RIAA: beginning of the end
p2pnet.net News Feature:- Will a win for Patricia Santangelo mean a flood of lawsuits against the Big Four record label cartel?
“I don’t believe the courts need more litigation cluttering up their already overcrowded dockets,” Ray Beckerman, the lawyer acting for Santangelo, a victim in the cartel’s sue ‘em all campaign, told p2pnet.
With five children aged between six and 19, Santangelo, 42, is refusing to be cowed by the labels and, “I’m hopeful that the dismissal of the complaint, and the court’s award of attorneys fees and possibly sanctions, will deter the RIAA and its attorneys from bringing any more frivolous litigations, and will encourage them to withdraw the many other frivolous litigations they have already commenced,” says Beckerman.
But if RIAA (Recording Industry Association of America) president Cary Sherman is to be believed, the Big Four music cartel is hoping for the exact opposite. “The message of the Supreme Court’s recent Grokster ruling is clear: both the businesses that encourage theft and the individuals who download songs without permission can be held accountable,” digital music news has him saying.
Sherman’s calculated disinformation statement comes together with news that the Big Four are continuing their customer persecution marketing campaign by suing another 754 kids, uncles, aunts, cousins, wives, grandmothers, grandparents, brothers, sisters, and no doubt his remark will be picked up by the mainscream media who’ll repeat it as though it comes from a credible source.
However, “The ongoing lawsuits appear to be having mixed results,” says digital music news. “The total number of individual lawsuits now stands at about 14,000 since September, 2003 – an insignificant portion of overall file-sharers, but enough to create a broad awareness level. Regardless, P2P usage continues to increase month after month, and the RIAA is currently dealing with thousands of slow-paying or deadbeat lawsuit recipients.
A ‘reasonable factual inquiry’
“Meanwhile, the RIAA may see a direct challenge ahead, with single mother Patricia Santangelo now mounting a defense against the group. That would represent the first time the association has gone to trial against an accused swapper, and could result in an unfavorable precedent.”
It could indeed.
“Under the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure a lawyer is not permitted to sign a complaint unless he’s conducted a reasonable factual inquiry establishing that his client has a case,” says Beckerman. “The RIAA should not be commencing suits against anyone unless it has evidence that the person being sued engaged in unlawful copying of copyrighted material. In all of the cases on which I’ve been consulted, the RIAA had no evidence at all of any copyright infringement, and had no business bringing suits.”
Beckerman says he believes the key to stopping the RIAA’s “nefarious practices” is for courts to award attorneys fees and sanctions. “If the judges punish the RIAA for bringing these frivolous cases, and punish or threaten to punish its lawyers for aiding and abetting the RIAA in this abhorrent tactic, I am sure the cases will go away,” he says.
“Eventually no lawyer will touch the cases, and the RIAA will have no recourse but to stop.”
We asked Beckerman if a decision for Santangelo might open the gates for a massive class action and a flood of lawsuits against the RIAA.
“I wouldn’t be surprised to see a class action on behalf of the defendants and putative defendants,” he said. “But class actions aren’t ‘massive’. They’re actually a way of streamlining. A class action here would turn 14,000 litigations into one. I don’t expect a flood of lawsuits against the RIAA. Most people would rather never think of the RIAA again.
“Once the public becomes aware that the ‘emperor has no clothes’ and that the RIAA doesn’t have a case against them, the bullying tactics of the ‘Settlement Information Center’ in Washington will be a thing of the past. And if those deceptive tactics continue anyway, then I think you might get some lawsuits to shut that operation down, as it so richly deserves to be shut down.”
RIAA black operation
By ‘Settlement Information Center,” Beckerman is referring to the black operation run by the RIAA under which victims are scammed into ‘settling’ out of court. Or face Big Music’s lawyers.
“For me, the experience of settling with the RIAA was almost painless – except for the thousands I agreed to pay,” said a victim, quoted in the Village Voice.
“Dragging my ‘shared’ folder to the trash icon, promising not to download anymore, and acknowledging that illegal downloading is wrongful were easy enough. I happened to know an intellectual-property lawyer who agreed to handle the negotiations pro bono. He was the one who called the RIAA settlement center number and spoke not to a lawyer, but to a staffer empowered and trained to negotiate. ‘It feels like they’re doing a volume business,’ my lawyer told me.”
And they are
No one knows how many millions the Big Four record label cartel has scammed through ‘settlement center’ deals. But one thing is for sure. Not a penny of it has reached the contracted artists the labels purport to represent.
Here’s how it works.
