Corporate cartels gone wild

Maybe it’s from listening to all that rap music. But if any organization has acted like original gangstas, it’s the RIAA. And now, it seems, someone’s about to bust a cap in their assets.

Last week Tanya Andersen filed a class action suit in Oregon accusing the RIAA, the Big 4 record companies, and digital snoops Media Sentry of a range of criminal racketeering charges not seen since the John Gotti trial.

(For those of you not closely following the whole RIAA saga, Tanya is the disabled mother of 10-year-old Kylee, whom the RIAA deposed as part of its unsuccessful suit against Andersen. In an attempt to locate the girl, someone from the record industry’s goon squad called Kylee’s school and pretended to be her grandmother.)

If Andersen’s suit is approved for class action status, she may be joined by many of the 30,000 others who’ve been bullied, bludgeoned, harried, and harrassed by the recording industry (who are really just protecting the interests of poor starving musicians – really). And won’t that be a wonderful thing to see.

Meanwhile, Debbie Foster, the first plaintiff to be awarded attorneys’ fees after being wrongfully sued by the RIAA, is still waiting for the record companies’ thugs legbreakers distinguished representatives to cough up the 68 Large they owe her. So she’s filed a motion asking for security against their eventual payment of $68,685.23. I think she should take their car keys. A nice long walk along the Santa Monica Freeway would do them all good.

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