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RIAA Drops Suit Against Santangelo
VE3OGG writes "The RIAA, in an expected motion, has recently dismissed the case against Patti Santangelo, one of the most famous targets of the RIAA lawsuits. The mother of five was described by the judge presiding as an 'internet-illiterate parent, who does not know Kazaa from kazoo.' While this is good news, the RIAA is still pursuing its case against two of Mrs. Santangelo's children. To make matters worse, the RIAA has also dismissed the case 'without prejudice', meaning that they could, in theory, take action against her again later on. The RIAA alleges that Santangelo's children downloaded and subsequently distributed more than 1,000 songs. The damages they seek are presently unknown"
Now that she's off, the kida are a cinch - she just has to sit them down and have a stern talking-to.
I mean, thats the new industry standard, isn't it?
Seriously, who will think of them? If they are the parent's responsibility, and the charges against the parent are dismissed, what will protect them against the blood-thirsty lawyers?
You never expect irony, do you?
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IANAL, and therefore I may be showing my naievity, but I was under the impression that only a judge could dismiss a case, but that the plaintiff could drop the case. Makes it sound like the RIAA was playing judge and jury... though of course that might not be far from the truth...
As the submitter, I would also like to point out that FightGoliath is the legal defense fund for Patti Santangelo, and appears to still be taking donations.
well I did't know what kazoo was either.
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You can't talk about Wikipedia's flaws on Wikipedia
The RIAA cannot dismiss a case, with or without prejudice. The court does that.
Man wird am besten für seine Tugenden bestraft.
What I think it is more likely that they will pursue the claim against her children, and then try to collect from her. Unless she is far more wealthy than she appears, bankruptcy probably follows from that.
-GiH
The mob also gave reprieves to families to show the public they were not cold hearted killers.
None of the behavior of the RIAA is any different from Organized crime.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
There should be a law against entities wasting the time and resources of the courts, such as this persistent RIAA filing suits against people before they even bother to gather the facts. This is a waste of the taxpayers' public institutions and personnel.
It's interesting that the RIAA made two cases here. The kids appear to be in some serious trouble. Of course, that's only because they have managed to convince some judges that seeding a file (or 1000) via P2P is on the same level as a full-blown for-profit piracy ring. Apparently the original defense was to convince a judge of the mother's illeteracy and blame everything on her inability to know what was going on. The 20-year-old daughter is certainly old enough to be sued on her own (kinda surprised about the 16-year-old son, though).
I really would hate to see something happen to the children. They're just another one of the RIAA's "making an example" cases, and it's really not a good example. This sort of legal bullying simply polarizes people into the submissive "Please don't sue me, I'll do anything you want" group, and those that are willing to escalate their grey-area file sharing into actual criminal activity.
Why can't they make an example of one of the "real problems"? You know, the pirates that are making hundreds of millions of dollars off pirated music and movies. I'd like to see those rich criminals go to jail too, and I'd bet that most people on P2P networks would too.
IMO, winning a high-profile case like that would be a terrific example to casual users as well. It'd be like putting drug dealers in jail instead of drug users. You still send the same message "Drugs are bad", but the person who gets punished actually contributes significantly to the problems caused by drugs.
Oh wait. There are no pirates making hundreds of millions of dollars off pirated music and movies. That must be because there are legitimate people making hundreds of millions of dollars off legitimate music and movies. To me, the "real problem" is clearly stated in the last two sentences. Persecute criminals, not their victims or groupies.
mandelbr0t
"Please describe the scientific nature of the 'whammy'" - Agent Scully
Does being a child mean that you get away with a heck lot just because of your age?
Yep
Even if you did know that what you were doing was wrong?
Can't prove they do or don't, so you say they're young and ignorant, which is generally the case.
Does something magically change when they turn 18?
Nope, but that's the age when they can't blame someone else for their ignorance. Mostly, it wises them up pretty quickly. Mostly.
What about the mother? How could she claim ignorance when it was her job to educate and take care of them?
Have kids. It'll enlighten you. Really. Whole different world all of a sudden. Your own entire childhood becomes clear.
Couldn't she take at least care of their Internet behavior? What about having 5 children? Come on, we live in 2006, not 1906, family planning is there, one is a mistake, after that it was her choice.
I assume this one is tongue-in-cheek. But seriously, some people want to take care of children. When your children are growing up and not needing you every day, you go out and have some other child who will make you feel important again.
This whole thing is stupid six ways from Sunday. Of course the mother is responsible for her children's lawbreaking behavior, even if she doesn't know how they do it, or how the law works. If she didn't know "glock from Spock", would she not be responsible if her kids smuggled plastic guns onto a transatlantic flight?
But they didn't smuggle guns. Maybe they did redistribute some files. In which case they might be liable for negligible damages. And the stupid copyright law should be changed, even if just for the survival of a music biz that obviously can't figure out how to make money from the "remix culture" that is where all the cool kids are. All the RIAA knows how to do is rip off musicians and resell the same crapola in new crapola-wrap, protected by politicians they bribe.
