RIAA Drops Suit Against NY Mom

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True to form, the RIAA has dropped its lawsuit against a NY mother…but plans to continue with a lawsuit against her children instead. The RIAA seems to be under the impression that the fight against the children will be much easier.

The five companies suing Santangelo, of Wappingers Falls, filed a motion Tuesday in federal court in White Plains asking Judge Colleen McMahon to dismiss the case. Their lead counsel, Richard Gabriel, wrote in court papers that the record companies still believe they could win damages against Santangelo but their preference was to "pursue defendant's children."
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So basically they are dropping the suit against the mother on paper only. This sounds like out and out extortion. They are basically saying, pay us on we will take it out on you children. This is straight out of a Hollywood Mob movie.
 
Reading this kind of stuff just makes me laugh. I can hear the verdict now..
"We sentence you to one week with chewing gum on your nose, you must surrender your box set of Barney and Friends, and we are taking your collection of Ninja Turtles too, just for good measure"
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I have one thing to say....stop buying music from RIAA labels.

Money talks, bs walks.
 
slacker6 said:
I have one thing to say....stop buying music from RIAA labels.

Money talks, bs walks.
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And of course piracy/p2p will be blamed for that, not the RIAA's tactics. :)


I agree, this sounds more like extortion. Playing on a mothers love for her children, saying they'll go after the "defendants children" instead. It sounds predatory in nature.
 
Thats freaking disgusting. I dont wanna say it but only in america. Its sad and disgusting the way they RIAA has been allowed to act like this. Basicly these people have the power to destroy the lives of regular people and the futures of their children.
In canada a bunch of artists, i cant remeber all of them.. barenaked ladies and sara mclachlan off the top of my head have basicly started a group that is saying that they dont agree with any of this crap. And that there HAS to be a better way to deal with this than taking money from kids and their families.

I still dont see that Universal(i think) CEOs kids getting sued. This guy knew his kids were downloading shit and stated it in the news. The RIAA should have showed up at their doors the next day. But of course they didnt because they are special in some way.

When is the US government gonna grow some balls and tell them to find a better way to deal with this. I mean its not like the RIAA is an oil company or anything, toss it to em.
 
Tim Wardlaw said:
Reading this kind of stuff just makes me laugh. I can hear the verdict now..

"We sentence you to one week with chewing gum on your nose, you must surrender your box set of Barney and Friends, and we are taking your collection of Ninja Turtles too, just for good measure"
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One kid is 20, the other is 16, if you read the article. Whether you agree with the RIAA or not, at least one of them is of an age where they're considered responsible for their own actions.

No matter what, I do hope the mother pushes for her dropped suit to be "dismissed with prejudice", which IIRC would require the RIAA to compensate her for court costs and eliminate their ability to charge her again for the same offense.
 
LoneWolf said:
One kid is 20, the other is 16, if you read the article. Whether you agree with the RIAA or not, at least one of them is of an age where they're considered responsible for their own actions.

No matter what, I do hope the mother pushes for her dropped suit to be "dismissed with prejudice", which IIRC would require the RIAA to compensate her for court costs and eliminate their ability to charge her again for the same offense.
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Absolutely. I think there needs to be a judgement against the RIAA.

The 20 year old may have been a minor when the alleged infraction occurred, though I don't know what impact that might have on a civil suit.

I personally think that just like the claims of loss to s/w piracy, the claims by the RIAA are less than credible. I"m sure there are lots of people who steal, but would they have sold them otherwise? Maybe, maybe not. I know when I d/l stuff it' generally to decide if I want to buy the CD or not. Exceptions to that rule are live boots and unreleased material. If the artist doesn't release it, I can't buy it. And if I like it, I'm keeping it.
 
The RIAA pulled the dirtiest of dirty tricks here. :(

The woman is being sued for piracy. She says that she has never downloaded a song in her life. The RIAA calls in family members to be deposed. During the deposition the minor child says "Mommy didn't do it, I downloaded those songs." Obviously thinking he is helping mom. Mom gets off but a lawsuit is filed against the child.


The KICKER is this; since at least one of the children was a minor and / or the offenses took place over a period of time when the adult child was also a minor, the mother can be held financially responsible for any and all judgements against her minor children...in which case, she pays anyway.
 
really what pisses me off is noone can really attack the RIAA and hit them where it hurts. It really doesnt matter if they lose one of these cases here and there. They are getting plenty of people to settle these cases out of court for crazy fees.

I personally don't download music myself but it pisses me off how treat people and the people they say they are trying to protect (the artists) see such a small portion of the money each song/album sells for. I am all for protecting the artist but the fat cats I could care less about especially at the expense of the common man
 
I wonder how much money the RIAA is spending on legal fees. The money should be better spend supporting artists and only launching lawsuits against the biggest offenders (those who print and sells CD in the black market).
 
