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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."

23 of 670 comments (clear)

  1. Finally..... by DotNM · · Score: 4, Insightful

    I think it's about time that someone is standing up to the **AA's in the world!

    --
    There's no place like localhost
    1. Re:Finally..... by eosp · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Maybe someone in the govt. is sane for once.

    2. Re:Finally..... by CDMA_Demo · · Score: 5, Insightful

      In Gandhi's world:

      First they ignore you. Then they laugh at you. Then they fight you. Then you win.

        Gandhi

    3. Re:Finally..... by Matt+Perry · · Score: 4, Insightful
      First they ignore you. Then they laugh at you. Then they fight you. Then you win.
      That quote goes both ways. First we ignored the RIAA and MPAA. Then we laughed at them. Now people are standing up to them in court. So, what happens next? They win?
      --
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    4. Re:Finally..... by aminorex · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Gandhi was not operating according to the principles of this world. There are few people alive who can achieve the kind of success he did, and using his success as a precedent will almost invariably lead you astray. That doesn't mean that he wasn't right about the principles, but it does mean that you should consider the cost before applying them. Then go for it.

      --
      -I like my women like I like my tea: green-
    5. Re:Finally..... by heatdeath · · Score: 4, Insightful

      First they ignore you. Then they laugh at you. Then they fight you. Then you win.

      Gandhi

      This is annoying, and almost offensive. To compare Gandhi in any way to the selfish and morally devoid mantra of "I want this for free, so I'm going to construct a philosophical framework that lets me justify stealing it" is completely off-base. The very fact that you're making a comparison like this, and have been modded up to (Score: 5, Insightful) shows me just how few people on slashdot have actually stood for any cause that mattered.

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    6. Re:Finally..... by Bimo_Dude · · Score: 3, Insightful
      I do not find this quote annoying and offensive. I think you're taking it out of context.

      The point is that the *AA is going around suing anybody they possibly can, regardless of whether or not the people being sued have used file sharing. The *AA has no real evidence, and persists in harassing, threatening, and using strong-arm tactics to extort money from people who usually can ill-afford to pay. This is about the modern day protection racket. They are a bunch of thugs, and we all need to stand up against them.

      --
      "Teleporting Rodents with D-Cell Battery Displacement" theory -- IgnoramusMaximus (692000)
    7. Re:Finally..... by jedidiah · · Score: 3, Insightful

      You self-righteous twit. NO ONE has to construct anything.

      The "justification" was already written by the likes of Thomas Jefferson before the relevant laws and preceeding constitution were written.

      Also, this issue has far broader implications than just whether or not some kid can download yesterdays's top 40 hits. This is why the problem of suppressing this form of information exchange was explicitly addressed by the founding fathers.

      Copyright is a balance between competing public and private interests, not just a simple virtual land grab.

      Me downloading the Beatles catalog is not stealing. It's merely acting consistent with the original intent of copyright law.

      But why stop at just music. There's also great literature and textbooks to consider. Under your morally simplistic view of things, all the great works of our civilization would end up forever and irrevocably trapped in a mire of ownership interests.

      You're only even alive today, and able to experience a nice soft live, because a few Irish monks 1500 years ago decided to pirate everything they could get their hands on.

      --
      A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
  2. About time by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Good this is getting ridiculous. Law suits should not be a legitimate business model.

  3. There will be nothing to stop us this time... by GreyWolf3000 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    ...armed with a soccer mom at our side, I seriously doubt any branch of the government will take our opposition seriously. Because the **AA's buy the politicians, but they still have to sell them to soccer moms.

    --
    Slashdot: Where people pretend to be twice as smart as they really are by behaving like children.
  4. Re:It's time to go after the RIAA in a big bad way by pandrijeczko · · Score: 4, Insightful
    Admittedly it will take a lot of people doing this to start denting the profits of the RIAA, so be it, but while it's a small thing for people to do it also has the advantage of being a cheap and anonymous way to start chipping away at the RIAA's monopoly.

    An even cheaper way to f*ck over the RIAA is to just not buy any CDs.

    Your method of the free distribution of CDs still gives them a target to attack and a scapegoat to blame for all the ills of "sharing" music.

    The RIAA is interested in just *one* thing - money. That means they want everyone to buy their own copy of every CD or every downloaded song because that way they get even more money. Your demonstrations of "non-compliance" are irrelevant to the RIAA borg.

