RIAA's second biggest mistake was to sue Tanya Andersen, an innocent single mother, for copyright infringement. Their biggest mistake was to harass her and try to depose her 10-year-old daughter. (And even, allegedly, to call the girl's school posing as her grandmother!)
RIIA was forced to dismiss its case against Ms. Andersen with prejudice, although the counter-claims remain to be heard. And now those counter-claims are being bulked up with a new complaint, which basically charges BMG and two other record companies, the Recording Industry of America (RIAA), and two of their lawsuit minions, Media Sentry and the “Settlement Support Center” of basically running a rip-off operation, with formal counts including negligence, fraud, abuse of process, malicious prosecution, intentional infliction of emotional distress, invasion of privacy, libel and slander, deceptive business practices, misuse of copyright laws, trespass to chattels (!), violations of the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, and of course state and federal RICO claims.
The best part will surely be the depositions in which various record company execs and RIAA honchos and goons are asked whether they understood the nature of the fishing expedition cum intimidation racket they had cranked up. And being smart, some of them must surely have known. (The others will be mere knaves.) If they could sell seats, this could be the hottest ticket in town.
As it is, we'll have to make do with the transcripts.
(spotted via Groklaw)
I can tell that Glenn Greenwald's new book, 
