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Mom, and Now Judge, Stand Up to RIAA
Nom du Keyboard writes "First there was the mother, Patricia Santangelo, who has refused to roll-over to RIAA demands to pay their extortion fee because they claim to have identified her IP address as involved in Kazaa file sharing. Now Judge McMahon doesn't seem to be letting the RIAA have it all their way either in this case. Godwin's Law summarizes the rebuke of Judge McMahon to the RIAA lawyer now that a court case has been filed. A transcript of the entire court appearance is also available."
Runaround Suits
I've always said that the Recording Industry Association of America and its member companies are perfectly within their rights to sue those they think are infringing on music copyrights through peer-to-peer file-trading of songs. At the same time, it seems obvious that the RIAA should pick the lawsuits prudently, based on solid evidence, so that when the cases are publicized it will be clear that the defendants deserved what they got.
That doesn't seem to be what's happening, however. Instead, the RIAA notifies potential defendants that they are subject to a lawsuit that may result in hundreds of thousands of dollars of liability, and then gives them the option of settling the claim for only a few thousand dollars. It ought to be needless to say this, but sometimes an innocent defendant might still opt to take the settlement, because the risk of going to court and losing is so great.
Occasionally, however, you find a defendant who is troubled enough that he or she is willing to stand up to RIAA regardless of the risk. That seems to be the case with Patricia Santangelo. I urge you to read the transcript of Ms. Santangelo's court appearance here. It is fun to read, and it has made me an instant admirer of Judge McMahon, who refused to be a mere conduit steering Ms. Santangelo to the RIAA's "conference center" (which should properly be called a "surrender center"):
MR. MASCHIO: No, all I was suggesting, your Honor, is that, if she doesn't come with an attorney, that the more direct way of doing this -- and this is just to facilitate things -- is to deal directly with the conference center.
THE COURT: Not once you've filed an action in my court.
MR. MASCHIO: Okay.
THE COURT: You file an action in my court, your conference center is out of it. They have nothing to do with anything.
MR. MASCHIO: Okay. I'll give her my card.
THE COURT: If you are here, you are here as an officer of the court. You're taking up my time and cluttering up my calendar, so you will do it in the context of the Court. Maybe it will be with a magistrate judge, but you will be representing your client, not some conference center. And if your people want things to be done through the conference center, tell them not to bring lawsuits.
It was on MetaFilter several days ago... it's an ongoing thing though, so Slashdot isn't really "behind" on this one.
I think it's important to point out from the transcript that the mother blames Kazaa for this happening.
MS. SANTANGELO: Okay.I think my biggest issue is, honestly, not with the record company as much as it is with this company called Kazaa that allowed them to do this in the first place. I really can't believe it. And I just, obviously, in the last week, started studying about it, you know. I've never really looked into it before, but --
THE COURT: Yes, that, I can well understand.
MS. SANTANGELO: -- that it could even be allowed to do in the first place. It's just mind-boggling.
Microsoft Sucks, F/OSS Rocks. I get mod points now right?
*Cough*
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DMCA
This was not a court case, this was a pelimnary hearing.
This was not a trial, but it was most certainly a court case, otherwise there would have been no preliminary hearing.
KFG
Did you notice in the transcript that the lawyer for RIAA never mentions the the words, "steal", or "theft" even once in the court proceedings? He only mentions COPYRIGHT INFRINGEMENT!!!
Remember folks:
DOWNLOADING CONTENT IS COPYRIGHT INFRINGEMENT, NOT THEFT!!
Sorry to respond to my own post, but here's a followup article.
If they mean it to be a wildcard substitution you'd be completely correct.
If, however, they are treating the acronym in question as an expletive, it is standard procedure to blank out multiple letters with the '*' character. (Ex: Those s**tty suits) If that's the case, however, it should more properly be 'R**A'... so they more likely did intend it as a wildcard.
Still, not inappropriate to consider them as expletives given their behavior of late...
I think I'll start using 'Random Evil Media Or Recording Association', REMORA.
