RIAA Caught in Tough Legal Situation

JeffreysTube writes "The RIAA's legal fight against a divorced mother has run into trouble, with the judge now telling the RIAA that its only two options are to proceed with a jury trial against Patty Santangelo or dismiss the case with prejudice. If the latter happens, Santangelo officially "wins" and could collect attorneys' fees. The judge is less than pleased with the RIAA, which is now trying to drop the case without giving Santangelo a chance to be declared guilty. 'This case is two years old,' wrote Judge McMahon. 'There has been extensive fact discovery. After taking this discovery, either plaintiffs want to make their case that Mrs. Santangelo is guilty of contributory copyright infringement or they do not.'"

Is that your final comment?

[djupedal]

JeffreysTube wrote" "The judge is less than pleased with the RIAA, which is now trying to drop the case without giving Santangelo a chance to be declared guilty."

Somehow, I don't think Mrs. Santangelo is in this to be declared guilty. But hey, I'm just a dazed onlooker - what would I know about the law.

Declared guilty?

[Tim C]

Somehow I think the judge is upset that the defendant may not have the chance to be declared innocent - that is, that the RIAA appear to be trying to walk away from making a baseless claim without the defendant having the opportunity to have his name cleared officially.

Were that to happen, I wonder if there would be any scope in pursuing a claim for defamation? (No, I don't think I would in that position, but it would almost certainly cross my mind...)

Re:Declared guilty?

[Anonymous Coward]

In defamation cases the burden is on the accuser to show that there was intentional malice against them. They also have to prove that there was actual harm done (financial or opportunity loss) to a reputation that actually exist(ed).
So, unless this divorced mother somehow couldn't get a job because nobody would hire an accused but not proven music pirate, then she probably doesn't have much of a case anyway.

If there's an out-of-court settlement now...

[jkrise]

would case-law still be deemed to have been made? The only reason for dropping cases that aren't going favourably could be to avoid case-law being made.

Also, if merely providing internet access facilities to others makes one guilty of the uses / activities done on that IP, then many IT firms have reasons to be seriously worried. Malware and Service Packs are downloaded over the same IP and the same protocols. It will be almost impossible to operate any net-enabled firm at all.

Stopping the lawsuits...

[gavink42]

Problem is that the RIAA doesn't have any incentive to stop the lawsuits, as long as they are able to intimidate the majority of their targets into settling. They just happened to pick a determined person (with resources) in this case.

Fighting the last war

[Budenny]

They don't realize that the enemy is not file sharing or people getting their content for free. The real enemy is people buying only the tracks they want, and so lowering the average value of a purchase. The great thing about an LP/CD from a company point of view is that it was a bundle at a high price. This is a key difference between movie downloads and music downloads.

It is very hard to see how they get around this one. Prosecuting people will not take care of the move to singles. They probably cannot raise the price of the singles. It is hard to see how they ever reinstate the album purchase to where it was.

Yes, its tough. And they are not helping themselves by focussing on a completely different problem from the real one.

Re:I know you hate the RIAA

[Dr Dodgy]

So... Your clients are going to hear you've been assaulting customers?

Nice one. Way to fuck your own "self made from the ground up business" right up in the ass!

So what if people are putting the crap you sell on the net, all you heard is hearsay in the store. If I was one of those kids, I'd be dragging you through both the papers and the courts, then see how you like the plummet into bankrupcy rather than just a gentle slide.

The only thing more fun than vigilante justice, is watching the person who led the posse be hanged in the town square.

Vexatious litigation

[gerrysteele]

Surely this fits the bill of Vexatious litigation? The fact that they have done this kind of thing over and over. Should they really not be taken down over this? Are there no US regulatory legal authorities that look out for people's interests?

Re:I know you hate the RIAA

[zakezuke]

I dont think Christians can really Rock.

Thats like saying Catholics have good sex.

