The fourth time was the charm apparently. After having her first three complaints rejected by the judge presiding over the case, former RIAA defendant Tanya Andersen's fourth complaint in her malicious prosecution lawsuit has been green-lighted by the judge. The defendants have just filed their replies to the fourth amended complaint, and, as expected, they paint quite a different picture than does Andersen.

The RIAA and record companies associated with the original Atlantic v. Andersen case filed a 19-page response, while MediaSentry's parent SafeNet filed a nine-page reply. In it, the defendants categorically deny all of Andersen's accusations and ask for the judge to dismiss the lawsuit and award them costs and attorneys' fees. The RIAA also says that Andersen's attempts to turn the case into a class-action are "inappropriate," arguing that the "factual issues" raised are "wholly unique" to the lawsuit.

In her complaint, Andersen accused the RIAA and record labels of a number of misdeeds. Those include civil conspiracy, malicious prosecution, abuse of the legal process, and negligence. Not so, says the RIAA, which denies being responsible for some of the more troubling aspects of the case against Andersen. One such event was a phone call to then-eight-year-old Kylee Andersen's school by someone purporting to be her grandmother, made in an attempt to speak to her directly about the file-sharing allegations. The RIAA denies "Plaintiff’s false suggestion that they had anything to do with the alleged phone call in which someone purportedly claimed to be Kylee’s grandmother, if any such phone call actually occurred."

Andersen has fingered a 30-year-old Washington man who had used the "gotenkito" handle online as the person behind the account that led to the RIAA's original lawsuit. She said she provided his name and address to the RIAA, an allegation the RIAA denies. All the labels say is that they "had knowledge" of someone using that nickname on "a single web site." They specifically deny that Andersen passed on contact information to them. The RIAA also denies refusing to pass on the results of the forensic examination of Andersen's hard drive to her.

SafeNet's response contains a similar string of denials. The company, which recently removed all references to the investigative services it performs from its web site, admits to not having an Oregon state private investigator's license. It also admits to having received a cease-and-desist letter from the Massachusetts State Police regarding some of its activities in that state. The RIAA believes the licensing issue is irrelevant, saying that Andersen "cannot demonstrate that the investigator licensure statute will support a negligence per seclaim against MediaSentry."

There's nothing really unexpected in the RIAA's response. But after covering the RIAA's legal campaign against P2P users for a few years, it's very odd seeing the record labels on the wrong end of a lawsuit, denying claims of wrongdoing. With both the complaint and responses filed, the stage should be set for discovery to begin. Lory Lybeck, Andersen's attorney, has pledged to use the discovery process to have a look inside the "zone of secrecy" he says the RIAA has been operating in since the inception of its campaign.

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