Patti Santangelo v RIAA: the path of courage
p2pnet news view RIAA | P2P:- Patti Santangelo is a wonderful person and I’m really glad for her and two of her five children, Michelle and Bobby, that the RIAA’s vicious war against them is now all-but over.
They were the first family to really put up a fight against Vivendi Universal, EMI, Warner Music and Sony BMG and their RIAA and it could be said they paved the way for many, if not most, of other RIAA victims who, inspired by her example, decided they weren’t going to take it either.
Tanya Andersen is now famous as the woman who took the RIAA on and won. And as she told me this morning, that might never have happened had it not been for Patti’s example.
“Her case was the one that got me going,” Tanya said. “When the RIAA came after me, I didn’t know anything and it was only by reading about Patti that I was able to get any information.
“She stood up against them and made other people understand they could do the same.”
Way back, Recording Industry vs The People’s Ray Beckerman briefly represented Patty and I asked him how he felt.
“I think she’s a very special person,” he told me, “A great lady. Instead of taking the easy way out, she took a whole world of heat and abuse on her own shoulders, in order to stand up for principle.
“All America should look to her with pride and admiration, and every one of us owes her a debt of gratitude, because it’s people like Patti Santangelo who make freedom possible for the rest of us. If there were more people like Patti, the RIAA’s campaign would have ended years earlier than it did.”
‘… didn’t take advantage of an opportunity …’
Troubles besetting Patti outside of the RIAA case would have been enough to sink a lot of people. But she never gave up, eventually forcing the RIAA to drop its ridiculous claims that she was a massive illegal online distributor of copyrighted corporate music.
The RIAA never thought she was, of course. From day one, they were after Michelle and Bobby — and anyone else they could trap along the way.
It’s standard RIAA practice. First target the parent(s), then the kids.
Said RIAA President Cary Sherman »»»
We were disappointed that Ms. Santangelo didn’t take advantage of an opportunity to get rid of this case quickly, as most people have when they find that somebody in their household or somebody using their computer was in the wrong.
That was an outright lie. ‘Most people’ hadn’t done anything of the kind, and it’s the same today.
Patti was forced to endure endless days of psychological torture – because that’s quite literally what it is – believing the labels and their extortion unit were determined to nail her personally as an infringer or, as the RIAA likes to call it in deliberately inflammatory language designed to catch the eye of the corporate mainstream media, a criminal and thief – a copyright “violator”.
“In this case, if Ms. Santangelo did not do this, then she should tell us who did, and we would modify the complaint accordingly,” said Sherman, also noting:
“We had one grandfather who had those kids work off the amount that he paid to settle as a way of teaching them a lesson and making this a family event.”
As Stephen E. Robertson says in a case in which he’s defending RIAA victim Shahanda Moursy, however »»»
These suits are designed to attract media attention, and often do, as stories emerge of Record Company Counterclaim Defendants’ suits against the elderly, disabled, technologically clueless, and other vulnerable victims. Many of these victims have no idea how to operate a computer, let alone how to install and use peer-to-peer networking software to exchange music they would not likely be listening to anyway. But actual innocence is rarely a consideration to the Record Company Counterclaim Defendants.
[...]
The Record Company Counterclaim Defendants’ litigation campaign, its preceding demands, and illegal investigations, are part of a concerted pattern of sham litigation. The Record Company Counterclaim Defendants’ true purpose is not to obtain the relief claimed in its sham litigation, but to intimidate, harass, and oppress the defendant targets and other users of computer networks.
It’s blackmail and extortion
It’s now finished for Patti, Michelle and Bobby who were, and are, innocent of the charges against them.
After almost half a decade of unrelenting pressure from the multi-billion-dollar record labels, a settlement has been reached.
If it’s typical of other similar cases, such as with the Greubels, no details will be revealed and Patti’s lawyer, Jordan Glass, was unable to say anything except he’s expecting to receive the final papers within the next two or three days.
But however you carve it up, to any reasonable person, it’s blackmail and extortion on the parts of Vivendi Universal (France), Sony BMG (Japan and Germany), EMI (Britain), and Warner Music (US and if there was any genuine justice, the Santangelos and the other victims would have an opportunity to take the labels on in a fair courtroom contest — and the labels and their RIAA would find themselves in criminal court for methodic abuse of the US legal system.
However, it’s simple: without exception, the victims are very ordinary people with very ordinary means and they just can’t afford it.
Unlike the Big 4, they don’t have bottomless financial resources and endless streams of expert copyright lawyers at their disposal.
In the final analysis, it’s a cost-benefit exercise. The victims don’t have the means to guarantee a fair hearing, or anything even vaguely near it.
So they have to buy the labels off.
I’m speculating Patti will now have to find some amount of money to pay the extortion, her kids will have to agree to restrictions the public at large will never be told about, and the terms of deal will be kept secret.
But that doesn’t matter.
When she was first held up as a file sharing criminal and thief by the RIAA and its bosses, Mitch Bainwol and Cary Sherman, the mainstream media were only presenting one side of the story – the RIAA’s.
That’s changed and and in 2009, everyone knows who the true criminals and thieves are. And isn’t Patti or any of the other RIAA victims.
