Patti Santangelo v. RIAA May Be Over

newtley writes "Odds are that Patti Santangelo, the RIAA case defendant and New York mother who has made a determined stand against the Big 4, may have won her battle to clear her name. She and her lawyer, Jordan Glass, have signed and submitted a stipulation to dismiss with prejudice the case lodged against her by the RIAA. US federal district court judge Colleen McMahon's language had earlier seemed to indicate it was time to end the farce, and the court had the power to entertain a motion for legal fees. Unfortunately, her two children are still 'in the line of fire' in the court room."

Comments

With hope

[RobertM1968]

With hope, this will be the beginning of a trend, especially if this case can be used as precedent against the RIAA on other cases. The RIAA will hopefully realize that it is time to stop bringing frivilous lawsuits with shoddy evidence against the public. One can hope anyway...

Hey.

[ScrewMaster]

Where's the NewYorkCountryLawyer when you need him.

Re:The signifigance of this case is overblown.

[RyanFenton]

Well, the danger for the RIAA is that this sets precedents not that stop them from pursuing their current path, but that it makes that path more statistically more expensive to follow. If they can expect to be successfully counter sued a given (even small)percentage of the time based on blind accusations, not only does that make their strategy more expensive in all likelyhood, it also spreads less fear.

It's like a despot who makes money by demanding it of his neighbors, otherwise he sends his slaves off to explode in their town centers. If his neighbors learn that it is possible to identify and send these slaves back home before they explode in some cases (but not always), then this despot's income and power mechanisms are potentially at risk. His neighbors may in fact be able to join together at this point and find more ways of stopping him. That, and the rich nobles (Sir Sony, Sir BMG, et al) who finance this horrible dictator may finally realize the problems of spending so much money on propping up such a horrible dictator just to maintain the value of their positions, as their own bombs start to blow up in their own faces.

Ryan Fenton

Re:The signifigance of this case is overblown.

[NewYorkCountryLawyer]

They knew they had no case against her. They always knew it. Their game is not law, it's extortion.

Re:So, it is shameful, after all...

[Anonymous Coward]

I'd like to point attention to the words I emphasized above... Clear hear name of what? Is it, after all, a shameful act to infringe on somebody else's copyrights and to treat their creation in a way, they did not want it to be treated?

Huh? What has "shamefulness" got to do with it? She was being sued. The court looks set to clear her of having committed a tort. That's a big deal to most people.

Her children, very likely, have done it

Wow. I'll be judge, I'll be jury said cunning old Mi. Where the hell did you get this from? Did she "very likely do it" until she had a chance to make her case?

Re:The fines

[McFadden]

How could you sue someone that exaggerated amount? The legal system has been blinded by the Riaa.

Unless I'm very much mistaken, you can sue someone for whatever amount you want. It's then up to you to *prove* that you deserve what you're asking for. This has nothing to do with any blindness on the part of the legal system. In many cases, the litigant may ask for a disproportionate level of restitution in order to scare the defendant into settling early and minimize the risk of severe financial damage. I'd say it's a fairly common tactic.

Re:Upon learning of this

[joe_adk]

BMI et al. is behind the first case. These cases wont go away until we start identifying them with the parent company, and not the RIAA. They already laughed off being named "Worst Company In America 2007." Being hated and feared is heir plan. This way the record companies can hide behind their little monster and not get the bad publicity. I wish slashdot and other sites would stop posting about the RIAA and start posting about the parent companies. This article should be "Patti Santangelo v. Elektra Entertainment Group, Virgin Records America, UMG Recordings, BMG Music and Sony BMG Music Entertainment May Be Over."

I guess we could shorten the company names for readability.

Re:It's copying. It's not theft.

[Todd Knarr]

It's close enough to theft for practical purposes. The essence of theft is depriving the legal owner of the benefits of possessing the item. The primary benefit of copyright ownership is the ability to control the distribution of copies and thus get paid for those copies. Copyright infringement, to one degree or another depending on the scale, deprives the copyright owner of the primary benefit of their ownership. In short, the work hasn't been stolen but the money that would be paid for copies of that work has, and that is theft.

Now, I don't agree with the RIAA's position either. There are certain rights of ownership of a copy of a work that go along with buying that copy. The RIAA wants to keep for itself not only the rights to the work but all the rights to those copies that would normally follow the copies, eg. the right to use a particular copy anywhere you want, or the right to sell it to someone else (where that sale doesn't involve making another copy, merely conveying the existing copy). That's not kosher either.

Both the RIAA and the "Copying stuff isn't theft!" sides need to grow up. They're both acting like spoiled 5-year-olds, and I find my self wishing for my Mom's solution to that: a good solid application of the lilac switch, and send both of 'em to their rooms until they decide they can play like civilized human beings.

Re:It's copying. It's not theft.

