RIAA cracks down on dead file-sharing grannies

By Steve Malone

Posted on 7 Feb 2005 at 16:55

In its crusade to stamp out the practice of illegal file sharing the RIAA has made it plain that no-one is beyond its reach. However, the organisation may have trouble securing a conviction for one person it has sued for illegal downloading. Gertrude Walton, an 83-year old grandmother not only hated computers but is now, unfortunately deceased.

According the Charleston Gazette, the RIAA alleged that Walton had made more than 700 pop, rock and rap songs available for free on the Internet under the screen name of `smittenedkitten.`.

Mrs Walton's daughter Robin Chianumba was somewhat bemused when the who lived with her mother for 17 years said that her mother didn't even know how to turn on a computer. Chianumba says that when the first lawyer's letter arrived she faxed her mother's death certificate to the RIAA but to no avail. Possibly believing this to be a ruse the RIAA lawsuit duly arrived several days later.

The RIAA now realises that it might have trouble getting a court to convict Mrs Walton of being 'smittenedkitten'. RIAA spokesman Jonathan Lamy said 'Our evidence gathering and our subsequent legal actions all were initiated weeks and even months ago. We will now, of course, obviously dismiss this case.'

The case highlights again the problems faced by the RIAA in identifying the people who share files anonymously on peer-to-peer networks. It can only work on the basis of identifying IP numbers - often assigned dynamically - and tracing them back to the ISP who must then reveal the name of the person who held that IP at that time. Mistaken identities can crop up anywhere along the line as it seems to have done in this case.