Patti Santangelo: more to come
p2pnet.net news view:- “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 to
wards her legal costs, has won her battle to clear her name and show up the Big 4 for the bullies they are,” said p2pnet at the beginning of the month, going on:
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.
So it’s far from over, says Glass >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
After careful consideration of all the facts and circumstances, including being respectful to those who’ve supported Patti with donations, good wishes, and in reporting and maintaining interest around the world on the Internet and in the press, it was clear it would be most appropriate to file a Stipulation of Discontinuance With Prejudice, meaing the action against Patti can’t be brought again. This further means a motion can be brought for legal fees and costs, and there are several legal tests the court must consider before awarding such fees (which is ultimately and additionally within the discretion of the Court). It was, and remains, my preference to have brought the matter to trial, but I don’t control the action.
Patti set out to make a difference, to stop the RIAA and its member companies from doing this to anyone else. This goal hasn’t yet been achieved. However, the motions remaining to be made, primarily for legal fees will, if granted, send a message that this mistreatment can’t continue.
The abuse of the nation’s children by these companies, turning parent against child, brother against sister, friend against friend, universities against their students and vendors against their customers, is turning this country into a neighborhood spy network. Such behavior was seen during McCarthyism, the Red scare, and the internment of the Japanese during WW-II. All over Europe and the USSR, friends spied on their neighbors. The Patriot Act has made us unpatriotic because we’ve allowed our government to take away our rights instead of forcing others to respect them. Our government has sold us out to wrest more control over us and we’re letting it happen. Even our morning multi-vitamins are under attack while the FDA tries to regulate them as medicine.
In this country, we had a history of sending drug addicts for help, arresting the dealers and obtaining their cooperation in exchange for reduced sentences to put the manufacturers out of business. But in this instance, we have the perfect example of having turned our own national ethic on its head: the nation’s children were taught this new model by the same manufacturers who are now suing your children.
The ISPs (the “dealers”), who have the technology to protect people, were granted literal governmental immunity from their “dealing” in (and making money from) the types of products over which your children are being sued. The “manufacturers” (the RIAA companies), who had, and have, the ability to prevent this from occurring or, more sensibly, to change to a mutually-profitable business model, have refused to do so.
Granting the dealers (the ISPs) immunity was actually an anti-free market move. Had the ISP’s remained liable, you can bet they’d have developed technology which would have properly filtered out child pornography and “illegal” downloading.
Many companies have been using technology to identify certain types of files, even when those files are hidden inside another file, compressed, using a changed extension or by other efforts. (Just try sending an executable (*.exe) file through gmail and watch what doesn’t happen: the attachment won’t arrive, even if you change the extension, compress the file, and password protect it; and Google isn’t the only company with this capability, even if it is, perhaps, the most commonly known.)
We’ve allowed the RIAA to bring suits against people without their knowledge. The government has violated its own laws (laws meant to serve and protect us) in allowing communications with courts without notice to potential litigants. The government has allowed a private industry to conduct what amounts to criminal investigations into people’s hard drives, without subpoenas or obtaining permission of a judge on a case-by-case basis. There is not now, and nor has there been, oversight of those private industry companies which have been invading hard drives without legal permission.
The entire legal structure has been perverted by this process. Patti’s case was special because she was the first to push back, hard, against the RIAA machine. I believe I was the first to challenge the RIAA discovery demands, based upon the transcript in which the RIAA attorneys claimed the same demands had been used in every case and had never been challenged.
We won more than two-thirds of our objections (13 of 19), setting the stage for others to take an even more aggressive – and even more successful – approach.
Patti’s case has trail-blazed for others, and others have benefitted from her efforts. This is what she hoped would happen. But the work isn’t finished, and it’ll continue through the end of her case, the matters against her children, and in university defense cases being planned.
It’s your country: take it back!
Jordan Glass
Also See:
p2pnet – Patti Santangelo v RIAA: battle won?, April 8, 2007
If your Net access is blocked by government restrictions, try Psiphon from the Citizen Lab at thIs the endSurvey: How Did Copyright Infringement Become Equated with Robbery? (of the Net) nigh?zze University of Toronto’s Munk Centre for International Studies. Go here for the official download, here for the p2pnet download, and here for details. And if you’re Chinese and you’re looking for a way to access independent Internet news sources, try Freegate, the DIT program written to help Chinese citizens circumvent web site blocking outside of China. Download it here.
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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!
