p2pnet - rss feed: Michelle Santangelo vs the RIAA
p2pnet news | RIAA news:- Friday the 13th was lucky for Michelle Santangelo, the New York girl Elektra Entertainment, UMG Recordings, Virgin Records, BMG Music and Sony-BMG, falsely accused of being a massive, and illegal, distributor of copyrighted music.
The daughter of Patti Santangelo, one of the first to defy the RIAA (Recording Industry Association of America), Michelle was on the hook for $30,750, plus another $490 in “costs,” for good measure, levied because she’d allegedly failed to answer a complaint within a given time frame.
However, at a scheduled hearing on Friday, July 13, federal district court judge Stephen C. Robinson ruled the judgment against Michelle will be vacated which, to all intents and purposes, means it’s been dropped and Michelle can go back to square one, pleading her case as if the ruling had never been made.
Equally important, it had also given her a negative credit record, which would have followed her through life.
However, her attorney, Jordan Glass, says part of the original default issue still remains to be argued: the RIAA may still demand lawyer fees for having lodged the judgment in the first place.
Judge Robinson also said various motions have to heard, including one by Michelle and her brother, Bobby (left), which could have a significant effect on their cases, as well as those of other people being sued by the RIAA.
If they go through, Sharman Networks’ Kazaa P2P file sharing application, as well as AOL, might well be brought into the spotlight at an argument scheduled to take place sometime in September.
‘Deceptively marketed’
Kazaa is already very much on the wrong end of a class action.
“Kazaa designed its software, ‘in such a manner as to create a shared files folder and make that folder available to anyone using Kazaa, while at the same time failing to make the user aware that it had done so,’ says a court document offered by
Charles Mudd, representing RIAA sue ‘em all victim Catherine Lewan.
It goes on:
The Sharman Defendants marketed KaZaA as the P2P service that allowed individuals to share files.
The Sharman Defendants deceptively marketed the KaZaA Product as allowing ‘free’ downloads.
The Sharman Defendants deceptively marketed the use of the KaZaA Product as legal.
The Sharman Defendants deceptively knew that most users of the KaZaA Product would use the KaZaA Product to catalog and store digital copies of copyrighted sound recordings and films.
The Sharman Defendants encouraged, invited and solicited such conduct from the public, its customers, and users of the KaZaA Product.
To use the KaZaA Product, an individual user would download the KaZaA software and install it on their computer.
The user could then use the KaZaA Product to catalog files on the individual’s computer. These files would be contained within a ’share folder’.
To increase the sound recordings and films available on the KaZaA network, the Sharman Defendants designed the KaZaA software to create the shared folder and make the share folder accessible to anyone using the KaZaA software on the KaZaA network. They did so such that neither the KaZaA software nor the individual user’s computer would inform the user that this had occurred.
In other words, the Sharman Defendants designed the KaZaA software to share the contents of the individual users ’share folder’ without letting the user of the KaZaA software know that he or she made such content available to others on the KaZaA network.
Further on, the class-action document says:
The Sharman defendants designed the KaZaA software to install a number of additional programmes (’spyware’) on an individual user’s computer for nefarious purposes. They did so such that neither the KaZaA software nor the individual user’s computer would inform the user had this had occurred.
The spyware employed by the KaZaA software affected computers adversely.
The Sharman Defendants designed the KaZaA software to be nearly impossible to fully eradicate from a user’s computer. Consequently, an individual’s shared folder would remain accessible to the KaZaA Network after the KaZaA software had been removed from the individual’s computer.
By automatically sharing files in the shared folder, KaZaA exposed its users to claims of copyright infringement by making such files accessible to other users of the KaZaA network to download.
The Sharman Defendants knew and continue to know that the use of the KaZaA Product exposes its users to claims of copyright infringement.
Meanwhile, at the Robinson hearing, no mention was made of when the decision and various schedules will be published.
Also See:
defy the RIAA - RIAA victim talks to p2pnet, September 4, 2005
allegedly failed - Michelle Santangelo RIAA case, July 10, 2007
wrong end - Kazaa sued in class action, December 3, 2006
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July 16th, 2007 at 6:54 am
KAAZA’S LACK OF WARNING
““Kazaa designed its software, ‘in such a manner as to create a shared files folder and make that folder available to anyone using Kazaa, while at the same time failing to make the user aware that it had done so,’ says a court document offered by Charles Mudd, representing RIAA sue ‘em all victim Catherine Lewan.’”
The statement or argument is true, but incomplete.
Kazaa should have also told the users of their program that if the folder made available to other Kazaa users contained non public domain songs and or recordings there was a risk of being in violation of copyright if a court eventually decided that the making available constituted copyright infringement.
MAKING AVAILABLE AS INFRINGEMENT
Of course at the time Kazaa was distributed the law did not state that making available was copyright infringement (it still doesn’t) and also there was no jurisprudence that said that making available was copyright infrigment.
BTW, in my case, where a music publisher made available for recording licensing and public performance hundreds of songs belonging to my family by placing the songs in their catalog (many actually copyright registered illegally). the judge actually said that making available did not constitute copyright infringement. Under the recording licenses with our songs that were issued illegally by the music publisher, millions of records were actually made, and still the judge did not find copyright infringement.
If such a decision was made on our case, in the Americal federal court system, it is proposterous that kids be charged with copyright infringement simply for making available song files on the Internet without knowing it or its meaning as related to a copyright law that says nothing on the subject of making available.
IGNORANCE OF THE LAW
But back to my main point expressed in another way: No one should pay for using software, materials and equipment in a common sense way if that someone is not savvy on the law and the law’s jurisprudence.
Of course, I consider the old argument that ignorance is no excuse as bullshit when it comes to copyright law, a law not even understood by most lawyers and judges because of their ignorance of the law.
In america, most laws suffer from these:
- They are hidden from the citizens.
- The language used is confusing and too complex for ordinary people.
- The law is incomplete and is completed by even more difficult to find jurisptrudence.
- The are may conflicting jurisprudences.
- Legal opinions from lawyers are too expensive and usually more confusing than the law itself and full of ifs (if a court decides this way or that way).
One has to be biased against the people, the people who it is said re supreme to make the statement “ignorance is no excuse”. Ignorance is a perfect excuse under many situations and one of those situations is copyright related situations for ordinary people, people who do not work in a copyright related trade. To think otherwise is to be cynical.
LAWYER FEES
“However, her attorney, Jordan Glass, says part of the original default issue still remains to be argued: the RIAA may still demand lawyer fees for having lodged the judgment in the first place.”
Makes no sense. In copyright cases tha law (Copyright Act-USA) says that only prevailing partie have a right to be compensated for their legal expenses and only if the infringed copyrighted works had been registered before the lwasuit was filed.
July 16th, 2007 at 9:30 am
Another problem is the fact that the Police States of Amerika (what was once the United States) is no longer a nation ruled by laws. Instead, the nation is ruled by the whim of lawyers, politicians, and judges as well as unelected regulatory bodies. The P.S.A. has become a plutocracy (a nation ruled by money).
July 16th, 2007 at 1:44 pm
CORRECTION
I said:
and only if the infringed copyrighted works had been registered before the lwasuit was filed.
To correct lawyer fees the infringed work must have been copyright registered before the infringement ocurred.
Many recordings aout there are not copyright registered and when that are in fact infringed, ther is no right to collect lawyer fees. As a result many potential lawsuits are not filed because withot assurance that lawyer fees can be collected, a lawsuit makes no economic sense, unless the infringement damages were very high.