    The solution to the RIAA problem is to remember that as a consumer in a capitalist society, you simply *don't* buy a product you do not think is value for money or is being sold by a corporation with dubious business or political motives - no matter how much you personally may *want* that product.

    Do that and you start denting the profits of the record companies who, in turn, stop financing the RIAA because they're not achieving anything.

    --
    Gentoo Linux - another day, another USE flag.
  5. Dude, not everyone by geekoid · · Score: 3, Insightful

    lives in the same world as you.
    I know many peopel who don't knwo what kazza is, or more importantly, how it works.

    --
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  6. Re:Judge Colleen McMahon, nominated by... by The+Outbreak+Monkey · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Good cough. However...

    While Clinton signed the DMCA, the RIAA were the ones that decided to use it for extortion (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extortion). Luckily, a judge that Clinton appointed is trying to put a stop to that. Checks and balances...more than just an idea?

    Good cough none the less ;) Touché.

  7. Re:She lives under a rock! by l0ungeb0y · · Score: 4, Insightful

    I have mod points, but there's no -1 asshole option.

    So back in your face fuckwad...
    Why don't you pull your ass out of your world of warcraft fantasy world, turn off the computer, walk outside and TALK TO PEOPLE.. you might just find that very few people care that much about computers, software and gadgets and of those few that do, maybe 3% have any real understanding of "what it's all abut".

    And just how much time do you think a single mother of 5 has to devote to figuring out all the nifty shit a computer can do when she has work, bill, and five pesky kids to watch over and feed? Hell, I bet she uses her computer to do her taxes, pay bills and chat with family when she has time to use it at all.

    So to you and others like you, wake the fuck up and get out more because you're a borderline sociopath who's clearly lost touch with the real world.

  8. Better yet by A+nonymous+Coward · · Score: 4, Insightful

    So the judge says: "okay, big boys, bring on the lava. Don't try to lure the virgin into the forest

    Better yet, what she said was, Don't expect me to lure the virgin into the forest. Once you've brought her to me, she's under my protection, I decide, not you and your gang hidden away in the forest.

  9. Re:The Anwser is the ACLU by shalla · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Homosexuals sue to get married, which is an act under GOD and not man.

    Really? I wasn't aware of that. And here I got legally married by a district magistrate and didn't even know he was working for God. And all those papers I filed, did they go to God too?

    Is God responsible for insurance coverage and cost differences based on marital status of a household?

    Marriage is not only a religious institution. Historically, it's been used as a way to determine inheritance, cement alliances, transfer property, and establish responsibility and rights for others. Saying it is only a religious institution is a fairly narrow view. It can also be legal, cultural, societal, economic, and religious.

  10. don't look a gift horse in the mouth by circletimessquare · · Score: 3, Insightful

    a harried, overworked stressed out recently divorced soccer mom and mother of five comes into a courtroom and she says she doesn't know what the hell is going on

    you think she's stupid?

    i think she's innocent

    innocence has a funny way of appearing stupid to cynics in this world, you know?

    but more important than that should be to you is this: it is upon this poor woman's back that an EXTREMELY cynical enterprise, the RIAA lawsuit mill, might actually be broken

    so don't look your gift horse in the mouth

    you should BLESS this woman and THANK her for being technically clueless!

    there is a certain amount of knowledge in this world that is assumed to be necessary for you to survive: you have pay your taxes, you need a driver's license, etc.

    but i hardly see that what you are saying is true at all: that the knowledge "p2 is bad" is common or even necessary

    --
    intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
  11. The judge's bias by Anonymous+Brave+Guy · · Score: 4, Insightful
    By the way, how far does the judge have to go in saying that he's leaning towards a particular party before the evidence is even presented, before he starts risking invalidating the whole trial?

    Since IANAL, I can't answer that, but let's look at the transcript. The judge tells the defendant to try to find a lawyer, and allows time for this, squashing the plaintiff's attempt to get material from the defendant under oath before the legal advice is available. Then she tells the defendant she wants her to fight the case, and tells the plaintiff's lawyer that he has to present his case in court now they've started a lawsuit. Throughout, the judge is fairly clearly in favour of the defendant getting a fair day in court.