The labels are haemorrhaging customers like it’s going out of style, but they have only themselves to blame.
‘… her courage was the catalyst …’
Today, “I’m glad for the Santangelos that they can finally put this ugliness behind them,” says Beckerman, adding »»»
And I am deeply grateful to them – on behalf of all the victims of corporate bullying all across the country – for the Santangelo’s important contribution to the resistance to the RIAA’s now defeated litigatio campaign.
Patti was the very first defendant to take on the RIAA’s fake “making available” theory, and the courts have come to recognize that her position was correct. And her case shed important public attention on the RIAA’s McCarthyistic terror techniques of terrorizing families, friends, and neighbors.
It is arguable that the day Patti Santangelo stepped up and said “no” was the beginning of the end for the RIAA’s campaign, because her courage was the catalyst that brought the rest of us into the fray, and gave us the courage to carry the fight to the now disintegrating ‘big 4′ record labels and their cowardly lawyers.
I’m proud to know Patti.
Stay tuned.
And, DON’T BUY ANY CORPORATE ‘PRODUCT’.
Jon Newton – p2pnet
February , 2009
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February 28th, 2009 at 3:44 pm
This is good for Patti.
I hope your article gets the kind of reading it deserves but you are not the Associated Press so I doubt it that it will.
February 28th, 2009 at 3:45 pm
Patti is my Hero!
February 28th, 2009 at 3:55 pm
AP did cover the story, though.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090227/ap_en_mu/music_download_suit_2
And did get her on TV and bring the story to national attention way back when
http://recordingindustryvspeople.blogspot.com/2005_12_01_archive.html#113581265030180060
February 28th, 2009 at 4:59 pm
If she had to pay them anything for something she did not do, it is a loss.
Unfortunately, we will never know, and as long as that remains true, the RIAA
members have no incentive to stop doing it to others.
Flame me if you will, but this isn’t much of a victory.
February 28th, 2009 at 5:13 pm
Hey Dredd:
I know what you mean, but I disagree.
This shows what an ordinary person can do against the RIAA because if you believe this case was win-win all the way for the labels, you’re dead wrong.
Her resistance cost them far more than anything they’ve been able to extort from her.
Cheers!
February 28th, 2009 at 5:49 pm
a win is a win, either way the RIAA won
February 28th, 2009 at 6:51 pm
I have to agree with Dredd.
As long as there are still casualties, and the possiblity of more yet to come, the MAFIAA hasn’t really lost.
The only way we can truly start to chalk up any loss for the MAFIAA would be if and when the courts actually rule the whole thing’s a scam and start denying them court process.
Since that doesn’t appear to be happening to any significant degree, I would recommend keeping the cork on the champagne for now.
February 28th, 2009 at 6:51 pm
and what i wonder about is why Hollywood wants net neutrality or even gives news coverage to it.
As in ctv.ca
This troubles me that there must be some reason they want that …..
————-
CP24.com published the following story on net neutrality yesterday illustrating some key points of the net neutrality debate and providing insight from both Steve Anderson of SaveOurNet.ca and Bell Spokesperson Jacqueline Michelis.
“Public interest groups are calling on the CRTC to put a stop to the controversial practice known as bandwidth throttling — the deliberate slowing down of Internet speeds by telecom companies.
By Monday, more than 5,000 web users had submitted complaints about the practice through SaveOurNet.ca, a web community focused on promoting net neutrality — keeping online traffic free of corporate interference.”
http://toronto.ctv.ca/servlet/an/local/CTVNews/20090223/090223_internet_throttling/20090223/?hub=CP24Home
fact is its now been 2 years and bell has negligence its duties to add capacity and thus is a failed corporate entity , they have no intention of adding any capacity or increasing any services and are just looking at short term greed.
February 28th, 2009 at 6:56 pm
” Her resistance cost them far more than anything theyâve been able to extort from her. ”
That’s relative, I guess.
If this cost her around 5 to 10 grand to fight them, that’s pretty damn devastating to
her, while even 10 time sor more that amount is nothing but a drop in the bucket
for them.
We’ve seen that the RIAA rarely are made to pay attorney fees when they
cut and run either, so if she had to pay them ANYTHING, plus her own fees, it’s not a
win win situation.
The RIAA could care less about bad press, what LAWMAKERS believe is what they
care about, and as long as they can continue to convince ( or pay ) lawmakers
that file sharing, and not customers leaving them over their ‘sue-em-all’ is to
blame, then this still is a win for them.
They have demonstrated that they will spare no expense to bankrupt you, even
if you have done nothing.
But, As I said, we’ll never know because of court enforced silence.
This is far from ecouragement to others to fight, if the end result STILL involves
paying the RIAA, ESPECIALLY if you have done NO FILE SHARING.
February 28th, 2009 at 8:03 pm
DA and Dredd:
The RIAA didn’t win anything. It kicked a helpless woman and her helpless children into submission – not the same thing at all. And in the process, it lost an unimaginable amount not only in hard cash (lawyers such as Richard Gabriel may be cheap but they don’t come cheap) and goodwill, it also turned numerous people off their masters’ products, additionally tarnished their already shitty reputation and credibility, further widened the gap between what its owners set out to achieve – capture the online music market – and what they actually did achieve – turned millions of people toward indie music and sites.