This is how I look at it.

I have never downloaded any music!

These Sony pieces of shit want to accuse me of loading up anything I can get.
How about this Sony, FUUCK YOU.
 
Whoever downloaded the music did break the law (regardless of whether you agree with it or not). The simple solution is to not download music. It's that easy. Of course, the RIAA has wrongly sued some people, but those cases have been dropped.

A lot of people claim they don't buy music anymore because it sucks... well if it sucks why are you even wasting time downloading it? I think music sucks so I don't download it, buy it, or listen to it. No problems with lawsuits here.
 
dotK said:
Whoever downloaded the music did break the law (regardless of whether you agree with it or not). The simple solution is to not download music. It's that easy. Of course, the RIAA has wrongly sued some people, but those cases have been dropped.

A lot of people claim they don't buy music anymore because it sucks... well if it sucks why are you even wasting time downloading it? I think music sucks so I don't download it, buy it, or listen to it. No problems with lawsuits here.
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It's not if they downloaded illegal copies or not but rather how the RIAA is going about the suit. If I remember correctly, the RIAA hired some third party to hack into people's computers to see if they have illegal copies. I thought evidence obtained in this way is inadmissible in court. Guess I'm wrong.

He's my analogy:

I'm sure most people who drives has at one point been speeding, and did not get caught. What if the cops came to your house, broke into your car, pulled the data somehow off the onboard computer, and gave you a ticket for all the times you weren't caught? Even worse, you (being that 0.1% of the population) have always obeyed the speeding limit, say that you never speed. They then say it must have been your children and thus you are still responsible.
 
hl3395 said:
If I remember correctly, the RIAA hired some third party to hack into people's computers to see if they have illegal copies. I thought evidence obtained in this way is inadmissible in court. Guess I'm wrong.
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No, I'm pretty sure they're just tapping into the same P2P networks the offenders are and obtain their info that way, which certainly isn't "hacking into people's computers."
 
Lethal said:
No, I'm pretty sure they're just tapping into the same P2P networks the offenders are and obtain their info that way, which certainly isn't "hacking into people's computers."
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yup. i think HBO used to create it's own torrents/connect to HBO torrents so that it could view the IP address of people who were using BitTorrent to download.
 
Wouldn’t it be nice of someone did like google did with youtube. Slap a big chunk of change at the RIAA and say here, just go fester in a corner and die.

It makes me wonder how they sleep at night.... it's not like they could be spending their time and money in better ways..... Like really what’s a bigger problem... the millions of people downloading music, or the millions of people dieing each year of cancer and other such diseases

Oh wait that's right they would rather sue them for their money before they die then let them waste it on health care....
 
Tim Wardlaw said:
It makes me wonder how they sleep at night.... it's not like they could be spending their time and money in better ways..... Like really what’s a bigger problem... the millions of people downloading music, or the millions of people dieing each year of cancer and other such diseases

Oh wait that's right they would rather sue them for their money before they die then let them waste it on health care....
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Let's try to keep this out of Soapbox territory. The music business is just that - a business that provides livelihoods to more than just the artists. The secretaries, mailroom clerks and janitors at <big name record company> all have to make a living.

It is not the responsibility of the entertainment industry to provide a cure for cancer, and you can't compare apples to oranges.
 
Lethal said:
Let's try to keep this out of Soapbox territory. The music business is just that - a business that provides livelihoods to more than just the artists. The secretaries, mailroom clerks and janitors at <big name record company> all have to make a living.

It is not the responsibility of the entertainment industry to provide a cure for cancer, and you can't compare apples to oranges.
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Actually, the RIAA is like a cancer, or at least a parasite, themselves. They've way far outlived their usefulness as a business model. All they do is live off of talented artitsts, sue people because they can and bribe captitol hill to let them continue to do as they please. I don't object to the "little people" making a livelihood, what I object to is the filthy rich executives. It's too bad more people don't get upset about this and simply stop buying music. Listen to the radio and let the lack of profits speak loudly that we won't take the BS anymore... :rolleyes:
 
Lethal said:
Let's try to keep this out of Soapbox territory. The music business is just that - a business that provides livelihoods to more than just the artists. The secretaries, mailroom clerks and janitors at <big name record company> all have to make a living.

