eclectica
2006-01-06, 02:27
Since 2003-09-08 17,000 people who have sued in civil court by the RIAA. The RIAA claims that those people were guilty of copyright infringement by using filesharing programs. Before the suits proceed in court the RIAA tries to get the people to settle out of court for somewhere around $4,000. The RIAA boasts that it has already settled out of court with around 4,000 people. Only a small amount of people have decided to fight in court rather than to settle. One of those people is Patricia Santangelo.
Anyone who chooses whether to settle or to fight the RIAA has to weigh whether to stand up and fight for one's principles, or whether one should take the easier and cheaper way out by settling. The reason it is cheaper to settle is that having a lawyer to represent one is expensive and it is inconvenient and costly to attend several court dates and have a trial. Some also prefer settling rather than taking the risk of losing even more in the final court judgement. So it is expensive if one wants to stand up for what is right by fighting the RIAA. Ironically, in order to achieve justice in civil court, one has to endure great injustices.
That is just the way the civil court system works in the United States. Some reform should be made to the courts so that people could not easily use frivolous lawsuits as a way to harass others. It's a sign of the decadence of the American culture, that such mockery of justice is allowed to occur. And it is also a sign of the poisonous social atmosphere in the United States that so many people are so willing to cash in and sue others.
The civil court system has been abused by many people, with some people suing wealthy entities, such as those who sue McDonald's for being overweight. And you have the other type of frivolous lawsuit where a powerful entity tries to punish and coerce a weaker entity, such as the case of Suzuki suing Consumer Reports magazine in 2000 for an unflattering review of one of their cars. The case of the RIAA suing 17,000 individuals is of the latter type; of a powerful entity bullying weak individuals.
You would think that with 17,000 people having been sued so far and with there being millions of filesharers, that there would be more solidarity and support and everybody would have fought this and beaten it already. But because the filesharing community is internet based, many have less respect for it and the people who are members of it. Also internet users tend to be lazy. And that leads them to rationalize their own stance where they are more like to say, when hearing of another filesharer being sued: "The idiot deserved it for using Kazaa" rather than to say: "There but for the grace of God go I".
But regardless of the weak support and large apathy there is still a large amount of people out there willing to help. The community is so large that even if only 1% does the right thing and helps his or her fellow filesharer, then that will still be several thousands of people. So there is hope for our filesharing community because of that.
Jon Newton of p2pnet.net has been giving extensive coverage of the Santangelo case. Santangelo has a lawyer named Ray Beckerman who writes in a "blog" site named Recording Industry vs The People (http://recordingindustryvspeople.blogspot.com/), which is devoted to the RIAA lawsuit cases. There is a lot of useful information there about the Santangelo case and other related cases.
Patricia Santangelo's legal bills have been said to be about $24,000 so far. On 2005-12-06 it was announced that she could no longer afford Ray Beckerman's services as her attorney, and would have to represent herself in court instead. Beckerman continues to work as an advocate of her on his website by providing information that is useful. He apparently is also giving her some kind of legal advice behind the scenes. On 2005-12-27 three news stations ran a report about Patricia Santangelo. I have a combined video of the clips from all three stations that you can download here (http://www.p2pjihad.org/eclectica/Santangelo-Beckerman-Sherman-20051227-NBC-CBS-CNN.wmv). The file size is 45 MB. It contains interviews with Santangelo, Beckerman, and RIAA president Cary Sherman.
The publicity has been helpful for Santangelo. She reminds me of Cindy Sheehan who camped outside of Bush's ranch last Summer to protest the war in Iraq and the death of her soldier son. At first her efforts seemed futile, but soon enough she had a great following and people started to pay attention to her. Santangelo is like Cindy Sheehan, because she has dared to take a stand against larger forces which as an individual one may feel powerless to defy. Her courage has been inspiring to the rest of us and the benevolent, good humans amongst the lot of us owe our gratitude and support to her for standing up for what is right. She is fighting not only for herself but for the rest of us.
There is a way that you can help Patricia Santangelo, even for those of you are lazy internet users. A PayPal account has been set up so that with a few mouse clicks you can send money in order that she can afford to pay her lawyer to continue to represent her. The home location of the donation page can be found here (http://www.p2pnet.net/goliath/) or here (http://www.fightgoliath.org). You can give money directly there or from any other site which has the PayPal link set up on it. If you have a website of your own then you can add into your site's html code a way to link to the Fight Goliath fund for Patricia Santangelo. The Fight Goliath page has an easy way for you to do this, by simply entering your site's address. It will then create the source code for you to copy and paste into your own site's html code. I chose to add a PayPal link not to this site here, but instead to p2pjihad.org (http://www.p2pjihad.org/), since it was easier for me to edit the html there than screwing with the files which use php on this site. I also think that if you are to add it to your site, that you should add it to an existing webpage on your site rather than to create a new separate page. I believe that an existing webpage will get more attention and traffic than a separate page. You can check on the status of the Fight Goliath fund here (http://www.northcountrynotes.org/goliath/). PayPal donations are updated there instantly, and credit is given to the site from which one first clicked the PayPal link. I think it's good they set it up that way, because people will feel the urge from different sites to try to outdo the competition by having their site give more, and that will encourage a community effort. As I write this now there have been 207 donations given totalling $3188.
