We should contact her lawyer about putting up a website so people can follow the case and also send in donations. A paypal link on a site like that would generate some funds for her I bet. I would sure donate.

Colleen McMahon is a U. S. District Court, Southern District of New York Judge. http://air.fjc.gov/servlet/tGetInfo?jid=2799

Doing a few searches in New York I think this is possibly Patricia Santangelo's lawyer.
http://www.blhny.com/rogers.htm
His email is mtrogers@blhny.com

Good luck Patricia! A lot of tax paying consumers are behind your decision to defend your family and rights.

RighT oN!!! You Go GirL!@! RIAA Snoopin around is in infrigment on your privacy rights, Kinda like, "lets break the law to inforce it.

Anything tangable? Name those Songs? if it was a copyright infringment, the person that originally created the copy would be at fault, not the pc that transfered the data, or group of pc's on any ISP's network.

Hello!

I would agree with the others that have backed the decision to help with the funds...

Vik

skeil909
Have you made any attempt to confirm that lawyer's involvement? If so, has he offered any info about creating an online legal defense fund? I'd like to contribute, but I want to know that it's going where I want it to go.

I see all the rhetoric supporting this woman's action. Now how about some real support, like with $$$. Anyone out there know how to open a donation account?

Steve83,

I sent out an email this morning. I will post any info that I obtain as soon as I get it.

It makes me sick when they relate downloading to stealing. Steven King didn't lose money when I checked out a copy of "Bag of Bones" from the library.

Suppose they did stop downloading music and people simply purchased everthing without listening to it first. Will the record companies refund everyone's money if they aren't satisfied? If I buy a $20 cd and only like one song, I'm taking it back!

074kiev,

That's one reason I have no remorse for the record industry. As a child I picked albums with neat covers as I had no knowledge of the band. Let's just say I got stuck with a lot of crap. I dismissed buying albums ever again. CDs came along and cool record stores allowed you to hear them. I bought more music once again. I believe the RIAA tried to put a halt to listening to CDs before buying.
Very few albums are packed with good tunes, buying songs for a buck is the coolest thing. I think RIAA is pissed at that as I'll only buy the one or two songs off the album then the whole shabang. I think it would even be better if 16 kbps songs would be totally free. Then I'd get the gist of the song. Buy the good ones and save bandwidth. I'm not in the "music scene" so I nead to hear it.

Earlier Banchee had the odd assumption that each song was a dollar. Anybody know how that works with classical music which usually only has 2-5 tracks?

The most effective way of supporting this woman is at the ballot box. Write to your congressman, local member, senator or whatever and let them no in no uncertain terms that you will not support them come next election if the RIAA continue with what should be regarded as unlawful activities.
Nothing motivates legislators more than the possiblity of loosing an election.
Encourage as many folk in your local area to do the same.
In the US judges are elected. The voter has the power.

Can you imagine if she wins! The ambulance chasers will be lining up to represent the other victims. It will probably end up being a class action suit that could ultimately cost the RIAA millions.

I see four possible outcomes:

1) The RIAA backs out knowing that they could lose the chance to sue people.

2) The RIAA wins and intensifies their lawsuits against users.

3) She wins and the RIAA quits sueing people.

4) She wins and the RIAA continues to sue people, but the lawsuits become a joke that everybody now knows that they can beat.

I certainly hope she wins and wins BIG. I hope they make RIAA pay her 10 times what they are trying to extort from her plus all her legal expenses. These lawsuits are so unfair. If RIAA wasn't still realizing a healthy profit, they wouldn't be able to afford all these petty lawsuits. It's all just pure greed. With all the spyware, trojans, highjackers, & drive-by installers that can invade a persons computer without their knowledge, a smart hacker could easily have used her computer as a proxy to download this stuff and the only thing she might have noticed would be a slowed down computer, which is problematic with windows anyway. Hey, why doesn't RIAA just sue Microsoft for providing windows and be done with it all.