Will the legacy of the RIAA finally be to not only kill Rock & Roll, but to put actual chains on kids by making their parents totally irresponsible?
--
make install -not war
Essentially, what the RIAA has done, is to drain the target of resources before going in for the kill. With how they have drained Patty's coffers fighting her, she is now broke while they go after her kids. This is similar to how some viruses attack the human body.
Anyone have a truckload of coal to spare? I know someone who needs it wrapped, individually, and dumped on their front door.
Windows has detected an undetectable error.
Harin_Teb wrote: "Any time a plaintiff drops a suit (for the first time) it is dropped without prejudice."
Sorry, Harin, you're wrong about that. If they had sought to drop the case prior to the defendant's service of an answer, that would be correct. After service of an answer, it can only be "without prejudice" if the judge allows them to dismiss "without prejudice". It would be highly unusual and irregular for that to happen in a case which has already been so heavily litigated as this one.
The plaintiffs knew even before they'd brought the case that the defendant was not liable. There's no way the judge is just going to let them get away with what they did here.
Ray Beckerman +5 Insightful
Or, you just like having kids around to instruct and guide some children toward becoming socially responsible people and you have the wherewithal to do so.
My parents had 4 boys, my dad has since adopted two more children (1b/1g).
He also runs volunteer summer camps, coaches soccer teams, and teaches youth groups.
Why? Because he believes people are responsible for molding the future generations.
Don't demean people's decisions because they want or have something you don't. Perspective people.
Parents should be responsible for what their minor children do. FTFA, her daughter is 20 years old.
If your twenty-year-old duaghter borrowed your car and used it as a get away car in a bank heist without your knowledge, should you be held responsible for the robbery? Perhaps my opinions differ from yours but I think the answer is an emphatic 'No'.
I am a leaf on the wind. Watch how I soar.
So it's like this. Suppose there are some kids, from your neighborhood. They're always on your damn lawn. No one of them is doing anything significantly malicious, but taken as a whole, they're starting to wear a path and beat it down. Unfortunately, the only thing you own is a tank. No, you don't have a house, you just live in the tank, parked on the lawn. Now, as it stands, you've got two choices: Let the kids trample the lawn to a muddy mess, or shoot them, with the tank. Unfortunately, every time you explode one of the offensive little twerps into a misty pink cloud, invariably mothers' groups and angry citizens will harrumph and criticize, saying you went too far, and that the young child-who-is-now-a-crater didn't deserve such treatment. But, if you hold off on your right to evaporate the malicious darlings, you'll find that your well-cultivated lawn starts looking like more of a post-Woodstock mud-pit.
What the law needs to do is give this fictional property owner a beatin' stick, so they can give the kids a wailin' they'll never forget, but not obliterate them into bite-size morsels. I think casual infringement is a problem, for artists' rights if not for profits, but the common response is so heavy-handed that more sympathy gets shown to the infringers. Copyright law needs to have some manner of punishment for casual infringement that is well above the market value of the work (as it should be a discouragement, not just a payoff), but not so high that families are bankrupted just thinking about it. Unfortunately, it seems the homeowner (tankowner?) may have started to enjoy exploding small children.
Information wants to be free.
Entertainment wants to be paid.
You just want to be cheap.
There's solid scientific evidence that brain development doesn't really settle down until age 25.6 87-2005Jan31.html
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A52
"Who is the Journal of Quantum Physics going to believe?" --Stephen Hawking
The article contains a link to an old Slashdot article which has an incorrect link to the transcript of Ms. Santangelo's appearance before Judge McMahon. Here's the correct link to the transcript: http://info.riaalawsuits.us/elektra_santangelo/tra nscript050506.txt
Ray Beckerman +5 Insightful
If the RIAA actually represented ARTISTS instead of their own 600 pound gorilla bureaucracy, I'd side with the RIAA over a lot of this music stealing. Unfortunately, the RIAA is a Trade Association (translation: lobbiest group) with "record labels" as supporting members and the "record labels" use ARTISTS as slave labor. Being enslaved is only profitable for relatively few artists because most of them get a monthly statement from the "record label" showing they owe money. Not a single ounce (dollar) of of whatever the RIAA extorts in court goes back to the ARTISTS who were supposedly harmed.
Wouldn't it be great of all the ARTISTS banded together to form their own group to develop, distribute and protect the music they create. Something which would cut all the middle men out of the loop permanently and directly benefit the ARTISTS. I'll bet most people would respect copyright law a little more. Only THEN would I consider paying a blanket tax on products (iPods, recording media etc) instead of putting up with DRM to support ARTISTS.
Most of the stuff on
that's only because they have managed to convince some judges that seeding a file (or 1000) via P2P is on the same level as a full-blown for-profit piracy ring.
No, actually that was the 1997 NET Act which made sharing files with no profit motive a felony criminal offense. The RIAA didn't need to convince a judge, just pay off legislators.