Santangelo, who says neither she nor any of her children had anything to do with the Kazaa p2p application that was on her computer, first heard from the RIAA button men in February. They suggested the smartest thing she could do would be to contact the RIAA’s custom-built Settlement Service Center in Seattle, Washington.
And around the same time, a reporter on the Daily Texan at the The University of Texas at Austin, decided he’d pose as an RIAA victim.
We published his full report here, but for a blow-by-blow account of his talk with the ’settlement officer’ (what a laugh), read on >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Selling settlements
By Andrew Tran – Daily Texan
I found myself talking to a representative for The Settlement Service Center in Seattle, a business that conducts settlement negotiations with individuals who have been sued. I pretended to be a distressed student who just received a letter from Time Warner. I asked the man what the documents meant.
“There has been a John Doe lawsuit filed against your IP address. The letter you have received from Time Warner is an indication to you that the law firm of Mitchell, Silberberg, and Knupp in Los Angeles, attorneys for the record company, is seeking the personal information associated with that IP address.”
I asked him what that meant.
“Time Warner will turn that info over to the law firm in a matter of days, and the letter is your opportunity to appear in court, if you wish to argue why or why not that information should be leaked. Nobody has won that argument, yet,” he added.
Recalling what Sarwal said, I told him that it couldn’t possibly have been me, that it was probably my roommates.
“If this is a roommate situation, you are still the one singled out, because you are the account holder for the Internet connection. You are responsible for activity on that account.”
I told him that wasn’t very fair.
“You should settle with us and dispose of the situation, sir. If your roommates were the ones who actually did the downloading, and you never partook in downloading or listening to music or what not, you might be able to approach them and say, ‘we have a problem, help me out here.’ But at this point in time you will be the one who will remain on the subpoena.”
He didn’t mention that this was a fact I could bring up in court. He was trying to sell me on settling.
“And the roommates. We don’t have any information pertaining to them, and they will not be pursued at this time,” he said ominously.
I asked him if my credit would be affected. Would I be reported to any agencies?
“Not at this time; you are a John Doe. If the situation moves forward where I am not able to negotiate a settlement with you, it will go into a named situation, where you will be named in a federal lawsuit.”
My shoulders felt heavier, and I felt my heart beat, panicked, even though I was just pretending to be sued.
This would really, really suck in real life.
“You will be served with a complaint and a summons to appear in court, and by that time your name will be public knowledge to all those people interested in who’s being sued by whom.”
Was he implicating the media, or was I just feeling guilty?
“It won’t affect your credit at this point,” he continued. “But if you are named in a federal lawsuit, it could also affect your job opportunities, because on employment applications, many times they will ask, ‘have you ever been party to a lawsuit?’
“And you would have to check ‘yes’ at that time, because that would be public knowledge,” he said.
I thanked him for his time and said farewell, but not before he again assured me that I should settle.
If you’re reading this, Evelyn, I can see why you didn’t call me back. Having to put up with the RIAA’s scare tactics to extort money from you, dealing with filed lawsuits intended to extract financial settlements, I can see why you’d want to put this whole ordeal behind you.
Or maybe it was my breath.
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Jon Newton
If there’s something you think we should know, tips[at]p2pnet.net
See:-
Patricia Santangelo – New York mom battles Big Music, August 15, 2005
acting for – Mother of 5 takes on Big Music, August 28, 2005
digital music news – RIAA Issues New Round of Lawsuits, 754 In Latest Sweep, September 1, 2005
customer persecution – Big Music cartel sues 754, September 1, 2005
‘settling’ out of court – File sharing, p2p criminals, March 12, 2005
Village Voice – Meet John Doe, March 7, 2005
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First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win – Mohandas Gandhi
September 1st, 2005 at 8:16 pm
People haven’t said this explicity yet, but it is nevertheless the underlying force. One of the main reasons “box office”, “dvd”, and “cd” sales have been depressed is not only due to poor quality. Because if that was the situation, then these sales would have been lower in the past as well, since they suck then as they do now.
The reason you see, is that people were ‘understanding’ in the past. Sure, the music may suck, the movies may be lame, and the ‘originality’ totally missing — But, people said to themselves:
“Hey, it’s alright. It’s difficult to produce XXXX, and do XXXX with only limited XXXX.”
But, then people’s attitudes started to change. You see, people saw in the artists, musicians, performers something in them. People identified with other people working hard to make something worthwhile.
But, it is no longer the case. With all of these frivalous lawsuites, the PEOPLE have become the object of persecution. They, the people who supported the industry all these decades — who put up with crap because they understand it is not easy to make crap, these people are being attacked.
