NY boy sued by music companies responds

16-year-old boy being sued by five record companies accusing him of online music piracy accused the recording industry on Tuesday of violating antitrust laws, conspiring to defraud the courts and making extortionate threats.

In papers responding to the record companies' lawsuit, Robert Santangelo, who was as young as 11 when the alleged piracy occurred, denied ever disseminating music and said it's impossible to prove that he did.

Santangelo is the son of Patti Santangelo, the 42-year-old suburban mother of five who was sued by the record companies in 2005. She refused to settle, took her case public and became a heroine to supporters of Internet freedom.

The industry dropped its case against her in December but sued Robert and his sister Michelle, now 20, in federal court in White Plains. Michelle has been ordered to pay $30,750 in a default judgment because she did not respond to the lawsuit.

Robert Santangelo and his lawyer, Jordan Glass, responded at length Tuesday, raising 32 defenses, demanding a jury trial and filing a counterclaim against the companies that accuses them of damaging the boy's reputation, distracting him from school and costing him legal fees.

His defenses to the industry's lawsuit include that he never sent copyrighted music to others, that the recording companies promoted file sharing before turning against it, that average computer users were never warned that it was illegal, that the statute of limitations has passed, and that all the music claimed to have been downloaded was actually owned by his sister on store-bought CDs.

http://www.businessweek.com/ap/financialnews/D8N01OKO0.htm

When you purchase a CD you haven't purchased any music; you've only bought a license to use the material on the CD. The people that control these licenses aren't the artists, but the record company executives. "Fair use" no longer exists.

you are a criminal...

As a music journalist, I still get promotional CDs, though most record companies now send me links to audio samples. What I don't want to keep, I give away in online contests, warning that the packaging is promotional.

:headbang:
rocknation

Digital Millennium Copyright Act

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DMCA

you're a criminal? :wtf:

Just be sure you haven't created an unlawful copy, and you haven't loaded it onto an unauthorized device.

Note that the people who determine what is unlawful and unauthorized is the RIAA. They are the plaintiff, the investigator and the prosecutor. If they had their way, they'd be the judge too.

With DMCA you are assumed to be guilty unless and until you can prove your innocence.

For example, the Home Recording Act of 1992, and it goes against both fair use AND the 1984 SCOTUS decision that allowed for people to be able to tape record on their VCR's.

BTW, did you know that you are also breaking the DMCA if you publicly expose flaws in DRM software act as a whistle-blower against more general software flaws in the code? Diebold, Microsoft, and other told me so!

I thought that was the work of law enforcement?

How do I prove the mp3's on my computer were purchased?

It's like, how does one prove the copyrighted software on one's computer was purchased?

That's an odd sentence you wrote concerning DMCA....the burden of proof is now on the accused?

What ever happened until innocent until proven guilty.

You're saying guilty until proven innocent?!?!

I'm not defending piracy, but wow! :wow:

The current state of copyright law is criminal. They no longer serve society, just maximize corporate profits.

While they whine that pirates are criminals, they have no qualms about engaging in criminal activity against consumers. Sony BMG just lost a large settlement:

"The copy-protection software Sony shipped with music CDs created security risks for users and monitored their listening behavior on their PCs without their permission, the FTC said.

The copy-protection software installed itself without users' consent, was complicated to uninstall and limited the devices a CD could be played in, as well as the number of copies that could be made, the FTC said.

The FTC had alleged Sony BMG had violated federal law by selling music CDs with this type of hidden software."


http://computerworld.com/action/article.do?command=viewArticleBasic&taxonomyName=standards_legal_issues&articleId=9009719&taxonomyId=146

For example, you can't play songs you've downloaded from the itunes store on other mp3 players (although you can fix that by burning those songs to a CD, and then re-rip them, giving you an mp3 copy that can be put onto any mp3 player.)