I wish her the best of luck. I hope she burns their asses. When will these has beens realize that their day has come and gone. For years they forced us to buy cd's that contained 1/4 of what the consumer wants and 3/4 garbage. In my opinion they are only destroying themselves. I think in the near future you will see more and more artists trying to distance themselves from these idiots.

We can only hope she wins but alas the law and governments across the globe exist only for commerce.
We no longer vote for a people's governments just a rabble who will bend over backwards to please the multi national corporations.
The consumer is somewhere near the bottom of the "What Matters" ladder

I'm with everyone else here. I hope that she fights them to the end and wins big time. Then she needs to sue RIAA for intimidation and take out AVOs (or the US's equivalent [I'm from Australia...]) on any and every one who was involved in bringing this suit to court. She should also claim for court costs and for mental anguish, saying that she's now traumatised by the whole ordeal and that she's afraid to see a CD or DVD lest is reminds her of this case.

If someone uses your gun to shoot someone, they can't charge you with murder.

If someone takes your car without permission and robs a bank, they can't charge the car owner with robbery.

I don't see why they can't have a defense of "someone used my computer, the RIAA can't prove who it was to charge anyone."

I'm not an attorney, clearly, but can a homeowner be charged if their basement is used by underage kids to commit a crime without their knowledge (drugs, stolen property ring.)

I think parents can be charged if kids drink in their house.

Agreed that they can't charge someone with murder if it's someone else who uses the gun, but they can charge that person for inproper storage, or something like that

There might be something similar in the case of RIAA?

But it's something worth looking into - if there's anyone who's studying law, can you provide an answer?

On a side note, is it only Kazaa users that are getting sued or are they suing others as well?

'm_towell (Newbie) 25 August 2005 18:30 _
Agreed that they can't charge someone with murder if it's someone else who uses the gun, but they can charge that person for inproper storage, or something like that
There might be something similar in the case of RIAA?
But it's something worth looking into - if there's anyone who's studying law, can you provide an answer?'

Well it is not a criminal charge, it is a civil suit. and in terms of your quesiton, if you have a weapon inyour house imporperly secured and someone wiht or without your permission uses to kill somone you can eaily be sued.

If you hae booze improperly secured and a monor who is not even your kid gets in it and then hits a another vehcile, the family of the person injured or killed can also sue you and likly win damages.

the question is the presumptions as to whether adults need to secure pc's to prevent damages to third parties. I donlt know about htat. with booze and guns there is a presumption of ability to cause harm and also regulations against or limiting use by minors.

my guess is there maybe some case law on say harrassing use of a telephone. that would seem to me to logically be in the same class.

I hope the lawyer is good enuff to challenge those buggers, Good luck mom !!!

When are we gonna get a CD Machine that can legally burn all the songs we like on one disk... you pay 20$ for a CD with only a couple of songs that are any good on it. It already might be possible, I dont know , but I would rather pay 20$ for the all the songs I want on a CD.. Surely this day and age its easy enough to do.

I would say by the statement below, it's pretty clear which way the judge is leaning.

"U.S. District Judge Colleen McMahon will decide the issue. She told the record companies lawyers that the settlement centre was now no part of this case. "I would love to see a mom fighting one of these," she said."

ok here is where i stand, i back her argument. However making it clear thati do not support the downloading of music illegally or anyother illegal media at that. The RIAA is just getting stupid, yet at the same time what they are trying to do is scare everyone into stopping and they figure at the same time time to try and make up for that lost money. WHO FREAKING CARES. If they would understand that people want to hear music, nor pay into capitalism. I go buy my music online. But then again i also have my own burnlounge store...

What is a burnlounge store?

Hmmm, never heard of it either. I found BurnLounge.com is not online (at this time anyway).

Here's what I found out though...

"BurnLounge - From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia: BurnLounge, Inc. is an allegedly illegal pyramid scheme [1] founded in 2004]"

Read the rest of the story here



http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Santangelo_v._RIAA