[Anonymous Coward]

It's close enough to theft for practical purposes.

Well, aren't you just the lawyerly one -- "close enough for practical purposes", shit. Listen up, asshole, this is law, not woodshop.

Theft and copyright infringement are two distinct offenses. Only one is written in the charges. Which one do you think that would be?

If I slap you in the face (get your ass over here!!!), no one is going to go into court charging me wth attempted murder -- the charge will read "battery", no matter how loud you bleat to the contrary.

Grow fucking up and quit drinking the **AA Kool-Aid (tm).

Re:It's copying. It's not theft.

[rohan972]

In short, the work hasn't been stolen but the money that would be paid for copies of that work has, and that is theft.

No, the money hasn't been stolen. You can't show a change to your account as a result of copyright infringement. If you can't show a reduction of inventory or a change in account balances, how can there have been theft?

If something has been stolen from you, you can tell by looking at your stuff, counting it, and itemising the things missing. With copyright infringement you can't do this.

Re:It's copying. It's not theft.

[Mr2001]

When people make the "copyright enforcement is theft" argument they are not stating that it is theft from the torrent seeder, but the holder of the copyright. It still isn't theft, because no one, not the seeder nor the copyright holder, is deprived of the thing that you download. After you download a song, everyone involved still has everything they did before you downloaded it.

You're not analogous to the copyright holder; the car manufacturer is. When the day comes that people can BT each other's cars, the auto industry will be right properly fucked. Not really, they'll just have to change their business model from manufacturing to providing a service - just like musicians are going to have to do.

Re:It's copying. It's not theft.

[packeteer]

Anyone who has a basic understanding of logic and the english language can understand that copyright infringement and theft are 2 similar but different things. Obviously the original owner is not deprived of anything with the infringement but that is over simplifying it. Ecomonists would refer to the opportunity cost of infringement. Unrealized income is almost the same and having income stolen but once again, there is an important but slight difference.

The main reason that "infringement is the same as theft" arguement does not hold up very well is becuase you can't prove that there was an opportunity cost for the copyright holder. It is quite possible that the person who recieved the illegal copy was going to pay and now is not, but that is not always the case. Becuase it is very easy to acquire a lot of music for free many people's consumption of music goes up. People who might have owned only a dozen albums in the past may now own a few more. These people probably wouldn't have payed for the music or tried to get it unless it was free.

The RIAA is pushing too hard to convince people that every copied song is the same as theft, and the downloaders are trying to argue that every downloaded song probably wasn't money for them anyway. The truth is somewhere in the middle and sadly both sides end up wrong when they claim these extreme scenarios are 100% true.

Re:It's copying. It's not theft.

[Mr2001]

Unrealized income is almost the same and having income stolen but once again, there is an important but slight difference. [...] The RIAA is pushing too hard to convince people that every copied song is the same as theft, and the downloaders are trying to argue that every downloaded song probably wasn't money for them anyway. Not necessarily. In order for this to work as an argument against copying, you have to start with the premise that it's inherently wrong to prevent sales. But in fact, there are several other ways that potential future income can become "unrealized", and they aren't considered a problem.

For example, if you're a respected reviewer and you write a negative review of an album, it probably won't sell as many copies as if you had written a positive review. If your review influences 1000 people not to buy the album, that has exactly the same effect on sales as if you had shared the album online and 1000 people ended up getting it for free instead of buying it... in fact, it might have a worse effect, because in the latter case, all those people will still hear the album, and some might go on to buy a different one, a shirt, or a concert ticket.

So under the "opportunity cost" argument--I'm not sure if that term is being used correctly, but I'll go along with it--shouldn't reviewers be held responsible for everyone who fails to buy an album after reading their reviews?

Which purposes?

[Anonymous Coward]

> It's close enough to theft for practical purposes.

Which purposes, exactly? Even the Supreme Court has said that it doesn't easily equate to theft.

> The primary benefit of copyright ownership is the ability to control the distribution of copies and thus get paid for those copies.

It's like trying to grab hold of the wind--you can't.

> The RIAA wants to keep for itself not only the rights to the work but all the rights to those copies that would normally follow the copies, eg. the right to use a particular copy anywhere you want, or the right to sell it to someone else (where that sale doesn't involve making another copy, merely conveying the existing copy).

Right, because they're trying to control distribution. And to do that, they have to control ALL distribution. It takes -one- leak for their schemes to be foiled, so they have to forbid even fair use (which is why they call it "archaic"). Problem is, nothing is less amenable to exclusive control than an idea, and its expression in tangible form is rapidly becoming equivalent as our ability to copy grows.

Thing is, authors won't be replaced any time soon. People still want to see new works created. People want to create new works. It's going to happen, no matter what. What's now falling into obsolescence are the distributors. Their only contribution right now is the ability to make people famous. And I think that's the only part of them that can't easily be replaced at this point.