The RIAA and its affiliates have accused more than 13,000 people, through lawsuits, of illegally swapping copyrighted music. With about a quarter of these suits settled at close to $5000 a pop, the record companies have a sweet deal going on. But one woman is standing up to these companies and choosing to fight: Mom.
In a story picked up on in Good Morning Silicon Valley (GMSV), Patricia Santangelo, mother of five children, is set to go to war with the RIAA. The RIAA has accused one of her children of downloading copyrighted material through Kazaa. She says no one in here household has ever used the stuff and one of her children’s friends has it on their computer.
The RIAA was willing to settle for $7500 but momma said nope. GMSV quoted her saying, “I didn’t do anything wrong. Why should I pay them?” Now she’s going to fight. She’s picked up a lawyer and a federal judge who’s willing to listen to her side. This could change the whole dynamic of the way the RIAA and for that matter the MPAA handles this stuff in the future.
U.S. District Judge Colleen McMahon wants this case and was quoted saying I would love to see a mom fighting one of these.” It looks like she’ll get her chance.
It should be most interesting to see what happens because most moms don’t fight against multinational media entities. Right now, file swapping and the legal ramifications are hotly debated topics as music and movies and other files can be hit mass distribution in seconds on the Internet. The entertainment industry is still working on how to deal with this and their method of choice now is lawsuits.
John Stith is a staff writer for Murdok covering technology and business.