The article's incorrect. The RIAA isn't dropping the case. They can't, the defendant's already answered their complaint and once defendant's incurred costs plaintiff can't just wash their hands of the case. What they're doing is asking the judge to dismiss their case without prejudice (ie. they can refile the same case in the future). Given the judge's comments to this point I suspect he's going to be disinclined to do that, he'll give them a choice of having it dismissed with prejudice (can't refile) or not dismissing it at all.
Downloading those music files with her computer and paid for net access was like going into a store and robbing the place with your parents' car and gun.
Interesting. I liken it more to going to the public library and making a copy of a chapter out of a book with the Xerox machine. You didn't buy the book. Is the library therefore assisting you in stealing the book?
It's not hugely different at all.
The mob first tries to suck you dry if you made the mistake of crossing their business path, and then if that's not enough they kill you to preserve the atmosphere of fright. They have no qualms at all what effect their actions have on people and their families, as long as it preserves that fright.
The RIAA is devoted entirely to sucking people dry, and they have no compunction whatsoever what that does to people's livelihoods or families or reputations. They do so even when you haven't crossed their business path, because they invent a totally fictitious one of their own: the ridiculous and totally non-existent "loss" that they claim to incur when people share music.
The RIAA don't kill, but they might as well do so. After your life and reputation and credit rating is shattered in court and your livelihood is demolished by utterly incredible invented damages and lawyer fees, there's very little left worth living for, you're a total wreck. Yet, what did you do to deserve this? You did a GOOD thing, you shared what you enjoy with others. And for that the RIAA mobsters destroyed your life.
And as for your point about not killing
So, don't come to us with crap about the RIAA being nice people. They're utter scum, like their paymasters. If those lawyers had a shred of professional decency, they'd tell the studios to get stuffed and hire some hitmen to do their dirty work instead.
I suppose what I meant was, like your dad, some people aren't happy without kids around to teach, to love, to help in some way. Didn't mean to sound like I was belittling anyone. There are times, however, when a person can't reasonably handle more children, and it takes away from both participants' experiences.
This is the same RIAA that just filed a suit to try to nullify a 1981 contract that gives the songwriters a substantial percentage of the income from their songs. Apparently they feel that with all the additional money coming in from things like ring tones and such, the artists who actually create the content are making too much money and the RIAA's corporate members don't get to keep enough.
I'm not passing judgment that it is a "good thing" or a "bad thing". It is what it is, and it generally seems to work. I'm just pointing out the the RIAA isn't some dear-god-who-could-have-seen-the-serpent-coming sort of organization. This is an agency we all built together, the unavoidable product of our economy. If I remember correctly, Eli Whitney either broke even or *lost* money on the cotton gin because farmers stole his intellectual property (plans to make a cotton gin) and refused to buy Whitney's gin. In fact, the arguments were nearly the same as they are about file sharing: Whitney's gin damages the cotton! (purchased music comes with DRM!). It's cheaper to make my own! (It's cheaper to download my own!). Could you really tell me that if Whitney had an agency like the RIAA for farm equipment, he wouldn't have enlisted their services?
Sony ha
Your point seems to be that it's common for businesses to be evil, so we shouldn't think of the RIAA as being particularly bad, as they just reflect the common evil.
Well sorry, but not everyone is in terminal moral shutdown like you are. Some of us actually care when evildoers driven by pure greed seek to destroy the lives of millions. If nobody did anything to combat bad things just because "they're a product of our community" then the world would rapidly spiral downwards into universal evil.
There are many grey areas in the "IP" world that arise from universal network connectivity, but they're grey only because bloodsucking vultures wish to suck the community dry and so invent the greyness. Music is the classic example.
Marketeers are happy to pay huge money for anything that increases exposure for their products, and every uploaded song is doing precisely that. They should be overjoyed that it's being done for free, instead of swallowing up their marketting budgets. For any thinking organization, it should be clear that for any single sale lost due to P2P, dozens or hundreds of other people are getting to hear a particular item of music, and each of those are a potential customer for the physical product. In any balanced argument, such marketting gains need to be offset against any possible sales losses. What's more, that alleged "lost sale" also entailed a production saving to add to the marketting saving.
It was exactly so in the past, when radio stations would commonly play entire albums, and marketting would benefit hugely from cassette-recorded copies spreading the word and creating legions of fans -- a physical form of P2P. And then later in life, those usually cash-impaired schoolkids and students would eventually turn the best of those old but dear cassettes into physical music sales, and the studios would reap the rewards. It worked, just requiring community awareness and a little patience.
But what we have now is just simple mobster-like evil incarnate in the studios/RIAA coupling, no longer interested in the long-term view and in recognizing the benefits of P2P both to fandom and to themselves, and instead seeking to criminalize an activity that a very large proportion of society considers to be positive.
Well, I have no time for anyone whose business plan is entirely parasitic, their contribution to community is nil, and their effect on the lives of people is completely destructive. Those lawyers should be ashamed at their choice of employer.
Clear anti-community evil needs to be combatted, not ignored like you seem to wish.