Single Mom Resists RIAA Extortion

-zootsuit: Dec 26, 2005

Now the author of the article below entitled his piece far more diplomatically, but let's face it, what's really going down here is nothing short of big, powerful, multi-billion dollar companies shaking down individuals for what little cash they have. That's called extortion. These companies are, for lack of a better word, jacking people. And it must stop. Copyright in this country has gotten completely out of balance with our American ideals regarding fair use and the public good.

Since these companies have in essence bought the legislators who are SUPPOSED to represent the PEOPLE of this country through huge campaign donations, they've managed to ram through hideous legislation that has given their extortion of private citizens the air of technical legality, while simultaneously destroying the spirit of fairness and justice that exemplify GOOD, well-crafted laws that serve the community.

This example below is most certainly not isolated. Thousands of families across this country have been harassed by the RIAA for this sort of thing. Typically, even though the RIAA characterize these incidents as "theft" they never bring a criminal case, they bring a civil case against the people. Why? Because they know full well, even with the unfairly biased laws they've managed to get passed, they could never win a criminal case. Criminal cases require that there is "proof beyond a reasonable doubt", that not only did you personally download a particular file, but that you then intended and acted to distribute this copyrighted product to others for profit. The standard of proof is high enough to protect individuals, so they bring civil lawsuits instead, where only a determination of responsibility is required, based upon the simplest and most plausible interpretation of the evidence.

The real issue here is, even then, that the industry cannot prove it's case, but most individuals faced with such lawsuits are unaware of how to defend themselves against the assault. And here is where technological ignorance within the justice system itself begins to play a role.

The RIAA have done a fantastic job of spinning the propaganda on this one, so that everyone who happens to have such files is automatically considered a "pirate". This however, is absurd even by the legal standards set out in a civil case. A rudimentary understanding of the nature of computer technology reveals that people take over other computers all the time. They do this to host porn sites, warez sites, to use them as storage on the way to another computer, etc. There is no plausible reason to automatically assume that someone is "guilty" for having a particular file on their computer. The shear nature of the internet and security protocols means that even by the "simplest interpretation" of the evidence, as is required in civil cases no one can reasonably maintain that such "guilt" exists.

"I have no idea how those files got there," is an entirely plausible statement from a purely technical standpoint. Given the number of wide-open holes in the Windows operating system alone, especially on broadband, I'd say an extraordinary burden of proof should be required of the industry who seeks to bring such frivolous lawsuits.

It is reasonable to say that those who wish to get on the information superhighway need to educated themselves, but the fact is, even the most literate computer user can be subject to outside use of their computer. That's just the nature of the beast. What is basically happening is that the industry is foisting a host of undue legal responsibilities onto private citizens, that they really have no obligation to perform. When I buy a product, I have no special obligation to keep another individual from reverse engineering it. I have no legal duty to prevent someone from stealing it, though obviously I'd prefer it wasn't stolen. Nor do I have a responsibility to prevent someone else from copying it.

Yet we expect all of this in the digital world? It's patently absurd, and it's prosecution has reached absurd proportions.

What is really happening here is that private citizens are being forced to pay for the industry's lack of entrepreneurial creativity. Just as the movie industry did back during the early days of VCR's, the music industry did not try to come up with a new way to exploit the market that naturally opens up with a burgeoning new technology. They didn't try to develop new business models to capitalize on it, rather, they simply sought to stifle the use of the new technology itself to protect the markets it already had (namely CD's).

This is stupid on a whole bunch of fronts. First, when the movie industry lost their bid to stifle the development of VCR's and people taping their favorite shows, it forced them to do what they should have done in the first place - sell their product using the new medium. The video rental industry then became a billion-dollar industry that brought record profits. Instead, they spent tons of money on lawyers, essentially trying to cheat THEMSELVES out of the profit they might have made had they simply been bold enough to venture into this new world unafraid.

The RIAA learned nothing from their movie brethren's experience. Now they not only pay lawyers to bring these insane lawsuits, they pay millions to politicians to pass draconian laws, they pay millions to hire ad agencies to promote their anti-"piracy" propaganda, and they harass their own customers.

Because of this, I for one haven't bought ANY music of ANY kind, or downloaded ANY such files, because I simply don't want to be party to fueling this insanity. They have in essence, pushed away a potential customer. Now, unless I happen to hear it free on a radio or in a club, or I go to a concert and see the musician live, I don't particularly care what music is out there. And I'm certainly not the only one. The RIAA are literally killing their own market.

