Slashdot Mirror
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."
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.
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.
/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:
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
* 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).
"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.
Sitting in my day care, the art is decopainted.