It is not the responsibility of the entertainment industry to provide a cure for cancer, and you can't compare apples to oranges.
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AFAIK, they have very little to do with the artists. They exist to protect the labels' intrests, not the artists.
 
wtburnette said:
Actually, the RIAA is like a cancer, or at least a parasite, themselves. They've way far outlived their usefulness as a business model. All they do is live off of talented artitsts, sue people because they can and bribe captitol hill to let them continue to do as they please. I don't object to the "little people" making a livelihood, what I object to is the filthy rich executives. It's too bad more people don't get upset about this and simply stop buying music. Listen to the radio and let the lack of profits speak loudly that we won't take the BS anymore... :rolleyes:
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Not to defend the RIAA, but you do realize that the record business isn't exactly a very profitable one, right? As for listening to radio, if you can tolerate the absolute crap that is this Clear Channel world, then all the power to you, but I'd rather pay 10-14 bucks for an album (which is probably less than I piad for an LP in the early 80's when adjusted for inlfation) than suffer through the same 20 overly compressed songs (regardless of music format) all day long.

In the grand scheme of things, Clear Channel is far worse for music than the labels.
 
nilepez said:
Not to defend the RIAA, but you do realize that the record business isn't exactly a very profitable one, right? As for listening to radio, if you can tolerate the absolute crap that is this Clear Channel world, then all the power to you, but I'd rather pay 10-14 bucks for an album (which is probably less than I piad for an LP in the early 80's when adjusted for inlfation) than suffer through the same 20 overly compressed songs (regardless of music format) all day long.

In the grand scheme of things, Clear Channel is far worse for music than the labels.
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Satellite radio is the future... :D
 
wtburnette said:
Satellite radio is the future... :D
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Could be, but if I'm not ready to spend $10.00 a month for a car radio service. It's great if you're in your car alot, but otherwise, not so useful. I'm more likely to listen on my computer than anywhere else, and there are plenty of decent/free (though the commercial free ones like stations on the web.Radioparadise ask for donations (and deserve it in that stations case).
 
nilepez said:
Could be, but if I'm not ready to spend $10.00 a month for a car radio service. It's great if you're in your car alot, but otherwise, not so useful. I'm more likely to listen on my computer than anywhere else, and there are plenty of decent/free (though the commercial free ones like stations on the web.Radioparadise ask for donations (and deserve it in that stations case).
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I used to listen to music all the time. I had hundreds of tapes, which I purchased every single payday, because the price was reasonable. I bought a few CD's when they came out, but finally got fed up with the high prices. Now about the only time I listen to music is in the car and satellite radio is well worth the $10 a month for that. I also travel a couple times a year and being able to drive from coast to coast listening to the same station if I want is very nice. Actually, during the odd times I actually listen to music on the PC, I go to Pandora (http://www.pandora.com/). Awesome place to find new music based on my tastes... ;)
 
Lethal said:
Let's try to keep this out of Soapbox territory. The music business is just that - a business that provides livelihoods to more than just the artists. The secretaries, mailroom clerks and janitors at <big name record company> all have to make a living.

It is not the responsibility of the entertainment industry to provide a cure for cancer, and you can't compare apples to oranges.
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I agree with you. All I was getting at is that the lawyers and others at the RIAA could have probably chosen a career path that was maybe a little bit better the protecting the money lined pockets of record labels.... But if suing the elderly and minors is pretentious thing to do, then I stand corrected.
 
Tim Wardlaw said:
I agree with you. All I was getting at is that the lawyers and others at the RIAA could have probably chosen a career path that was maybe a little bit better the protecting the money lined pockets of record labels.... But if suing the elderly and minors is pretentious thing to do, then I stand corrected.
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Being old or young does not make you immune to the consequences of breaking the law.
 
dotK said:
Being old or young does not make you immune to the consequences of breaking the law.
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But it sure makes you an easier target for these scumbags.....
 
wtburnette said:
I used to listen to music all the time. I had hundreds of tapes, which I purchased every single payday, because the price was reasonable. I bought a few CD's when they came out, but finally got fed up with the high prices. Now about the only time I listen to music is in the car and satellite radio is well worth the $10 a month for that. I also travel a couple times a year and being able to drive from coast to coast listening to the same station if I want is very nice. Actually, during the odd times I actually listen to music on the PC, I go to Pandora (http://www.pandora.com/). Awesome place to find new music based on my tastes... ;)
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I guess, but unless you buy CDs in a mall, they're generally in the 9.99 to 13.99 range (some are 14.99 and they're more if you get the versions with DVDs included).

For reference, when I started buying DVD's in the mid to late 80's, they cost 14.99 or more.
If you use any inflation calculator on the web, you'll find that CD's are cheaper than records were in the 80s or late 70's....I'm not old enough to know what they cost in the 60's, but I believe they were 2-3 dollars, which is significantly more than a CD costs today (inflation adjusted).

I think the labels generally lack imagination and the will to think beyond a few singles.
 
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