Well, Madonna [wikipedia.org] was raised Catholic, and baptised her children in a catholic church. I don't know if she's been offical excommunicated from the church like Sinéad O'Connor, but if she has not she's likely still a Catholic. I can't say for a fact that she has good sex, but she does have alot of it and has published a couple of books on the subject of her sex life. I am not a fan of Madonna... and in fact use her as an example of how unhealthy attitudes imposed by the Cathlic church really are. It would seem that people, men and women alike, who were raised full blown Catholics from my observation tend to end up either prudish or hyper-sexual. While I would have serious reservations having a serious relationship with someone raised Catholic, I can say I have had great sex with Catholics.

I download albums

[DuncanE]

Damn I already moded this discussion, but I feel I need to post....

I prefer to download whole albums, either legally or through dubious means (*cough* allofmp3 *cough*). I think it gives a better indication of the artist and the art they perform.

I hear a song I like via a friend or the radio (I'm on Oz so we have tripleJ/classicFm/Digg ... Google if you dont know what I mean). Almost always the album is similar in quality to the single and often I hear songs I love that just would get airplay EVER.

I would happily pay for all my music album downloads if I could choose my bit rate, the files were DRM free and the price was reasonable lower than the cost of a CD (*cough* allofmp3 *cough*).

Re:Declared guilty?

[NewYorkCountryLawyer]

They're not really interested in suing her again.

They are, however, interested in avoiding having to pay her legal fees.

In Capitol v. Foster [blogspot.com] it was held that if they dismiss "with prejudice" defendant is a "prevailing party" and therefore eligible for an award of attorneys fees. See July 13, 2006, Order and Decision [ilrweb.com]. (pdf)

Re:I know you hate the RIAA

[mrshowtime]

How about the fact that the President of Clear Channel radio said yesterday that pretty much the music (radio) industry is on it's way out? How about the fact that the "Hip Hop" rap era is finally over with? How about that 90% of the music released commercially today is CRAP? Really, in ten years are there still going to be cd's sold in shops? Will optical storage in 10 years look as funny as reel to reel? The music industry is scared because their reign of terror is finally over. The movie industry won't be affected as much, even though digital distribution of films is going to finally release that stranglehold that the studios currently have. The movie studios will survive because of their ability to make the big budget films nobody else can. Also 3-D movies will become more of the norm. CD's came out in 1981, 1981!! CD's came out a year before MS. PAC-MAN. The music studios are long overdue for a technology shift.

Ruling against the tactic

[SirGarlon]

INAL but really I regard this as a ruling against RIAA's bullying tactics.

It appears to me they are trying to draw out the costs of the case through two years of pre-trial discovery. The idea appears to be simply to bankrupt the defense and/or intimidate potential future defendants (i.e. the public) by showing that they don't have to go to trial in order to financially ruin their victim. Seems to occur commonly enough whenever one party in a case has especially deep pockets and the other doesn't.

What the judge is saying is, the RIAA can't just run up a huge legal bill and walk away. Score one for the little guy.

Re:I know you hate the RIAA

[Jack Sombra]

I honestly don't know if to take your post seriously or not due to your comments that indicate things like the war on drugs is "successful" (it's not and you are living in la la land if you think it is) but I will give you the benefit of doubt

lets take this point by point

"It was one of those boutique record stores that sell obscure, independent releases that no-one listens to, not even the people that buy them. I decided that to grow the business I'd need to aim for a different demographic, the family market"
Leaving the obscure/rare/independent releases might or might not have been the right idea, really depends on location you are. In the long term though these are the kind of music stores that will last the longest, when all the major music stores are long gone (and they will go within the next 15/20 odd years unless something major happens) these "collectors shops" will still be around. Will they ever make the major money, nope but they will outlast the "digital revolution" for the same reason that some LP stores are around

"CD sales have dropped through the floor. People aren't buying half as many CDs as they did just a year ago....... But there is one, inescapable truth - Internet piracy is mostly to blame......."
Internet piracy has been around for years, it has not had any kind of major boom over the last year or two but remained pretty steady. What has increased dramatically in that period is the take up of MP3 players and legal download sites like itunes. These is the number one reason for your recent falling sales. And got bad news for you, there is nothing you can do about it, it is the way the world is going. LP's got pushed out by tapes, tapes by CD's and now CD's will be replaced by digital downloads

"I don't sell sick stuff like Marilyn Manson or cop-killer rap, and I'm proud to have one of the most extensive Christian rock sections that I know of."
While I can admire your principals and that you have tried sticking to them, please don't try to blame the world because you shot yourself in the foot. You decided to limit your market no one else

"A week ago, an unpleasant experience with pirates gave me an idea. In my store, I overheard a teenage patron talking to his friend.

