Dave Horvath
13 Jan 2007 7:42
There are some who may remember a little while back when the Recording Industry Association of America attempted to sue NY native Patricia Santangelo. The case got a lot of media attention because Mrs. Santagelo was adamant that she had no illegally downloaded any music as the RIAA had claimed. By not settling with the RIAA and taking her case to court, she was able to show the judge that she did not download any music illegally and if her children had, in fact, done so that its the file-sharing programs that should be blamed. The case was dropped and Mrs. Santagelo won her case. The RIAA released a statement that their pursuit would not end there.
The RIAA issued two new cases against Patricia Santangelo's children, Michelle (20) and Robert (16). Although nothing seems to have been ruled against Robert, Michelle did not fair so well.
Judge Stephen C. Robinson of United States District Court has ordered Michelle Santangelo to pay some $750 for each of the 41 songs she was accused of illegally downloading. The total bill coming to $30,750 for a mere 41 songs shows that the RIAA has some very pursuasive legal entities on their side. I'm not sure where the $750 per song figure came from, but the recording industry doesn't even make close to that if the music were purchased legally.
The case fell into default judgement when Michelle Santangelo failed to respond to the RIAA's claims. There's no telling whether or not this default judgement will mark a closure for the case as most judgements of this nature are often set aside so that lawsuits can be decided on the grounds of the default judgement. Neither Jordan Glass, Ms. Santangelo's lawyer or Jenni R. Engebretsen, RIAA spearhead in most of their lawsuit cases and coordinator of thousands of cases of piracy, had any comments on this case.
Source:
New York Times