She got a lawyer, who filed a motion for dismisal, the RIAA responded with some pretty stupid comments, and we're waiting to see whether the judge dismisses the case or not.
Apparently she's gotten herself a lawyer
Just from the address I'm assuming that they're doing this Pro Bono for herI checked out their website and found this gem
[Fuck Beta]
o0t!
Here you go.
Actually, it almost looks like it is. The music industry guys seem to have dropped the ball big time with this one.
A little digging turns up a load of links to the various litigation documents, courtesy of defence lawyer Ray Beckerman's blog. If you read the defence's revised reply memorandum of law, they make a convincing (to me as a non-lawyer) argument for what appear to be two open-and-shut claims, which basically mean the plaintiffs have failed to make a case for the defendant to answer. If the court accepts that argument, presumably any of the the other stuff doesn't matter, because the music industry didn't file it at the appropriate time and in the appropriate way.
Interestingly, just before the conclusion, that defence memorandum reads
That sounds to me like not only are they trying to get this initial case dismissed, but also they're trying to block any attempt to bring any directly related case in future. I don't know how the appeal rules work if the court finds for the defence in this case, but given the defence's argument and the judge's apparent contempt for actions that don't give the defendant a fair chance to defend herself, it sounds as though this one's going to stop as dead as any music industry case ever can.
If you disagree, post your argument. (-1, Overrated) isn't your personal censorship tool for views you don't like.
really off topic but why do people put **AA?
Shouldn't one '*' be enough since a wild card does multiple characters?
Actually that is a bad thing to do because of something called a default judgement. If you don't defend yourself in a civil case, the plaintiff wil win. IANAL but I have first hand experience in the type of case that would happen if you just ignored the court.
A business contract was breached by an ex-affiliate of my company. We filed suit, defendant avoided being served but was eventually served. Sanctions issued to defendant (basicly a an order for him to pay) for serving fees and lawyer's billable time. You don't pay, you get a default judgement against you. Defendant failed to show up for oral deposition (kinda like a hearing), again sanctions issued against defendant for lawyer's fees. Defendant didn't pay, motion for final judgement submitted. This case has been going on for quite some time now, but the end result will be a win.
The goal of computer science is to build something that will last at least until we've finished building it.
but at a personal rate, which is half his normal rate.
He expects the courts to order the RIAA to pay the bill wheh they loose;which is not uncommon.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
As with probably all of the suits, it's not the downloading of the music. They can't prove or disprove that you have purchased the "rights" to the music by buying a CD beforehand. Their issue and it is stated in the transcript is that she was sharing the files. She was illegally distributing the music according to them. That's the offense. They said she had uploaded 1167 files and they were charging her for four of them.
I hate these suits, I just wanted to clarify it some. It's interesting that a shared folder is considered distribution. You aren't selling it, and in fact, you may not even realize it's open to anyone searching. It's one's choice if they download and it comes from you. Also don't forget that the data stream isn't completely from you a lot of times. it's mixed.
...::----::...
I am in no way affiliated with this sig.
All her actions after that point are also actionable on your part. But, it sounds like you don't care to, since you're now in good circumstances. Luck be with you!
I feel fantastic, and I'm still alive.
He? The judges name is Colleen McMahon...
IANAL, but, from dictionary.law.com:
If you look at the original complaint, you'll see at the bottom no one was willing to swear under penalty of perjury that it was true. The stuff you learn following links on slashdot!
Don't blame me, I voted for Baltar.
Meanwhile, there is a Comprehensive collection of links on this case (Elektra v. Santangelo). Tells you much more than in the summary link, including her lawyer's rebuttals of the RIAA's claims.
See her lawyer's site, which has their responses. It looks like the evidence is so thin it will be thrown out.
I know. At that point I just wanted to get out of there, but I am planning on calling her back and saying, basically, "give me my deposit back or I'm bringing you up on charges".
:)
I took pictures of the entire apartment before I left, so she can't claim I left it trashed. And I kept all the notes she left for me too.
Breaking Into the Industry - A development log about starting a game studio.
