First RIAA Lawsuit to Head to Trial

mamer-retrogamer writes "Out of 14,800 lawsuits the RIAA has filed in the past two years, none have gone to court - until now. Patricia Santangelo, a divorced mother of five living in Wappingers Falls, New York, found herself the target of an RIAA lawsuit and vows to contest it. Santangelo claims that she knows nothing about downloading music online and the likely culprit is not her but a friend's child who used her computer. The RIAA disagrees."

Comments

Song choices

[jimmyhat3939]

I think, perhaps, the criminal authorities should be pursuing this poor woman, for her choices of music to download:

• Lit "Happy"
• Incubus "Nowhere fast"
• Third Eye Blind "Semi-Charmed Life"
• UB40 "Can't Help Falling in Love"
• Godsmack "Whatever"
• Foo Fighters "Breakout"

What? No Limp Bizkit? No Britney Spears? No Kanye West?

Re:My congratulations...

[Seumas]

I congratulate you on being the first person I've ever seen who compared illegally downloading music to rape

You must be new here.

Re:I'd like to see this go to a jury.

[ozmanjusri]

Just not on a female mother of five. If she were a male, they definitely would screw him over.

A male mother of five has bigger problems than the RIAA.

The RIAA better hope..

[Hohlraum]

that she doesn't use the dreaded Chewbacca defense.

        Ladies and gentlemen of the supposed jury, Chef's attorney would certainly want you to believe that his client wrote "Stinky Britches" ten years ago. And they make a good case. Hell, I almost felt pity myself!

        But ladies and gentlemen of this supposed jury, I have one final thing I want you to consider: Ladies and gentlemen, this [pointing to a picture of Chewbacca] is Chewbacca. Chewbacca is a Wookiee from the planet Kashyyyk, but Chewbacca lives on the planet Endor. Now, think about that. THAT DOES NOT MAKE SENSE! (Background: Damnit! What? He's using the Chewbacca defense!) Why would a Wookiee -- an eight foot tall Wookiee -- want to live on Endor with a bunch of two foot tall Ewoks? That does not make sense!

        But more important, you have to ask yourself, what does this have to do with this case? Nothing. Ladies and gentlemen, it has nothing to do with this case! It does not make sense.

        Look at me, I'm a lawyer defending a major record company, and I'm talkin' about Chewbacca. Does that make sense? Ladies and gentlemen, I am not making any sense. None of this makes sense!

        And so you have to remember, when you're in that jury room deliberating and conjugating the Emancipation Proclamation... Does it make sense? No! Ladies and gentlemen of this supposed jury, it does not make sense.

        If Chewbacca lived on Endor, you must acquit! The defense rests.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chewbacca_Defense (actually it was only on a google cache version)

It's not piracy!

[MarkByers]

Go after the people selling the pirated music!

Just because its ridiculously expensive doesn't mean that you can call it 'pirated music'. Jeez, people these days call anything at all 'piracy'.

The correct term for this crime is 'price-fixing'.