p2pnet news view Kids & Kartels | RIAA | P2P:- “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.”

The words are Tanya Andersen’s, an ordinary single mother who took on the RIAA on and won.

They came in a p2pnet Reader’s Write following the news that the RIAA case against New York mother Patti Santangelo and Michelle and Bobby7, two of her five children, was drawing to an end.

As the Associated Press once put it on behalf of the corporate music industry,  “Lawyers have reached a tentative settlement in a music piracy lawsuit filed by the recording industry against the children of one of its best-known opponents, both sides said Friday Feb. 27, 2009. Once the settlement is finalized, it would end a long battle between the industry and the family of Patti Santangelo, who was sued in 2005 for pirating music through file-sharing computer networks.”

“… sued in 2005 for pirating music through file-sharing computer networks”.

This implies the multi-billion-dollar corporate music industry had successfully prosecuted Patti, whom they accused of being a massive distributor of online music.

However, the only thing they’ve been successful in has been the persecution, not prosecution, of Patti and her family.

Because she hadn’t ‘pirated’ anything. Nor had Michelle or Patti.

But years of continuous, grinding pressure from RIAA lawyers,  and non-stop public humiliation on the part of the mainstream media, using information supplied by the RIAA, wore the family down and now, in Elektra Entertainment Group v. Santangelo II, the case against two of Patti Santangelo’s children, April 7 has been slated for a  settlement conference, says Recording Industry vs The People. [Order scheduling settlement conference].

Kids – breaking the law on a large scale

Bobby was only 12 and Michelle, 16, when the RIAA first went after them via their mother.

Briana LaHara , one of the first Big 4 child victims, was 12.

And Tanya Andersen’s daughter, Kylee, was only 10-years-old when she first heard from the RIAA.

“It is not our intention to target children,”  Big 4 front man Peter Jamieson (top right) once declared disingenuously.

“But [we will] if they are breaking the law on a very large scale.”

Children?

Breaking the law on a large scale?

And to the extent a vast, international, multi-billion-dollar industry, is “forced” to go after them, terrorising them?

Jamieson works for the BPI (British Phonographic Industry), one of the many alphabet shill outfits owned by the Big 4, “and running from different countries around the world under the IFPI (International Federation of Phonographic Industry), an umbrella outfit, with the RIAA (Recording Industry Association of America) as the only ‘associate’ member,” said a p2pnet story, going on:

“But although the Big 4 want primarily to get at the consumers of the future, your children, they’re not forgetting you, their parents.

“You are, after all, the means by which they get to your kids.”

Discovery schedule

When almost two years ago the Big 4′s RIAA abandoned its case against Patti, turning its full attention on Michelle and Bobby, accusing them of the same phony charges they’d levelled at Patti but failed to prove, they’d agreed a discovery schedule with the Santangelo’s pro bono lawyer, Jordan Glass.

It was slated to be wound up in September, 2007, but out of the blue, the RIAA suddenly demanded a default judgment, said Recording Industry vs The People.

Having already agreed a detailed list of discovery dates, it was hard to believe the RIAA would do a total reversal and demand an immediate ruling be made.

Sharp practice or a mistake? You know the answer.

But it didn’t happen.

Patti had the temerity to stand up to the RIAA and its legions of highly pad legal hit men, all ultimately working for Vivendi Universal, EMI, Warner Music and Sony Music.

The RIAA knew from Day One there was absolutely no merit to any of their  allegations, but they went on anyway, putting Patti and her children through years of needless anguish.

And they still did everything they could to force the Santangelos to confess to the non-existent crime of filesharing.

Third party action against Sharman Networks’ Kazaa

Patti did her damnedest to have a trial by jury to, “force the RIAA out into the light where it’ll have to justify its allegations in full view of the public, something it’s strenuously trying to avoid,” I said two years ago, going on to quote Recording Industry vs The People as saying the RIAA filed to have her application to include Kazaa and AOL as third party defendants quashed.

I posted »»»

” … Michelle launched a third party action against Sharman Networks’ Kazaa, the p2p file sharing software implicated in the vast majority of the RIAA sue ‘em all cases and which is itself the subject of a class action.

Michell also named former family friend Matthew Seckler, and AOL.

Says her court document:

Kazaa operates in the background of one’s computer, seizing information and bandwidth unknown to the user or owner, recklessly disregarding copyright laws and ensnaring unsuspecting users into unintended sharing (as well as creating entire classes of unknowing violators – the parents, for allowing the ‘illegal’ activity to take place not just in the ‘North 40? of their hard drive, but ‘underground’ because Kazaa’s activity is automatically buried so as to avoid detection; and, the children – such as Defendants herein, who, in listening to their own, rightly-purchased CD’s unknowingly become distributing pirates).

Kazaa also blocked the RIAA’s alleged warning notices to unsuspecting users.

Seckler, “loaded the offending program (Kazaa) onto the Santangelo computer without permission” and, “was a trespasser or violator of any conceivable license he might have claimed,” say Santangelo and her lawyer, Jordan Glass.

AOL, meanwhile, “had the opportunity to filter out this material and, in particular, because it is intertwined with Time-Warner, an entertainment behemoth: AOL knew of the industry’s concerns and had already provided certain filters and parental controls (‘Controls’) but did not allow the RIAA’s alleged warning messages to pass through such filters”.

It also, “failed to use its Controls to prevent illegal downloading, even though it had the information, superior knowledge, ability, skill, techniques, tools, power and authority to prevent such downloading”.

“Through extensive investigation and litigation in a suit fraud against Patricia Santangelo, Plaintiffs were able to determine the defendants, Patricia Santangelo’s children, were direct infringers with respect to the 1,322 audiophiles being distributed from defendants computer,” claims the RIAA in a 19-page court document.

In the file sharing lawsuits, people have no rights

Now it’s nearly over.

At the start of this, I quoted Tanya Andersen as saying Patti’s fight had encouraged her.

“She is a very courageous woman who has made a difference in my life and many others,” she said. “I will never forget her story and sincerely wish her and her family all the best.

“That goes for me as well,” I said in a comment post, adding »»»

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.

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, I added.

But don’t just leave it there. Tell your friends and tell them to tell their friends, on- and offline.

Start your own blog. Comment on Facebook and Twitter and MySpace ands Bebo. And everywhere.

They depend on us not only to buy corporate ‘product,’  we’re also supporting them in every imaginable area as their computer sys ops and admins, their accountants, secretaries, PAs, and so on.

And they’re not only suing us, they’re suing our brothers, sisters, our aunts and uncles, our parents and friends.

Think about it.

Cheers! And all the best …”

Jon Newton - p2pnet

March, 2009

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This entry was posted on Saturday, March 28th, 2009 at 11:53 am and is filed under Kids and Kartels, P2P, RIAA News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.

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