RIAA has stooped to using children to catch downloaders

The Big Four record labels are escalating their attack on Patti Santangelo, the New York mother who's so far the only person to stand up to them.
And they'll be using her children as weapons against her.

On Tuesday judge Mark D. Fox presided over a discovery hearing in Elektra v Santangelo and, "Elektra's attorneys have answered Patti's objections to their discovery questions," her lawyer, Jordan Glass said.

"They've started to push back aggressively. They're going after her children - and this time not directly so they can get around certain protections the children have. They had information about the children that wasn't public, or wasn't supposed to be public, and it's of great concern not only that that they were able to obtain it, but also that they wanted it.

"They're not treating this as a single case or as seeking a verdict for $3,500.00. They're treating this as a symbol for how the other cases will go and I hope everyone who reads this will recognize the serious impact this case could have on their children."

The RIAA has spent enough to feed a small country on trying to make the world believe it's owners, the multi-billion-dollar Big Four labels, are being "devastated" (their word) by people who share music online, that contracted artists are suffering and that support workers are being driven into extreme financial hardship.

They make the completely unsupportable assertion that people using the p2p networks to share files would otherwise have paid $1 or more to buy the song from an online corporate music site or an offline music store. And they claim file sharers are criminals and thieves, although nothing has been stolen and at worst, file sharing, a purely civil, not criminal, matter, involves copyright infringement.

Patti is said to have shared music, an allegation she flatly denies, and when the Big Four's RIAA (Recording Industry Association of America) tried to get her to buy them off, she would have none of it, instead electing to act as her own lawyer against the labels. When p2pnet spoke to her last September, "Assuming your case ends up in court, how far are you willing to go?" - we asked her. I'm willing to take it as far as I have to to prevent other innocent people being dragged into frivolous lawsuits," she replied. "It's wrong."

To read the rest of this disgusting story of record company power abuse, go here