RIAA ‘misspeaks’ itself: Jammie Thomas case
p2pnet news | RIAA News:- Yesterday, “National Public Radio hosted in on-air debate between Marc Fisher, the Post columnist, and Cary Sherman, president of the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA),” p2pnet posted, under the header, RIAA boss admits witness ‘misspoke’.
The ‘misspeaking’ came on the part of RIAA ‘expert witness’ Jennifer Pariser, a Sony BMG lawyer, during the trial of Minnesota mother-of-two Jammie Thomas, who ended up being ordered to pay nearly a quarter of a million dollars in damages to Warner Music, EMI, Vivendi Universal and Sony BMG’, members of the Big 4 organised music cartel.
“Hmmm,” said Aaron in a p2pnet Reader’s Write.
“Perhaps grounds for an appeal?”
Because, confessed RIAA (Recording Industry Association of America) president Cary Sherman during an NPR debate:
The Sony person who (Fisher) relies on actually misspoke in that trial. I know because I asked her after stories started appearing. It turns out that she had misheard the question. She thought that this was a question about illegal downloading when it was actually a question about ripping CDs. That is not the position of Sony BMG. That is not the position of that spokesperson. That is not the position of the industry.
“Hmmmm,” said Recording Industry vs The People’s Ray Beckerman.
“Seems that (a) Ms. Pariser was under oath, and speaking to the jury, when she misspoke, (b) her testimony might have had an impact on the outcome of the [Jammie Thomas] trial.
“Wonder if the RIAA’s lawyers have notified the judge?”
Now, “if Sherman was telling the truth during that NPR interview, Thomas was the victim of a miscarriage of justice — despite the mountain of evidence against her,” reckons David Kravets in Wired’s RIAA’s Sherman Speaks (Un)Believable ‘Catch 22′ , going on:
In October, a Minnesota federal jury found Thomas liable for copyright infringement and dinged her $222,000 for unlawfully sharing 24 songs on the Kazaa file-sharing network in what was and still is the nation’s first and only RIAA case against an individual to go to trial. Most of the RIAA’s 20,000 or more lawsuits have settled out of court.
During Thomas’ trial in Duluth, RIAA attorney Richard Gabriel asked Sony’s Jennifer Pariser if it was OK for a consumer to make one copy of a track that was legally purchased. No, she replied, saying that’s “a nice way of saying, steals just one copy.”
Enter Sherman, explaining how Pariser ‘misspoke’.
Kravets goes on:
One of the reasons jurors dinged Thomas was because she forked over to RIAA investigators a different hard drive than the one industry snoops detected her using on Kazaa in 2005. On the hard drive she did turn over were thousands of songs Thomas said she ripped from her CDs.
The RIAA’s Gabriel suggested to jurors that copying one’s purchased music was a violation of the Copyright Act.
Gabriel, for example, asked Thomas whether she had ever burned CDs, either for herself, or to give away to friends.
“Did you get permission from the copyright owners to do that?” Gabriel asked.
“No,” Thomas responded.
Gabriel, the RIAA’s lead attorney, apparently misspoke too — prejudicing jurors along the way.
U.S. District Judge Michael Davis is weighing a motion from Thomas to lower the award or grant a new trial. She claims the Copyright Act, and the maximum $150,000 fine for each violation, is unconstitutionally excessive. THREAT LEVEL wonders what are the odds the RIAA would file papers with Davis explaining the misstatements?
In a fascinating update, “RIAA spokeswoman Cara Duckworth said in an e-mail message that Pariser ‘was quoted out of context and believed the question referred to downloads, not physical copies’.”
And as Beckerman points out, an astute Slashdot member unearthed this from an archived RIAA web page:
If you choose to take your own CDs and make copies for yourself on your computer or portable music player, that’s great. It’s your music and we want you to enjoy it at home, at work, in the car and on the jogging trail.
Can you say, ‘Hoist on own petard?’
Definitely stay tuned.
Jon Newton – p2pnet
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January 5th, 2008 at 1:56 pm
I don’t expect any sympathy from ” honorable ” Judge Davis.
A Jury of idiots found her guilty without ANY evidence in the court of
a judge that created his own law in his jury instructions.
I am not going to debate this again in this thread with the RIAA shills that
are sure to pounce. It’s all covered in other threads.
It is my OPINION that Judge Davis has some sort of incentive to shuck
for the RIAA.
January 6th, 2008 at 9:16 am
Yeah, you’re right Dreddsnik; we paid off the judge all right. This little snafu won’t change a thing.
