p2p news / p2pnet: With Christmas only six days away, the Big Four Organized Music labels are bent on using children to continue their bizarre attack on people they allege have shared files online.

New York mother Patti Santangelo is defying the OM members Warner Music, Sony BMG, Vivendi Universal and EMI as they attempt to use their RIAA (Recording Industry Association of America) to extort money from her, claiming she improperly downloaded copyrighted songs from the p2p networks.

She failed in her bid to have the case dismissed and, determined to stick to her stance that she’s done nothing wrong, is now standing alone and without legal counsel against the multi-billion-dollar Organized Music family and its high-priced lawyers such as Shook, Hardy Bacon, the firm which made its bones working for the tobacco industry when it tried to say smoking isn’t potentially lethal.

Santangelo is due to attend a December 22 ‘In Person’ conference before judge Mark D. Fox in Elektra v Santangelo, or, Patti versus the Elektra Entertainment Group, Virgin Record America, UMG Recordings, BMG Music and Sony BMG.

And looming over her children, Michelle, 19, Nicole, 17, Bobby, 15, Jack, 10, Ryan, 7, all of whom live at home, is the RIAA.

Why are they threatened? They have a lot of friends, all of whom were in and out of the Santangelo house when the file sharing was said to have occurred. And any one of them could have installed the Kazaa p2p application the labels say was used to download their tunes onto the computer Patti’s children played with.

Santangelo told us she herself doesn’t have a clue about Kazaa, how to use it or how it got to be in the computer in the first place.

Now the chances are Organized Music will attempt to pillory one or all of the five in the same way that they’re currently trying to get at Candy Chan, another RIAA victim, through her schoolgirl daughter, Britanny. Nor are the Chans or Santangelos alone.

On Friday a pre-conference conference, so to speak, was held before Judge Maureen McMahon, who’d dismissed the earlier appeal.

Part was in camera – that’s to say behind closed doors – but part was in public and present as an observer was Ray Beckerman, the New York lawyer who, until recently, represented Santangelo.

“At the open part, Timothy Congrove of Shook Hardy Bacon appeared by telephone, and Jason Sanders of Cowan Liebowitz appeared in person,” Beckerman told p2pnet. “Mr Congrove acted as the spokesman for the plaintiffs.

“During that part of the conference various procedural and substantive matters were discussed about the management and scheduling of the case, and about whether summary judgment would be appropriate, and whether and what kind of discovery would be needed.

“Mr. Congrove indicated that even if he were given the information as to the identity of the child who Ms Santangelo guesses might have set up the Kazaa account, he still might not be willing to discontinue the case against Ms. Santangelo.

“He also indicated that even if the person who set up the account was a child, he might well bring a lawsuit against the child.

“The judge felt that a summary judgment motion at this stage of the case would be denied, as there would be factual issues about secondary liability. The judge referred all discovery matters to Magistrate Fox.”

Santangelo told p2pnet, “It’s terrible, really, having to think of this just before Christmas. It’s exhausting to have to be thinking and worry about this at any time of the year, but just before Christmas?”

But, “This isn’t just for me. It’s for all those other people as well.”

Ironically, the anguish caused to the RIAA victims and the hundreds of millions of dollars lost to the labels and their shareholders in legal and propaganda fees are all for nothing.

Stay tuned, stay tuned for more on the Patti Santangelo Fight Goliath fund raising campaign, and SPREAD THE WORD.

Tired of being treated like a criminal? They depend on you, not the other way around. Don’t buy their ‘product’ for Christmas or at any other time. Do bug your local political representatives. Use emails, snail-mail, phone calls, faxes, IM, stop them in the street, blog. And if you’re into organizing, organize petitions, organize demonstrations and then turn up on your local political rep’s doorstep, making sure you’ve contacted your local tv/radio station/newspaper in advance.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, December 20th, 2005 at 1:09 am and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

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