That’s not a victory, not by any flight of imagination, and no one helps by giving the RIAA credit for a ‘win’ which didn’t happen, and which it certainly doesn’t deserve.
A ‘win’ would have been a court appearance where the RIAA legitimately made its case. Instead, Patti and her children have been found guilty without their ever been before a judge and a jury because they lack the resources to defend themselves properly.
Meanwhile, brave people people will continue fighting the cartels and their extortion units because it’s the right thing to do. And every time someone does that, it’s a definite win for us, and a definite loss for them.
Cheers!
February 28th, 2009 at 8:38 pm
I’m grateful and proud of Patricia Santangelo for standing up and fighting. She is a very courageous woman who has made a difference in my life and many others. I will never forget her story and sincerely wish her and her family all the best.
February 28th, 2009 at 9:47 pm
@ Dreddsnik – “If this cost her around 5 to 10 grand to fight them, thatâs pretty damn devastating to her, while even 10 time sor more that amount is nothing but a drop in the bucket for them.”
From here http://www.p2pnet.net/story/18650 – “p2pnet readers raised more than $15,000 to help towards her legal expenses”
February 28th, 2009 at 10:27 pm
Tanya Andersen posts here?
COOL.
These two women should get together and write a book.
March 1st, 2009 at 2:10 am
/me bangs head on wall
March 1st, 2009 at 12:12 pm
” The RIAA didnât win anything. It kicked a helpless woman and her helpless children into submission – ”
Yes, I know. We all agree on that.
That was the RIAA lawyers purpose. Win, lose or Draw, their job was to make
the defendant suffer as much as possible for fighting back.
” And in the process, it lost an unimaginable amount not only in hard cash (lawyers such as Richard Gabriel may be cheap but they donât come cheap) ”
They HAVE it to blow, and their victims don’t.
The point of the suits is extortion through terror, regardless of guilt, and to
punish those that fight on a very uneven playing field.
” it also turned numerous people off their mastersâ products, additionally tarnished their already shitty reputation and credibility, further widened the gap between what its owners set out to achieve ”
They achieved, I believe, EXACTLY what they set out to.
They ran her financially into the ground for having the audacity to fight back.
As I said earlier, the ONLY credibility they care about is the lawmakers of our country.
The very easily spin any losses as a result of p2p, so driving paying customers away only
seems to lend credibility to their tale of woe, to the ONLY EARS THEY CARE ABOUT.
Lawmakers.
They could give two shits about the press, they control that.
They could care less about what their customer base thinks.
They use that to their advantage.
” A âwinâ would have been a court appearance where the RIAA legitimately made its case. ”
That depends on the REAL goal.
” Patti and her children have been found guilty without their ever been before a judge and a jury because they lack the resources to defend themselves properly. ”
THAT was the real goal all along.
And that helps to deter ….
” brave people people will continue fighting the cartels and their extortion units because itâs the right thing to do. ”
That’s their goal.
Make certain that everyone sees that right or wrong, you will PAY them.
What they are doing is evil and wrong, I don’t disagree at all, but I can’t see a secret settlement
with no public binding precedent set as anything but just what the RIAA members hope for.
Pound on you until you give in.
The ONLY way to shut them down is a binding, open ruling that gets out to the public.
March 1st, 2009 at 12:24 pm
” A âwinâ would have been a court appearance where the RIAA legitimately made its case. â
To clarify ..
The RIAA can’t make it’s case legitimately.
They know it too.
That’s why money is no object to keep away from a trial
where they may have to present eveidence.
That’s why they bury everything with motion after motion,
and any legal chicanery that will drain the defendant while getting nowhere.
They need to be DRAGGED into court and forced to present a case.
March 1st, 2009 at 12:50 pm
Hi Dredd:
” … I canât see a secret settlement with no public binding precedent …”
We don’t yet know if the settlement was secret. I didn’t say it was. I speculated, “If itâs typical of other similar cases … no details will be revealed and Pattiâs lawyer, Jordan Glass, was unable to say anything except heâs expecting to receive the final papers within the next two or three days.” So we won’t know until some time next week, from the look of it.
Meanwhile, I agree with everything you say. However, I disagree with what seems to me to be your tenor, which is: there’s nothing we can do about it until a case actually goes through the prcoess and a judge rules against the RIAA. That’d be great, but there’d still be a long, long way to go. All kinds of appeals can be made, the labels’ bought-and-paid for politicians will dirty the waters, etc, etc, Cary and Mitch will be doing their thing, and so on. We all know how it goes.
And people will still be victimised while all this happens.
In the meanwhile, though, this isn’t a localised thing. Sharing is global, so is the sue ‘em all campaign — and so is the Net, with all that implies.
Cheers!
March 1st, 2009 at 1:47 pm
“…no one helps by giving the RIAA credit for a âwinâ which didnât happen…”
Throughout this whole sham, the MAFIAA haven’t exactly been “winning”, if you weigh the results of each trial against what the charges were going in. And, YES! Every little bit of gained ground against that certainly does help future movement against this campaign. That, I believe is the crux of your argument, Jon.
