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

It's copying. It's not theft.

[zymano]

The Riaa makes the rules so they set the standards.

How would you like it if you weren't allowed to take photographs or pay HUGE fines?

How about going to the library and copying a magazine artice with the xerox?

The Riaa still has the original copies.

I know I will lose this one with all the software people on slash.

But it's NOT theft in any conventional meaning and saying so is lying. Pure spin by the Riaa and software copyright holders.

This really means nothing

[Oddster]

She and her lawyer, Jordan Glass, have signed and submitted a stipulation to dismiss with prejudice the case lodged against her by the RIAA

This means that her lawyer filed a motion to dismiss, which is a common practice. Federal judges often issue threats of sorts at parties which are dragging at the process, often ones for dismissal or default, which they are legally allowed to apply at their discretion in situations like this. So at minimum, the judge now has to decide whether to dismiss, the timetable of which is within her prejudice. If they lose, the RIAA will have 30 days to file notice of appeal. So this filing is complete non-news, because nothing outside of that docket has changed in this world as a result. Anybody not intimately familiar with the case and the judge's record who is trying to predict the the decision is completely off their rocker. Seriously, have Sundays become so bad around here that a sensationalist non-story from an overtly partisan website makes the front page?

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Rabble rabble rabble

Re:The signifigance of this case is overblown.

[Volante3192]

While it might not help set legal precident, it might make the RIAA more cautious in the future on who it goes after and continues to go after, which is still a plus.

Why they continued pursuing this case after finding out her children were the more likely culprits I can only imagine; they should have realized this case would not go their way after that but instead they kept trying. Maybe they thought they could still win? Or maybe they felt pulling out would be even worse? I can only speculate.

Regardless, if this makes their legal team second guess some of the very questionable cases, it might end up being a good thing.

anyway, who are you to diminish another round of slashdot RIAA bashing? :)

So, it is shameful, after all...

[mi]

New York mother who has made a determined stand against the Big 4, may have won her battle to clear her name.

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?

This woman, apparently, has not done it, so her name is clear. But the /. continues to pretend, there would've been nothing wrong in her actions, even if she has...

Her children, very likely, have done it, yet the same author, who slipped into admitting, there is something to clear one's name of here, is describing their fate ("in the line of fire") with puzzling sympathy...

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

[nevali]

It was very obvious from very early on that she hadn't infringed any of the copyrights they were talking about, and their 'expert' witness was the final nail in the coffin that was their case.

So, to answer your question, 'clear her name of being wrongfully accused of mass copyright infringement', which is a perfectly reasonable and proper thing for her to do.

The sympathy for the kids is largely based on the fact that the RIAA don't and haven't ever cared whether somebody is guilty of what they've been accused of. Pretty much everybody has downloaded /some/ music at one point in time, and the less savvy out there would likely get quite panicked about a legal-type letter from the RIAA offering them an (expensive) get-out. The RIAA casts the net wide with little regard to consequence and bargains on people rolling over and paying up, irrespective of what they should be. The RIAA _would_ get some sympathy if:

* They acted reasonably and properly
* They acted on behalf of the artists who got suckered into the retarded contracts they signed instead of the record companies themselves

The recording industry as it stands, with the aid of the RIAA, stinks to high heaven. Being sick to death of the RIAA's motives and methods, not to mention the wider industry's, the average Slashdotter's response is a simple 'Fuck'em'. They might win a civil suit, proving that somebody somewhere has infringed their copyrights, but they haven't yet--instead they rely on people not having the time, energy and money to fight them, which just makes a mockery of the legal processes put in place to protect the rights of those they claim to be representing.

(You'd find the same with SCO versus the world: even if SCO were by some miracle correct about any aspect of their case, no Slashdot reader would likely stand behind them because their tactics are so thoroughly lame).

A question for any lawyers out there...

[sm62704]

The RIAA (and the MPAA and the BSA and others too numerous to mention) are all equating copyright infringement not only with theft, but murder and mayhem by calling copyright infringers "pirates". The RIAA makes copyright infringement sound worse than eating babies. Real pirates kill people.

To this layman it sounds like slander.

Can she sue for slander? If so, can she win?

Re:The fines

[Boogaroo]

The deterrent effect is only part of the reason.

The other reason is that you'd have to reliably find and sue all infringers if you ever wanted to be paid.(Not that there's a whole lot of reliability with the RIAA's current methods)

Downloaders would never have a reason to purchase something outright if they only had to pay $.99 for every song downloaded IF they got caught AND successfully sued.

Re:Upon learning of this

[shark72]

"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."

BMI is a performance rights society. Like ASCAP, they are run by and for songwriters, composers, and publishers. They are not a record company, and were not "behind" the RIAA suit by any stretch. Thus, the GP's joke about BMI going after her for singing "Ding, Dong...": if you want to perform a songwriter's work, you pay the songwriter by licensing it through BMI/ASCAP; you don't pay the record company.

BMI/ASCAP and the RIAA look after different people. BMI/ASCAP represent the artists; the RIAA represents the record companies.

Nota bene that BMI/ASCAP are normally the "good guys" while the record labels are the "bad guys." But, this changes whenever people get wind of BMI/ASCAP shaking down a bar or restaurant owner who neglects to buy a performance license. It seems that we're okay with artists having rights; we just don't want artists to exercise those rights.