Blackmoor Vituperative

I am not sure I would be this brave, but I’m sure glad that someone is.

Patricia Santangelo is in many ways the embodiment of the suburban mom.

She is the mother of five children, ranging in age from 6 to 19. She is divorced, living in Wappingers Falls after growing up in Yorktown and Putnam County. At 42, she works as a property manager for a real estate company and is trying to get her own business off the ground….

Santangelo was sued by several record companies in U.S. District Court in White Plains in February. The record companies said Santangelo’s home computer and Internet account were used to illegally trade copyrighted song files. The record companies say people like Santangelo are destroying the multibillion-dollar industry….

Record companies have filed about 13,300 similar federal lawsuits against Internet users across the country since September 2003…. None of the cases has gone to trial.

Opponents of the record companies’ lawsuits have said they hoped someone would challenge the companies’ tactics in court rather than settle.

“If this particular woman is willing to go to trial, that’s something new,” said Jason Schultz, a staff attorney with the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a digital rights advocacy group that opposes the lawsuits. “The threat is so great that most people don’t even risk it.”…

U.S. District Judge Colleen McMahon will decide the issue.

McMahon already has had a glimpse of the case from a conference May 6, before Santangelo had a lawyer. The judge told Santangelo she should get an attorney….

“I would love to see a mom fighting one of these,” the judge said.

(from The Joural News, Taking on record companies)

Way to go, Patricia.