Where were you during Hurricane Rita? Watching its progress on NOAA.gov? Safely tucked away in the Pacific Northwest? Or perhaps you were stuck along the Texas/Louisiana border, with little else to do than hope and pray for a quick download off your snazzy P2P application. Regardless, it appeared that not even an impending hurricane could save Rhonda Crane from the wrath of the music industry's lawsuit machine.

Rhonda Crane is a grandmother who recently found herself as a defendant against the major record labels Sony BMG and Artista, who accused her of sharing unauthorized music online. Mrs. Crane has become recognized as the Hurricane Rita file-sharer in P2P news circles, as her displacement during the storm added an element of doubt into her ability to share music - let alone her senior status.

Like most other file-sharers, Mrs. Crane received the usual monetary demand from the music industry's legal representation. Unlike most file-sharers, however, Mrs. Crane decided to fight back, and interestingly targeted an apparent weak spot in the music industry's campaign. The music industry typically uses a firm such as Media Sentry to scour P2P networks and find unauthorized distributors of copyrighted work. Media Sentry's work allegedly targeted Mrs. Crane, an assertion she vehemently denies.

According to Recording Industry vs. The People (RIVTP), Mrs. Crane filed a counter claim which argued that Media Sentry is unlicensed for private investigation in Texas - which, if found true, would negate the music industry's demands against her. The counterclaim struck a chord with the music industry, which yesterday dropped the monetary demands against her. The most the music industry was able to attain was an injunction, which demands that she no longer engage in copyright infringement or allow anyone to use her computer towards those means, and to destroy any copies of copyrighted work.

Why did the music industry do this? According to RIVTP, this was done to avoid the potentially disastrous repercussion of finding that any and all work that Media Sentry has done was illegal. That legal snowball is starting to gain ground, where the Attorney General in Oregon has expressed his legal skepticism regarding unlicensed investigators.

This story is filed in these Slyck News categories
Legal/Courtroom :: Court Rulings/Decisions

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