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."

Comments

Introduced me to Slashdot

[NewYorkCountryLawyer]

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.

Re:Introduced me to Slashdot

[areusche]

I'm sorry to hear that your marriage has suffered. It's been difficult finding a date personally. Hopefully I can find one of those many elusive slashdottettes that lurk around here.

Re:Introduced me to Slashdot

[zappepcs]

I have just two things to say (basically)

1 - I have high hopes that the RIAA settles in such a way that it damages all their other cases, and Patti is both vindicated and compensated - even if we never known what that compensation was.

2 - I wish that there were some way for Slashdot and readers were able to label NewYorkCountryLawyer's posts as a news service rather than just another post. Yes, I realize I can go and list all his posts, but I wish there were a way to quickly do so from the front page so that all users could easily benefit from this hugely beneficial information source. Lets not forget groklaw either.

Many of us like to assume we know something about the law here. These two people (perhaps others) have done much to keep such discussions and news both current and held in a view that does not stray very far for very long from goodness. I believe that they have done more to educate the public than anyone else and their efforts deserve some recognition here.

Re:Introduced me to Slashdot

[vadim_t]

Have you by chance ever been to kuro5hin?

These days it's cesspit, but during its best days it was a site where users published long, well thought, and often technical articles about interesting subjects, some of which had effect beyond the website. For instance, Opennic (alternative root DNS servers) got started at an article on K5. Users submitted stories, and other users offered criticism during an editing period and collectively approved or rejected the story.

See for example a few links in the hall of fame to see what it used to be like.

I'd really like to find another place like that, its degeneration was very unfortunate.

Re:Introduced me to Slashdot

[NewYorkCountryLawyer]

I wish that there were some way for Slashdot and readers were able to label NewYorkCountryLawyer's posts as a news service rather than just another post. Yes, I realize I can go and list all his posts, but I wish there were a way to quickly do so from the front page so that all users could easily benefit from this hugely beneficial information source. Lets not forget groklaw either. Many of us like to assume we know something about the law here. These two people (perhaps others) have done much to keep such discussions and news both current and held in a view that does not stray very far for very long from goodness. I believe that they have done more to educate the public than anyone else and their efforts deserve some recognition here.

Thank you very much, for your kind words, zappepcs, and especially for mentioning me in the same breath as PJ who is a real professional journalist; I am just an amateur.

I would remind you that Groklaw's main feed is available on Slashdot as a "Slashbox"; I know because I (of course) subscribe to it.

Also I recently figured out (I'm a little slow, sometimes, I know) how to find out the RSS Feed for my Submissions on Slashdot, so you can pop it into a feed reader, or "follow" me on Twitter. The feed is: http://slashdot.org/firehose.pl?op=rss&content_type=rss&fhfilter=%22author%3A+NewYorkCountryLawyer%22+submission&orderdir=DESC&orderby=createtime&color=black&duration=-1&startdate=&logtoken=912032%3A%3ADbgOV9ng3HbPRRrcloMyqC

Thanks again.

Re:Introduced me to Slashdot

[NewYorkCountryLawyer]

We all love you here.

You must be new here.

Re:Introduced me to Slashdot

[NewYorkCountryLawyer]

Umm, you didn't specify if your life had improved or degraded.

I didn't, did I?

Hmmm... I guess I could argue either proposition.

I will assume improved, afterall who wouldn't want to hang out with a bunch of nerds who all have an opinion but no credentials to fall back on.

I, for one, welcome the opinions of my Nerd Overlords, especially those with no credentials. (Credentials, it seems to me, are an overpraised attribute. What matters is that the opinion be formed through rigorous reasoning, based on provable facts, advance human thought, and prove to be empirically infallible -- i.e., that it should be in agreement with mine.)

Re:Introduced me to Slashdot

[thePowerOfGrayskull]

What matters is that the opinion... should be in agreement with mine

So I've noticed

Or that it be contrary to yours, in which case it is also likely to be correct.

Ai, it buuuurrrrrns....

Re:Introduced me to Slashdot

[NewYorkCountryLawyer]

I'm sorry to hear that your marriage has suffered. It's been difficult finding a date personally.

Tell me about it. I haven't been able to find a date with anyone other than my wife for 40 years now.

And then, when I started getting involved with Slashdot, I noticed that even my wife began finding me less attractive.

Re:Introduced me to Slashdot

[NewYorkCountryLawyer]

Since you discovered Slashdot, Slashdot hasn't been the same either... and I mean that in a good way. Thank you for your contributions. With you around, the signal to noise ratio is much more bearable.

Yeah but which did I contribute, more signal, or more noise?

Re:Introduced me to Slashdot

[Anpheus]

In case you missed the recent news, you can really impress her if you say during a prominent trial, "No, I don't need any compensation. But you could send my wife some flowers." Or mix it up, say chocolate, for example.

Re:Introduced me to Slashdot

[NewYorkCountryLawyer]

Many years from now, when you tell your grandkids that you know what an RSS feed is, you are going to blow their minds.

Not really. They'll probably be using some much more advanced technology, like "RCS". ("Really Complex Syndication").

Re:Introduced me to Slashdot

[NewYorkCountryLawyer]

If I was smarter than a lawyer, where would I be? ... in a really huge house with the bazillions of dollars I'd be making doing something even more lucrative than law practice!

If you really believe that there is a correlation between intelligence and wealth.... then you haven't met the same people I've met in my life.

3 stressful years

[commodore64_love]

For 3 stressful years the RIAA was able to hold this citizen in fear.

Such extortionate practices should not be allowed.

Here's how to solve that.

[TaoPhoenix]

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.

Re:Here's how to solve that.

[arth1]

Just curious, was that generated by a bot using NLP?

Would you like if that was generated by a bot using NLP?

Ban Confidential Settltments

[Nom du Keyboard]

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!

Re:Time to stop RIAA's misuse of legal systems

[arth1]

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.

Yes, corporations are higher ranked entities here in the land of the free.

As long as we have a system where politicians are allowed to receive money from corporations, the politicians will, of course, pass laws favoring their campaign contributors.

And, as long as we have a system where corporations are given all the rights of, but not all the duties of a citizen, the individual will always have to fight a pitched fight.

One day, the average American will figure out that if he doesn't want to give power to the government because a government might not have your best interest at heart, the alternative is invariably that corporations seize the power, and corporations will never have your best interest at heart.