I’m tempted to pity little Patricia Santangelo, a divorced mother of five trying to fight off a law suit by the enormous music recording industry. After reading several articles about her, I am firmly on the side of the music industry. The bottom line on illegal downloads: they’re illegal.
The reason I was tempted to pity Patricia Santangelo was the wording in the news stories. They’re all written to generate maximum sympathy for downloaders. Here are some tear-inducing examples:
It was Easter Sunday, and Patricia Santangelo was in church with her kids when she says the music recording industry peeked into her computer and decided to take her to court.
…Santangelo thinks it may have been the work of a young friend of her children. Santangelo, 43, has been described by a federal judge as "an Internet-illiterate parent, who does not know Kazaa from kazoo, and who can barely retrieve her email.’
The drain on her resources to fight the case — she's divorced, has five children aged 7 to 19 and works as a property manager for a real estate company — forced her this month to drop her lawyer and begin representing herself.
Santangelo quote: "I'm out $24,000 and we haven't even gone to trial."
Santangelo’s former lawyer: “[The plaintiff doesn’t] know how the files appeared on her computer or who put them there."
Somebody downloaded files to Patricia Santangelo's computer, but she has no knowledge of it, so it's okay? If music CDs (physical discs) had been stolen from a mall and ended up in Patricia Santangelo’s house, would we have all these media stories about David vs. Goliath? Would we be hearing exclusively the side of poor, poor Patricia who doesn't know Kazaa from Kalamazoo?
Here is the contrasting reality: Patricia Santangelo is responsible for anything downloaded via an internet connection she leases (rents, owns, etc.) per the agreement she has with her ISP – unless the connection was hijacked by a third party (i.e. hacking, which would be like finding out your car has been stolen and was used in the commission of a bank robbery).
Patricia Santangelo will probably get justice in this case. It won't be what she's expecting.
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