Santangelo online fund tops $4,600
p2p news / p2pnet: The campaign to raise support money for Patti Santangelo is really cooking and as of 9:20 aM Pacific on January 11, had clocked up $4,642.22 in donations from 309 people through 18 sites.
The contributions go straight to Patti – no in-betweens – and are being used to help her take on the Big Four Organized Music gang, namely Sony BMG, Vivendi Universal, Warner Music and EMI.
Santangelo and other very ordinary people with very ordinary means, and even school children such as Britanny Chan, are being attacked with great malice by the Big Four with their bottomless pockets and limitless legal resources.
Patti is a New York mother who’ll be the first of the more than 17,000 people sued to actually appear in a civil court before a jury of her peers.
As we say in our post about Brittany, the RIAA wants the world to believe its owners, the multi-billion-dollar Big Four labels, are being “devastated” by people who use the p2p networks to share music with each other online, that its artists are being neglected and that numerous support workers are experiencing extreme financial hardship as a direct result.
It claims file sharers – Patti, who’s never used a p2p application in her life, is said to be one – are causing huge losses in sales. The convoluted reasoning is: someone on the receiving end in a file sharing exchange, would have paid $1 or more to buy the song from an online corporate music site supported and supplied by the cartel, or from an offline retail outfit, had she or he not downloaded it from a site not supplied by the Big Four.
But the bottom line, since that’s what this is all about, is: none of these people are criminals, and none of them deserve to be treated this way.
The real criminals are the organized gangs and individual crooks who use the physical DVDs and CDs, made and marketed in their billions, as templates to create counterfeits and duplicates for sale on the underground markets and street corners of the world. The fact is: while the technically inept people who run the music and movie businesses are suing their own customers, the real crooks are not only getting away with it, they’re prospering.
P2p technologies are solutions, not problems.
The Patti Santangelo story has created a lot of controversy around the world. It’s been widely aired by the mainstream print and electronic media, the first case to get that kind of exposure since the Big Four Organized Music cartel’s wrongly named Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) started trying to sue its customers into compliance with its owners’ marketing objectives in 2003. Even the case of 12-year-old Briana LaHara, the first example of a deliberate, carefully calculated RIAA attack on children, didn’t generate that kind of on and offline coverage.
And to be clear, although the RIAA is often presented in the mainstream media as a non-profit American trade organization representing a huge number of separate recording companies and labels, to all intents and purposes, it’s solely owned and wholly controlled by Warner Music, the only US company, Sony BMG (Japan and Germany), EMI (Britain) and Vivendi Universal (France).
Warner Music, Sony BMG, EMI and Vivendi Universal are using legal systems which are supposed to protect us to instead try to blackmail us into using the corporate music sites they supply and support. And media which are supposed to truthfully and accurately inform us are all too often doing the exact opposite.
We’re just protecting our businesses against millions of potential thieves, say the labels. But that’s not even nearly true. It’s pure, unadulterated extortion on the grand scale.
Everyone who’s downloaded from the p2p networks would gladly and willingly pay for their music, and hundreds of millions of people do – but not to the corporate labels. They refuse to be ripped off for a dollar and more, if the labels get their way, for digital files that simply aren’t worth $1, or anything near it.
The labels should open their catalogues fully, charge fair wholesale prices and start working with their customers and p2p technology developers, instead of trying to crush them.
And as for Kazaa which, lest we forget, was one of, if not THE, applications which introduced spyware to the Net, it was a free p2p application seen by millions of people as a way to share something they loved with each other, not as a tool for crime.
The entertainment and software cartels, with Sony BMG, Vivendi Universal, Warner Music and EMI to the fore, have spent a fortune painting their customers as a poential thieves, out to rob them blind.
If we don’t sue them into compliance with our bottom lines, we’ll be ruined, claims the multi-billion-dollar music industry.
But Patti Santangelo isn’t a thief. She’s a customer. And incredibly, notwithstanding the terrible trials the music industry is inflicting on her and her family, Patti still went out and bought CDs for Christmas presents.
If you’re still wondering whether or not to contribute, see what p2pnet’s Alex H has to say on the subect.
Meanwhile, to make a donation now, click the Fight Goliath button below. And the snail-mail address is being organized.
And if you want to host a button on your own site, go here for the code.
To see Jason Rohrer’s amount and site tracker, go here.
Below is the current (as of 12:45 mp Pacific) list of sites:
Cheers! And thanks. And all the best …
Also See:
Patti Santangel – Patti Santangelo fights Goliath: II, December 17, 2005
Britanny Chan – RIAA schoolgirl victim hearing, January 9, 2006
has to say – Sceptical about Patti Santangelo?, January 8, 2006
January 10th, 2006 at 4:44 am
“Everyone who’s downloaded from the p2p networks would gladly and willingly pay for their music, and hundreds of millions of people do – but not to the corporate labels. They refuse to be ripped off for a dollar and more, if the labels get their way, for digital files that simply aren’t worth $1, or anything near it.”