However, when you look at “actual loss”, the defendents have been the only ones paying, in money, time, sanity, and various other ways unique to their own lives. You just can’t count “lawyer costs” as a loss for the MAFIAA, as this is all part of the current “business plan”. They have the money to burn, and will gladly lose it to inflict any damage. As long as the “defendents” continue to suffer, the mission is going to plan.
Now, while I said I agree with Dredd’s sentiment, and that the MAFIAA is not “losing” in reality, I didn’t say in any way that there’s no encouragement to fight the whole thing. I just meant that a “real win” can only be conceived when the courts (or Congress) starts to rule that these lawsuits are nothing more than what they are – a serious abuse of both the legal system and the American public – and begin to deny these motions any accomodation.
I do believe this will eventually happen, as long as people continue to fight it, and more people like Beckerman become involved (giving people access to resources they otherwise couldn’t afford). This is definitely a war of unbalanced resources. If it weren’t, it would have ended in a miserable failure for the MAFIAA at the start.
And, it’s not only the MAFIAA’s ability to afford the legal staff that’s a factor here. It’s the way their money has managed to embed its way into government that may be the real problem. This may be one of the places we find out if Obama’s words are worth anything. If they are, the lobbying and payoffs might stop, thereby giving the public a little more of an edge in this fight.
I didn’t say “put the champagne away”… I just said “keep the cork on it for now”.
March 1st, 2009 at 1:50 pm
“defendents” —> should be “defendants”
(can’t believe I just did that)
March 1st, 2009 at 2:12 pm
As for the settlement itself being possibly kept secret…
“Non-disclosure” certainly seems to be the fashion for almost any legal settlement, and we’ve come to expect it.
Personally, when it comes to a simple monetary agreement, I think it’s nothing short of extortion when it’s thrown in as a “condition” of settlement. Basically, it says, “if you want this settlement, you need to forfeit your legal right to talk about it, or consider suffering more damage in continuing the fight.” I could never understand why so many judges are so quick to grant this condition. It surely does nothing to further the benefit of precedent law.
If such a condition is proposed, it usually means you haven’t exactly “won”, otherwise you could “reverse the implied threat” and continue the trial and inflict more damage on them.
I ran into this same scenario when I sued a former employer.
He wanted, for whatever reasons, to make non-disclosure a part of my settlement. I said no.
After only a few minutes of deliberation, his lawyer returned the settlement offer without a condition of non-disclosure.
This was possible only because I DID “win”. I was in the driver’s seat. He was PAYING, and could have ended up paying more.
March 1st, 2009 at 3:59 pm
I honestly only “skimmed” the comments, so sorry if I reiterate something that’s already been said, but I’m kinda busy right now.
1. This notion espoused by Dredd and various others here, that the RIAA “won” because “there were casualties”?
Uh, so lemme try to wrap my mind around this:
I honestly never want to play chess with you, dude.
The RIAA may have been able to get a small fraction of what they were asking (which is doubtful in itself), but importantly, in doing so, they pissed a lot more people off, generated a whole lot of negative publicity against them (hopefully waking more people up), and you consider this a “win?”
Don’t take this the wrong way, people, but it’s just this sort of range-of-the-moment, defeated, whipped-puppy mentality that the RIAA LOVES. They LOVE the whole “we can’t stand against the rich corporate megaliths” thing, because if enough people believe it, we might all turn into the compliant little “consumers” they want us to be.
So don’t take this the wrong way (and realize I have no power over you), but if you’re THAT far gone psychologically, give up now.
Did you even BOTHER to read the thing I submitted a few days ago, with the history etc.? It’s called “perspective”, and that’s our best weapon against the MAFIAA tactics.
The RIAA thought they “won”, when they managed to kill Napster (and replaced it with their own crappy parody version). Ultimately all they did was spur the development of modern p2p technology, inspire Lawrence Lessig to come up with the “Creative commons” licenses, and generate a lot of debate about the proper role of so-called “Intellectual property” in our society.
Hell, there’s even organizations and political parties, now.
What we need is more long-term thinking. Honestly, aren’t we smart enough for that?
March 1st, 2009 at 4:10 pm
“I’m grateful and proud of Patricia Santangelo for standing up and fighting,” said Tanya Andersen, an RIAA victim who fought them to a standstill. “She is a very courageous woman who has made a difference in my life and many others. I will never forget her story and sincerely wish her and her family all the best.”
That goes for me as well.
Patti settled. Was she right? And did this represent a win for Vivendi Universal (France), Sony BMG (Japan and Germany), EMI (Britain), and Warner Music (US)? Not in my book, and not by any argument.
And to me, this is about far more than mere copyrights and payments.
As things stand, RIAA (and other **AA) victims have been completely stripped of their basic and supposedly, in the US, inalienable rights. If they were murderers or rapists, they’d have an adequate, and proper, defence, publicly funded, if need be. They’d be guaranteed their day in court, and no commercial enterprise no matter how powerfully connected or how wealthy would be able to prevent that from happening.
But in the file sharing lawsuits, people have no rights. They’re not even defendants. They’re helpess victims because for the labels, the rule of law has been suspended.