    The one thing she doesn't do is give any indication of whether she thinks the defendant should actually win the case, and to my legally untrained mind, that seems to be the only thing that would have been inappropriate. In fact, I find it rather reassuring and highly appropriate that a judge was heavily in favour of a defendant fighting against a fair case in court, and not being intimidated into doing things that aren't in their best interests without the benefit of counsel.

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  12. Questioning the ID10T5 at the RIAA by Efialtis · · Score: 3, Insightful

    So, lets say I go out and buy a DVD movie...
    And I go out and buy a CD of music...

    Then I go out and download every scene on that DVD from KAZAA or (insert your favorite file sharing thing here)...
    Or I download every song off the CD from (share system)

    Have I broken the law?
    How do they know that I didn't buy it, how do they know that I don't have rights to make copies or download copies of something I have purchased...???

    Hmmmm...methinks that something is smelling, and it wasn't beans and cabbage...

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    --E--
  13. Quote of the week by elronxenu · · Score: 4, Insightful
    This is good ...

    From http://www.stereophile.com/news/082205riaa/ ...

    In the war against copyright infringement, organizations like the RIAA and MPAA have taken to characterizing the major culprit as organized crime, pointing to parallels with the traffic in illegal narcotics. "The markup for a kilo of heroin is 200%," claimed Warner Music spokesman Craig Hoffman. "The markup for pirated CDs and DVDs is 800%."

    I wonder what the markup is on commercially produced CDs and DVDs ... 8000% ??

    Such ... irony ... the recording industry complaining about the high price of pirated content ... cannot ... suppress ... gales of laughter ...

  14. Re:Why read the summary? by Furry+Ice · · Score: 4, Insightful

    What's illegal about using P2P networks to share information you have a right to distribute? Always keep in mind that P2P isn't illegal, but sharing copyrighted material without permission to distribute it is.

  15. Re:An embarassment, really... by mrchaotica · · Score: 5, Insightful
    I'm an author, and that means I'm an intellectual rights advocate.
    No it doesn't. It means you're an author. You might also be an intellectual rights advocate, but the one does not imply the other.

    As an example, Ben Franklin was an inventor, yet he was an opponent of "intellectual property." Out of all the things he invented (the Franklin stove, bifocals, etc.) none of them were patented.

    every time some music is pirated, it IS money that would have otherwise gone to the artist
    Not necessarily. In my experience, most people who download music would have just done without otherwise.

    You seem to have some problems constructing a logical argument. Specifically, you tend to assert that A implies B, even when it doesn't. Perhaps you should read up on logical fallacies so as to actually be able to convince thinking people. Pay special attention to begging the question.
    --

    "[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz

  16. I too... by MacDork · · Score: 4, Insightful
    I'm an author, and that means I'm an intellectual rights advocate.

    I'm an author too, I write software. I'm an intellectual rights advocate as well. I advocate considerably shorter copyright terms and an entire restructuring of the patent system. Copyright is completely broken by the existence of copyright terms lasting for life + 75/95 years. Copyright should last a maximum of 28 years. Given the extremely efficient means of distribution and production that we have today as opposed to 200 years ago, I would even support shorter terms. Special interests and politicians like Sonny Bono have stolen what rightfully belongs in the public domain. In doing so, they have created an environment where the people at large see no reason to respect the system. Because the system is so imbalanced, people feel no shame infringing on an author's copyright. Who here would refuse to sing "Happy Birthday" to their child in public on grounds of infringing Time Warner's intellectual property?

    Additionally, they've created an environment where innovation is no longer possible. An author cannot build on the work of others because once written, the work is monopolized perpetually. Due to the system we have now, innovation is dragging to a halt. The systems that made this country mighty are now killing it. Look at how horribly broken the patent system has become. Numerous 'businesses' exist solely to patent everything thinkable and sue anyone who dares to create. Empty shell companies do nothing but collect 'Intellectual Property' and sue others who attempt to make an idea into reality.

    The fundamental reason for copyright, patents and the whole morass of 'intellectual property' is to encourage innovation and progress, not to impede it. The only way to restore intellectual rights is to restore balance to the system. Even if they weren't suing grandmothers and children, I'd feel no pity for the RIAA. They and their lobbyists have only brought this upon themselves. Massive and flagrant infringement is the symptom, not the disease.