Sceptical About Patti Santangelo?

First published here.


I've been quite saddened by some of the responses I've come across towards the Fight Goliath campaign set up to help Patricia Santangelo battle the RIAA in court.

As most people reading this are aware, this New York mom is just one of the people being targeted by the RIAA under their bizarre theory that if enough ordinary people are litigated into the ground then everyone will go back to buying CDs like the good little consumers they used be.

Doing the rounds on my favourite forums, I've come across a lot of scepticism about Patti. Here are some examples:

"Last time [I] donated any money to a cause like this it was scam. So no $$$ from me."

"methinks its a con"

"anybody remember lokitorrents?" and "Yup. First thing I thought when I saw this thread..."

I thought I might take some time to shoot down some of the unfounded doubts people may be having.

A) Patricia Santangelo wasn't running a torrent site. She's said to have been sharing music through Kazaa. No huge advertising revenue. No huge user-base. No huge facilitation of copyright infringement. Just one tiny node on a network of millions.

B) Patricia Santangelo isn't a p2p developer. She didn't come up with some great way to share billions of files with millions of other users, nor is she bundling spyware/adware with her non-existent application.

C) Patricia Santangelo can't afford a lawyer. She used to have one, but in an affidavit to Judge Colleen McMahon her now ex-lawyer, Ray Beckerman, says "(a) defendant does not appear to have the financial resources that would be required for the pretrial discovery, and summary judgment and/or trial work, that lay ahead, and (b) it is clear to the undersigned that the plaintiff's case is frivolous, so that it would be unwarranted for defendant to go to extraordinary means to finance her defense of this case."

D) Patricia Santangelo still has legal expenses. Retaining a lawyer is not the extent of the total legal fees that can be racked up fighting a civil lawsuit. Need to file a document with the court? Pay up. Need to subpoena a RIAA "piracy investigator"? Pay up. Need a one-off conversation with an expert in a particular legal or technical field? Pay up. It's not a "Lawyer costs $100/hour x 35 hours = $3,500 in legal fees" kind of situation.

E) Patricia Santangelo isn't some anonymous name on your screen, begging for money. All her details are publically available through the court documents on her case. We have photos of her with the court documents. We have videos of her on NBC, CBS, Fox, CNN and MSNBC.

F) Patricia Santangelo has opted for a trial by jury. As in turn-up-at-the-court-and-watch-the-whole-thing-with-your-own-eyes kind of trial by jury.

Now that we can see Patti isn't asking for us to "plese send bank details an i will depostit 1 million dollars 2 yor acont", what are some best or worst case scenarios?

Worst case - Patricia Santagelo runs off with all the money. The RIAA spends hundreds of thousands of dollars tracking her down so they can drag her back to court and bankrupt her.

You lose your $5 donation. The RIAA lose hundreds of thousands of dollars. Patti loses everything.

Another worst case scenario - Patricia Santagelo caves in to the RIAA and hands over all the money. You lose your $5 donation. The RIAA lose hundreds of thousands of dollars net because they've already forked out that much on legals, so they don't make a profit on the deal. Patti is spared the fate of all the others who've been sued, thanks to the kindness of people who, every day, still do exactly what she's in trouble for.

Best case scenario?

Patricia Santagelo wins. She doesn't have to pay the RIAA anything. Instead, she gets her court costs back and you get a warm, fuzzy feeling knowing your $5 donation helped stick a nail in the RIAA's coffin. Patti gets the benefit of not being bankrupted and can to go back to being a mother and a provider instead of an RIAA PR piece.

The RIAA? It gets a lot of very bad press on top of the very bad press it's already getting, and it loses a chunk of money and the ability to victimize people like you.

Unfortunately, this thing is bigger than you. Or me. Or Patricia Santagelo.

I don't have a crystal ball that will tell me if its "worth" donating to this cause. What I am doing, though, is imagining myself standing in the Valley of Elah holding a betting slip with "David - 100 Shakels To Win" written on it.

We all knew it was going to happen sooner or later. Maybe not one in the first thousand, maybe not one in the first ten thousand, but we all knew that eventually, some ordinary person was going to fight back against the huge corporate bullies.

But in fact, Patti isn't just some ordinary woman.

She's extraordinary.