Well I disagree somewhat with that. I tend to buy full albums in the form of CDs once I discover a group I like, but there are other songs that I have downloaded which I wouldn’t buy. Yet if filesharing were totally impossible I wouldn’t have bought those tracks anyways.
Filesharing is not about economics but about music lovers who share their music with their friends online. I think that is a right which outweighs copyright.
I am concerned when people use economic arguments to support filesharing, by saying that CDs are too expensive. Such arguments are unjustifiable because it is hard to dispute the value of something. How much is an ounce of gold really worth, or how much is a work of art worth, for example.
January 10th, 2006 at 5:25 am
Well … does she?
Why do none of the quotes from Patti ever mention the “Fight Goliath” appeal?
All I want to know before I donate is:
Does Patti Santangelo herself endorse the Fight Goliath appeal?
January 10th, 2006 at 11:46 am
It’s being done : )
Cheers!
January 10th, 2006 at 11:51 am
—Why do none of the quotes from Patti ever mention the “Fight Goliath” appeal? —
You missed this post, among others: http://p2pnet.net/story/7511
In it Patti says: “The support that you have given me reminds me that I am not alone with how I feel about these lawsuits and I cannot thank you enough for that. I was recently at a point that I thought it just did not matter what I believed and that the laws were not going to be on my side. It was the positive response from all of you that changed my mind about giving up. Thank you for all of your support.”
Cheers!
January 10th, 2006 at 8:55 pm
I’m sorry but I must be missing something in the post you linked to. I cannot see any reference to the Fight Goliath appeal in patti’s message. All she does is thank someone for their support, there is no mention of any appeal or any financial support. How do we know that p2pnet is not just putting spin on the message and making it look like it relates to the appeal.
So I ask again:
Does Patti herself endorse the Fight Goliath appeal?
Not a difficult question really.
January 10th, 2006 at 9:12 pm
That article #7511 contains a message signed from Patti Santangelo. It was quoted from an email sent to all donors from the very same AOL email address that the Fight Goliath PayPal account is being given money to. I received the email 2006-01-05 at 01:36 GMT.
January 10th, 2006 at 9:54 pm
So simpleizgood@aol.com is actually Patti’s email address?
Did she set up the paypal account?
January 11th, 2006 at 5:03 am
basic economics. the value of something is set by the marketplace, in this case consumers. if consumers refuse to pay a particular price for a product then the product is overpriced. the regular response for a company is to readujst it’s pricing or distribution policies to compensate. The Price IS too expensive and that has been determined by the public.
I build computers. if I feel my computers and services are worth 2,000 dollars each but the public refuses to pay it then I don’t care how much I justify the price. it’s not worth it. I’d be sitting alone in my store with no customers and a bunch of overpriced computers.
Rick
January 11th, 2006 at 10:43 am
I won’t post a link to my video again, but my intentions were to help Mrs. Santangelo and to promote progress towards a better solution.
Did you think it wasnt done well enough to be put on P2Pnet? Did you think I was trying to get attention myself through it or did you not appreciate my prediction of future market consumption of broadband?
Well please be dont delete this post without giving one of the readers of your website a fair and honest answer. I did work hard on that video, though all on my admissions.
Thank You,
Ryan Spahn
P.S. Maybe you could get Mrs. Santangelo to make a quick video acknowledging that the money donated is needed and appreciated!
January 11th, 2006 at 8:23 pm
A video from patti would certianly allay some peoples concerns about where their donations are ending up. I don;t understand why Patti herself is not promoting the Fight Goliath paypal donation fund.
I watched the video you mentioned and thought it was very informative.
January 15th, 2006 at 2:05 pm
Cant believe this fund isnt growing faster. Millions of people have benefited from p2p – yet only a couple of hundred donations. If patti wins, then that may set a president. And US law effects the rest of the world.
P.S.
Is this story available in other languages?
January 16th, 2006 at 10:01 am
just cranked past $5000 this minute
January 16th, 2006 at 10:55 am
The fund is not growing faster because no-one will provide proof that the money is going to go to Patti Santangelo, or that she endorses the appeal, or indeed is even aware of it.
I know that’s why I am holding out.
January 16th, 2006 at 12:49 pm
Very good point. The money should be administered by an auditing firm that will ensure that every cent is put into the bank and accounted for, especially when payment is due for attorny fees…
January 16th, 2006 at 12:49 pm
Very good point. The money should be administered by an auditing firm that will ensure that every cent is put into the bank and accounted for, especially when payment is due for attorny fees…
January 17th, 2006 at 2:53 pm
that’s not much, hope she can get a lot more then this. she may not beat them at their own game but she will at least be happy with a lot of money.
January 17th, 2006 at 2:58 pm
copyright sucks. it infringes on our freedom to share music with others. it’s like the own you, it’s slavery. that’s why the world is so corrupt today, freedom is a misuse word to describe even censorship. there’s not even free speech.
January 17th, 2006 at 2:59 pm
Why put yourself in someone’s shoe, you sound like the riaa. that’s terrible.