanya Anderson. Andersen was accused of downloading and sharing hundreds of rap songs under the username "gotenkito" but the RIAA failed to prove that she had any of the files or that she had even downloaded any of them at all.
Although Ms. Anderson won the case, and got paid for the RIAA's waste of the court's time it is important to note that Ms. Anderson's lawyer fees exceeded $300,000 USD and the $107,834 paid back by the RIAA will obviously not fulfill all her requirements. It does however set a precedent that will hopefully push more lawyers to take on cases for accused file sharers, seeing the amount of possible fees that can be had.
"Together with the $117.03 off accumulated post-judgment interest, the total amount of the $107,951.03 has been fully paid and satisfied by the Judgment Creditors," reads the judges statement.
Anderson will now move on the offensive, suing the RIAA as part of a civil suit over "malicious prosecution" of innocent citizens.
I fully believe that $108,000 USD could have been better spent by the record labels to find new talent or a better business model, but I guess losing a court battle over a few downloaded tracks is okay too.