p2pnet - rss feed: Pay us $8M, Santangelos tell AOL, Kazaa
p2pnet news | RIAA News:- Michelle Santangelo and her brother Robert, victims of Warner Music, EMI, Vivendi Universal and Sony BMG’s RIAA, sue ‘em all campaign, say Sharman Networks, based in Australia, and Time Warner’s AOL together owe them almost $8 million, plus legal fees and expenses.
The Santangelos and their lawyer, Jordan Glass, recently initiated a third party action against: Sharman Networks, owners of Kazaa, the seriously discredited P2P file sharing software implicated in most RIAA cases; former family friend Matthew Seckler; and, AOL.
An attack like this, believed to be the first of its kind in these anti-P2P cases, is the last thing the RIAA (Recording Industry Association of America), fronting the lawsuits, wants or needs.
It’s just been presented with its most dangerous threat to date which may force it to abandon its Making Available weapon under which it claims merely having a copyrighted file in a document is enough to warrant an infringement action.
The Big 4 and their RIAA prefer targets to simply cave and pay extortion amounts in the hope they’ll thus avoid been named in court cases.
The tactic has to an extent been successful with university students across America who are being intimidated into paying upwards of $3,000 in so-called ‘pre-settlement’ fees, with many of the universities themselves acting as corporate copyright cops.
Michelle and Robert, meanwhile, recently submitted an application to include Sharman Networks, owners of the Kazaa P2P application, and AOL as third party defendants.
The RIAA tried to have the application quashed and now, in a revised third party complaint, the brother and sister are seeking leave to sue Sharman and AOL for $3,966,000 each, and Matthew Seckler who, says the complaint, loaded Kazaa onto the Santangelo’s computer, $1.
Stay tuned.
Also See:
most dangerous threat - How to thwart the RIAA, September 12, 2007
upwards of $3,000 - RIAA singles out Massachusetts students, September 12, 2007
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September 13th, 2007 at 11:45 am
lol @ the $1. i hope they win.
September 13th, 2007 at 6:46 pm
Now as much as I despise what RIAA and MPAA is doing with their “sue them all” campaign, I think this move is going a little overboard.
To use the sports car analogy, **AA’s strategy is like fining the owner (and if that doesn’t work, family members) of a sports car for speeding, with the only proof being that a 3rd party swearing to a similar car “going too fast” or “whizzing down the road like a bat out of hell”- no speed camera photos of the licence plate, no picture of the person sitting behind the wheel. Of course, unless the car is unique, the car could be one of thousands of that type of sports car, but the person being fined just happened to own the car, so they should be sued.
As in the case RIAA vs Santangelos, this fine would be of no merit, and should be thrown out of court.
But the Santangelos took this one step further…
**AA should be sued for defamation, and for their underhanded tactics to extort cash from people, but when you start trying to sue other companies like Sharman Networks and AOL (I have no interest nor quarrel with either companies), going back to my sports car analogy, is like suing the Gas companies for selling gas that can make the car run at higher speeds, as well as suing the car manufacturer that designed the car so it could reach speeds way above the speed limit.
I am not going to say that they should leave well enough alone, but for them to sue people like Sharman Networks and AOL for Kaazaa’s p2p capability is a bit overboard IMHO.
Hopefully they will focus their efforts to quash the real “evil” in this case, and not just try to go on a hunting exposition for settlement cash.
Just my two cents
September 13th, 2007 at 7:37 pm
Kazaa _is_ the real evil, or one of them. Where have you been? You must be new to the internet.
September 13th, 2007 at 7:59 pm
i think “Just my two cents” is really Nikki Hemming of Sharman.
September 13th, 2007 at 8:16 pm
‘but for them to sue people like Sharman Networks and AOL for Kaazaa’s p2p capability is a bit overboard IMHO’
wtf? sharman is scum so look arund before you mouth off
September 13th, 2007 at 8:46 pm
It doesn’t matter how corrupt Sharman is. The real question is whether or not this new demand is at all justified. I definitely thought they were out of line when they brought their case against Sharman and AOL, but since I don’t know the whole story, I won’t protest too much. However, I definitely think they’re taking this too far. For one thing, instead of trying defend themselves against the charges, it seems like they’re just trying to shift the responsibility onto someone else.
That being said, I definitely hope the Santangelos win their freedom back, and have their legal fees plus damages paid in full. But this is ridiculous.
September 13th, 2007 at 10:44 pm
“I think this move is going a little overboard.”
Oh! Because the RIAA tugs are not going overboard may be?