P2P should, therefore, be treated exactly like radio, i.e. the publisher and composer would get money from P2P downloads, not the RIAA or its record label members. Record labels are supposed to make money on sale of records, period (and maybe a cut of concert ticket sales and shirt sales, but those fall under contract law and trademark law, respectively). Unless the RIAA member is also the publisher, the right to money off the sale of the physical record/cd/tape is really the only right that copyright law provides them. They can't even control public performance of the work. That right is held exclusively by the publisher.
Thus, the RIAA's case is based on a fundamental misrepresentation of the law in question, fallacious reasoning about the harm to their sales, and a gross disregard for proper legal procedure. If this doesn't get settled out of court, I'm fully predicting the RIAA gets their asses handed to them, and it would be about bloody time. This should have happened years ago.
Check out my sci-fi/humor trilogy at PatriotsBooks.
Sounds to me like she's got the right folk on the job...
Culture is more than commerce
What part of my argument specifically is it that makes you 'see red'?
Give me just ONE example of where COPYRIGHT (NOT trademarks, and NOT patents) prevents innovation. Just one. In fact, I'll settle for a conceptual model. You see, I've heard this argument again and again, and I've never seen anybody actually manage to justify that statement about copyright stifling innovation.
You must be new here. I'll be happy to provide more than one. Music? Remixing has been affected. Internet radio has certainly been stifled by copyright law too. Of course, you can't mention copyright infringement without mentioning P2P. Here, the law puts Bram Cohen's BitTorrent in possible legal jeopardy because of what he said, not how his software works. That's tantamount to thought crime. Why is there no iTunes-like software for my DVD collection? Probably because circumventing CSS, or distributing software that does the same, is a felony in the US. Being an author, you'll find this interesting: Encryption researchers are afraid to publish their findings thanks to copyright law.
But it's not just music, software, movies, and books being affected, it's everything. A frickin' universal garage door opener manufacture got hit with a DMCA lawsuit. If you don't have bags of money sitting around, one lawsuit, regardless of whether or not you are victorious, can put you out of business. I could go on, but I think I've more than adequately met your requirements. Copyright in the USA has gotten way out of hand and is damaging innovation and invention in practically every industry.
In fact, it's COPYRIGHT that protects the open source movement from being downright raped by corporations like Microsoft!
I assume you are referring to the GPL. You do realize that the GPL was designed to be the anti-copyright, right? Allow me to quote the pertinent part:
In other words, if it weren't for copyright, there would be no need for the GPL. It exists because of copyright.
Cory Doctorow might disagree with you. Much of his success is arguably down to releasing his books under a creative commons license for free online.
In his speech Ebooks: Neither E, Nor Books he points out that releasing free electronic copies of books has been shown to increase sales dramatically. In other articles he's written on BoingBoing, he argues that the best thing an author can get is exposure and word-of-mouth advertising; and releasing your books free online is a very good way of achieving that.
Cory Doctorow is also a representative of the EFF, if memory serves, and is certainly very critical of the RIAA. Nor is he alone in his views. Protecting your rights is all very well, but if giving up some rights means that more people know of your works, you'll make more money in the long run.
The second conference actually took place on August 5th.
I appeared for Ms. Santangelo.
The RIAA plaintiffs were represented by MaryAnn Penny of the Cowan Leibowitz firm in New York City and by Timothy Congrove, a partner in Shook Hardy & Bacon, in Kansas City, Missouri.
Mr. Congrove participated by telephone, rather than in person, and he spoke for the plaintiffs.
The judge concentrated on the dismissal motion and asked Mr. Congrove to justify his position. Mr. Congrove said he would be citing cases in his brief on August 8th, but the judge wanted him to cite his cases then and there.
The first case he cited was a case we had ourselves cited as a reason for dismissing the complaint.
He made his arguments, and I made mine, and the judge had many piercing questions.
She indicated that she would decide the motion after all the papers had been submitted.
I am attempting to obtain a transcript of the proceedings, and when I do will post it at http://recordingindustryvspeople.blogspot.com./
Thanks for your interest.
Best regards,
Ray Beckerman
Ray Beckerman +5 Insightful