New developments in the ongoing drama of Elisa Greubel, the Texan and Avril Lavigne fan who sent fanmail to Nettwerk Records artist MC Lars praising his anti-lawsuit "Download This Song" track as the RIAA began their attempt to extort her for file sharing, causing Nettwerk to back her case against the big guys. A motion has been filed, and it lays out quite simply, why the RIAA lawsuits are more akin to racketeering and extortion than any sort of reasonable legal action.

In an article entitled The RIAA's Predatory Litigation Tactics, the p2pnet.net crew give us the good, or at least the hopeful news.

Now a new motion has been made to have a copyright infringement case brought by the Big Four's RIAA (Recording Industry Association of America) has been made in Texas, says Recording Industry vs The People.

In it, Greubel states:

* The RIAA's attempt to recover $750 per song, while its actual damages are only 99 cents per song, is unconstitutional; * Since 2003 the RIAA has been actively engaged in "extortive and predatory litigation tactics" and misused the Courts to "create a veil of fear designed to frighten average consumers into paying thousands of dollars in settlements to avoid prolonged litigation"; * The RIAA's pleadings are "smoke and mirrors"; * The complaint lacks sufficient specificity; * Tthe "distribution right" upon which the RIAA vaguely relies does not apply to electronic transmissions; and * Even if it did, the mere act of making sound recordings available online does not constitute an actionable infringement.

We can only hope that the Judge has some conception of what the RIAA are trying to pull here, which, as evinced in my previous entry, has much deeper ramifications on the development of technology than it first appears. Of course, just the continuing shady lawsuits against consumers are enough - and hopefully this can help put an end to them.