Despite the RIAA’s promise to stop suing people, the organization admitted that their outstanding lawsuits would continue. One such lawsuit, against a suburban family from White Plains, NY, has been settled for $7,000 after a four year nightmare in court.

The RIAA initially brought suit against the mother of the family, Patricia Santangelo, who was a bit confused about the whole thing since she lacked the requisite knowledge to actually do the things she was being accused of.

However, thanks to generous donations from the general public and a fighting spirit, she got the RIAA to drop the case… only to have them refile against her children, now 16 and 20 years old. Keep in mind this means that at the time where the piracy took place, they would have been 12 and 16. Both children denied doing anything wrong, but one of them, Michelle, supposedly admitted to piracy in a deposition; the other, Robert, was “implicated” by a family friend.

After four years of harassing two kids and their mother in court, what did the RIAA have to say about all this? From the source article;

“We are pleased to have reached an agreement with the Santangelos,” Cara Duckworth, spokeswoman for the RIAA, said in an e-mailed statement. Asked how much had been spent to win the $7,000 settlement, and whether it was a victory, she said, “We don’t break out costs per case, and it’s not a question of it being ‘worth it’ or a ‘victory.’”

Wait, what?

“…and it’s not a question of it being ‘worth it’ or a ‘victory.’”

I actually can’t think of anything witty or scathing to say in response to this statement. It speaks for itself.

Suburban NYC family settles music piracy suit [Associated Press]

Tags: Litigation, Piracy

This entry was posted on Wednesday, April 29th, 2009 at 11:47 am and is filed under Industry news. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

Courtroom drama! Legal intrigue! Hot issues! It’s not Law & Order, it’s the continuing saga of the Pirate Bay trial in Sweden. Calls for a mistrial have been flying after it surfaced that the judge in the trial may have had a conflict of interests. Tomas Norström, who presided over the case, was found to be a member of two “pro-copyright” groups, the Swedish Association of Copyright and the Swedish Association for Industrial Legal Protection.

Those on the side of The Pirate Bay claim that the judge’s membership in these groups constitutes a serious conflict of interest, calling his sentencing into question. Norström contended that the Swedish Copyright Association “only promotes knowledge about copyright” and that he is a member “so he can follow related debate and development.” Monique Wadsted, one of the lawyers prosecuting the case, added that all jurists in Stockholm are members of that association.

It remains to be seen whether these new facts will result in a mistrial or whether they will impact the appeals process. Eric Bylander, a professor of law in Gothenburg, Sweden, believes it was “inappropriate” for Norström to take the case, but also that a mistrial would probably not be granted (though it would be a “close call”).

Pirate Bay Judge Exposed as Member of Pro-Copyright Groups [wired]

Tags: Litigation, Piracy

This entry was posted on Friday, April 24th, 2009 at 11:06 pm and is filed under Industry news. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

Two months after their trial began, four men associated with the administration and/or funding of torrent website The Pirate Bay have been convicted of criminal charges (contributory copyright infringement) in Swedish court. They’ll be heading to jail for a year and will be paying the equivalent of $3.6 million dollars in damages to various copyright holders.

The convicted men seemed unphased by the trial. Before the verdict was revealed, one of the men, Peter Sunde, was quoted as saying, “Stay calm — Nothing will happen to TPB, us personally or file sharing whatsoever. This is just a theater for the media.”

The Pirate Bay Guilty; Jail for File-Sharing Foursome [Wired]

Tags: Litigation, Piracy

This entry was posted on Friday, April 17th, 2009 at 3:00 pm and is filed under Industry news. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

Swedish website The Pirate Bay has been a central source for BitTorrent-based piracy for over five years. Though they do not actually host any files, their torrent tracker and torrent database are filled almost entirely with various illegal media, from software to music and movies. The site and its founders are infamous for their blatant disregard for intellectual property laws and those who would attempt to enforce them; in fact, TPB has an entire section of their site devoted to ridiculing individuals and organizations who send them copyright infringement notices.

Not surprisingly, the guys that run TPB (and one guy that donates to them) have now been taken to Swedish court and face serious criminal penalties for their actions. The trial, which began yesterday, essentially pits the interests of organizations like the MPAA and IFPI against the anti-copyright movement particularly prevalent in Europe. Already, some of the charges have been dropped by the prosecution, primarily for technical reasons. Initially, TPB was accused of actual infringement, but due to the nature of BitTorrent, facilitation of infringement was more accurate.

Which party do you side with? What do you think is going to happen?

Pirate Bay trial gets massive online coverage [NetworkWorld]

Tags: Litigation, Piracy

This entry was posted on Tuesday, February 17th, 2009 at 12:38 pm and is filed under Industry news. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.