RIAA ‘public relations fiasco’
p2pnet news view RIAA | P2P:- Yesterday, we ran a post in which Ray Beckerman (right), a New York lawyer whose Recording Industry vs The People is the Net’s only repository of documents and information centring on RIAA lawsuits, outlined how the Jammie Thomas-Rasset fiasco might have unfolded in a world where justice, and not the Big 4 corporate music industry, held sway.
A Minnesota jury decided Jammie should pay for 24 tunes she’s alleged to have downloaded.
The amount? No less than $80,000 for each song —- for a total of $1.92 million!
How did these 12 very ordinary people reckon another very ordinary person, whom they’d decided was a ‘wilful infringer,’ could possibly come up with that kind of money?
That they arrived at this conclusion is shocking proof of just how successful three giant multinationals — Vivendi Universal (France), Sony (Japan), EMI (Britain), and a fourth quasi-US company, Warner Music — have been in a massive PR blitz in which they’ve used the mainstream media to transform a simple commercial concept, copyright infringement, into a ‘crime’ in which the penalties are far worse than if ‘perpetrators’ had robbed an armoured car, or a bank.
“The courts have not received the benefit of the crystallization of issues that would normally result from the proper working of our judicial system, resulting in a ‘parallel universe’ which, to an outside observer, might look like litigation, but is not,” said Ray, going on to present his view of how the case would have played out in the real world.
Writing in ZDNet, Richard Koman, also a lawyer, wonders, “what did she do that was so bad”?
Viewing the evidence in the light most favorable to the RIAA, she illegally downloaded songs via Kazaa and made them available over the network, he says, going on
“That’s it. (She also lied about her hard drive being replaced, but that that misbehavior is sanctioned by discovery rules and cannot be part of the calculation of the wrongfulness of her filesharing.)
“I’m not convinced she even knew that Kazaa automatically shared her music with the network, but even if she did, that’s not what ‘willful’ means. ‘Willful’ means, to my mind, a bad actor, a privateer, a counterfeiter, someone who is in the business of selling someone else’s work for profit.”
Kazaa is the P2P file sharing application owned by an Australian company, Sharman Networks. It’s featured in the vast majority of RIAA cases and as a result, was itself was the subject of a class action lawsuit.
And as judge Michael Davis, who presided in this and an earlier Big 4 vs Jammie civil court case, wrote, Jammie is an, “individual, a consumer” who, “is not a business” and who “sought no profit from her acts”..
Koman spoke with Beckerman and goes on »»»
There’s no doubt, Ray said, that this case can be the test case to question the constitutionality of the statutory damages in the law. But before we even get there,
There’s a very long body of law, that statutory damages have to bear a reasonable relationship to actual damages. Courts have repeatedly held that statutory damages can be more than acual damages but only by two or three time.
Then we get to the Constitution. In BMW v. Gorethe Supreme Court held that “grossly excessive” punitive damages awards violate due process. The court established three factors to analyze this:
- Most importantly, the degree of reprehensibility
- The ratio of punitive to actual damages
- The relationship of the award to criminal sanctions
In that case, a jury found that BMW had sold as new a repainted car and awarded punitive damages of $2 million — 500 times the actual damages. The Court found that was grossly excessive. EFF’s Fred von Lohmann asks:
Does a, “$1.92 million award for sharing 24 songs cross the line into ‘grossly excessive’?” – Koman asks, adding:
“And do these Due Process limitations apply differently to statutory damages than to punitive damages?
“These are questions that the court will have to decide if the issue is raised by Ms. Thomas-Rasset’s attorneys.”
Meanwhile, Koman has Beckerman saying:
“The silver lining is that the RIAA’s morons — by carrying it to the logical extreme — have bolstered the constitutional argument. If they were smart they would have asked for $750 – $3,000 per work. By allowing this to happen, they now have this public relations fiasco.
“They’ve been going all over the world to ask governments for help. This will force governments to take a second look. ‘What are you kidding, we’re going to give these maniacs information to go sue our citizens’?”
Stay tuned, and don’t forget, RIAA Radar is a tool you can use to easily and instantly distinguish if an album was released by a member of the Recording Industry Association of America.
June, 2009
might have unfolded – Ray Beckerman on Jammie v the RIAA, June 21, 2009
24 tunes – Jamie Thomas-Rasset’s $1.92 million playlist, June 19, 2009
ZDNet – ‘Insane’ $1.9 million verdict could prove RIAA’s downfall, June 19, 2009
class action lawsuit – Kazaa, the RIAA and Jammie Thomas, October 17, 2008
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June 22nd, 2009 at 12:41 pm
“How did these 12 very ordinary people reckon another very ordinary person, whom they’d decided was a ‘wilful infringer,’ could possibly come up with that kind of money?”
Simple. They were brided! Deu!