January 7th, 2008 at 5:12 am
Did I say paid.
No.
I said incentive.
Look At Judge Richard Owen.
He was pretty obviously pro RIAA.
Suddenly he’s not doing so many RIAA cases.
Why ?
It came out that he is a signed RIAA recording artist.
He composes Operas.
His album uses some pretty notable Sony artists.
I said ’some sort of incentive’
It will take a better investigator than I to find the connection, but I’ll
bet anything it’s there.
January 7th, 2008 at 5:13 am
miles davis estate
January 7th, 2008 at 9:55 am
you guys are gay. the dumb hoe did it and she is getting reamed for it lawl!!!!
Dreddsnik Says:
January 5th, 2008 at 1:56 pm
A Jury of idiots found her guilty without ANY evidence in the court of
a judge that created his own law in his jury instructions.
uhhh the evidence was that she did it you moron. she was an amateur file sharer and got caught. rather than paying up, she chose to fight when she had no evidence whatsoever to help her case. she is a retard and deserves all she gets. if you are going to fight the RIAA make sure your defense is better than “ummm no sir. i did not do it”
January 7th, 2008 at 10:23 am
In my opinion, whether or not she shared files or had any on a shared drive had nothing to do with the Guilty verdict.
She was found guilty of copyright infringement.
The Judge told the Jury that if she reproduced a copy without a lisense it was infringement . (the judge likely got this idea from Pariser’s mis-speak, taking her word for it that it was true and did not take Fair Use into consideration.)
Jammie admitted she made copies without authorization. (quite possibly under the Fair Use provision)
The jury was instructed to find her guilty if they believe she had made an infringement.
Am I the only one getting this?
Look for yourselves – here are the instructions the Judge gave the Jury:
http://blog.wired.com/27bstroke6/files/jury_instructions.pdf
“JURY INSTRUCTION NO. 13
Each plaintiff claims in this case that the defendant
violated its exclusive rights to reproduce and distribute
its copyrighted works. One who either reproduces or
distributes a copyrighted work during the term of the
copyright infringes the copyright, unless licensed by the
copyright owner.”
and here is where they tell the jurors if a copyright infringement (as mentioned above) took place, then it’s a guilty verdict:
“JURY INSTRUCTION NO. 16
If you find that plaintiff CAPITOL RECORDS INC. had a
valid copyright and you find that that copyright was
infringed by defendant, then you should find for plaintiff
CAPITOL RECORDS INC. You must then decide on the amount of
damages plaintiff CAPITOL RECORDS INC. is entitled to
recover.
If, however, you find that such plaintiff did not prove
an infringement by defendant, you should find for defendant
and not decide any amount of damages.”
January 7th, 2008 at 10:30 am
she was guilty cause she was sharing her ish. if she had just downloaded songs and not shared them she wouldnt be in this mess. but she was a noob and decided/didnt know how not to share her files. even if they were made up of her own CD’s, she still shared them to other users.
the RIAA doesnt care if you download stuff, they only care if you share.
January 7th, 2008 at 11:13 am
“the RIAA doesnt care if you download stuff”
Then what was the Judge thinking when he said this?:
JURY INSTRUCTION NO. 14
The act of downloading copyrighted sound recordings on
a peer-to-peer network, without license from the copyright
owners, violates the copyright owners’ exclusive
reproduction right.
January 7th, 2008 at 1:29 pm
” she was guilty cause she was sharing her ish. ”
Actually, the RIAA were never able to prove that.
The Judghe made it so the RIAA didn’t have to.
January 7th, 2008 at 1:35 pm
” you guys are gay. the dumb hoe did it and she is getting reamed for it lawl ”
” uhhh the evidence was that she did it you moron. ”
It’s easy to tell who has no real ammo in any debate.
Empty
Name
Calling.
January 7th, 2008 at 1:51 pm
The RIAA only cared about getting a conviction for the sake of the media coverage that was sure to follow. The RIAA makes a point of pointing to the filesharing on Kazaa issue as the reason, even tho there was no proof.
Question is…
Did the Judge give misleading / false instructions to the jury?
Yes or No.
January 7th, 2008 at 3:16 pm
Reader’s Write Says:
January 7th, 2008 at 1:29 pm
” she was guilty cause she was sharing her ish. ”
Actually, the RIAA were never able to prove that.