They are actually breaking the law, trempling our constitution discriditing our governement our jusitce system and our educational institution. They would never have got away with this Bushy governement made of shit was doing is job as he swear to do when it went into office. Even with all the corruption money they are spending (the money that we unfortunatly gave them) they should not go away with this and I know that they will not.
Meanwhile I am going to sue these parasites to get my money back and I will encourage everyone to do the same.
When the show is not good we have the right to ask for our money back.
September 14th, 2007 at 5:06 am
Suing AOL and Kazaa is stupid!
I have NO love for these companies, but these kids are doing exactly what was done to them and it doesn’t make it any more right. Two wrongs do not equal a right!
I agree that they are trying to blame someone else for the suit they are now facing.
I don’t know WHO is WORSE…..them suing AOL and Kazaa or the RIAA suing them!
BOTH lawsuits are idiotic!
That is like me suing my ISP because I was sued for file sharing! Totally stupid.
September 14th, 2007 at 6:12 am
Kazaa is being publicized as a legal software (especially since their million$ deal with the RIAA), even now as I’m writing this.
I guess if I was sued by the RIAA for using something sold as being legal both by the publisher and by a major corporation I’d be really pissed and I’d probably countersue them as well.
Funny how the RIAA is fighting AllofMP3.com for selling music, yet the pirating application Kazaa is still out there.
I hope to see the Santangelos win in my lifespan.
September 14th, 2007 at 12:44 pm
kAZAA is certainly a piece of shit company so is AOL. It is also a part of time-warner an RIAA piece of crap. So go for it and down to the parasites!
September 14th, 2007 at 11:02 pm
“Kazaa is being publicized as a legal software (especially since their million$ deal with the RIAA), even now as I’m writing this.
I guess if I was sued by the RIAA for using something sold as being legal both by the publisher and by a major corporation I’d be really pissed and I’d probably countersue them as well.”
Well I have no love for either company, they are both parasites…. but I see NO mention of ANY agreement with the RIAA on their homepage! Go there yourself and look. I did! It is not there.
It does say filesharing is fast and free and acts like file sharing is neato and fun…..but ANY judge would say that that was absolutely NO EXCUSE for uploading copyrighted songs period!
“Ignorance of the law is no excuse!”…as the saying goes. So if they think they can plead ignorance by blaming their getting sued on Kazaa and AOL, I don’t think that is gonna fly with a judge. Did AOL or Kazaa twist their arm in order to use the software? I don’t think so. So again, the burden of proof for anyone being sued for uploading illegal content are the ones accused of doing it.
I wish that AOHELL and Kazaa would be sued out of exsistence, but to me, this lawsuit is just silly. It is about as stupid as the lady that sued McDonalds for burning her own lip on a hot cup of coffee!
Funny how the RIAA is fighting AllofMP3.com for selling music, yet the pirating application Kazaa is still out there.
Yeah, I agree. But I think they are mostly upset because they are not selling it for prices that THEY set. Like itunes sells songs for a dollar. What they don’t seem to understand is that:
1. allofmp3.com is NOT in the US…it is in Russia and under Russian law and they are following Russian law.
2. The prices they are charging are also including a paid amount to the organization in Russia responsible for collecting the royalty fees.
But that does not seem to make any difference to the RIAA, who think they are pirates.
September 15th, 2007 at 10:29 am
how does AOL get dragged into this? I dont like AOL myself but I am not sure how is it their fault. Kazaa I can see but not AOL.
September 15th, 2007 at 10:46 am
“how does AOL get dragged into this?”
Because AOL is time Warner an RIAA veto powered member. Hit the bastard!
September 17th, 2007 at 3:46 am
“how does AOL get dragged into this? I dont like AOL myself but I am not sure how is it their fault. Kazaa I can see but not AOL.”
That’s right - as you understand, Kazaa is being sued for having folders shared without the user’s knowledge - it’s been so long since I used Kazaa (but when I found out about spyware, I installed K-lite, made by randomnut, but that was long ago, too).
AOL, which you wonder about, is being dragged into court because they were subscribers to AOL and the Parental Controls didn’t prevent the actions on the Internet to download Kazaa nor did it prevent downloading files from Kazaa.
October 17th, 2007 at 11:20 am
After reading an article regarding this copyright infringement, it became clear that the Record industry motives may not be what they seem. RIAA confuscated some 1.6 million user names during their search. RIAA claimed that individual damages for copy right infringement are in the area of $3,000 per user. Well, we can all due the Math, RIAA if sucessful stands to make Billions. They are exploiting all those caught in their net. Think about it, you can buy a song for .99 cents, but RIAA seeks billions from the listeners. The Internet is still fairly new technology and at the time these user I’m sure did not fully understand the the Internet. Something to Think about