Honest and innocent men women, and even children, are routinely humiliated in the mainstream media as they’re held up as criminals and thieves without the slightest shred of proof or evidence, and without having been anywhere near a judge or jury.
Unlike killers, they have no means of defence, and no chance of acquiring it.
Is that the American way?
And it’s not even about justice. It’s about greedy executives in an industry that’s been infamous for its corruption and associations with organised crime since the 30s.
————–
It’s human nature to share and if sharing wasn’t a hard-wired component of person-to-person interaction, we’d all still be living in caves, grubbbing for worms.
Imagine how it’d be if every time someone came up with something interesting to see, hear or do, payment was expected for each and every access, or repetition?
But that’s the way the labels want it, and there’s only one way to stop them — kick them even harder where it hurts.
In their bank-accounts.
Don’t buy any more corporate crap. Nothing.
Could that happen? IMO, it’s happening already. So let’s make it happen more until they open up their catalogues, lower their wholesale prices, make ‘product’ freely and widely available.
And wait for the money to roll in.
The details, licensing, and so on, can be easily worked out once the market is open for general business.
Because if two women with no money and only their determination to stand up for their rights, and the rights of their children, can make the labels pay attention — and they ARE paying attention — you know what’ll happen if everyone with a blog, or who posts on a forum anywhere in the world, carries the message, and everyone who loves music buys only from independent musicians and sites.
Cheers! (And sorry for the length.)
March 1st, 2009 at 4:11 pm
” 1. This notion espoused by Dredd and various others here, that the RIAA âwonâ because âthere were casualtiesâ?
Exactly where did I say that ?
Quote where I said that.
” I honestly never want to play chess with you, dude. ”
You’re right, you’d lose.
Besides, what does this have to do with chess ?
They won because they achieved THEIR goals, is closer to what I said actually.
Their goal is to drain the defendents of all financial resources before the RIAA turds
can be forced to show proof of their case.
That’s what their goal has been from the start of the court cases, because the RIAA
has no proof to show, and they know it.
” Did you even BOTHER to read the thing I submitted a few days ago, ”
I probably did, though since you chose not to identify yourself, who knows ?
March 1st, 2009 at 4:31 pm
” âIâm grateful and proud of Patricia Santangelo for standing up and fighting,â said Tanya Andersen, an RIAA victim who fought them to a standstill. âShe is a very courageous woman who has made a difference in my life and many others. I will never forget her story and sincerely wish her and her family all the best.â
That goes for me as well. ”
Same, 100%
” As things stand, RIAA (and other **AA) victims have been completely stripped of their basic and supposedly, in the US, inalienable rights. If they were murderers or rapists, theyâd have an adequate, and proper, defence, publicly funded, if need be. Theyâd be guaranteed their day in court, and no commercial enterprise no matter how powerfully connected or how wealthy would be able to prevent that from happening. ”
100% true.
That’s why they use the civil court system instead of the criminal court system ( Criminal Copyright Infringement ),
The RIAA would never survive the burden of proof.
” Honest and innocent men women, and even children, are routinely humiliated in the mainstream media as theyâre held up as criminals and thieves without the slightest shred of proof or evidence, and without having been anywhere near a judge or jury.
Unlike killers, they have no means of defence, and no chance of acquiring it. ”
Exactly.
It’s a brilliant and cynical strategy.
A battle of attrition, keep it up long enough to drain the opponents
resources.
At the end, the ‘secret’ settlement keeps future victims guessing, makes
them doubt, encourages them to give up rather than fight.
” And itâs not even about justice. Itâs about greedy executives in an industry thatâs been infamous for its corruption and associations with organised crime since the 30s. ”
Agree 100%
” Is that the American way? ”
It would appear to be so.
Am I saying ‘give up’ ?
No way.
This is disappointment you’re hearing, and more than a little disgust ( at the american
legal system ), not defeatism.
“Because if two women with no money and only their determination to stand up for their rights, and the rights of their children, can make the labels pay attention â and they ARE paying attention â you know whatâll happen if everyone with a blog, or who posts on a forum anywhere in the world, carries the message, and everyone who loves music buys only from independent musicians and sites. ”
That’s all we can do for the moment anyway, as well as boycott, but
as it stands, for every one of us that knows whats really going on there are
fools out there that continue to parrot the company line, and voice their
satisfaction about corporate ‘rental’ sites, and continue to fuel the Greed Engine.
Maybe we can bring THOSE numbers down.
March 1st, 2009 at 5:16 pm
@RW…
“I honestly only âskimmedâ the comments…”
(Not a good idea if you’re gonna make counter-comments.)
: )
_________________
“This notion espoused by Dredd and various others here, that the RIAA âwonâ because ‘there were casualties’?…”
The question mark is there, I gather, because you’re *asking* if this is what someone meant.
No, this is not what I or Dredd meant, and you have misquoted us both.
We’re simply saying there is no actual “victory” over the MAFIAA, when damages are still being awarded, and innocents can still be raked through the process contrary to existing laws that are supposed to prevent that. Patti Santangelo wouldn’t be in the middle of a “settlement”, if she weren’t still paying damages.
_________________
“I honestly never want to play chess with you, dude.”
Not that I see what this might have to do with anything, but… no, you wouldn’t.
