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Source: http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/nat...ck=1&cset=true

Woman takes on record companies over piracy

Saying she didn't download songs, she plans to go to court, unlike many who have settled similar lawsuits


Associated Press


Originally published December 26, 2005


WHITE PLAINS, N.Y. // It was Easter Sunday, and Patricia Santangelo was in church with her children when she says the music recording industry peeked into her computer and decided to take her to court.

Santangelo says she has never downloaded a song on her computer, but the industry didn't see it that way. The woman from Wappingers Falls is among more than 16,000 people who have been sued for allegedly pirating music through file-sharing computer networks.

"I assumed that when I explained to them who I was and that I wasn't a computer downloader, it would just go away," she said. "I didn't really understand what it all meant. But they just kept insisting on a financial settlement."

The industry is demanding thousands of dollars to settle the case, but Santangelo, unlike the 3,700 defendants who have settled, says she will fight the lawsuit.


"It's a moral issue," she said. "I can't sign something that says I agree to stop doing something I never did."


If the downloading was done on her computer, Santangelo thinks it may have been the work of a young friend of her children. Santangelo, 43, has been described by a federal judge as "an Internet-illiterate parent, who does not know Kazaa from kazoo, and who can barely retrieve her e-mail."


The drain on her resources to fight the case - she's divorced, has five children ages 7 to 19 and works as a property manager for a real estate company - forced her to drop her lawyer this month and begin representing herself.


"I'm out $24,000," she said, "and we haven't even gone to trial."


So on Thursday she sat alone at the defense table before U.S. Magistrate Judge Mark Fox in White Plains, looking a little nervous and replying simply, "Yes, sir" and "No, sir" to his questions about scheduling and evidence exchange.


Her former lawyer, Ray Beckerman, said Santangelo doesn't really need him.
"They have no case," he said. "They have no evidence she ever did anything. They don't know how the files appeared on her computer or who put them there."


Jenni Engebretsen, a spokeswoman for the Recording Industry Association of America, the coalition of music companies that is pressing the lawsuits, would not comment on Santangelo's case.


"Our goal with all these anti-piracy efforts is to protect the ability of the recording industry to invest in new bands and new music and give legal online services a chance to flourish," she said. "The illegal downloading of music is just as wrong as shoplifting from a local record store."


The David-and-Goliath nature of the case has attracted attention in the Internet community.


Jon Newton, founder of an Internet site critical of the record companies, said by e-mail that with all the settlements, "The impression created is all these people have been successfully prosecuted for some as-yet undefined 'crime'. And yet not one of them has so far appeared in a court or before a judge. ... She's doing it alone. She's a courageous woman to be taking on the multibillion-dollar music industry."


Her travail started when the record companies used an investigator to go online and search for copyrighted recordings being made available by individuals. The investigator allegedly found hundreds on her computer on April 11, 2004. Months later, there was a phone call from the industry's "settlement center," demanding about $7,500 "to keep me from being named in a lawsuit," Santangelo said.



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I feel sorry for this poor woman

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Z_T

AntiPiracy is retarded, people are gonna be pirates wether or not you like it, there's no controlling them. Attacking innocent bystanders isnt going to accomplish anything either.

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joshua

haha this is awesome :p

ssjvegit0

Yea, just like those pirates who attacked the cruiseline off the coast of Africa. The music industry can't do shiz against them, so it's like a big effyuu to the man!