Apparantly it takes the RIAA 14,800 lawsuits in the last two years before someone stands up against these morons. Before now not a single one has gone to trial. That’s about to change because Patricia Santangelo, a divorced mother of five living in Wappingers Falls, New York, is taking her case to trial. According to the report at the Arstechnica website, she recently found herself the target of an RIAA lawsuit and vowed to contest it, claiming that she knows nothing about downloading music online. The RIAA, however, is quite sure that she does. As they put it in their complaint.
Santangelo and her lawyers moved to dismiss the case but the judge has rejected their efforts, meaning that discovery will soon begin and a full trial appears likely. We haven’t seen a trial on this issue yet because the RIAA has generously offered to settle the suits for amounts in the US$3000-4000 range, rather than the tens of thousands they would demand if they prevailed in court. To date, more than three thousand people have coughed up. Santangelo vows to fight on, though, claiming that the likely culprit is not her but a friend’s child who used her computer.
The stupid thing is: it’s not the first time the RIAA has been wrong, as can be understood from this funny article called “I sue dead people”. In 2003, they mistakenly targeted a 66-year-old woman for allegedly sharing gangsta rap.
More about this case in the National Law Journal.