RIAA vs Jammie Thomas: Day 1
p2pnet news | RIAA News:- Years back, then MPAA boss Jack Valenti, now deceased, developed the theme that studio workers were being thrown into the streets by their thousands because of staggering financial losses caused by piracy.
It wasn’t true then, and isn’t true now, but it looked good in the media and was reported as fact.
Warner Music, EMI, Vivendi Universal and Sony BMG know a good thing when they see it so they picked the line up and their various spin organisations, such as their RIAA (Recording Industry Association of America), have been using it ever since as part of disingenuous claims that ‘pirates’ are wreaking terrible havoc within the multi-billion-dollar corporate music industry.
Today marks Day 2 of a trial in which the Big 4 will try to convince a Duluth Minnesota, civil jury that as Tereastarr, Jammie Thomas, a 30-year-old mother of two, is guilty of using Sharman Networks’ Kazaa P2P file application – itself on the wrong end of a file sharing lawsuit – to illegally distribute 1,702 copyrighted music files online, with Holme Roberts & Owen lawyer Richard Gabriel leading the way for the labels.
The trial, the first in which an RIAA victim confronts the labels in an open court of law, is expected to run until Thursday at the least and will define how the sue ‘em all campaign will proceed.
And from the off, Jennifer Pariser, head of litigation for Sony BMG, claimed file sharing is a “tremendous problem affecting the music industry” causing, “several billions of dollars of harm” to the labels, says Ars Technica.
Keeping an open mind
On the jury is a high school English teacher from Kanabec County who has a master’s degree and is a musician, says the Duluth News Tribune, going oni:
He wore his hair over his ears and a black T-shirt with white lettering that read: ‘Got Democracy?’
The man said he has read a lot about the issue of music pirating in Rolling Stone magazine. He said his students also like to write about the issue. ‘It’s a good, controversial topic for students to write about,’ he said while being questioned as a prospective juror.”
Most of his students probably sided with those who download music,” he said, adding, “I know it’s a very debatable topic with lots of issues.”
“He said his view goes back and forth, but he could keep an open mind and follow the law that the judge said must be followed,” says the story.
Lack of technical knowledge
One of the reasons the RIAA cases have progressed as far as they have is because most of the judges hearing them had little or no technical knowledge, and no feeling for how the the Net works.
This meant they’ve been unable to sort fact from RIAA fiction and now, “Jurors’ understanding, or lack thereof, of the technology behind the alleged misdeed might make the difference in the case’s outcome,” says Wired’s David Kravets, going on:
“Some of the 12 panelists told the judge during jury selection that they lacked basic computer knowledge. Some said they had never been on the internet or don’t use it now. None admitted to using a file-sharing network.”
But, “Five said they had a digital music player and two said they copied a compact disc,” suggesting they probably have more technical knowledge and than may first appear.
And Thomas’s computer hard drive will figure prominently
It was replaced in 2005 after Virgin Records, Capitol Records, Sony BMG, Arista Records, Interscope Records, Warner Bros Records and UMG Recordings, say they let her know they believed she was illegally distributing their copyrighted files.
But Brian Toder, who’s representing Thomas, says the hard drive was replaced before she knew she was being targeted by the labels.
Meanwhile, “I never downloaded anything, Thomas states, says the Duluth News Tribune.
“I have CDs of everything I listen to.”
Massive job loss
What’s it all about?
The Big 4 saying file sharing is playing a major part in the serious decline of the traditional corporate music business, failing to acknowledge they’ve created a whole new consumer class of hundreds of millions of music lovers who, because of the lawsuits, bad product and over-charging, now go out of their way to avoid buying Big 4 product.
The labels say the estimated 30,000 men, women and children ( some of them as young as 10) across America who are currently under attack, charged by the RIAA of sharing music online, are ‘criminals’ and ‘thieves’ although with sharing, nothing has been stolen, no money has been exchanged and no one has been deprived of something they used to own.
