James Delahunty
19 Sep 2005 19:51
Jon Newton at p2pnet has been busy lately covering RIAA lawsuit victims who continue to claim their innocence and are willing to stand up to the big four major record labels instead of being forced to settle. He has completed an excellent article covering several lawsuit victims and their situations. It's an excellent read for anyone on either side of the music downloading debate. Here's an extract of the introduction...
An unusual, extremely expensive, international online club is starting to form.
Its first member was Patricia Santangelo, a single New York mother of five.
Next came Dawnell Leadbetter, another single mother, this time from the Seattle area. If you’re a regular p2pnet reader, you’ll recognize both of the above names.
The third member was someone you haven't met before: Tanya Andersen (right), a single mother who's living in Oregon and who's seriously disabled with a painful medical condition. She and her eight-year-old daughter get by on social security payments.
By now, you'll have probably guessed the club members are all women being brutally victimized by EMI, Universal, Warner and Sony BMG, the huge, multi-billion-dollar record label cartel that's using its immense financial and political weight and deep, dark connections to law enforcement agencies in a bizarre marketing scheme.
Instead of wooing customers, it's suing them and so far, it's clocked up close to 14,000 people.
But the significance of the three women isn't that they're among the unfortunate victims.
Rather, they stand out because they're standing up, defying the Mafia-like labels and their teams of hired legal thugs who work through 'Settlement Centers' which aim to terrorize people into paying 'fees' which usually start out at $7,500 to be 'negotiated' down to around $3,500.
Do you think the superlatives victimize, brutal, terrorize and bizarre are too strong?
They're not strong enough.