Another example was when a program was created to allow Linux users to be able to play DVD movies on their computers. Using the precedent of the VCR, while the software made for cracking the DVD anti-copying technology can be used for piracy, it can also be used when the f**kin' movie studios refuse to allow you to watch movies on the operating system of YOUR choice.

I'm just glad that CD's, Vinyl, and cassettes weren't given something like DRM, or else a CD put out my a studio owned by Sony would only have been able to play on a Walkman!

remember that one

I'm sorry, but if I want to make of a copy of songs on MY f**kin' CD that I paid for at Borders, Barnes & Noble, or where ever, then I should have that right! Why doesn't the RIAA ask Congress to write a law saying that we as a people do not own the CD's, books, and movies that we have bought? I guess fair use isn't a right? (actually, according to douche bag and DINO Jack Valenti, it's only a privilege.)

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=389&topic_id=74123&mesg_id=74123

Sorry for pimping my anti-DMCA thread, but this is a relevant time to do it.

...Anyway, good for him! I'm glad that he's standing up to the RIAA's mafia-style tactics.

then who would be left to buy the artists music, words, or movies? Our courts would be tied up for years and they would have to build hundreds of new prisons. This is a good example of biting your nose off to spite your face. The industry needs to learn how to adapt to new technology or suffer the consequences. They sure do love to go after the small and helpless people. It was nice to see one of these little people stand up to them.

They have fought the mp3 format and mp3 players from the beginning. Fortunately, they lost a 1999 case against Diamond Rio, which helped pave the way for making the mp3 file a worthy competitor to the CD. If it were up to them, they would turn the clock back ten years and ban anyone from having an mp3 file on their computer in any form. Then again...throw in the MPAA, and they would still like to ban the VCR (or at least Jack Valenti, anyway...but he's no longer working for them.)

They should be allowed to fight the RIAA as a collective entity. It would make it easier on them financially.

shows how weak their cases are. The RIAA brings lawsuits against small and helpless people that cause a lot of media attention and get settled out of court for much less. The big LIE that they base their cases on is that downloaded music equals lost sales.

so they go after the kids?
"The record industry has suffered enormously due to piracy. That includes thousands of layoffs. We must protect our rights." Yup heard all about those mass layoffs"
"Nothing in a filing full of recycled charges that have gone nowhere in the past changes that fact." Well at least they're being honest

Those kids are doing what millions of their contemporaries have done, including myself. I still have a handful of five-six year old songs left over from Napster and Morpheus sitting around in a now-dusty pile of CD-RW's. Don't worry, RIAA thugs, I don't use p2p anymore, but not because of your lawsuits that only have only attacked 0.0000000005% of everyone who's ever downloaded an mp3 file. I stopped using shit like Kazza or Limewire because of their fucking spyware and viruses. While I hate the itune's DRM technology, I'm using their store because I would rather deal with them than pay $17-$20 for a CD filled with only three songs that I like out of 20.

as for Kazza someone in my household downloaded it ; we wound up wiping that computer a day later because of spyware that instantly installed itself into every registry in the computer.

I liked being able to use it for music, but because the folks at Kazza were conniving douche bags who allowed for spyware to get on my computer, I deleted it. I was also starting to have problems with Windows' general performance the longer I had it on. In all honesty, the ideal golden age of p2p was roughly 2000-2002, from when Napster was at its peak (although technically it wasn't a p2p program) to the time that Morpheus opted out of the network with Kazza and Grokster, and went to Gnutella (which sucked ass even more in terms of its performance as software.)

...Then again, I wouldn't be surprised if the RIAA placed some of that malware into the network to screw Kazza users over even further.

without permission but they can sue you

and its so funny how they sue Americans but overseas they can't

Not in the form of the RIAA of course, but the labels that make up the RIAA are trans-national corporations that have affiliates in almost every major western country. If you trade songs from, say, Vivendi, and you live in Canada, then the Canadian version of the RIAA (the CRIA) will sue you.

You'd have to go to some remote island-nation or third-world country to really escape the RIAA thugs.