Trust me when I say that you should spend the few minutes it’ll take to read this transcript of a White Plains, NY court session. The quick background: appearing before U.S. District Court Judge Colleen McMahon is Michael Maschio, a lawyer for Elektra Entertainment Group, and Patricia Santangelo, a woman sued by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) for sharing copyrighted music. And to ruin the punchline of the transcript a little bit: the lawyer keeps trying to get the judge to endorse the jackassed way the RIAA attempts to force defendants to give in, and the judge will have absolutely none of it. My favorite little snippet:

MR. MASCHIO: It would be helpful to resolve this case if the defendant would put in, under oath, a denial in writing.
THE COURT: Fine. But I’m going to give her some time to find a lawyer.
MR. MASCHIO: That’s okay. We would just like — we think it’s appropriate for her to say, yes, I did this or, no, I did not do this under oath. The other thing is that —
THE COURT: First of all, you didn’t file a verified complaint, and she doesn’t have to file a verified answer. So she doesn’t have to do anything under oath.
MR. MASCHIO: Well, okay.
THE COURT: I’m going to give her 60 days to find a lawyer. And she’s not in default. And she will not be in default if there is no answer, because, right now, there is a general denial on the record for her. Okay?
MR. MASCHIO: Okay. The other thing, your Honor, I don’t know if you want to do this. I brought a consent scheduling order.
THE COURT: No. I don’t want to set a scheduling order. In fact, I don’t want anything to happen in this case for a while.
MR. MASCHIO: Okay.
THE COURT: I’m in no hurry to see this case resolved. So far, Mrs. Santangelo has raised enough issues, including the use of a screen name or an account name — not hers, but some other person’s — that suggests that she might have some really interesting defenses to this. And there are defenses that maybe even ought to be litigated. The whole concept of a young person using the parent’s computer access is bad enough, but if this name is not hers, she doesn’t pay for this account.

(Thanks go out to Mike Godwin — yes, that Mike Godwin — for the pointer!)