Comcast Sued For Handing Over Subscriber Info To The RIAA

Grok Headline matches for Comcast Sued For Handing Over Subscriber Info To The RIAA

Comcast sued for handing over customer
data to RIAA

Comcast sued for handing over customer
data to RIAA 04/15/2005 03:35 PM
Xeni Jardin: America's largest cable provider is being sued by a woman who claims the company voluntarily forked over her personal account data to the RIAA.

In a lawsuit filed in King County, Wash., Dawnell Leadbetter said that she was contacted by a debt collection agency in January and told to pay a $4,500 for downloading copyright-protected music or face a lawsuit for hundreds of thousands of dollars. Leadbetter, a mother of two teenage children, was a customer of Comcast's high-speed Internet access service.

The company, Settlement Support Center, based in Washington state, was using information that the Recording Industry of Association of America had obtained in a Philadelphia lawsuit over the illegal sharing of digital music files, said Lory Lybeck, the lawyer representing Leadbetter. Making sense of Wi-Fi's alphabet soup

But no court authorized Comcast to release names and addresses of its customers, or notified his client that her information had been given to an outside party, Lybeck said. "Comcast should respect the rights of privacy who pay them monthly bills," Lybeck said.

Link (Thanks, Nat)

Comcast Sued For Giving Customer Info to
RIAA

Comcast Sued For Giving Customer Info to
RIAA 04/15/2005 06:16 PM

Comcast Sued for Disclosing Customer
Information

Comcast Sued for Disclosing Customer
Information 04/15/2005 06:14 PM
Comcast Corp., the top U.S. cable television network operator, is being sued by a Seattle-area woman for disclosing her name and contact information, court records showed on Thursday. In a lawsuit filed in King County, Washington, Dawnell Leadbetter said that she was contacted by a debt collection agency in January and told to pay a $4,500 for downloading copyright-protected music or face a lawsuit for hundreds of thousands of dollars.

News source: Reuters

Read full story...

What to do if you're sued by the RIAA:
update

What to do if you're sued by the RIAA:
update 01/03/2004 01:20 AM
On Declan McCullagh's Politech list, attorney Charles Mudd says:

I have updated my RIAA web page that provides general answers to questions that individuals may have regarding the RIAA's initiative. This reflects updates in light of the two opinions of recent note.

Link

RIAA sued on Racketeering!

RIAA sued on Racketeering! 02/19/2004 03:57 AM
A New Jersey woman who has been charged with file swapping by the RIAA, brought out the big guns and...

RIAA Sued For Violating P2P Patent

RIAA Sued For Violating P2P Patent 09/09/2004 03:51 AM
While some may consider it poetic justice to hear that the RIAA has been sued by a P2P company for patent infringement, the news really isn't that great. It's really not particularly unexpected either. Altnet made it clear last year that they would use their patent for identifying files via a hash to sue the music industry for spying on file sharers. Altnet is barely a typical file sharing company either. While it does seem to have a convoluted relationship with Kazaa, it's really a system for interjecting copy protected files into Kazaa's system. The patent, like so many these days, seems quite questionable (and fairly obvious). The RIAA, of course, will fail to see the irony of being hit up with an intellectual property charge, and it will do nothing to change their behavior. All we really end up with is yet another bad patent lawsuit that will do little to move the industry forward.

Pepsi Ad Using Kids Sued By The RIAA

Pepsi Ad Using Kids Sued By The RIAA 01/23/2004 02:23 PM
Well, we're approaching Super Bowl time, and I'm seeing plenty of articles (as always) about all the funky Super Bowl ads that people are preparing. However, Pepsi has put together one of the odder ones. As part of their promotion to give away iTunes songs, they've put together an ad showing a bunch of kids that have been sued by the RIAA for file sharing, and had them say "we're still going to download for free!" - thanks to Pepsi's limited time iTunes promotion, of course.

sued by the RIAA? appear in a pepsi
commercial!

sued by the RIAA? appear in a pepsi
commercial! 01/24/2004 03:32 AM
Pepsi's Superbowl ad for their iTunes promotion .. Pepsi / iTunes giveaway ads to be "sassy" .. Pepsi Ads Wink At Music Downloading .. bashing it has gone mainstream .. wink

usatoday.com/tech/news/2004-01-22-sb-pepsi_x.htm
track this site | 8 links

532 poor saps getting sued by the RIAA

532 poor saps getting sued by the RIAA 01/22/2004 02:47 AM
Well the RIAA who continues to strong arm consumers in Mafia like tactics have went after 532 more file swappers....