The Judghe made it so the RIAA didn’t have to.
dude, immediately after downloading something you are able to start sharing that file. she didnt have her kazaa set up to not share files at all. the proof is in the nature of the network. she was found to have files in her SHARED folder. she didnt put them there to not be shared. it doesnt matter if one user or one million users downloaded those files, she put them in a place they could be accessed.
if you leave a box of stolen stuff out on the street that says TAKE ME PLEASE you have an intent to give it away. and you better be willing to accept the consequences. she had intent to share, which is good enough for infringement. the jury was smart enough to understand the concept of a p2p file sharing network. it was created to share files. there is not a single user of p2p who does not also share files. so no, the jury were not idiots.
and Dredd you are just like all the other retards who cant think for yourself. rather than saying “yeah, she did it, and she was stupid enough to fight te RIAA” you try to rationalize things like “the judge was given an incentive to push guilty”. where is your ammo for that comment? the random name calling just gives me laughs at work. where is your backing Dredd?
January 7th, 2008 at 3:54 pm
” dude, immediately after downloading something you are able to start sharing that file. she didnt have her kazaa set up to not share files at all. the proof is in the nature of the network. ”
She didn’t have Kazaa on her computer.
Ths forensic specialist did not find it on the drive or any trace in the registry.
She had proof from best buy that the drive was replace well before she
recieved any notice of any suit.
No proof like what you are discussing existed in this trial.
Did you read any of the trial reports or transcripts ?
” so no, the jury were not idiots. ”
Yeah, they kindof were.
“and Dredd you are just like all the other retards who cant think for yourself. ”
Most of us can not only think for ourselves, we can read too, and take the time to
do so.
We spend a LOT of time at sites that publicly have all of th trial documentation.
We go to a lot of sites that have a lot of differing viewpoints on this.
We don’t just accept the RIAA at face value, nor do we simply accept mainstream
media’s take on this.
We research.
( for example look at some of the links ‘Reader’s Write’ have provided )
I’d ask for your ‘backing’ but you have none, you’ve demonstrated that by
simply regurgitating the lie oft repeated.
No more time to feed trolls.
Enjoy your day
January 7th, 2008 at 3:58 pm
Sequence of events:
1 – under oath, Jennifer Pariser, a Sony BMG lawyer stated, “when an individual makes a copy of a song for himself, I suppose we can say he stole a song.”
2- RIAA lawyer Gabriel asked Thomas whether she had ever burned CDs, either for herself, or to give away to friends.“Did you get permission from the copyright owners to do that?” Gabriel asked. “No,” Thomas responded.
3- Judge issues instructions to Jury that read;
One who reproduces a copyrighted work during the term of the copyright infringes the copyright, unless licensed by the copyright owner and if you find that that copyright was infringed by defendant, then you should find for plaintiff.
4 – Jury finds her Guilty becuase she admitted to making copies.
There was no need to prove she had any files in any shared folder – they GOT her on infringement because of making a copy without authorization which they failed to mention isn’t even illegal in Fair Use.
The RIAA is being very cleverly successful in their media campaign to say its due to sharing, to the point where even David Kravets uses the line:
” for unlawfully sharing 24 songs on the Kazaa file-sharing network” .
That’s not really true.
She was found guilty of infringement for admitting to making copies – not for sharing them for which there was no proof.
The RIAA wants to send the message – “Settle out of Court or we’ll get you for SHARING too”
and that’s my opinion
January 7th, 2008 at 5:03 pm
she did have kazaa installed. thats why the tereastar username pointed her out. that was such a good piece of evidence too, as it was also her email.
if she didnt have kazaa installed, why did they know her username was tereastar@kazaa?
she did have it installed at the time she was caught, she just gave them a new hard drive cause the one she was sharing “needed to be fixed”
shes a liar and thought she could pull a win out. she underestimated the jury and got pwnt. ggkthxbuy
January 7th, 2008 at 5:35 pm
Actually, if you look at the default options for KaZaa, you will see why this could have happened. First, KaZaa defaults to the user name of the computer. Jammie admitted in court and it was shown her default name for her computer was tereastarr. Second, when KaZaa is installed, it automatically searches your hard-drive for songs to share and puts those songs into the shared folder. You don’t even have to do anything extra, it does it for you without your knowledge. Jammie also admitted in court to ripping CDs to her computer. Third, KaZaa is automatically set to share all files. You have to change the default settings from sharing to download only. And last, but not least, why wasn’t KaZaa found on her new hard-drive? If you or I replace our computers or hard-drives, what’s the first thing most normal people do? Don’t they install the programs they use on a regular basis? If Jammie was a big time illegal downloader, don’t you think she would have installed KaZaa back onto her hard-drive after it was replaced as she didn’t receive notice of the lawsuit until 6 months after the replacement? Isn’t that enough time to download the program again?