I’ve already beaten a few grandmasters in my time.
_________________
The rest of your comments obviously reflect how quickly you did “skim” the content on this page, as you prematurely resorted to applying a few very nasty and inappropriate labels to some of us.
I’d say most of us are on the same page.
1) We’re all proud of Patti and Tanya, and all the rest who chose to fight this thing, despite the tremendous obstacles they knew they’d have to climb.
2) We all think the fight SHOULD be fought.
3) We all believe the MAFIAA will eventually lose (note the lack of quotes) for real.
I think the difference between some of us is simply in the way we perceive what actually constitutes a “win” (note the quotes) in this regard.
RW, I would thank you not to bother commenting in the future on something you never bothered to properly read in the first place, if it’s going to cause you to hurl abusive remarks at those that didn’t earn them.
March 1st, 2009 at 5:20 pm
” Not that I see what this might have to do with anything, but⦠no, you wouldnât.
Iâve already beaten a few grandmasters in my time. ”
You, i’d LIKE to play chess with
March 1st, 2009 at 5:26 pm
“You, iâd LIKE to play chess with.”
(That’s what they ALL say… in the beginning!)
: P
March 2nd, 2009 at 3:23 am
Way to fail my (inadvertent) test
Yes, the “reader’s write” was me.
To clarify:
1. You all should know this already, but Chess is about strategy and being able to think several moves “ahead”. So is fighting corporate corruption, and the perversion of law. Sorry, but saying “we believe the fight SHOULD be fought”, while claiming that “there IS no fighting the RIAA” because they still managed to salvage a small fraction of what they were originally going for — that’s just short-sighted in the extreme.
Quite frankly, I’m also a bit dismayed that none of you seemed to be able to understand a relatively simple “figure of speech”.
Jon? Back me up on this: was “chess” a good metaphor for “long-term strategic thinking” or not?
Leaving that aside, how anybody can claim that the RIAA “got exactly what they wanted” is beyond me — unless you think maybe they actually “want” all the bad publicity etc.
Also, how exactly is it “abusive” to ask people to clarify what they’re about? From what I could gather (and yes, Dred, this does go specifically to you), whatever you were trying to express (disgust?) DID come off as defeatism — as does everything said about the masses “parroting the company line” or however it was worded.
Now, lemme try this AGAIN (and pardon me ever so much if you think any of this is “abusive”):
1. Millions of p2p users. At most, a few hundred thousand suits (don’t have the exact number handy, but it’s actually a vanishingly-small percentage). The average amount of “settlement” is what, a few thousand dollars? The RIAA’s campaign hasn’t worked, and can’t work, simply because it’s logistically impossible for them to sue every p2p user planetwide. That’s why they are frantically scrabbling to get their cronies in various governments to “make it easier”.
2. “They’ve destroyed people’s lives”: perhaps — but in the process, they’ve also generated a hell of a lot of bad publicity for their tactics, stirred up a steadily-increasing amount of resistance, spawned the entire “free culture” movement, etc.
Now — pay very close attention here, because this is where the infamous — and oh so very misunderstood — chess comparison comes in:
I’ve played chess a fair bit (I suck at it), but I’ve played.
And one of the interesting things about chess is the role played by strategy: it’s often possible to predict with a fair bit of certainty, if your opponent has lost, several moves beforehand.
THIS is why I (and presumably Jon as well) don’t consider this any kind of “win” for the RIAA: when you can mangage to look past the individual minutae, a pattern emerges — which is EXACTLY what I tried to explain with my last submission, with the history lesson.
(Funny, but I thought people actually “got” what I was trying to say.)
My point wasn’t about “defeatism”, except in as much as failing to take the “long view” could lead one to — erroneously — conclude that the corporate weasels are succeeding, which is clearly not the case:
Oh wait, I guess Warner “wins” when they pull a mess of videos off of youtube, and they’re mostly all back within a few days.
Seriously, people, I’d never knowingly “abuse” any of you (except “Sam” of course, but then again, the guy just begs for it!)
(I also didn’t realize that when I posted, it had put me as “readers write”. Not trying to engage in “sock-puppetry”, purely accidental — but really informative nonetheless.)
So Dred & everybody else: please tell me what you thought was “abusive” towards you?
(Or do you only enjoy watching me shred “Sam”?)
I’m going to bed — hope I cleared some stuff up, there.
March 2nd, 2009 at 5:06 am
“At the end, the âsecretâ settlement keeps future victims guessing, makes
them doubt, encourages them to give up rather than fight.”
Suuuure it does. And “Sam I Am” is also exactly right that p2p/copyfight is really just about a tiny minority of “greedy” teens who don’t want to pay for stuff. Feel free to believe I’m “abusing” you over this, but the above statement indicates to me, that you can’t (or won’t?) bother to connect the dots, and see the overall pattern.
What DOES make people “doubt, and encourage them to give up rather than fight” is stuff like the above.
You’re giving the RIAA WAY too much credit. They’ve been able to wrangle a tiny fraction of what they asked for, failed to get even a fraction of the cases to court at all, and p2p usage continues to grow by leaps and bounds.
And as far as the corporate weasels having “bottomless finances”? One word: Layoffs.
