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'Internet Illiterate' Mom Sued Over Music Downloads
Patricia Santangelo, holding court papers at her home-office desk, is defending herself in a court battle against the recording industry.
(By Kathy Mclaughlin -- Associated Press)
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Jenni Engebretsen, a spokeswoman for the Recording Industry Association of America, the coalition of music companies that is pressing the lawsuits, would not comment specifically on Santangelo's case.
"Our goal with all these anti-piracy efforts is to protect the ability of the recording industry to invest in new bands and new music and give legal online services a chance to flourish," she said. "The illegal downloading of music is just as wrong as shoplifting from a local record store."
The David-and-Goliath nature of the case has attracted considerable attention in the Internet community. To those who defend the right to such "peer-to-peer" networks and criticize the recording industry's tactics, Santangelo is a hero.
Santangelo said her biggest issue is with Kazaa for allowing children to download music without parental permission. "I should have gotten at least an e-mail or something notifying me," she said.
"People say to me, 'You're crazy. Why don't you just settle?' " she said. "I could probably get out of the whole thing if I paid maybe $3,500 and signed their little document. But I won't do that."
Asked how far she could go financially, she said, "I'm already past that point."
Her travail started when the record companies used an investigator to go online and search for copyrighted recordings being made available by individuals. The investigator allegedly found hundreds on her computer on April 11, 2004. Months later, there was a phone call from the industry's "settlement center," demanding about $7,500 "to keep me from being named in a lawsuit," Santangelo said.
Santangelo and Beckerman were confident they would win a motion to dismiss the case, but Judge Colleen McMahon ruled that the record companies had enough of a case to go forward. She said the issue was whether "an Internet-illiterate parent" could be held liable for her children's downloads.
Santangelo says she's learned a lot about computers in the past year.
"I have a firewall now," she said. "I have a ton of security now."
