Elektra v. Santangelo -- I dug up the latest on Mrs. Santangelo's defense case against the RIAA and other media groups for allegedly downloading files from KaZaA. The suit is still pending after nearly 18 months, during which time Mrs. Santangelo decided to represent herself because of mounting legal bills, then hired a new attorney with money raised from online activists at FightGoliath.com (click for a photo of Mrs. S.). Also, the computer hard drive in question was taken by her ex-husband to North Carolina, where is was destroyed in a house fire. Then the ex-husband had an emergency liver transplant (!) which further delayed the case because he could not be deposed. All this for some now-vanished mp3 files!

But the judge did not grant Santangelo's Motion to Dismiss the case for lack of detail -- the lawsuit only listed the names of "stolen" files and not evidence of when they were downloaded. Judge McMahon decided that more specificity was not required by law at this point, and the case would move on to the real issue at hand: "Is an internet-illiterate parent, who does not know Kazaa from a kazoo, and who can barely retrieve her email, liable for copyright infringement committed by that parent's minor child, who downloads music over the Web without the parent's knowledge or permission -- but using the parent's internet account?" This question is relevant to many more RIAA lawsuits, obviously, so Mrs. Santangelo's fight goes on.