Anyone who chooses whether to settle or to fight the RIAA has to weigh whether to stand up and fight for one's principles, or whether one should take the easier and cheaper way out by settling. The reason it is cheaper to settle is that having a lawyer to represent one is expensive and it is inconvenient and costly to attend several court dates and have a trial. Some also prefer settling rather than taking the risk of losing even more in the final court judgement. So it is expensive if one wants to stand up for what is right by fighting the RIAA. Ironically, in order to achieve justice in civil court, one has to endure great injustices.
That is just the way the civil court system works in the United States. Some reform should be made to the courts so that people could not easily use frivolous lawsuits as a way to harass others. It's a sign of the decadence of the American culture, that such mockery of justice is allowed to occur. And it is also a sign of the poisonous social atmosphere in the United States that so many people are so willing to cash in and sue others.
The civil court system has been abused by many people, with some people suing wealthy entities, such as those who sue McDonald's for being overweight. And you have the other type of frivolous lawsuit where a powerful entity tries to punish and coerce a weaker entity, such as the case of Suzuki suing Consumer Reports magazine in 2000 for an unflattering review of one of their cars. The case of the RIAA suing 17,000 individuals is of the latter type; of a powerful entity bullying weak individuals.
You would think that with 17,000 people having been sued so far and with there being millions of filesharers, that there would be more solidarity and support and everybody would have fought this and beaten it already. But because the filesharing community is internet based, many have less respect for it and the people who are members of it. Also internet users tend to be lazy. And that leads them to rationalize their own stance where they are more like to say, when hearing of another filesharer being sued: "The idiot deserved it for using Kazaa" rather than to say: "There but for the grace of God go I".
But regardless of the weak support and large apathy there is still a large amount of people out there willing to help. The community is so large that even if only 1% does the right thing and helps his or her fellow filesharer, then that will still be several thousands of people. So there is hope for our filesharing community because of that.
Jon Newton of p2pnet.net has been giving extensive coverage of the Santangelo case. Santangelo has a lawyer named Ray Beckerman who writes in a "blog" site named Recording Industry vs The People (http://recordingindustryvspeople.blogspot.com/), which is devoted to the RIAA lawsuit cases. There is a lot of useful information there about the Santangelo case and other related cases.
Patricia Santangelo's legal bills have been said to be about $24,000 so far. On 2005-12-06 it was announced that she could no longer afford Ray Beckerman's services as her attorney, and would have to represent herself in court instead. Beckerman continues to work as an advocate of her on his website by providing information that is useful. He apparently is also giving her some kind of legal advice behind the scenes. On 2005-12-27 three news stations ran a report about Patricia Santangelo. I have a combined video of the clips from all three stations that you can download here (http://www.p2pjihad.org/eclectica/Santangelo-Beckerman-Sherman-20051227-NBC-CBS-CNN.wmv). The file size is 45 MB. It contains interviews with Santangelo, Beckerman, and RIAA president Cary Sherman.
The publicity has been helpful for Santangelo. She reminds me of Cindy Sheehan who camped outside of Bush's ranch last Summer to protest the war in Iraq and the death of her soldier son. At first her efforts seemed futile, but soon enough she had a great following and people started to pay attention to her. Santangelo is like Cindy Sheehan, because she has dared to take a stand against larger forces which as an individual one may feel powerless to defy. Her courage has been inspiring to the rest of us and the benevolent, good humans amongst the lot of us owe our gratitude and support to her for standing up for what is right. She is fighting not only for herself but for the rest of us.
There is a way that you can help Patricia Santangelo, even for those of you are lazy internet users. A PayPal account has been set up so that with a few mouse clicks you can send money in order that she can afford to pay her lawyer to continue to represent her. The home location of the donation page can be found here (http://www.p2pnet.net/goliath/) or here (http://www.fightgoliath.org). You can give money directly there or from any other site which has the PayPal link set up on it. If you have a website of your own then you can add into your site's html code a way to link to the Fight Goliath fund for Patricia Santangelo. The Fight Goliath page has an easy way for you to do this, by simply entering your site's address. It will then create the source code for you to copy and paste into your own site's html code. I chose to add a PayPal link not to this site here, but instead to p2pjihad.org (http://www.p2pjihad.org/), since it was easier for me to edit the html there than screwing with the files which use php on this site. I also think that if you are to add it to your site, that you should add it to an existing webpage on your site rather than to create a new separate page. I believe that an existing webpage will get more attention and traffic than a separate page. You can check on the status of the Fight Goliath fund here (http://www.northcountrynotes.org/goliath/). PayPal donations are updated there instantly, and credit is given to the site from which one first clicked the PayPal link. I think it's good they set it up that way, because people will feel the urge from different sites to try to outdo the competition by having their site give more, and that will encourage a community effort. As I write this now there have been 207 donations given totalling $3188.