Nearly 1500 people have been sued by the
RIAA

Nearly 1500 people have been sued by the
RIAA 02/18/2004 02:21 AM
When will the madness end. It seems the RIAA filed another 531 John Doe lawsuits against individuals that they are...

More file-swappers sued by RIAA

More file-swappers sued by RIAA 12/04/2003 04:58 AM
Silicon.com Dec 4 2003 3:15AM ET

RIAA sued under gang laws

RIAA sued under gang laws 02/18/2004 05:31 PM
A woman who the record label group accuses of copyright infringement fires back, saying labels are breaking racketeering laws.

Vonage Sued Over Lack Of Clarity In 911
Info

Vonage Sued Over Lack Of Clarity In 911
Info 03/22/2005 05:03 PM
The issue of VoIP having 911 service gets way too much attention. Most of the major VoIP players already have some sort of solution in place, and it seems to be improving over time. However, apparently the attorney general in Texas doesn't think Vonage is doing enough. It's not that they don't offer 911 service, but that they don't make things clear enough to customers who are signing up. The whole case seems a bit confusing. Vonage clearly does offer 911 service, so saying that users "aren't clearly informed that the service excludes 911" is incorrect. It does include 911, you just have to follow the instructions -- and Vonage claims they make every effort to get people to follow the instructions. Not only that, but the company seems to make the process fairly straightforward, though it could be improved. This seems more like political grandstanding in the wake of some negati ve publicity recently concening VoIP and 911 service in Texas.

RIAA being sued for violating
anti-racketeering laws

RIAA being sued for violating
anti-racketeering laws 02/18/2004 11:58 PM
One target of the RIAA has decided to counter-sue the RIAA, alleging that this practice is tantamount to racketeering as prohibited by Federal law-law designed to attack organized crime.

Dead, Non-Computer Owner Sued By The
RIAA For Swapping 700 Songs

Dead, Non-Computer Owner Sued By The
RIAA For Swapping 700 Songs 02/05/2005 09:49 PM
There have been plenty of stories about the entertainment industry threate ning completely innocent people, but now they're getting even worse. According to Broadband Reports among the people sued in the latest batch of lawsuits from the RIAA was an 83-year-old woman who is now deceased. Even when she was alive she never owned a computer, let alone had the username "smittenedkitten," or shared over 700 songs online. The RIAA responds, oh so politely, by saying they'll now dismiss the case. However, that's not the real issue. All of these examples show that the RIAA doesn't really know who's doing what -- and yet they're filing tons of indiscriminate lawsuits. Every time a screwup like this happens, they apologize and remove the lawsuit, but shouldn't they be punished for filing frivolous lawsuits? It's clear that they really don't have the right tools to be able to tell who actually committed a crime. A smart lawyer should use these cases to show that the industry has no real evidence that any of these lawsuits are valid.

Woman sued for file-sharing brings RICO
countersuit against RIAA

Woman sued for file-sharing brings RICO
countersuit against RIAA 02/18/2004 10:53 AM
A New Jersey mom who was sued for file-sharing by the RIAA has brought a countersuit for racketeering.

The Rockaway Township woman, who claims she was targeted for her teenager's school research project, is among hundreds of individuals sued by the music industry since last summer. Another 531 computer users were sued yesterday in "John Doe" suits filed in Trenton, Atlanta, Philadelphia and Orlando.

Labels are using "scare tactics (that) amount to extortion" in efforts to extract settlements, Scimeca alleges in legal papers sent to the U.S. District Court in Newark.

"They're banding together to extort money, telling people they're guilty and they will have to pay big bucks to defend their cases if they don't pony up now. It is fundamentally not fair," Scimeca's lawyer, Bart Lombardo, said yesterday. The Cranford attorney said he occasionally downloads songs for personal use and sees nothing wrong with that.

Link (Thanks, Jason!)

Pepsi/iTunes Super Bowl ad to feature
teens sued by RIAA

Pepsi/iTunes Super Bowl ad to feature
teens sued by RIAA 01/23/2004 02:19 PM
About 20 teens sued by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) for unauthorized music downloads will appear in Pepsi's upcoming Super Bowl ad, which will launch the 100 million song iTunes promotion on Feb...

