Stop the music: taking on the record industry.

• Author: Sanchez, Julian
• Position: Recording Industry Association of America - Brief Article

SINCE 2003 THE Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) has filed almost 15,000 lawsuits charging computer users with trading music online. Now one of its targets is suing back. Tanya Andersen, a 42-year-old disabled single mother, has filed a countersuit in Oregon alleging that the industry's practices violate, among other laws, the state's Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act.

Last February, Andersen got a letter from a Los Angeles law firm informing her she was being sued for copyright infringement. MediaSentry, an investigator retained by the recording industry, had allegedly caught her collecting gangsta rap on her hard drive late one night using peer-to-peer file sharing software. Andersen's attorney, Lory R. Lybeck, says Andersen doesn't know how to use such software--indeed, that she doesn't even like gangsta rap.According to Lybeck, when Andersen tried to protest her innocence and offered up her...