Did she know KaZaa was on her computer? Possible, but I find it highly unlikely someone would knowingly go to court to fight the RIAA if they knew they were sharing online. Why take that risk? IMO, she didn’t even know the program was on her computer to begin with and didn’t know it was sharing files.
As for the trolls, name calling shows how mature you truly are and the more you spout your unsubstantiated (big word, I know, look it up) crap, the more you show how pathetic the RIAA is for hiring you to do their dirty work.
January 8th, 2008 at 6:00 am
If there are 20 people on Kazaa sharing using the name ‘packin’ a vienna’ ,
Is that proof that it is you ?
A lot of people knew that username, saw it on various forums, so,
in a climate where you can get sued, would it be so strange a tactic to use
someone elses username ?
A username is not a fingerprint as an IP address is not.
A person who actually knows internet basics would know that.
As was pointed out before ….
no, she didn’t have Kazaa installed, and they never had any proof of that
I read the transcripts too. As is typical in these trials, she was guilty and had to
prover her innocence.
Could you prove yours ?
Before you answer, consider that in the Lindor case, the RIAA
had her drive, found no evidence of Kazaa ever being on the drive ( once again )
and yet claim that this is proof that she had kazaa ???
huh ?
The real idea behind the cases is to cause fear.
They know they have no proof.
They have money.
Money enough to bully those that don’t.
Could you prove YOUR innocence ?
Keep in mind …
They have sued the dead, and people that have never had a computer,
based on erroneous IP data, so yes, it COULD happen to you.
Could you prove YOUR innocence ?
January 8th, 2008 at 10:37 am
i wouldnt need to prove my innocence. id rather leech from the networks and turn off all sharing/uploading. the downloaders dont get in trouble, its the seeders who distribute stuff that do.
if she didnt know anything about computers, she could have probably gotten off with “i didnt know it was there”. if she didnt have a stance on file-sharing, she may have gotten off. but she made it a point to say that she knew plenty about computers, as well as write a paper about the whole napster thing years back. she had an obvious stance on sharing, and the jury saw that. they didnt believe her statements that “i didnt know it was installed” and her comments during the trial incriminated her. when asked “would it surprise you if the tereastar@kazaa user had all the same music you do” she said it wouldnt surprise her. she got herself into that and didnt even try to defend herself with anything. and now she is getting what she deserves.
i dont condone what the RIAA does, or who they charge (some of them shouldnt have ever been sent letters) but this lady had it coming.
if youre going to fight the RIAA, you do it with a better defense and more money. jammie is now the poster child for fighting the RIAA, and she isnt a very good one.
January 8th, 2008 at 1:01 pm
” i wouldnt need to prove my innocence. id rather leech from the networks and turn off all sharing/uploading. the downloaders dont get in trouble, ”
hmmm, intersting.
It seems that all they actually have to do is have an IP that points to you.
Since you already admitted to leeching from the networks, that would mean you
have files on your drive.
Since that was what ultimately convicted Jammie, you wouldn’t have a leg to stand on
either. You couldn’t prove you never distributed them, and the RIAA doesn’t have
to prove it either
All they need to do is supoena you, and check your drive.
You would then need to prove your innocence, and thats not cheap, and that’s what they
want .
i’m starting to see a lot of packing vienna names show up on the networks .
this coulod be fun.
prove it’s not you … lol
January 8th, 2008 at 1:06 pm
when asked “would it surprise you if the tereastar@kazaa user had all the same music you do”
Would it surprise you if the RIAA set you up? Would it surprise you if they created an account with the same name as yours and loaded it up themselves?
January 8th, 2008 at 1:15 pm
” ” i wouldnt need to prove my innocence. id rather leech from the networks and turn off all sharing/uploading. the downloaders dont get in trouble, ”
and then
” but this lady had it coming. ”
Looks like she had it coming as much as you do.
” if youre going to fight the RIAA, you do it with a better defense and more money. ”
and the RIAA know this too.
that’s why they only target college kids and the poor.
no way someone like that could ever afford to challenge a conglomeration
of 4 large international corporations. heh, why do you think they avoid Harvard like the plague ?
