RIAA sued for extortion

The Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) is being sued for extortion by an individual accused of file sharing.

Suzy Del Cid alleges that the RIAA is using private investigators who are unlicensed in her state to collect information.

She also claims that the organisation is using the court system to extort money, and filing 'John Doe' lawsuits to extract personal information on users.

"For a number of years, a group of large, multinational, multi-billion dollar record companies, including these Plaintiffs, have been abusing the Federal court judicial system for the purpose of waging a public relations and public threat campaign targeting digital file sharing activities," the filing reads. 

"As part of this campaign, these record companies hired unlicensed private investigators - in violation of various state laws - who receive a bounty to invade private computers and private computer networks to obtain information - in the form of IP addresses - allowing them to identify the computers and computer networks that they invaded."

Del Cid's filing claims that the RIAA sent out subpoenas without knowing the identity of the file sharer, and then sent in its Settlement Support Center which informs them of the case against them and attempts to reach a financial settlement.

She accuses the RIAA of deliberately targeting the "elderly, disabled, technologically clueless and other vulnerable victims" in order to attract media attention. Del Cid is also claiming damages for the organisation's intrusion into her computer.

This is not the first time that the RIAA has been sued for its policy over file sharing. Yesterday the organisation dropped its case against Tanya Andersen, a disabled single mother in Oregon, whom it had accused of sharing gangster rap songs.

The woman is still pursuing her case against the RIAA.