She Says She's No Music Pirate. No Snoop Fan, Either.

New York Times ^ | September 25, 2003 | JOHN SCHWARTZ

[Bubba_Leroy]

Sarah Ward was stunned when the record industry sued her for being a music pirate.

Mrs. Ward, a 66-year-old sculptor and retired schoolteacher, received notice on Sept. 11 from the Recording Industry Association of America that she was being accused of engaging in millions of dollars worth of copyright infringement, downloading thousands of songs and sharing them with the world through a popular file-sharing program called KaZaA.

Mrs. Ward was deeply confused by the accusations, which have disrupted her gentle life in the suburbs of Boston. She does not trade music, she says, does not have any younger music-loving relatives living with her, and does not use her computer for much more than sending e-mail and checking the tides. Even then, her husband does the typing.

"I'm a very much dyslexic person who has not actually engaged using the computer as a tool yet," she explained in her first interview about the case.

On Friday, the industry group dropped its suit against Mrs. Ward, but reserved the right to sue again. An industry spokeswoman denied that any mistake had been made.

[Bubba_Leroy]

"And though the lawsuit against her said that she was heavily into the works of hip-hop artists like Snoop Dogg, Ms. Ward says her musical tastes run to Celtic and folk."

A likely story.

[Bubba_Leroy]

"The idea, he said, is to make average people understand that they, too, could be hit with a suit for sharing songs."

Whether they download music or not.

[irishtenor]

Snoop Dogg is Celtic! Really, I saw him wearing a kilt, or maybe it was a plaid tablecloth on one of the wild girls videos. Really. You believe me, don'tcha?

[Kay Soze]

Too difficult to trace who is downing what.

Since thr RIAA has started this its said that there has been a 30% drop at Kazza and grokster.

Has there been a subsequent 30% rise in CD sales?

a 10% rise

a .0001% rise?

We "file share" copy righted material on 99.9% of all our discussions here daily - are we thieves?

[Thor_Hammar]

If someone set up a program on her computer (because of lack of security on her part), it would be possible that the trading of music looked to be Mrs. Ward's handiwork.

[Thor_Hammar]

If someone set up a program on her computer (because of lack of security on her part), it would be possible that the trading of music looked to be Mrs. Ward's handiwork.

[StockAyatollah]

Sounds like a defamation suit and a new Cadillac for granny!

[Ex-Dem]

Wow. First a 12-year old girl from the projects, now this. RIAA might want to look into hiring a new PR guy...

[NotJustAnotherPrettyFace]

LOL! Go Granny Go, Granny, Go Granny, Go!!!

[natewill]

Someone needs to lock Ms Ward up and throw away the key. We can't have anybody sharing stolen materials, now can we? No mercy! Doesn't she know copyright laws? There's only 10,000 pages of them. There's no excuses, even if she isn't guilty, per se. /sarcasm

[Spirited]

This is where I hope some lawyer persuades her to sue.

[Peace will be here soon]

I wonder if she has a teenage or early 20 something grandchild ???? That may have access to her computer??? HMMMMMMM... It would be worth a look at least.

[NotJustAnotherPrettyFace]

Recovering_Democrat, meet Ex-Dem, self-appointed coordinator of the Demo-Defectors Protection Program :-).

[PokeyJoe]

Wonder if she has an open "wireless" port on a router. I have a friend at UT Austin who has had free cable modem access for the past 8 months. =)

hard to prosecute somebody for being stupid.

[Imal]

Cases like these will cast doubt on the veracity of more RIAA prosecutions than this one, you can be sure, undermining their leverage in court.

Meanwhile, the public will come to recognize the RIAA as the scum-sucking bottom feeders that they are.

[zx2dragon]

I recently cleaned up three compromised systems for a few people. They were trading in spanish language MP3s and some weird movie file without even knowing it.

I advised for them to buy Norton's, update it every other day and to scan all of their attachments before opening them.