RIAA Santangelo Case 'Settled In Principle' 94
NewYorkCountryLawyer writes "The RIAA's long-running war against Patti Santangelo, her children, and even her children's schoolmates has been 'settled in principle,' with final settlement documents expected to be submitted by March 18th. Patti Santangelo is believed to be the first RIAA defendant to have made a motion to dismiss the RIAA's 'making available' complaint. The case first caught the attention of the Slashdot community back in 2005, when a transcript of Ms. Santangelo's first court appearance became available online. The case attracted national attention in December of 2005. According to the Associated Press report of the settlement, neither side was able to comment on the terms of the settlement."
3 stressful years (Score:5, Insightful)
For 3 stressful years the RIAA was able to hold this citizen in fear.
Such extortionate practices should not be allowed.
Re:Introduced me to Slashdot (Score:5, Insightful)
I have just two things to say (basically)
1 - I have high hopes that the RIAA settles in such a way that it damages all their other cases, and Patti is both vindicated and compensated - even if we never known what that compensation was.
2 - I wish that there were some way for Slashdot and readers were able to label NewYorkCountryLawyer's posts as a news service rather than just another post. Yes, I realize I can go and list all his posts, but I wish there were a way to quickly do so from the front page so that all users could easily benefit from this hugely beneficial information source. Lets not forget groklaw either.
Many of us like to assume we know something about the law here. These two people (perhaps others) have done much to keep such discussions and news both current and held in a view that does not stray very far for very long from goodness. I believe that they have done more to educate the public than anyone else and their efforts deserve some recognition here.
Here's how to solve that. (Score:4, Insightful)
So when an org. with a testosterone plasma cannon has to "settle and go secret", they are probably 3/4 in the wrong and only using bully powers to silence her.
The solution is to publish using the glorious powers of the net encrypted synergistic simultaneous codexes against every single unreleased act they have which, when joined against the innocent song lyrics of the nicely broadcast music, tells the whole story in subtitles on every retail demo tv in the world.
Oh, Hi Echelon. You're a nice little compy. But Slashdot has prior art.
Re:Introduced me to Slashdot (Score:5, Insightful)
Have you by chance ever been to kuro5hin [kuro5hin.org]?
These days it's cesspit, but during its best days it was a site where users published long, well thought, and often technical articles about interesting subjects, some of which had effect beyond the website. For instance, Opennic (alternative root DNS servers) got started at an article on K5. Users submitted stories, and other users offered criticism during an editing period and collectively approved or rejected the story.
See for example a few links in the hall of fame [maddash.org] to see what it used to be like.
I'd really like to find another place like that, its degeneration was very unfortunate.
Re:Time to stop RIAA's misuse of legal systems (Score:5, Insightful)
Yes, corporations are higher ranked entities here in the land of the free.
As long as we have a system where politicians are allowed to receive money from corporations, the politicians will, of course, pass laws favoring their campaign contributors.
And, as long as we have a system where corporations are given all the rights of, but not all the duties of a citizen, the individual will always have to fight a pitched fight.
One day, the average American will figure out that if he doesn't want to give power to the government because a government might not have your best interest at heart, the alternative is invariably that corporations seize the power, and corporations will never have your best interest at heart.
Re:Introduced me to Slashdot (Score:5, Insightful)
Umm, you didn't specify if your life had improved or degraded.
I didn't, did I?
Hmmm... I guess I could argue either proposition.
I will assume improved, afterall who wouldn't want to hang out with a bunch of nerds who all have an opinion but no credentials to fall back on.
I, for one, welcome the opinions of my Nerd Overlords, especially those with no credentials. (Credentials, it seems to me, are an overpraised attribute. What matters is that the opinion be formed through rigorous reasoning, based on provable facts, advance human thought, and prove to be empirically infallible -- i.e., that it should be in agreement with mine.)
Re:Introduced me to Slashdot (Score:3, Insightful)
What matters is that the opinion... should be in agreement with mine
So I've noticed
Or that it be contrary to yours, in which case it is also likely to be correct.
Re:Secret Settlements Should End (Score:3, Insightful)
Is anybody else tired of following highly public legal cases for several years, only to have them end in secret settlements? Highly litigious entities like the RIAA have full access to their own records of how they settled past lawsuits, but their new opponents have no such information. This hardly seems fair. The outcomes of lawsuits become, in effect, laws we have to live by, and people have a right to know the law. I think there should be a threshold for lawsuits, maybe a certain amount of court time. If it takes longer, the outcome should be made public. After all, the public pays much of the actual costs of operating the court system. I think we're entitled to find out how these stories end.
I agree. And I have no doubt that the RIAA uses its financial might to determine which settlements are confidential and which aren't. Those they want the public to see, are public. Those they want to keep confidential, are confidential. It's important information not only to the public, but also to the defendants in other cases, and lawyers representing them.
But the thing is I can't imagine the law being changed. Our courts are overloaded. The courts need for cases to be settled. And some settlements just wouldn't happen if one or the other of the parties couldn't insist on confidentiality.
Re:Introduced me to Slashdot (Score:4, Insightful)
If I was smarter than a lawyer, where would I be? ... in a really huge house with the bazillions of dollars I'd be making doing something even more lucrative than law practice!
If you really believe that there is a correlation between intelligence and wealth.... then you haven't met the same people I've met in my life.