p2pnet news view RIAA | P2P:- Today is Day One for Minnesota mother of four Jammie Thomas-Rasset, accused by the corporate music industry of being a file sharing thief.

She’s the only one of the thousands of innocent American name, women and even young children, similarly charged by sub-units of Vivendi Universal (France), Sony (Japan), EMI (Britain), and Warner Music (US) and their RIAA, to have actually appeared in civil court proceedings.

She’s pictured here with nine-month-old baby Tarent, her husband, Chad and, left to right, Christian, her four-year-old stepson, Tyler, who’ll be 15 next month, and Triston, who’ll be 13 in August

Jammie’s former lawyer, Brian Toder, recently pulled out, claiming he was owed $129,485, and now Jammie is represented by Texas lawyer Kiwi K.A.D. Camara,  the youngest person to graduate from Harvard Law school with honors,  and his partner, Joe Sibley, an ex-US Army Ranger.

They’re acting for Jammie completely without charge.

Hard-working mother

“While the lawyers and hangers-on working for the RIAA happily clock up thousands of billable hours, Jamie Thomas-Rasset tries to get on with her life,” said p2pnet last week.

The labels and their RIAA,  “have spent a fortune trying to paint a picture of her as someone who stole, and who then illegally distributed, copyrighted music files,” we said, going on »»»

However, with file sharing, no money changes hands and no one is deprived permanently, or otherwise, of something he or she used to own.

The RIAA lawyers say she’s a thief. But she’s nothing of the kind. Rather, she’s a hard-working mother who during the day is the Brownfield coordinator of the Mille Lacs Band of Ojibwe Indians in Minnesota. She’s responsible for administering a grant from the US Environmental Protection Agency for her tribe to redevelop contaminated properties.

She’s also in charge of housing and land acquisitions for the Band’s Department of Natural Resources and Environment

“I try to focus on the day to day of life instead of the potential outcomes,” she says.  “I know, win lose or draw, it won’t be over for a long time. So I just hunker down for the long haul and hold on for the ride.”

Discredited RIAA investigator

On the face of it, things look as though they’ve taken a definite downward turn for Jammie Thomas-Rasset and her lawyer, we said on Friday, and that’s the eway if was presented by the mainstream media.

“MediaSentry is the discredited RIAA investigator bought by SafeNet Digital Rights Management for $20 million in 2005, and, after being fired by the RIAA, this year, sold to a rival firm for $136,000 in cash and a promise of $800,000 at another time,” said p2pnet.

Jammie, we went on, had already been run through the mill by RIAA lawyers in a trial in which Davis later admitted he’d committed a, “manifest error of law” by telling the jury the, “act of making copyrighted sound recordings available for electronic distribution on a peer-to-peer network, without licensefrom the copyright owners, violates the copyright owners’ exclusive right of distribution, regardless of whether actual distribution has been shown”.

For the second trial,Davis turned down Jammie and Kiwi’s  motion to suppress the MediaSentry evidence, saying it wasn’t obtained illegally.

But the decision on the expert testimony, “could actually be a major win for the defendant,” New York lawyer Ray Beckerman, who runs Recording Industry vs The People, told p2pnet, going on »»»

The judge devoted two pages of his decision to carefully describing the standards for admissibility of technical and expert testimony.

Those standards are now the “law of the case”, which means they’re the operative rule going forward.

Assuming the judge Davis will apply those standards to MediaSentry and Doug Jacobson, which he’s required to do, I’d anticipate the testimony of neither will be admissible.

Which means that the RIAA’s entire case goes down the drain, and the RIAA won’t even get through the first phase of the trial.

So this ruling may have been a major victory for Jammie.

Uncertified copies

Jammie’s defense also created, “at least a headache for the music labels by demanding that they produce certified copies from the U.S. Copyright Office of the copyrights on the 24 tracks in question, to prove they really do own the songs,” says The Missourian, adding:

“The industry’s lawyers were caught by surprise, having gotten by with uncertified copies during the first trial. Although music companies told Davis this past Monday they weren’t sure they could get certified copies in time for the new trial, Davis reminded them that they had the burden of proving they owned the copyrights. Camara said he’ll seek dismissal of the case if the plaintiffs fail that test.

” Corryne McSherry, a staff attorney with the digital-rights group Electronic Frontier Foundation, said the new defense team is taking a creative approach. She said it would have been interesting to see how all the cases that settled might have turned out if those defendants had free lawyers who were willing to push as hard.

” ‘ This case could end up being the tail end of a frankly shameful and certainly failed campaign to go after users,’  McSherry said.

” ‘ Maybe this will be the coda to that long campaign’ .”

Definitely stay tuned.

Jon Newton – p2pnet

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June, 2009

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This entry was posted on Monday, June 15th, 2009 at 8:54 am and is filed under P2P, RIAA News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.

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