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."
She began singing "Ding dong, the witch is dead" which lead to the RIAA suing her again for a public performance of the song.
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...
StarTrekPhase2 - The Five Year Mission Continues!
i had a dream that the RIAA busted into the shower cause i was singing too loud
"To be is to do." -Socrates
"To do is to be." -Jean-Paul Sartre
"Do-be-do-be-do." -Frank Sinatra
Where's the NewYorkCountryLawyer when you need him.
The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.
While this case is important, it has little to do with a standard RIAA case. She's probably going to get attorney's fees not because of the merits of her case in particular, but because the RIAA did not drop the lawsuit against her after it was made rather clear that her children were the more likely culprits, which the judge considered harassment (my words; read the motions/rulings). The motions for attorney's fees are quite clear on this.
That being said, there are some significantly more important cases going on for the likes of the everyday file sharer. In particular, Ray Beckerman finally managed to depose the RIAA's expert witness in UMG vs Lindor, and, while not absolutely crushing him, showed him to be a very poor witness on which to build an airtight case. The outcome of that case could have a huge impact on how these cases are done in the future. A disastrous result for UMG might well discourage further lawsuits. Before you get excited, though, that case is months from being solved.
In addition, there are some other cases going in which the defendants might get fees on their own merits, but they need some time to resolve. It's amazing, but these cases are the first ones that might actually go to a trial.
Beckerman's blog, which is great reading for those interested in this stuff, is http://recordingindustryvspeople.blogspot.com/
Bhuga
Patti Santangelo v. RIAA May Be Over ...in Space.
My work here is done.
Python coder | PyQt Applications | Writer
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.
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?
---
Rabble rabble rabble
http://dictionary.law.com/default2.asp?selected=20 18&bold=stipulation||
A stipulation is an agreement between both sets of lawyers. The case is over except the part where the judge makes the RIAA pay all the legal fees.
No it's copyright infringement not theft. That requires an intention to "permanently deprive", which given that the copyright holder still holds the copyright (the "property" that is owned) when an unauthorized copy is made, has not happened. The law in the U.K. is quite clear on the subject and I suspect that it will be in most other jurisdictions. Copyright infringement is not legally theft so don't refer to is as being so.
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...
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
United States Copyright Law:
http://www.copyright.gov/title17/92chap5.html#501
Further, In Dowling v. United States (1985), the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit held that copyright infringement does not "easily equate" to theft and unauthorized copies are not stolen property. Copyright infringement is not a property crime; in fact, copyright infringement is only rarely handled as a criminal matter.
Perhaps copying a single CD or DVD from a friend for personal use is immoral (debateable), but it's certainly not criminal. Equating it to stealing will not hold up in a court of law.
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?
mcgrew's razor: Never attribute to stupidity that which can be explained by greedy self-interest
The american music industry has terrorized and pirated artist's creativity/music for long enough. Cut off their funding :
a sp
http://www.riaaradar.com/zeitgeist_topamazonsafe.
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.
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.
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).
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.
http://marriedmansexlife.com/
Visual IRC: Fast. Powerful. Free.
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.
unzip; strip; touch; finger; mount; fsck; more; yes; unmount; sleep
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?
Visual IRC: Fast. Powerful. Free.
Unrealized income is almost the same and having income stolen
So... You've just STOLEN a hundred million dollars from me, because that's how much you COULD have paid me to respond.