Los Angeles, California - EFF today announced that it will defend Ross Plank of Playa Del Rey, California, against a wrongly filed complaint, among the 261 copyright infringement lawsuits the recording industry has filed against individuals.
The federal lawsuit filed against Plank in Los Angeles accuses him of making hundreds of Latin songs available using KaZaA filesharing software earlier this summer. Plank does not speak Spanish and does not listen to Latin music. More importantly, his computer did not even have KaZaA installed during the period when the investigation occurred.
EFF has offered to accept service of the complaint on Plank's behalf, the first step to defending the lawsuit.
Plank is a website consultant who operates his business, Sitenurturing.com, from his home. "I need my computer and Internet connection to run my business," said Plank. "I shouldn't have to feel my business and future are at risk because the RIAA has somehow linked my name to a set of Latin songs."
Comcast, Plank's ISP, notified him that they received a subpoena from the recording industry seeking his identity, but Plank disregarded the notice because he didn't didn't use KaZaA and didn't even recognize the song titles. Plank's records from the time at which the RIAA issued its subpoena indicate that he was not even using the network address for which the recording industry had sought the user's identity.
"Whether the error was made by Comcast or the RIAA, the issuance of a federal complaint on such slim evidence demonstrates the serious flaws in the Recording Industry's litigation campaign," said Wendy Seltzer, an EFF staff attorney representing Plank. "It's not fair to hold people like Mr. Plank as collateral damage in the RIAA dragnet. If the labels don't dismiss the complaint, we'll look forward to discovery into how they made this misidentification in the first place."
"The recording industry's 'sue first and ask questions later,' policy caused this problem," added EFF Legal Director Cindy Cohn. "The RIAA recently told Congress that its members will contact individuals in the future before suing them -- but better yet would be to ensure that they cannot violate the privacy of people like Ross Plank in the first place until they have demonstrated to a judge that they have their facts straight."
EFF has urged the recording industry to accept filesharing by embracing new ways of ensuring that copyright holders and artists are compensated. "Radio stations pay a blanket fee and get to 'share' any music that they like," noted EFF Executive Director Shari Steele. "The record companies could ensure that artists are paid for music shared using the filesharing networks if they offered individuals a similar deal and paid a portion of the funds directly to artists."
Wendy Seltzer
Staff Attorney
Electronic Frontier Foundation
wendy@eff.org
Cindy Cohn
Legal Director
Electronic Frontier Foundation
cindy@eff.org
Ross R. Plank
Defendant in RIAA Case
SiteNurturing.com
ross@sitenurturing.com
The Electronic Frontier Foundation is the leading civil liberties organization working to protect rights in the digital world. Founded in 1990, EFF actively encourages and challenges industry and government to support free expression and privacy online. EFF is a member-supported organization and maintains one of the most linked-to websites in the world at http://www.eff.org/
