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RIAA Defendant Cross-Sues Kazaa And AOL
NewYorkCountryLawyer writes "In what appears to be a first, RIAA defendant Michelle Santangelo, the 20-year old daughter of Patti Santangelo, has made a motion for leave to serve a third party complaint against Kazaa and AOL, as well as against someone who installed Kazaa software, in Elektra v. Santangelo II. Her proposed third-party complaint (pdf) alleges that any injuries plaintiffs might have sustained were the result of the third party defendants' "negligence and breaches... in the defective design of Sharman Network's program, "Kazaa" which was a dangerous instrumentality in its each and every use as it existed in 2002-2004; the trespassing and reckless installation by Matthew Seckler [the person who allegedly installed the software without authorization] of such program; the failure to warn by AOL and Sharman; the failure to block the downloading of such files by AOL; the improper blocking of alleged (RIAA) warning messages by AOL and Sharman; and, the secretive file sharing system of and by Kazaa.""
No, AOL should not block files that I am downloading at all.
Under the influence of Post-Cyberpunk Gonzo Journalism
I hope this chick loses. If she wins this idiotic suit, it would set legal precedent that it's the ISP's responsibility to police its users. That's just about the worst possible idea ever.
REM Old programmers don't die. They just GOSUB without RETURN.
"Tuez-les tous; Dieu reconnaitra les siens."
To paraphrase, "Sue 'em all, let the courts sort it out."
to sue Microsoft because Windows allowed the installation of software such as Kazaa and the manufacturer of her computer for allowing the installation of a Windows that allowed the installation of Kazaa and the local power company for permitting the operation of a computer which allowed the.... oh you get the point
She's obviously proved she has what it takes to work for the RIAA.
As I said, interesting...
What part of "a well regulated militia" do you not understand?
While I'm not sure what you mean by 'Stand up and declare your rights', I'll let it go and talk about weaseling for a second.
In this case, the defendant claims to have done nothing wrong and to be guilty only of the following:
Taken at face value, I don't see any weaseling going on. The only seemingly weasel-ish aspect is the way that the third party complaint spreads across so many defendants. This, however, is perfectly acceptable in the legal system if, again, you take the original defendant's testimony at face value.
The way I see it, Miss Santangelo is basically saying, "I didn't do it. It's not my fault. I don't know who is responsible, but it's probably one of these guys, let the court figure it out."
It's not that she's accusing aol and Sharman as much as she's saying that they had more to do with any infraction than she did.
Looking at how this looks for precedence, I'm interested to see how this turns out. We currently have laws that hold a bar liable if a patron gets a DUI on the way home. Bars serve alcohol, it's what they do. But they get in trouble if people use their product illegally. By the same token, aol supplies internet access. Should they be held completely harmless if people use their product illegally? If so, why is there a double standard between bars and ISPs?
I'm not an actor, but I play one on TV...
Interestingly enough, thats actually more (18 cents) than an artist gets per song.
The RIAA, record companies and their distributors get the rest.