Music firms worry family - Their suit against a woman was dismissed, but her daughter may be next.

The Press-Enterprise

By David Hermann

August 17, 2006

A Palm Desert cheerleading coach who was unsuccessfully sued by several record companies that alleged she had illegally downloaded their music over the Internet said the companies are now threatening to go after her daughter.

In a phone interview Thursday, Tammie Marson, director of the Desert Mavericks cheerleading team, said she received notice that the same record companies that sued her in April 2005 are threatening to sue her 22-year-old daughter, Tiffany.

The lawsuit against Marson, filed in U.S. District Court in Riverside by attorneys for Virgin Records America, Sony BMG Music Entertainment, UMG Recordings and Warner Bros. Records, was dismissed in January, said Marson's attorney, Seyamack Kouretchian of the Coast Law Group in San Diego.

Marson's attorney argued that the presence of illegally downloaded songs on the woman's computer did not mean she had committed the crime of downloading the music.

The record companies and their attorneys could not be reached for comment Thursday. A receptionist at Shook, Hardy & Bacon law firm in Irvine said the attorneys were out of the office and unavailable.

"I didn't download the music, I didn't know the shared files existed on my computer," Marson said. "I still don't know who it was."

Marson said her home is open to the more than 100 teenage girls who belong to the Desert Mavericks cheerleading team. Many of them had access to her computer, she said.

Marson said the record companies got her name because the computer's Internet account was in her name.

Joel Johnson, a Palm Desert lawyer and Marson friend who serves on the Mavericks board of directors, said record company attorneys have threatened and sued more than 18,000 people on similar grounds.

"As opposed to chasing pirates who are copying and printing compact discs and DVDs, they're chasing these poor kids and families," Johnson said.

Marson said if she had paid the approximately $3,500 that the record companies were demanding in the lawsuit and settled, there would have been nothing to prevent other record companies from coming after her.

Marson said her daughter, a student at College of the Desert, is worried by the threat of a lawsuit.

"She's just a young woman, and these companies are megagiants that have access to a tremendous amount of money," she said.

"I thought that we had proven our case and that they would pick on somebody else -- maybe on the people who are supplying these illegal download sites," she said.

"My fear is that I could spend the next decade fighting these people."

About Coast Law Group

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