[h3]RIAA's "abundance of sensitivity" ends harassment of grieving family [/h3]Recently there was a post here about the family of a recently deceased defendant in a lawsuit by the RIAA [a href="vny!://www.boingboing.net/2006/08/12/riaa_to_grieving_fam.html"]being given 60 days to grieve before the RIAA went on to depose the dead man's children[/a] in a renewed suit against his estate. In the intervening days, the publicity about this despicable act -- suing the family of a dead man -- has mounted. An RIAA spokesperson, Jonathan Lamy, vomited forth this statement: [blockquote]"Our hearts go out to the Scantleberry family for their loss. We had decided to temporarily suspend the productive settlement discussions we were having with the family. Mr. Scantleberry had admitted that the infringer was his stepson, and we were in the process settling with him shortly before his passing. Out of an abundance of sensitivity, we have elected to drop this particular case." [/blockquote] Cory D. wrote back to ask him this followup question: [/p][blockquote]Where was the "abundance of sensitivity" when the RIAA failed to initially drop its case against the Scantleberry family following the death of the named defendant in the case? Given that this "abundance" only materialized within 24 hours of [a href="vny!://blogsearch.google.com/blogsearch?hl=en&q=Scantleberry&btnG=Search+Blogs"]this story hitting several large news outlets and blogs[/a] isn't it fair to say that the RIAA is demonstrating sensitivity to its public image, and not its sensitivity to the Scantleberry family? [/blockquote] To which he declined to further comment. This is par for the course with the RIAA. A year ago, the RIAA contacted him to say that [a href="vny!://www.boingboing.net/2006/06/16/is_riaa_nastygrammin.html"]a takedown notice sent on their behalf to RPG Films was a forgery[/a]. When Cory asked if they intended to sue RPG Films for real, and whether these forgeries were common, and whether the RIAA would investigate the forgery, RIAA Director of Communications Jenni Engebretsen promised she'd get back to him with answers. After repeated emails and phone calls, Cory finally took the extraordinary step of calling her from a different, borrowed phone (suspecting that she was ducking his calls) and reached her -- only to be told that the RIAA had no further comment. [/p]The RIAA's approach to PR is much like their approach to culture in general: read-only. The RIAA issues statements like the Pope emitting a bull, and we mortals may squabble over its meaning among ourselves, but they are not available to participate in any further discussion. This is reminiscent of the RIAA's approach to things like [a href="vny!://www.boingboing.net/2006/06/16/is_riaa_nastygrammin.html"]YouTube lipsynch videos[/a]: "our songs are released to be listened to and nothing more; should you dare to make them part of your life, we will use the copyright law we bought to break you."