Time Warner, Comcast Get Adelphia,
Comcast Celebrates By Turning Off DNS

Time Warner, Comcast Get Adelphia,
Comcast Celebrates By Turning Off DNS 04/08/2005 12:13 PM
It looks like Adelphia cable broadband customers who are about to get shifted over to Comcast have plenty of outages to look forward to. The same evening that it's announced that Time Warner and Comcast will jointly devour what's left of Adelphia for about $18 billion, Comcast had major DNS issues leaving many of their users offline. Of course, in explaining the widespread outage, Comcast is using their favorite phrase: "scheduled maintenance." That's the same thing they told me when Comcast turned off my service nearly every weekday last October. I would call every morning and be told that it was "scheduled maintenance." However, when I asked what the schedule was and if I'd have service the next day, I was told they had no idea. Apparently, it doesn't become scheduled until it actually cut you off.

The telecommunications Industry
Handbook: Covers Asymmetrical Digital
Subscriber Line (ADSL), Data Over Cable
System Interface Spectrum Standard
(DOCSIS) cable modems, Very High Data
Rate Digital Subscriber Line (VDSL) and
more

The telecommunications Industry
Handbook: Covers Asymmetrical Digital
Subscriber Line (ADSL), Data Over Cable
System Interface Spectrum Standard
(DOCSIS) cable modems, Very High Data
Rate Digital Subscriber Line (VDSL) and
more 07/08/2004 03:39 AM
Research and Markets are delighted to announce the addition of 2004 Technology - Infrastructure, Fixed Voice and Data Report to their offering. [PRWEB Jul 8, 2004]

Handing out a big thanks

Handing out a big thanks 08/06/2004 03:17 PM
If you've been following along at home, you probably remember that I've been having ever so much fun with my well-travelled iBook and Apple Repair. At OSCON last week a few people pulled be aside (separately) and told me I should've said something--it would've been taken care of. Which, had I know it was going to be six weeks, I would've. Well... it's happening again. This time the case screws are carrying a charge when the thing's plugged in, which means I've got something shorting across the case ground. I assume someone tightened some screws down too tightly or crimped...

Comcast Outages Prevent Comcast From
Commenting On Comcast Outages

Comcast Outages Prevent Comcast From
Commenting On Comcast Outages 04/14/2005 01:21 PM
Last week, we noted that Comcast was having widespread outage problems, which they chalk ed up to "scheduled maintenance", even though no one was actually informed of said schedule ahead of time. It turns out that schedule is pretty crowded, because all week long, there have been continued reports of recurring outages all across the Comcast network. Comcast, of course, continues to be pretty much silent on the issue, leaving its increasingly fed up call center staff to deal with incredibly angry customers who feel they're getting no information at all. How hard is it to admit that they screwed up and they're working on fixing the problem? Instead of chalking it up to bogus scheduled maintenance or pretending there's nothing wrong, admit what the problem is and give people real updates. People would still be unhappy, but at least they'd feel like the company wasn't ignoring them. Of course, maybe they can't do that because Comcast staffers don't have any internet access either...

Handing It to Sony

Handing It to Sony 03/28/2005 10:35 AM
The new PSP aims to put Sony in the heart of the handheld gaming market.

Handing Out Condoms for Carnival Safe
Sex (Reuters)

Handing Out Condoms for Carnival Safe
Sex (Reuters) 02/10/2004 09:13 AM
Reuters - Brazil Monday began handing out a record 10 million contraceptives to stop the spread of AIDS during Carnival when casual sex rises.

Pakistan Weighs Handing U.S. Key Al
Qaeda Suspects (Reuters)

Pakistan Weighs Handing U.S. Key Al
Qaeda Suspects (Reuters) 08/06/2004 09:37 AM
Reuters - The Pakistan government is considering handing over to the United States two al Qaeda suspects key to ongoing investigations in the United States and Britain, intelligence sources told Reuters Friday.

Is The Contact Info You Provide Someone
Public Or Private Info?

Is The Contact Info You Provide Someone
Public Or Private Info? 02/10/2004 05:32 PM
I've complained in the past about the annoyanc e of Plaxo spam. Lately, the more I've been thinking about Plaxo, the more it annoys me. Though I've never had anything to do with the company, and have never responded to a single spam, they now have a database with my contact info that others gave it. Bambi Francisco over at CBS Marketwatch has noticed the same thing with Spoke Software, which she finds disconcerting. However, I'm wondering about the bigger legal issues: is the personal info you've given to individuals for business or personal reasons shareable? Some say that all Spoke is doing is collecting public information. However, if the info was given to an individual, is there a reasonable expectation that the information is not public at all, but for private use only? I'm not sure what the answer is, but I wonder how long until there's a lawsuit around this issue. Personally, like so many other things, I don't think it's something you can get "back in the box," but these systems do reveal to me who is freely giving away personal information about me, which could make me less willing to do business with them in the future.