Oh, but wait, they’ve managed to kill a vanishingly small number of sites and applications — while generating vast amounts of bad press, AND encouraging the development of more (and better) p2p applications.
OUR side isn’t without resources, y’know:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MediaDefender
Reading your posts here and on boycott-riaa.com, it’s almost as if you WANT all of this to look like some kind of insurmountable, quixotic struggle against unbeatable opponents. Now, maybe I’m misreading your motivation here, but spreading FUD (Fear, Uncertainty, and Doubt), is a pretty peculiar way to “fight the fight”.
Oh, and yes: claiming this to be a “win” for the RIAA DOES spit in the face of Patti Santangelo, whatever your intention. Claiming you “support” her, while essentially stating that what she did is capitulation — just shameful, whatever you intended.
THAT was why I said that if you view the “other side” as “too powerful”, then you should just give up now.
Or am I misunderstanding you, here?
“Because if two women with no money and only their determination to stand up for their rights, and the rights of their children, can make the labels pay attention â and they ARE paying attention â you know whatâll happen if everyone with a blog, or who posts on a forum anywhere in the world, carries the message, and everyone who loves music buys only from independent musicians and sites.”
The thing of it is, Jon — as you know: it’s way more than “two women with no money”: it’s a huge — and growing — movement that cuts across a whole bunch of issues, and, like you said “sharing is global, and so is the net, with all that implies”.
Taken together, OUR side has infinitely more “resources” that then Corporate Megaliths:
I’m sure glad there are SOME people — like TPB, Jon Newton, everybody who was involved with “Grey Tuesday”, etc. — who DON’T believe the multinational corporate behemoths are “too powerful.”
Sorry if any of you think calling defeatism what it is, is “abusive.”
March 2nd, 2009 at 11:21 am
” So Dred & everybody else: please tell me what you thought was âabusiveâ towards you? ”
Donât take this the wrong way, people, but itâs just this sort of range-of-the-moment, defeated, whipped-puppy mentality that the RIAA LOVES.
So donât take this the wrong way (and realize I have no power over you), but if youâre THAT far gone psychologically, give up now.
Insults, for insults sake never bring anyone to your point of view .. they usually harden the reader against your
viewpoint. You of all people should realise that by now.
How many posters that hurled insults at you did YOU give credibility to ?
‘ 1. You all should know this already, but Chess is about strategy”
correct , let me explain again, since you didn’t READ my post either ..
” Leaving that aside, how anybody can claim that the RIAA âgot exactly what they wantedâ is beyond me â unless you think maybe they actually âwantâ all the bad publicity etc. ”
Like I ALREADY posted.
THEY DON’T CARE about bad press.
They have repeatedly shown contempt for their customer base, and openly.
They are aware that losing sales now, at this point in time , actually SERVES
there purpose, and makes it very easy to sell our government ( which at
this time would love a reason to control the internet anyway ) on the idea
that P2P is ‘devastating’ them. The more customers leave them the easier
it is to ‘prove’ filesharing hurts them. So, why SHOULD they care ?
If they get the laws they want then ( in their mind ) they will be the only
game in town anyway. Problem with that is the lables are run by a bunch of
old fucks that don’t understand tech. The strategy will ultimately fail them, but
that’s why bad PR doesn’t frighten them. I already said that.
” (Funny, but I thought people actually âgotâ what I was trying to say.) ”
I did, I just don’t agree with you.
That doesn’t make me stupid, mentally defective or any other insulting thing
you want to aim at me, Henry, it just means that I see the situation differently.
” Oh wait, I guess Warner âwinsâ when they pull a mess of videos off of youtube, and theyâre mostly all back within a few days. ”
Apples to oranges Henry. No one mentioned THAT kind of stupidity at all. It’s in a class all by itself.
If YOU had tried to understand my post, you might see that just because I see that as the RIAA’s strategy, doesn’t
mean that I believe it will survive in the long run
” Reading your posts here and on boycott-riaa.com, itâs almost as if you WANT all of this to look like some kind of insurmountable, quixotic struggle against unbeatable opponents. ”
Find me the quotes I made that say this henry. Show me where I indicate I WANT this to be insurmountable ?
” Oh, and yes: claiming this to be a âwinâ for the RIAA DOES spit in the face of Patti Santangelo, whatever your intention. Claiming you âsupportâ her, while essentially stating that what she did is capitulation â just shameful, whatever you intended.”
Show me where I claimed she capitulated ?
Show me where I ‘spit’ in her face henry .
Show me where I said any of those things.
I saw another poster say something along those lines, and vejemently disagreed with him.
It’s this generalization, and misquoting.
It’s almost like deliberately trying to paint all of us with the same brush, without even trying to see what
point Iam trying to make.
You’re trying to turn this into an argument, when we ARe in fact on the same side, we DO think ultimately
the RIAA will fail.
The RIAA legal strategy is short-term thinking. Ididn’t say it would work in the long run, I just
pointed out why in their eyes it would be a victory.
And yes, you are being abusive, you don’t have to agree with me, or others, but trying to paint
me or others as somehow ‘less’ because we don’t see the fine points of this the same isn’t
productive.
