If a gun trafficker is caught with illegal guns on him, he is nailed for “making available” also.”

WRONG. and WRONG. They are nailed for illegal possesion not for distribution.

You got F!

That would be “hear hear”.

Thought you would want to know.

It wouldn’t surprise me at all if someone installed something on her PC and she knew nothing about it, especially if she was clueless about PCs. The whole conviction sounds bent, anyway. Looks like the judge wasn’t paid off, after all, thankfully, just hoodwinked by the MAFIAA into nailing her.

I don’t want to insult Jammie Thomas, I’ve exchanged messages with her on her forum and she seems like a nice person, but when it comes to computers, the average user today has a ‘computer IQ’ that usually registers in the single digits.

Don’t believe me? Use the desktop prefs to flip the screen upside down (available on most modern graphics cards). Probably 90% of the users today will have no clue how to change it back. Want to have even more fun? Rename the Desktop and Start Menu directories to something else, so that both appear blank. They’ll end up taking it to a repair place to have it fixed.

I’ve never used Kazaa, buut it’s my understanding that by default, it shares pretty much everything on your system. It is completely possible that someone could install it, not knowing that it will share things that they don’t want to share. It’s also possible that someone could install a file sharing program for purposes of downloading music (a copyright violation, but nobody has ever been sued for DOWNLOADING) and be completely unaware of the fact that it will automatically share what’s being downloaded. It’s also completely possible that one of her kids installed the software, using the account’s email address as the username, without her knowing anything about it.

And please people try to keep it civil in here even though we are on the internet.

I walk around with several controlled substances in my pocket all the time. Does that mean I should be automatically labeled a “drug dealer”? Should I be thrown in jail without any proof at all that I’ve actually sold drugs?

I go out in public with several weapons on or near me at all the times. Does that mean I should be automatically labeled a “gun trafficker”? Should I be thrown in jail without any proof at all that I’ve actually sold weapons?

You can’t judge a book by it’s cover, or so the saying goes. Misunderstandings happen all the time. It is very easy to misinterpret a great deal about a person and their intentions when you know absolutely nothing about them. It’s even easier to label someone simply because you feel entitled to your own self righteous opinion, or worse because you’re an antisocial misanthrope. Labels are imminently useful for demonizing a person or group of persons you do not like. Labels are even comforting for some folks, but the fact always remains that they are the easy way out. Proving someone is a drug dealer or a gun trafficker is much harder, and thank goodness opinions are not admissible as evidence.

What you see and what the reality is are quite often two different things, and this is why most free thinking rational people believe in the importance of proving beyond a reasonable doubt that a person is actually guilty of what they are being accused of. Some folks actually do live in countries where accusation and suspicion are grounds enough for throwing someone in jail for life. Perhaps the original poster lives in just such a country. It would explain why ideas involving the presentation of evidence in a trial by jury of peers seem foreign to them. Corrupt dictatorships and the entertainment industry are very similar in that regard. It all comes down to absolute control, and as we all know control equals power. I’m sure the entertainment industry would love to forgo a trial, which only gets in the way of what they ultimately seek, and simply toss anyone they wanted in jail. What a fun world to live in that would be!

Not everyone is a computer geek. Most computer users are like my parents, completely clueless. I get the impression Tanya Anderson falls into this category. People are often, sometimes unwittingly, downloading and installing all kinds of garbage they probably shouldn’t be, often with an incomplete understanding of how the program works and everything it does. Convoluted laws governing ideas such as copyright aren’t exactly clear to everybody out there either, and is one of the reasons for the big investment we’ve seen in educational advertising by the entertainment industry. Laws also differ from country to country, making things even more confusing. My point is that it is pretty easy to create a shared folder without any intention of breaking the law. This is why it is so important to prove any intentional wrong doing. We can’t very well call ourselves civilized if we continually throw people in jail simply because we suspect them of something. The vast majority of the population would be incarcerated if that is how things were run.

If tossing people in jail with little to no proof of intentional wrong doing still “seems eminently sensible” to you, please find the highest bridge you can and jump from it. Preferably before you’ve had a chance to breed, ok? Thanks! 8-p

My question was clear and I didn’t change anything, unlike what you claim.

It’s you that’s the idiot. Fuck off you sad cretinous pustule of a human being.

According to whom?
To the RIAA lawyers or theri illegal investigators MediaSentry?

According to court records only a handfull of songs were “shared” aka. copies were made by those illegal investigators.
Nowhere has the plaintiffs offered any prove that “they were being shared with the whole world”

Oh, you either troll, incompetent RIAA lawyer or guy that has simply no idea about US copyrightlaw: NOWHERE did you said what you claimed to have said in your first post!

And for what sake did you claim now in response to Jmtc that you hence brought the drug analogy?
Are you nuts or what?
Drugs are fairly illegal, no matter if you have them in your pocket where noone can see them other then the cop that does a strip search or if you have them lying on a table with a sign “drugs to share”

You guys had times when you were better in blurring the facts!

Go home, idiot!

If a gun trafficker is caught with illegal guns on him, he is nailed for “making available” also.

So what’s the difference with music & movies then? The same intent is still there with shared folders full of content available to all and sundry over the internet. Why the hell can’t Jammie also be nailed for “making available”??!”

This is such a childish comment, I really debated to comment on it or not, but what the heck- it is amazing on how some people are so out of touch with reality-

The for mentioned post fails to understand that it is actually legal to have music and movies on your PC. These can be placed on the PC from the following legal sources- purchases over the net, recordings of programs from television with a video capture card, etc…

Sure it may not have been the wisest of moves for her to place them into a folder that was marked as a shared folder by a P2P application, considering many applications automatically share folders under “My Documents”, and many people do not know the difference between a shared folder and a non-shared folder, the mistake can easily be understood.

As stated above, the assumption that her files were illegal is exactly what is wrong with this entire case.

Just my two cents

If I am caught with a bottle of liquor on me, does that automatically mean that I was going to give it to an underage drinker ?

or

If I have gun on me does that automatically mean I was going to shoot somebody?

or

If I leave a pack of cigarettes on a cafeteria table does that automatically mean I meant for some kids to find them and smoke them ?

or

If I accidentally leave my keys in my car does that automatically mean that I meant for someone to steal it ?

As far as I know, it’s not illegal to have songs on your computer.

If a gun trafficker is caught with illegal guns on him, he is nailed for “making available” also.

So what’s the difference with music & movies then? The same intent is still there with shared folders full of content available to all and sundry over the internet. Why the hell can’t Jammie also be nailed for “making available”??!

Seems eminently sensible to me.