A woman from New York sued by the RIAA for illegal downloading is taking on the music industry group without the assistance of an attorney. Patricia Santangelo contends she has never downloaded a single song onto her computer, but the RIAA saw differently. She then became one of the 16,000 people sued thus far for downloading copyrighted music through P2P networks.
"I assumed that when I explained to them who I was and that I wasn't a computer downloader, it would just go away," she said in an interview. "I didn't really understand what it all meant. But they just kept insisting on a financial settlement."
Santangelo, a 43 year old divorced mother of five, claims that if the downloading did take place it was done by a young friend of one of her children. She has been described by a federal judge to be so computer illiterate that she can barely retrieve her own email.
Due to the financial strain, she has been forced to drop her lawyer and has already run up a $24,000 legal bill before the case has gone to trial. Even so, she vows to continue her fight.
"People say to me, 'You're crazy. Why don't you just settle?' 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."
News source: Yahoo! News
"I assumed that when I explained to them who I was and that I wasn't a computer downloader, it would just go away," she said in an interview. "I didn't really understand what it all meant. But they just kept insisting on a financial settlement."
Santangelo, a 43 year old divorced mother of five, claims that if the downloading did take place it was done by a young friend of one of her children. She has been described by a federal judge to be so computer illiterate that she can barely retrieve her own email.
Due to the financial strain, she has been forced to drop her lawyer and has already run up a $24,000 legal bill before the case has gone to trial. Even so, she vows to continue her fight.
"People say to me, 'You're crazy. Why don't you just settle?' 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."
News source: Yahoo! News
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