Music Industry Sues 83-Year-Old Dead Woman

Strange News - AP
AP
Music Industry Sues 83-Year-Old Dead Woman

Fri Feb 4, 5:09 PM ET



CHARLESTON, W.Va. - Gertrude Walton was recently targeted by the recording industry in a lawsuit that accused her of illegally trading music over the Internet. But Walton died in December after a long illness, and according to her daughter, the 83-year-old hated computers.



More than a month after Walton was buried in Beckley, a group of record companies named her as the sole defendant in a federal lawsuit, claiming she made more than 700 pop, rock and rap songs available for free on the Internet under the screen name "smittenedkitten."

Walton's daughter, Robin Chianumba, lived with her mother for the last 17 years and said her mother objected to having a computer in the house.

"My mother was computer illiterate. She hated a computer," Chianumba said. "My mother wouldn't know how to turn on a computer."

Chianumba said she faxed a copy of her mother's death certificate to record company officials several days before the lawsuit was filed, in response to a letter from the company regarding the upcoming legal filing.

"I believe that if music companies are going to set examples they need to do it to appropriate people and not dead people," Chianumba said. "I am pretty sure she is not going to leave Greenwood Memorial Park (where she is buried) to attend the hearing."

A Recording Industry Association of America (news - web sites) spokesman said Thursday that Walton was likely not the smittenedkitten it is searching for.

"Our evidence gathering and our subsequent legal actions all were initiated weeks and even months ago," said RIAA (news - web sites) spokesman Jonathan Lamy. "We will now, of course, obviously dismiss this case."

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