Why do you think they reached a verdict so quickly? Then they left just as quickly and secretly because they knew that what they did was wrong! So did the judge!
With enought money you can always find someone to corrupt!
Hopefully the entertainment cartel will soon run out of business just like el Quada but we have to boycott the movies as well since the 4 majors corporations of parasites are still getting funded by this.
We have to establish a total boycott of the movies as well: No DVD, No Theater and no TV!
June 22nd, 2009 at 12:42 pm
Even IF the MAFIAASS ever get to collect on this “award”, I can about promise you that
the artists that they claim to be doing this for wont get a bloody red cent of it. They
arent interested in anything other than lining their own pockets with cash, while screwing every
artist and music fan in the world, so………. “public relations fiasco”?? DAMN RIGHT!!
Its kinda funny, the Mafiaass have not only climbed into the coffin under their own power,
they are hammering the nails into the lid too!! Way to go, RIAA!!
stw:)
June 22nd, 2009 at 12:51 pm
The fact is that a judgement of 2 million against her guaranty that she will go BK chapter 7 and that the entertainment parasites will get zip.
With a lower sentence such as 18k she might have been tempted to try to pay although I would personally not even pay 1$ even if I have to BK chapter 7 to get my way at the end!
June 22nd, 2009 at 12:52 pm
@RW:
“No DVD, No Theatre, and no TV” I think you mean no **AA supported DVD/Theatre/TV/Music.
There are plenty of independent videos, performances, music, movies, etc… that are worth supporting.
Though I was shocked to see RIAA-safe Aimee Mann’s new album for $20 on SuperEgo Records at HMV in Toronto. I would have expected it to be $10 – $15, not $18/19.99.
There are plenty others that are more affordable, even on iTunes.
June 22nd, 2009 at 1:01 pm
“How did these 12 very ordinary people reckon another very ordinary person, whom they’d decided was a ‘wilful infringer,’ could possibly come up with that kind of money?”
actually, the sad part is that this is a focus group. 12 sheeple that have been misinformed about copyright since they were born. lied to at every turn that copyright is in the ‘artists’ interests. bamboozled into believing that infringement is illegal, and equivelant to felony theft. and brainwashed by the lanescream media PR campaign to legitimize their extortion and draconian over-lording of content distribution.
12 individual examples of sheeple that DONT read p2pnet, or understand the world they live in.
June 22nd, 2009 at 1:44 pm
” 12 individual examples of sheeple that DONT read p2pnet, or understand the world they live in. ”
That will change when the kids that were raised on the internet are old enough to take over.
June 22nd, 2009 at 2:22 pm
Well,
After thinking about that for a bit, I HOPe so.
The hippies of the 60’s ( peace, free love, anti-capitalism, etc .. ) are running things now,
and they are at LEAST worse than the ‘Man’ that they claimed to hate so much.
Once they became ‘The Man’ they changed their tune very quickly.
I sincerlely hope that the I-Gens don’t go the way of the Hippies.
June 22nd, 2009 at 3:10 pm
@Dreddsnik:
You sure the hippies did this? You sure they were simply not hearded up and brainwashed? I don’t believe hippies became “the man” they hated. The non-hippies became “the man” and bullshitted the hippies into believing they had won. Change that occurs slowly is more difficult to notice, especially when you are cheering how you ‘won’ against “The Man.”
The I-Gens? As in the “me” generation? As in those who don’t care about anything but themselves? As in a vast majority of North Americans? “People dying in Iraq and Iran and Afghanistan? But not in my house? Whatever, when are the Lakers playing next? When is the latest Transformers movie coming out? Oh wow, Denny’s has a special, 5x the amount of food my fat ass needs for half the price!”
Sorry to those offended by over generalizations.
June 22nd, 2009 at 4:38 pm
” The I-Gens? As in the “me” generation? As in those who don’t care about anything but themselves? ”
No,
As in the ones raised in the internet age, the ones growing up with this technology being ubiquitous, and
understand it. There are those who don’t care about anything or anyone but themselves in all generations,
and sadly those are the ones who usually end up in power. Perhaps it’s a prerequisite.
I-Gens as in Internet Generation.
June 22nd, 2009 at 4:48 pm
@Robert
k, i’ll git off yer lawn now.
June 23rd, 2009 at 11:21 am
“They’ve been going all over the world to ask governments for help. This will force governments to take a second look. ‘What are you kidding, we’re going to give these maniacs information to go sue our citizens’?”
That statement assumes that governments in general have the best interests of the people in mind. Where is this place; I’d like to move there!
The fact is that the RIAA has a cornucopia of cash that they disburse to politicians and judges. When the RIAA shows up to ask governments for help, they don’t arrive hat in hand, they show up at the head of a fleet of Brinks trucks.
July 26th, 2009 at 1:47 am
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