EMI (Britain), Vivendi Universal (France), Sony BMG (Japan and Germany) and Warner Music (US) say files shared equals sales lost but as I posted yesterday, the assertion has been, “shot down in a number of authoritative studies, the most quoted being The Effect of File Sharing on Record Sales: An Empirical Analysis from Koleman Strumpf, professor of business economics at the University of Kansas Business School and Felix Oberholzer of the Harvard University Business School.”
The labels also claim file sharing contributes to massive job loss and ravages the US economy.
Nonetheless, and despite Pariser’s statements, a new Fair Use study states unequivocally:
With more than $4.5 trillion in revenue generated by fair use dependent industries in 2006, a 31% increase since 2002, fair use industries are directly responsible for more than 18% of U.S. economic growth and nearly 11 million American jobs.
In fact, nearly one out of every eight American jobs is in an industry that benefits from current limitations on copyright.
‘Usually, they settle’
Meanwhile, “No other case has gone to trial,” concludes Kravets in his Wired story, adding:
“Usually, they settle. In some instances the cases are dismissed for various reasons, including lack of evidence or the alleged pirate is deceased.”
However, I seriously wonder about that and IMHO, it’s more likely most cases haven’t, in fact, been ’settled’. Rather, they’re still pending, still awaiting some kind of resolution, and as I also wrote yesterday:
“In August last year when the number of people who’d received subpoenas had reached 8,400, only 1,700 had been frightened into paying up under the RIAA’s extortionate settlement scheme, admitted spokesman Jonathan Lamy, and it’s unlikely that the proportions are very different today, especially given that more and more people are standing up to the Big 4 and their hired legal guns.”
Also see RIAA ’sue ‘em all’ war losing money.
More to come, so stay tuned ….
Jon Newton - p2pnet
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October 3rd, 2007 at 4:37 pm
If the RIAA are going to such great lengths to prosecute this alleged massive distributer of copyrighted material, then it seems to me that they have good evidence for it and that her activities must certainly be causing them harm.
After all, the fact that the hard disc was replaced like that after the defendent received notice, is very suspicious, isn’t it? Yes, obviously she has the pretext that it was “for repair”, but oh come on! Think about it, if it was a murder case and the defendent got rid of their gun or whatever, it would be more than a little suspicious, wouldn’t it?
Also, I read somewhere, that 700+ pages of evidence gathered by the RIAA has been ruled inadmissible after a crafty manoeuvre by the defendent’s lawyer. This seems a shame to me, because for any court case, for there to be a fair trial, *all* the evidence must be considered, especially that from the prosecution. I think deep down, the defendent and her lawyer would also be happier if all the information were to be included and might reconsider the inclusion of this evidence.
For everybody’s benefit (not least consumers such as Jammie Thomas) it’s very important that this trial sets the precedent that those who engage in the sharing of copyrighted files will be tracked down and punished for their crimes.
October 3rd, 2007 at 4:52 pm
ive downloded thousands files and never really think about it like that interesting point made. feel abit guilty when i downlode really
October 3rd, 2007 at 7:38 pm
Free Thinker: Live up to your name, or STFU.
October 3rd, 2007 at 7:51 pm
I am indeed living up to my name, thankyou!
You obviously have no idea what you’re talking about.
October 3rd, 2007 at 9:39 pm
Copyright is intended for the prevention of others MAKING COPIES AND SELLING THEM, in order to protect the ARTIST for a SHORT PERIOD in their own efforts to profit from their work. If a copy is made BUT NO MONEY OR VALUE IS EXCHANGED BY BOTH PARTIES, then it constitutes “fair use” and DOES NOT violate copyright.
Also, this is one of the very FEW laws directly addressed in the United States Constitution, just as I have described above.
In the modern world the subject of “missed purchases” comes up….but that is a red herring argument. Even IF (and that is a BIG “if” to overcome in court) the defendant DID download 1,700+ songs, at 10 songs/cd that is only 170 CDs. The average person buys 4 CDs a YEAR. This means that the defendant must be 60+ years (18 to be legal + 170/4) and NEVER have purchased a CD in that time in order to have “missed purchase” all those songs….yeah, right.