"Handing over keys, not
control...Campaign turns
nasty...Political billions"

"Handing over keys, not
control...Campaign turns
nasty...Political billions" 08/22/2004 08:59 PM

Park ranger threatens to arrest Eldred
for handing out free Waldens

Park ranger threatens to arrest Eldred
for handing out free Waldens 07/09/2004 06:28 PM
Eric Eldred, an Internet Bookmobile driver and poster child for the public domain, was threatened with arrest for handing out free copies of Walden at Walden Pond:

Yesterday (July 8, 2004) I took the Internet Bookmobile to Walden Pond in Concord, Mass. It was the 150th anniversary of H. D. Thoreau's book "Walden." The Thoreau Society had a dawn to dusk reading.

After an hour of having readers print and take away free copies of "Walden," I was asked by the Walden Pond Reservation police to pack up and leave and threatened with arrest. I left.

The park supervisor (Denise Morrissey, 978-369-3254) told me I could not pass out free literature without a permit. And she would not give me a permit because, as she explained, the state park gets money from a concession by the Thoreau Society, which operates a store that sells "Walden"--and I was competing with them by giving away free copies.

There is no place to park at Walden Pond except in the state parking lot, for which I paid $5.

Link

XM Knocks Out Subscriber Goal

XM Knocks Out Subscriber Goal 04/01/2005 05:36 PM
TheStreet.com Apr 1 2005 9:11PM GMT

FeedBurner is Subscriber-Friendly

FeedBurner is Subscriber-Friendly 02/01/2005 08:42 PM

Kudos to FeedBurner for their new subs criber-friendly feed styling. Until one-click subscription is supported by browsers, this is a step in the right direction.

PS: If you'd like to take a peek at the subscriber-friendly styling, view my Dexter RSS feed in your browser.

XM's Subscriber Boom

XM's Subscriber Boom 04/04/2005 01:50 PM
The satellite radio provider is nabbing subscribers at a quick pace, but content will be the key in the long run.

My Yahoo RSS Subscriber Stats Bug Fixed

My Yahoo RSS Subscriber Stats Bug Fixed 02/01/2005 10:14 PM
Over on the FeedBurner Weblog, Dick writes about My Yahoo Subscriber Numbers, noting that the numbers were stuck for a while and that things are now better. I checked in with Scott Gatz at My Yahoo to get the scoop. Here's what I found out. The bug lasted from October until last week. So it may have looked like My Yahoo users stopped subscribing to your feed for several months. The bug was confirmed and fixed this week. The subscriber...

Orange hits 50m subscriber mark

Orange hits 50m subscriber mark 04/29/2004 06:24 AM
'Strong first quarter'

Napster subscriber tally tops 410,000

Napster subscriber tally tops 410,000 04/06/2005 02:38 AM
But how long with they stay subscribers?

Nextel Subscriber Growth Panned

Nextel Subscriber Growth Panned 02/19/2004 03:31 PM
TheStreet.com Feb 19 2004 7:54PM GMT

EarthLink to collect more subscriber
information

EarthLink to collect more subscriber
information 11/05/2003 11:40 PM
The Internet service provider says it will begin collecting more personal information about its subscribers in an effort to better market to them.

XM Reports Big Subscriber Gain
(washingtonpost.com)

XM Reports Big Subscriber Gain
(washingtonpost.com) 04/02/2005 02:28 AM
washingtonpost.com - XM Satellite Radio Holdings Inc. said yesterday that it picked up 540,000 new subscribers during the first three months of 2005, a 68 percent increase over the comparable period a year ago.

Sirius, XM Hit New Subscriber Records
(NewsFactor)

Sirius, XM Hit New Subscriber Records
(NewsFactor) 12/28/2004 05:05 PM
NewsFactor - Sirius Satellite Radio said it has achieved its goal of signing up 1 million subscribers by the end of 2004, while rival XM Satellite Radio Holdings announced that its customer numbers recently topped 3.1 million.

Forrester debunks 3G: It won't impact
revenue per subscriber

Forrester debunks 3G: It won't impact
revenue per subscriber 07/28/2004 07:53 PM
Haaretz Jul 29 2004 0:23AM GMT

Study: Wireless market set for
subscriber surge

Study: Wireless market set for
subscriber surge 07/29/2004 01:34 PM
Worldwide subscriber numbers projected to jump from 1.5 billion in 2004 to more than 2.5 billion in 2009, fueled by CDMA.
Grok Description matches for Comcast Sued For Handing Over Subscriber Info To The RIAA
GrokA matches for Comcast Sued For Handing Over Subscriber Info To The RIAA

Comcast Sued For Handing Over Subscriber Info To The RIAA

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