So it is only natural that they no longer make excuses for the RIAA / MPAA.
It is now: “If you are going to sue us at every turn of the corner — we’ll going to be EXPECTING you to produce QUALITY material.”
And this is something the RIAA / MPAA have ALWAYS been unable to do (bar a few good quality work)….
…. And this is what is scaring the RIAA / MPAA. They should have learned that it is a two-way street. Treat others how you yourself want to be treated…
September 1st, 2005 at 9:15 pm
we will just have to wait and see
September 1st, 2005 at 9:17 pm
It is not celebrating – it is saying the time are changing at last
September 1st, 2005 at 11:01 pm
Should this go to court all of the methods the RIAA will become public. It will be VERRRY interesting.
September 2nd, 2005 at 5:21 am
What will we see????? That these (Riaa) assclowns got nothing no proof just a lot of hot air and bullying AND I hope the judge kicks their ass for all the BS that they have put these poor people though!!! Go get them Ray!!!!!!!
September 2nd, 2005 at 8:50 am
maybe, if this case gets a lot more lamestream media coberage, te riaa might back down on her.
but they’re not going to forget about the other pending lawsuits.
what might happen is that King George will have more legislation pushed through to help the cartels. he recently created the position of “coordinator for international intellectual property enforcement” (”Piracy Czar” Chris Israel) as part of the Dept. of Commerce, a cabinet-level position “which will focus entirely on coordinating and leveraging the resources within the federal government to protect U.S. intellectual property at home and abroad.”
what that means is more and more illegal search and seizures, blackmailing and using foreign and domestic police forces to arrest innocent people.
Among Israel’s duties will be coordinating work previously done by different federal agencies, such as the Justice Dept.’s IP crime section and the international focus of the National Intellectual Property Law Enforcement Coordination Council, which is part of the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office.
and when Israel starts arresting people overseas, hopefully the “S” will hit the fan and people and courts and govts of the world will wake up to the terrorizing tactics of thge PSA. but not before King George enacts more ridiculous laws and the Governator becomes the next puppet head of state.
September 2nd, 2005 at 9:29 am
I pulled this (quite funny exchange) from slashdot.org. Mr Maschio is the RIAA lawyer.
MR. MASCHIO:
I’ll give her my card, but our instructions are for these people to deal with the conference settlement center. They had discussions.
THE COURT: I’m sorry. Your instructions from me, the Judge –
MR. MASCHIO: Okay.
THE COURT: — are that, if she appears with a lawyer, her lawyer will deal with you.
MR. MASCHIO: Oh, absolutely, your Honor.
THE COURT: Otherwise, you take your action and you file it in front of an arbitrator.
MR. MASCHIO: No, all I was suggesting, your Honor, is that, if she doesn’t come with an attorney, that the more direct way of doing this — and this is just to facilitate things — is to deal directly with the conference center.
THE COURT: Not once you’ve filed an action in my court.
MR. MASCHIO: Okay.
THE COURT: You file an action in my court, your conference center is out of it. They have nothing to do with anything.
MR. MASCHIO: Okay. I’ll give her my card.
THE COURT: If you are here, you are here as an officer of the court. You’re taking up my time and cluttering up my calendar, so you will do it in the context of the Court. Maybe it will be with a magistrate judge, but you will be representing your client, not some conference center. And if your people want things to be done through the conference center, tell them not to bring lawsuits.
Someone stands up to them and all of a sudden it’s “Oh no, we’d like them to just cough up the money”.
Nice work from the judge!
September 2nd, 2005 at 1:52 pm
September 2nd, 2005 at 5:11 pm
Using the U.S. mail for fraud is a federal crime.
Is RIAA using the mail for their acusations of infringement and lawsuit threats”? If the answer is yes, under the described scheme, if they cannot prove that the sued or intimidated party actually ifringed copyrights, and the mail was used, a federal crime (extortion) may have been comitted.
September 3rd, 2005 at 12:18 am
Things are looking better now than they were a year ago when the Santangelo case is considered. The two-year anniversary of the lawsuits is on September 8th.
September 3rd, 2005 at 1:35 am
And let’s not forget the RICO statute on top of that because the RIAA by it’s very nature it’s institutionalized collusion among the Big 4 Music conglomerates.
September 4th, 2005 at 1:05 pm
If, as indicated in this thread, RIAA is comitting mail fraud, are the lawyers involved also criminal, or will they as usual, come out as if they did nothing, nothing. Will the lawyer prosecutors and the lawyer judges look the other way? Probably.