January 8th, 2008 at 1:34 pm
Ok, so back on point here. It seems that someone needs to get Cary Sherman on stand to say it is OK to burn mp3s from CDs you own, and that these are still ‘authorized’ copies no matter where they are on your computer (shared folder or otherwise). It is only actually sharing them that is infringement, which is much harder (read: impossible) for RIAA to prove.
January 8th, 2008 at 2:38 pm
Agree. It is not Acceptable to wait on this.
Somebody please tell Cary Sherman that we want to see retractions filed RIGHT AWAY to these Court cases:
Atlantic v. Howell
and
Capitol v. Thomas
January 19th, 2008 at 1:18 am
It seems that “packin’ a vienna” isn’t providing any references that actually back up his claims. Furthermore, it seems that he lacks a fundamental understanding of exactly how Kazaa operates in the first place, particularly the default configuration as installed without further modification (i.e. what most users will be set up for because they don’t know or care).
Hint: THE SOFTWARE IS SET UP TO STORE DOWNLOADS IN THE SHARED FOLDER BY DEFAULT.
Hint 2: THE SOFTWARE HAS SHARING ENABLED BY DEFAULT.
Hint 3, since you’re obviously unable to make logical connections: IF DOWNLOADS ARE AUTOMATICALLY PLACED IN THE SHARED FOLDER, AND SHARING IS AUTOMATICALLY TURNED ON, YOU ARE MADE TO SHARE WITHOUT YOUR DIRECT PERMISSION OR KNOWLEDGE UNLESS YOU EXPLICITLY KNOW ABOUT THE SOFTWARE AND THE TECHNOLOGY, AND CHOOSE TO TURN IT ALL OFF MANUALLY.
And, as another user points out, it automatically requests to copy all share-able media on your machine INTO the shared folder on top of all that.
The fact that the software didn’t even exist on her hard drive combined with the replacement of the hard drive for defects before any RIAA legal actions had been brought to her attention pretty much wrecks the RIAA’s case. They got a discovery order for her drive, she handed it over, they didn’t find anything that could incriminate her in a clear and convincing manner. A judge that is sympathetic to the RIAA or just plain ignorant of the text that is our copyright laws told the jury to find her guilty if she duplicated the songs in any way, regardless of the purpose for the duplication and the explicitly legalized purposes for which such duplications can be made. The RIAA threw her a question that would make her sound like she messed up and admitted to breaking the law when in fact it doesn’t, but a common man on the jury is not typically educated about the law beyond filing their own tax returns, if that, and the judge’s poor wording plus the lawyer’s trick question plus the uneducated jury plus the fact that Jammie is a member of a class of people that is disliked in her geographic area because of issues such as hunting rights PLUS the fact that the jury was entirely composed of members of the opposing class of people…EQUALS THE TRAGEDY WE HAVE SEEN HERE.
Now you can take your vienna-packin’ ass on home. You’ve been exposed, cry a little and learn from it, but for fuck’s sake, man, stop making such an ass of yourself in a public forum, especially one where the readers combined know far more than you do and can tear your sadly mistaken “facts” apart like a puma on a goat.
January 25th, 2008 at 3:30 pm
I prefer to use my music LEGALLY and I don’t worry about lawsuits!
January 25th, 2008 at 7:55 pm
I don’t believe the jury would have found for the defendant regardless of the judges instruction.
Now, the reason is, that the defendant was using an implausible defense. If her lawyer had attacked the claim from the perspective of proving distribution, then it would have been quickly won. After all, they didn’t prove that she distributed any copyrighted works to the public; And we all know that copyright law requires actual proof of distribution. No proof of distribution means no case.
January 26th, 2008 at 6:18 am
” I prefer to use my music LEGALLY and I don’t worry about lawsuits! ”
Just because you say it over and over again, doesn’t make it more
true.
P2P software is legal.
It is legal to download CC and pd over P2P.
It is legal to DL some copyrighted material over p2p ( game company free DL, etc .)
In canada ( where you are at ) the blank media levy makes DL LEGAL .
Canada’s governing body says that, which is why NO ONE HAS BEEN SUED in CANADA.
You’re just sore because Jon won’t let you spam the boards with your corporate
shill posts.
It’s another proof to the theory that the ONLY people who support the corporate position
get paid by them in some fashion, from Sam I Am ( who admitted to being in a well
paid position in the industry ) to bottom feeders like you who get a salary to viral market
the next label online failure .
You’ve failed
Get over it.