Peeking Over Your Child's Shoulder Could Save You US$3,000
By: Faldo

The news item is more than a year old but the story of Patricia Santangelo still leaves many of those following her story quite impressed. No, Mrs. Santangelo is not a Nobel prize-winning genius by any means. In fact, a federal judge described her as "an internet illiterate parent...who can barely retrieve her email". She is like most divorced parents, raising children on her own and just trying to make ends meet. She is also a "victim" of the cold-blooded litigation machine known as the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA).

For sure the RIAA will contend that they are the "victim" because after all, they are suing Santangelo for illegally downloading copyrighted music through peer-to-peer technology. The RIAA's mantra is that illegal downloads "rob" them of royalties due their artists. They have offered her a settlement of US$3,500 but Santangelo refused, deciding to take on the industry based on moral issues. She says, "I can't sign something that says I agree to stop doing something I never did."

In a Reuters news item this past October 17, the evil empire, er music industry, recently launched a fresh wave of 8,000 attacks, er lawsuits. This time, the lawsuits are also being filed in seventeen other countries and not just in the USA. Of those new lawsuits, how many more Patricia Santangelo's will be unwitting victims? As a parent reading this, how do you think you will react if you open up a letter demanding you to pay anywhere from US$3,000 to US$140,000 because you have been found to be downloading music illegally.

Santangelo admits that it could have been a young friend of one of her children who did the downloading. And this is the danger to the parents when their little ones are left unsupervised while using the family computer. As parents, we all know how the little ones always want instant gratification without regard for the consequences. However the same consequences can be costly for the parents.

As badly as it stinks, the music industry was well within the law to do what they did to Mrs. Santangelo. When their high tech snoops start monitoring peer-to-peer sharing facilities for offenders, all they see are the IP addresses of the offending computers. And because your internet provider assigned you your IP address, all their legal department has to do is get a judge's order to compel the internet provider to give out the subscriber's identity that was assigned that particular IP address.

They are not going to see that the parents (the real owners of the computer) never did the downloading. To analogize, let us say you are a gun owner and somone you know uses your gun to commit murder. The investigators come knocking at your door and tells you the weapon used in a murder is registered to you. The onus is on you to prove otherwise and that is exactly what will happen when the lawyers of the music industry bury you under an avalanche of proof.

If you are a parent with young children fond of downloading music, be very alert. Legal downloads have to paid for, so it entails use of credit card and if your children are not at an age where they can own credit cards, there is a very big chance the downloads are questionable. I do not use the world "illegal" here because I know none of our children will deliberately commit illegal acts. But as parents, it is up to us guide them through their online activities because what they do may affect us later on.

The music industry has proven they will not hesitate to use mafia-like strong-arm tactics to harass you if, in their eyes, you have been found to be downloading illegally. The law is on their side after all. And to underscore just how serious they are at filing lawsuits against illegal downloaders, take note of the language used by the CEO of the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry as he describes how the lawsuits will "put some money back into the war chest to try to clean up the online world." Notice has been served.

Article Source: http://www.ArticleJoe.com

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