As Zordak posted on Slashdot.org, "These downloading suits are really a revenue-generating protection racket -- Give us money or we'll sue you. Most people just gave them the money. Now that somebody is fighting back, they can't just drop the suit, or it will look like they brought the suit in bad faith (which they did). So a very unsympathetic Goliath has to fight a very sympathetic David in front of a jury and live with the precedent they set. They will also be subject to discovery, which could be the source of all manner of fun..... To the jury, it will look like the RIAA is persecuting this poor single mother who can't even afford an attorney (which they are)."

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Mom Fights Downloading Suit on Her Own

-By Jim Fitzgerald, Associated Press: Dec 26, 2005

It was Easter Sunday, and Patricia Santangelo was in church with her kids when she says the music recording industry peeked into her computer and decided to take her to court.

Santangelo says she has never downloaded a single song on her computer, but the industry didn't see it that way. The woman from Wappingers Falls, about 80 miles north of New York City, is among the more than 16,000 people who have been sued for allegedly pirating music through file-sharing computer networks.

"I assumed that when I explained to them who I was and that I wasn't a computer downloader, it would just go away," she said in an interview. "I didn't really understand what it all meant. But they just kept insisting on a financial settlement."

The industry is demanding thousands of dollars to settle the case, but Santangelo, unlike the 3,700 defendants who have already settled, says she will stand on principle and fight the lawsuit.

"It's a moral issue," she said. "I can't sign something that says I agree to stop doing something I never did."

If the downloading was done on her computer, Santangelo thinks it may have been the work of a young friend of her children. Santangelo, 43, has been described by a federal judge as "an Internet-illiterate parent, who does not know Kazaa from kazoo, and who can barely retrieve her email." Kazaa is the peer-to-peer software program used to share files.

The drain on her resources to fight the case — she's divorced, has five children aged 7 to 19 and works as a property manager for a real estate company — forced her this month to drop her lawyer and begin representing herself.

"There was just no way I could continue on with a lawyer," she said. "I'm out $24,000 and we haven't even gone to trial."

So on Thursday she was all alone at the defense table before federal Magistrate Judge Mark Fox in White Plains, looking a little nervous and replying simply, "Yes, sir" and "No, sir" to his questions about scheduling and exchange of evidence.

She did not look like someone who would have downloaded songs like Incubus' "Nowhere Fast," Godsmack's "Whatever" and Third Eye Blind's "Semi-Charmed Life," all of which were allegedly found on her computer.

Her former lawyer, Ray Beckerman, says Santangelo doesn't really need him.

"I'm sure she's going to win," he said. "I don't see how they could win. They have no case. They have no evidence she ever did anything. They don't know how the files appeared on her computer or who put them there."

Jenni Engebretsen, spokeswoman for the Recording Industry Association of America, the coalition of music companies that is pressing the lawsuits, would not comment specifically on Santangelo's case.

"Our goal with all these anti-piracy efforts is to protect the ability of the recording industry to invest in new bands and new music and give legal online services a chance to flourish," she said. "The illegal downloading of music is just as wrong as shoplifting from a local record store."

The David-and-Goliath nature of the case has attracted considerable attention in the Internet community. To those who defend the right to such "peer-to-peer" networks and criticize the RIAA's tactics, Santangelo is a hero.

Jon Newton, founder of an Internet site critical of the record companies, said by e-mail that with all the settlements, "The impression created is all these people have been successfully prosecuted for some as-yet undefined 'crime'. And yet not one of them has so far appeared in a court or before a judge. ... She's doing it alone. She's a courageous woman to be taking on the multibillion-dollar music industry."

Santangelo said her biggest issue is with Kazaa for allowing children to download music without parental permission. "I should have gotten at least an e-mail or something notifying me," she said. Telephone and e-mail messages seeking comment from the Australia-based owner of Kazaa, Sharman Networks Ltd., were not returned.

Because some cases are settled just before a trial and because it would be months before Santangelo's got that far, it's impossible to predict whether she might be the first to go to trial over music downloading.

But she vows that she's in the fight to stay.

"People say to me, `You're crazy. Why don't you just settle?' I could probably get out of the whole thing if I paid maybe $3,500 and signed their little document. But I won't do that." Her travail started when the record companies used an investigator to go online and search for copyrighted recordings being made available by individuals. The investigator allegedly found hundreds on her computer on April 11, 2004. Months later, there was a phone call from the industry's "settlement center," demanding about $7,500 "to keep me from being named in a lawsuit," Santangelo said.

Santangelo and Beckerman were confident they would win a motion to dismiss the case, but Judge Colleen McMahon ruled that the record companies had enough of a case to go forward. She said the issue was whether "an Internet-illiterate parent" could be held liable for her children's downloads. Santangelo says she's learned a lot about computers in the past year.

"I read some of these blogs and they say, `Why didn't this woman have a firewall?' she said. "Well, I have a firewall now. I have a ton of security now."