"Dude, I'm going to put this CD on the Internet right away."

"Yeah, dude, that's really lete [sic], you'll get lots of respect.""
Sorry but I burst out laughing at this little scenario, not just because I generally find kids who talk like this so stupid thats it funny but because it is supposedly happening in a store that does "not sell sick stuff and that has one of the most extensive Christian rock sections around"

Maybe you should have told told them they would get no "respect" for posting this kind of music?

As to your ideas to deal with the situation, I am sorry but they so are laughable that they lead me to believe that you need psychiatric help

"When my girls ask me questions like that, I feel like my heart is being wrenched out of my chest. But knowing that I'm doing the best I can to save my family and my business is some consolation."
You are not doing your best, you picked a dieing market (the writing was on the wall for CD's 12 years ago for those who cared to look), you then decided to limit your customer base even further and now instead of trying to re-expand your customer base,try new ideas and adapt to the market you just want to cry and set up blacklists.

No wonder you support the RIAA, you have the same short-sighted and blinkered mentality as them

Re:I would love it but for other reason...

[tsalaroth]

The term you're looking for is "chum".

IANAL, but I watched several friends destroy their souls in law school - from what I understand, you're completely correct. If the RIAA starts bleeding in the water, lawyers all over will start taking the cases pro bono or nearly so. They usually ask for a small (30-40%) portion of the settlement, should you win.

Re:Is that your final comment?

[jZnat]

Apparently, nobody has ever used microsoftsucks [slashdot.org] as a tag. At least, not enough people for the system to care.

Re:I know you hate the RIAA

[Gr8Apes]

I think you're mistaken. Most of the people I know have tuned out of that commercial slop radio and now listen exclusively to what's on their iPods (90% not bought digitally according some survey about the iTunes Store performance and iPods) or NPR.

Radio stations are changing formats to Spanish language because no one's listening to the crap anymore resulting in falling numbers, so they figure hey - there's a 10-15% population that's underserved in the spanish language market, let's get them!!!. It's sad that Spanish language radio appears to have more selection than "regular" radio in my area of the US from the limited listening I did.

Re:What is the RIAA's case record?

[NewYorkCountryLawyer]

I personally have never heard of a fully contested case they have won. Or lost.

I do not know of a single case having gone to trial.

(I'm not saying it's never happened; only the RIAA knows for sure. But of all the cases mentioned on my blog, which are all the contested cases I know about, there is not a single fully contested case.)

Re:Enough with the Ad Hominem

[Nom du Keyboard]

t is gratuitous for every story to highlight the adverse circumstances of a defendant, as if the unfortunate circumstances of that defendant is the dispositive feature of the case. Not every headline needs to be of the form: RIAA sues divorced mother...

The RIAA has their choice of whom they sue. The have the opportunity to investigate the circumstances of each case after their John Doe suit that they will drop (that's fraud on the Court, if anything is IMHO) once they have personally identifying information. They don't have to sue anybody. It's highly relevant therefore when they seek to sue poor, weak, and/or infirm. And there's no excuse for suing the dead. The RIAA could avoid these suits and focus on others, but have chosen not to do so. For this reason, this does need to be pointed out every time.

Re:Stopping the lawsuits...

[twistedcubic]

Indeed. I've done several telemarketing jobs, and a good salesman gets a sale from about one in a hundread calls. Sending letters out gets you a much, much smaller return. The RIAA is making $$$$ just by sending out form letters. Impressive.