Ignores the fact that mother makes a mere $8 bucks/hr, and both are already overwhelmed with medical debts.
The RIAA has managed to outdo itself once again and target an even more economically disadvantaged individual than ever before. This time it’s 19yo teen transplant candidate Ciara Sauro who’s been diagnosed with pancreatitis and awaiting a islet cell transplant. Hospitalized weekly, and in the care of here mother who makes only $8.25p/hr, the family is unable to pay the nearly $8,000 in fines the RIAA is demanding.
Both have vehemently denied the RIAA’s file-sharing allegations, but received a default judgment against them by a federal judge in Pittsburgh after being unable to afford an attorney to represent them. They say the Internet account belongs to Ciara’s father who, for whatever reason, recently decided to leave the family.
“Look and see where it (the downloads) came from, and look and see that it’s not me. It’s not fair to do to me,” said Sauro. “I already have severe depression. I mean, it’s so hard to sit there and think that I have to get in trouble for something that I didn’t do. It’s not fair.”
The real crime here is that it again illustrates what’s wrong with the RIAA’s efforts in that the defendant cannot afford legal representation.
“I just want them to know that I have to go through enough stress in my life with my sickness and my family, and I don’t think that they should go after people just because they want money for something that’s not even fair to us,” Ciara Sauro said.
If the mother works 40hrs p/wk she grosses $15,840 for the year, so an $8,000 fine is more than half of her annual salary! With food, clothing, gas, car, and a roof to put over the family’s heads there’s barely enough money to survive let alone pay attorney’s fees.
“You want to know the truth? I make $8.25 an hour. She can’t work. This child is very sick. I mean, what am I supposed to do?” said the mother, Lisa Sauro.
But, there is now a silver lining in all of this for attorney James Brink, whom has defended other accused file-sharers, has now offered to defend the family free of charge. Brink understands their predicament.
“A lay person getting this — first of all, it’s 60 pages thick,” he said. “It’s full of legalese and jargon from the company. They see the record company suing them for thousands of dollars. They get scared.”
I've been interested in P2P since the early, high-flying days of Napster and KaZaA. I believe that analog copyright laws are ill-suited to the digital age, and that art and culture shouldn't be subject to the whims of international entertainment industry conglomerates. Twitter | Google Plus
[...] consumers like you and me. Industry associations are made to look especially bad by injudiciously suing teens in ill health and many others [...]