Slashdot Mirror
RIAA Santangelo Case 'Settled In Principle'
NewYorkCountryLawyer writes "The RIAA's long-running war against Patti Santangelo, her children, and even her children's schoolmates has been 'settled in principle,' with final settlement documents expected to be submitted by March 18th. Patti Santangelo is believed to be the first RIAA defendant to have made a motion to dismiss the RIAA's 'making available' complaint. The case first caught the attention of the Slashdot community back in 2005, when a transcript of Ms. Santangelo's first court appearance became available online. The case attracted national attention in December of 2005. According to the Associated Press report of the settlement, neither side was able to comment on the terms of the settlement."
This was also the case that introduced me to Slashdot. One day I discovered that people on some crazy place called "Slashdot.org" were going nuts analyzing the transcript of Patti's court appearance. I couldn't understand what I was seeing. It looked like an online Talmudic debate. The people seemed a little like lawyers -- but they clearly were not lawyers -- and many of them seemed to be smarter than lawyers. So I asked a few people, and eventually found one -- my youngest son who is a techie -- who explained it to me.
Since discovering Slashdot, my life hasn't quite been the same.
Ray Beckerman +5 Insightful
For 3 stressful years the RIAA was able to hold this citizen in fear.
Such extortionate practices should not be allowed.
"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - historian Evelyn Beatrice Hall
Correction: It's been almost 4 years since RIAA first sent the "Pay $5000 or else" extortion letter. Tyrants.
"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - historian Evelyn Beatrice Hall
Without knowing the details of the settlement, I suspect the RIAA agreed to drop the entire case, in return for silence on the subject and a non-binding secret precedent. Ms. Santangelo and her family are doubtless by now dreadfully tired of the entire mess and anxious to see it go away, and the RIAA is doubtless in a thug lawyerish way dreadfully tired of the entire mess by now and anxious to sweep it under the rug, leaving them with freedom to continue their other cases without an embarrassing public precedent.
Of course, this leaves Ms. Santangelo and her family uncompensated for having been put through the mill, but that's the legal system for you.
A truly excellent pizza parlor is a delight unto the heavens. Treasure the sauce and the toppings!
What does settled in principle mean?
So when an org. with a testosterone plasma cannon has to "settle and go secret", they are probably 3/4 in the wrong and only using bully powers to silence her.
The solution is to publish using the glorious powers of the net encrypted synergistic simultaneous codexes against every single unreleased act they have which, when joined against the innocent song lyrics of the nicely broadcast music, tells the whole story in subtitles on every retail demo tv in the world.
Oh, Hi Echelon. You're a nice little compy. But Slashdot has prior art.
My first Journal Entry ever, in 8 years! http://slashdot.org/journal/365947/aphelion-scifi-fantasy-horror-poetry-webzine
Time to stop RIAA corporate conglomerate racketeering. There misuse of legal systems and there use of gangster like methods has completely gone wild. It can't be accepted anymore in a democratic society. Corporations are not higher ranked entities, we citizen must act.
In order to form an immaculate member of a flock of sheep one must, above all, be a sheep.
RIAA should just go away taking their fans to court is so wrong. They should be ashamed of themselves.
Confidential settlements should be illegal - entirely! The courts are a public institution and once you drag people into them it affects the public. The public deserves to know who won and who lost here - and in all such cases!
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
When I have mod points and one of his posts is within my moderation window I tend to mod his posts +1 Informative - because they are!
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
the whole point in keeping the settlement private is so that others can't drag it into other cases and point to whats been agreed before. i don't think actually banning such orders is productive, since they would simply be replaced with agreements similar in effect, which could be harder to regulate. i do think there may well be a 'leak' here though, and i can guess which side it will come from
Classy.
I'm not sure I'm being imsulted or whether I am the harbinger of Vernor Vinge's Singularity.
My first Journal Entry ever, in 8 years! http://slashdot.org/journal/365947/aphelion-scifi-fantasy-horror-poetry-webzine
P.S. The typo rules out bot.
My first Journal Entry ever, in 8 years! http://slashdot.org/journal/365947/aphelion-scifi-fantasy-horror-poetry-webzine
I'm tired of settlements where one or both parties agree not to talk about the case. I'm especially tired where only one side is prevented from speaking out after the case is over. What usually happens is that the side that can still speak out then spins a story about the case to the public and the other side is prevented from replying. At the very least, since all court documents are presumably public records, the judge should not be allowed to seal the court documents. I'm not talking about criminal cases where there might be a good reason to do so. Just ban gag orders in civil cases. The public has a right to know what is going on in their courts and settlements should not be allowed to restrict that right. If you don't want to the particulars of a case to be public, then don't sue.
Me thinks I am introducing a new meme.
"Website number" - Joe Biden
so an IP address?
P.S. The typo rules out bot.
That's what you WANT us to believe... Bot!
127.0.0.1
Is anybody else tired of following highly public legal cases for several years, only to have them end in secret settlements? Highly litigious entities like the RIAA have full access to their own records of how they settled past lawsuits, but their new opponents have no such information. This hardly seems fair. The outcomes of lawsuits become, in effect, laws we have to live by, and people have a right to know the law. I think there should be a threshold for lawsuits, maybe a certain amount of court time. If it takes longer, the outcome should be made public. After all, the public pays much of the actual costs of operating the court system. I think we're entitled to find out how these stories end.
You just have to phrase the prohibition so that there is no way around it. As for as setting a precedent, that is a not argument. As far as I know, settlements do not create a judicial precedent.
here's the URL.
It says (Chrome):
"This webpage is not available."
"Error 2 (net::ERR_FAILED): Unknown error."
Maybe your fans page has been Slashdotted?
the whole point in keeping the settlement private is so that others can't drag it into other cases and point to whats been agreed before.
Sure, but that's not the court's problem. If you don't want the public to see your dirty laundry, then don't air it in a public place (such as a courtroom).
In this case, where the RIAA has many cookie cutter suits going and threatens many more, it is very much in the public interest that any weaknesses be exposed. If for no other reason, so that the courts need not waste more of the public's money re-inventing the wheel dozens of times over.
The courts are overloaded because the system is being abused. Until such time as the courts start acting in a decent way against those that are abusing the system the situation will continue to exist - to the benefit of the abusers.
I vaguely recall that there was a concept of "justice" wrapped up in this..
All IMHO, of course, IANAL..
Insert
Imagine a *worm*, bright light that shines on your face which is a bot using NLP.