March 2nd, 2009 at 11:31 am
It’s about time for this to stop, Henry.
We’re on the same damn side and see things differently.
If you want to turn this into a ‘punch Dredd around’ thread so be it.
It’s not going to make me think any differently.
It’s certainly not going to make the RIAA change their ways.
So go ahead, call me more names, slyly ‘hint’ that I am stupid and
somehow WANT the RIAA to win. I don’t really care, since I THOUGHT
I made it pretty clear that I think we will wnd up on top in the long run,
and was speaking out of frustration at our legal system, which the
RIAA is using exactly as the wanted to.
Go ahead, search through the net and pull every quote you can find
and take it out of context to ‘prove’ I am a stupid defeatist. but think about this ….
” Taken together, OUR side has infinitely more âresourcesâ that then Corporate Megaliths: ”
This is fact, but only if we don’t rip each other to the point where we won’t pool our
resources, and stick together.
Punching each other around for fun won’t make that happen.
March 2nd, 2009 at 6:40 pm
Dred:
I’m gonna try to be nice about this, but let’s think about this:
1. If the RIAA’s strategy was “working”, they wouldn’t be able to “use the declining sales figures to sell our government” on new regs, now would they? And, lest we forget facts here, the RIAA and their affiliate organizations like IFPI haven’t exactly done a bang-up job with the leglslative tool-set they have at their disposal NOW, have they? (yeah, I’m probably “insulting” you agan somehow, my bad.)
2. How is my Youtube example “apples and oranges?” To my way of thinking, it’s exactly the same thing. THEY attempt to get a bunch of stuff taken down, and it is rapidly replaced within days at most. Now think about this, Dred: Youtube isn’t even p2p — it’s a centralized system, and even on a centralized setup like Youtube, they can’t manage to “enforce” their desires in any lasting sense of the term.
3. “The RIAA doesn’t CARE about bad press”: Forgive me if I call bullshit on that one, Dred. The RIAA and their allied companies are ALL about image, or they wouldn’t spend so much time, effort, and money (amidst layoffs and strained resources on their side, I might add), to portray themselves in a favorable light.
It’s called “Spin-doctoring”, and it’s actually critical to their “business model.”
4. I love this next part: “Quote where I ever said that”, one minute, and “So are you going to scour the net for everything I ever said” the next. That’s amazing. You never heard of “implications”, Dred?
And no, I don’t think you’re “mentally defective” or whatever you want to believe. Oh, for sure we “disagree” on this one — I’m right, and you’re wrong. (grin)
Seriously, Dredd — if you’d actually read anything I’ve posted here over the last several months, you’d also realize that it’s ultimately NOT merely about the “legal system” of any one nation. As Jon said, “sharing is global, and so is the net, with all that implies.”
Now, as to the “chess” comparison:
Read back over the responses to “Readers write” (who was, accidentally, me), and please note the repetitions to the effect of “I fail to see hwo that has to do with anything”. I had used what I thought was a fairly straightforward figure of speech. Your response was to claim that it was non-sequitur (“What does that have to do with anything”), while simultaneously making grandiose claims about your own prowess at the game in question.
Thus — and forgive me if this sounds “insulting” — I’m left wondering how a self-proclaimed chess-master (“played many grand-masters”) can so utterly and completely fail to understand a simple turn of phrase. This would be like Werner Von Braun failing to “get” the statement “This isn’t rocket science”. (Hint: they guy was a rocket-scientist!”)
So no, I’m not trying to “bash” you. I — like Jon, I might add — called you out for giving the RIAA way too much credit.
My point — and it still stands — is that if you REALLY think the opposition is THAT powerful, resource-rich, disinterested in bad publicity, AND you see this as a “national” thing (“Our legal system!”) — then you’re completely and utterly wrong.
Don’t worry: I was wrong. I used to be an RIAA fanboy. Go back and read the posts.
March 4th, 2009 at 2:50 pm
@Henry…
“Iâm left wondering how a self-proclaimed chess-master (âplayed many grand-mastersâ) can so utterly and completely fail to understand a simple turn of phrase…”
(Since I was the one who said it…)
1) I stated, simply, that I have beaten a few grand masters in my time.
That was just a fact. There was no “self-proclamation” attached to it.
(Bad assumption #1)
2) Who says I failed to understand your purpose in referring to chess?
Did it ever occur to you I was returning the favour by expanding upon it?!
(Bad assumption #2)
Bottom line = The “chess analogy”, in this case, really wasn’t a good one, anyway.
I don’t get it, Henry…
You’ve made some pretty well-written posts, stuffed with so much realism. I actually breathed a little easier after reading a number of them, thinking, “someone else out there has a functioning brain!”. Yet, you come into the Comments flamin’ away at people who are, for the most part, on your side. Yeah, perceptual differences are going to exist, but that’s what Comments are for – *discussing* “viewpoints”!!
(Here’s Bad Assumption #3, and I’m taking 250 points off your score for this one…) : )
Just because someone pays acknowledgement to some of the bitter realities or obstacles in a situation, doesn’t mean they’re preaching defeatism. I’m certainly not doing that, and I really don’t interpret that from Dredd either.
“Can’t we all, just get along??!”