p2pnet.net news:- Odds are that Patti Santangelo, the New York mother who was the first RIAA victim to make a determined stand against the Big 4, helped to no small extent by p2pnet readers who put their money where their mouths were, contributing thousands of dollars towards her legal costs, has won her battle to clear her name and show up the Big 4 for the bullies they are.

She and her lawyer, Jordan Glass, have signed and submitted a stipulation to dismiss with prejudice the case lodged against her by the RIAA, clearly taking their cue from the language of US federal district court judge Colleen McMahon’s response to Glass’s letter of March 31. In it, he wrote Patti would stipulate to a dismissal of any sort only if she retained the right to move for legal fees.

McMahon’s language seemed to indicate it was time to end the farce, and the court had the power to entertain a motion for legal fees.

But even if judge McMahon grants the dismissal, and there’s every reason to believe she will, that still leaves two of Patti’s children, Michelle, 20, and Bobby, 16, in the direct line of fire.

“With prejudice” means the Big 4 wouldn’t be able to re-start the case at some time in the future, and if judge McMahon decides to grants fees and costs, they could be heavy.

Both Patti and Glass wanted to take this to trial. She told p2pnet, “This is the most appropriate thing to do based upon what judge McMahon wrote. It shows what we were able to accomplish by fighting back,” going on:

We didn’t get everything we wanted – I know how much Jordan wanted to take this to trial, and so did I – but other people like me have been fighting back since we won the first discovery objections last year.

Now I have to focus on case against my children. I think this shows what we can accomplish, but it wouldn’t have been possible without all the people who funded the campaign.

I don’t know how other parents are managing it without money. That’s why the RIAA is picking on people without money, because people with money can beat them. But now that the other defendants have my case to refer to, maybe that will help them save money and have more power to win. I know it made a big difference regarding discovery for other defendants, so I hope this will be a good precedent for them, too.

With Patti’s case out of the way, will the Elektra Entertainment Group, Virgin Records America, UMG Recordings, BMG Music and Sony BMG Music Entertainment drop their case against her children?

If they do, they’ll be setting a precedent other families in the same, or a similar, boat will be quick to use. So the RIAA will probably intensify, rather than abandon, its efforts against Bobby and Michelle.

The only thing likely to give the RIAA serious pause is if RIAA victims and their lawyers launch a concerted campaign through a class action suit, or other type of action where defendants are able to join together.

Individually, the victims have little weight. But if they were able to stand as a group against the Big 4, with their legions of lawyers and bottomless pockets, it could be another matter.

There might also be similar possibilities for a class action against the units used by the RIAA to extort money from its targets.

In 2005, judge McMahon told the cartel’s lawyers she’d, “love to see a mom fighting one of these,” referring to the settlement centres routinely employed by the RIAA to get money out of its victims.

However, class actions are expensive costing in the region of a quarter of a million dollars to start, so the RIAA, EMI (Britain), Vivendi Universal (France), Sony BMG (Japan and Germany) and Warner Music (US) may be in effect wagering this alone will be sufficient to stop a class action from being attempted.

Stay tuned.

Slashdot it!

Also See:
entertain a motion – New twist in RIAA, Santangelo, April 4, 2007
mom fighting one of these – RIAA writes to Judge McMahon, September 7, 2006
direct line of fire – Us, Them, p2p and file sharing, December 9, 2006

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Tired of being treated like a criminal? They depend on you, not the other way around. Don’t buy their ‘product’. Do bug your local politicians. Use emails, snail-mail, phone calls, faxes, IM, stop them in the street, blog. And if you’re into organizing, organize petitions, organize demonstrations and then turn up on your local political rep’s doorstep, making sure you’ve contacted your local tv/radio station/newspaper in advance. Don’t just complain. Do something!

This entry was posted on Sunday, April 8th, 2007 at 12:54 pm and is filed under RIAA News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

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