So “Free Thinker” (who obviously is a walking oxymoron) and “demonoid user”: breathe easy and stop spouting corporatist rhetoric.
October 3rd, 2007 at 11:09 pm
This Pariser woman said something about a loss of jobs at her company. But didn’t Sony and BMG and possibly another record company merge in the time frame she quoted? Usually with mergers of this type, redundant and duplicate personnel are laid off. Who needs two heads of personnel? How many jobs were lost to piracy, how many were lost to pay off the merger, and how many were lost because they simply weren’t needed any more?
October 5th, 2007 at 6:52 am
i have 60Go of downloded and shared mp3’s in my computer … how much can be the money that i would have to pay ? suckers!!! 200 000 $ now you can see where media homes earn money … so fuck SONY, fuck BMG, fuck all of them .. and lives p2p for ever !
October 5th, 2007 at 8:45 am
So what happens to music videos that we all see on TV? Millions of people watch them, and anyone can save such files to their computer with a tv tuner card.
Fifty music videos now saved in a folder on my pc can be shared on any popular file sharing network. Who gets sued making the files viewable to others?
October 5th, 2007 at 3:11 pm
Mongrel greedy bastards!
October 5th, 2007 at 5:01 pm
I found all the Songs that they are suing her for. 222,000 for 25 songs huh doesn’t seem right.
October 6th, 2007 at 8:47 am
222,000 dollars for 25 songs is more than not right.
It is criminal. You could produce 25 songs for that.
How they figured it is nonsense, unless they are arguing 222,000 direct uploads at a dollar a pop. Fine, if they have
evidence. But their evidence itself must be unpresentable
due to invasion of privacy during its collection.
Even more probable is Jammie Thomas, set up to put a real scare
into the P2P users, possibly with a backdoor deal with the RIAA to lose this case for a tidy sum.
Or just a disgraceful example of merciless scapegoating.
October 7th, 2007 at 2:28 am
I am also a mucician. Lets think for one moment! Who is killing the music? People who download it or the Record companies? There are millions of nice songs today and hundrends are produced daily. Don’t they understand that it is impossible to buy all these songs that we like?
Spreading the music, is what will make an artist famous and give glory. Record companies do the same in another way. They pay millions of dollars for ads and clips on TV and then collect the expences from cd sales. The artists should argue with the Record Companies, not with the ordinary people. Record companies suck their money, because they do the promotion. We promote them for free! The artists make their money from live performances. And believe me. They make a lot of money. Enough to buy a hairdresser for their dog, while other people in the world starve to death!
So F*** RIAA and Record companies! They have sacrificed everything at the altar of profits. I call all the musicians to consider giving their music for free. Where are your values? What is the meaning of producing art when nobody can have it? You don’t need the record companies to be famous. The Internet will do the job for free! Long live the good, free music!
October 12th, 2007 at 11:22 pm
*cough, cough*
Just how did she get caught? How did they catch her? Isn’t there a way to do it without detection?
October 14th, 2007 at 11:53 am
2 musician:
as an artist u wanna make $ on ur art so u dont have 2 spend time doing a shitty job.
October 14th, 2007 at 12:05 pm
Also this:
lets face the facts – if every1 WOULD ONLY download their music, and not buy any AT ALL – then what would happen 2 all the musicians?
Given that, IT IS wrong 2 download, after all, it’s not like in the 80s when some1 borrowed u a tape and u got to tape it off, now, a couple of seeders could spreed a material to tens of thousands of downloaders or more. So that sort of takes out the “it’s about borrowing” argument. Sure, I wasn’t going 2 buy all of those songs – but on the other hand, once i’ve downloaded them – i sure as hell aint gonna buy em, especially given that my connection costs money, which adds to another point – how many of all the filesharers havent thought about, preferred and actually gotten a faster download speed, inorder to be able 2 download more? If you would be prone 2 agree, then one probably also could c how that money instead could have been put on buying music instead of downloading it..
Anywayz, thats how Im thinking, whats ur opinion??