UCLA to RIAA: “Try RFIDing Them First”   2/8/2005 - 1,060 views,

According to the report, the RIAA has filed an infringement lawsuit against one Gertrude Walton of Beckley, West Virginia, for making hundreds of songs available on the Internet.

One problem: Walton’s daughter, Robin Chianumba, claims that Walton “hated computers”.

Still, that’s not the oddest thing about this lawsuit.

Nor is the fact that on her last birthday, Walton turned 83.

No, the oddest thing about this lawsuit is that Gertrude Walton, may she rest in peace, died in December. And the lawsuit was filed after the RIAA was notified of Walton’s death, claiming that Walton had made available 700 songs on the Internet.

Holy Afterlife, that must have taken a lot of bandwidth! Guess she was using an etherealnet connection.

For their part, the RIAA has said that they will “try to dismiss” the lawsuit. And well they should, as, as Ms. Chianumba explains, “I am pretty sure she is not going to leave Greenwood Memorial Park to attend the hearing.”

And while that would otherwise make it an easy win for the RIAA if the defendant didn’t show up, still, they can always go back to suing 12-year-olds.

And for those of you who don’t ‘get’ the title of this post, see Aunty’s report on RFIDing the deceased here.