When I posed the question I wasn’t thinking of artists, but the songwriters or the song publishers that may own the songs.
Then are these indispensable parties or not?
I seriously doubt that all the 24 songs downloaded by Thomas belonged to the record companies (as ownres).

Then the is the concept of beneficial owners.
When an artists or songwriters gives up ownership of their work in exchange of royalties they become beneficial owners of the work.
Amerian copyright laws recognizes the right of beneficial owners to sue when their work is infringed.

See section §501. Infringement of copyright:
“The legal or beneficial owner of an exclusive right under a copyright is entitled, subject to the requirements of section 411 [17 USC 411], to institute an action for any infringement of that particular right committed while he or she is the owner of it”.

So, even if an artist or a songwriter gave away the legal ownership, as beneficial owners they may have a right to be compensated by infringes of their work. As such they may have been indispensable parties in the Thomas lawsuit and without them in the lawsuit there can be no damages. The concept protects Thomas from a new lawsuit from the beneficial owners.

Thanks, I stand corrected.

There are way too many that still equate rightsholders with artists, not realizing that the rightsholder is almost never the artist.
( there are a couple of Richard Marx songs that I am pretty fond of myself ).

I know, that’s what I meant. And now many label artists are doing that. Marx actually writes music for many different artists, which impresses me. He’s also funny about how he used to look, watching interviews with him was quite entertaining. His music is not for everyone, that’s for sure, but at least he can write, record, perform, and produce.

If you do it all yourself, you can do whatever you want. ”

Exactly.
Technology is at a place now where it is actually financially in reach of average musicians to create, record, produce and
distribute without the need of the labels.
Marx, McCartney, and every current Label artist had pretty much no choice. Do as the labels want, sign away your rights,
or never get airplay, et al .. no one will ever hear you.
The label artist that owns the right to their own material is a VERY rare breed.

We all know that this is the real reason they want P2P criminalized, and the net policed and monetized.

Yes, NOW, you can do it all yourself.
Then , you had little or no choice.

If you do it all yourself, you can do whatever you want.

Any lawyer care to comment on this? ”

This has been answered.
There are no indispensible parties since the artists DON’T OWN THEIR OWN SONGS.
Therefore no need to worry about what that pesky artist thinks or cares about.

A good example is the Paul McCartney article in which Paul clearly states that he has to pay someone every time he
perform HIS OWN SONGS.

You won’t get a lawyer to comment on anything directly in a blog.

Any lawyer care to comment on this?

Why were not the songwriters (including Richard Mark) included in te lawsuit as an indispensable party to the lawsuit by virtue of being legal or

beneficial owners of the songs? See Wikipedia for the term “indispensable party”.

“An indispensable party (or necessary and indispensable party) is a party in a lawsuit whose participation is required for jurisdiction or the purpose of rendering a judgment. Often, an indispensable party is any party whose rights are directly affected by disposition of the case. Many jurisdictions have rules which provide for an indispensable party to be joined (brought into the case as a party) at the discretion of the judge. In some cases, the inability to join such a party means that the case must be dismissed.”

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indispensable_party

It is my understanding that if Richard Mark (assuming he owned his song” did not want to be in the lawsuit, the case for the Marx song had to be dismissed. that would prevent the possibility that Jammie Thomas could be sued again for the same thing, the second time by the songwriters, who obviously are not going to get anything from whatever damages are eventually paid by Jammie Thomas.

Why were not the songwriters (including Richard Mark) included in te lawsuit as an indispensable party to the lawsuit by virtue of being legal or

beneficial owners of the songs? See Wikipedia for the term “indispensable party”.

“An indispensable party (or necessary and indispensable party) is a party in a lawsuit whose participation is required for jurisdiction or the purpose of rendering a judgment. Often, an indispensable party is any party whose rights are directly affected by disposition of the case. Many jurisdictions have rules which provide for an indispensable party to be joined (brought into the case as a party) at the discretion of the judge. In some cases, the inability to join such a party means that the case must be dismissed.”

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indispensable_party

It is my understanding that if Richard Mark (assuming he owned his song” did not want to be in the lawsuit, the case for the Marx song had to be dismissed. that would prevent the possibility that Jammie Thomas could be sued again for the same thing, the second time by the songwriters, who obviously are not going to get anything from whatever damages are eventually paid by Jammie Thomas.

This confuses all of us, including the lawyers out there who HAVE a sense of ethics.
The verdict only makes sense to the RIAA, and apparently Judge Davis, whatever his reasoning
may be ( green colored, I imagine ).

This is the part that confuses me. What is she actually guilty of? Is it illegal to download for yourself something you ALREADY paid for? They already have royalties from her CD purchases so where’s the loss worthy of a guilty verdict?

Distribution/making available, is another thing all together. ”

Distribution, which they could not prove … read the Jury instruction.

Distribution/making available, is another thing all together.

She was, in a sneaky roundabout way.
Even though she wasn’t sued for it, Judge Davis inserted it in Jury instruction 18. Judge Davis ordered
that a download is an infringement and she should be found guilty.

I do believe cash was probably involved.

I’ll echo the above sentiments: I won’t begrudge the guy his personal opinion against file-sharing (though I disagree with him), but if he really feels as bad as he does about the massive rip-off that was the Jammie Thomas case, he should consider doing something other than just expressing empty sentiment.

you mean 1$ ? since the remaining 79999 goes to the RIAA lawyer shit

And all the news stories are saying “illegally downloaded”, was she found guilty of illegally downloading the songs or copyright infringement/distribution. Cause as far as Im concerned there is a major difference. I dont have a problem with someone downloading a song for personal use. I do think it is wrong to buy a song/cd and rip it and then uploaded it to 1, 12, 100 or 500,000 people.

If she wasnt convicted of illigally downloading the songs then the media/RIAA and others need to stop saying that.

That’s not the first time I’ve seen this suggestion (?) posted.
For those who are serious… C’MON!

I applaud any label-contracted artist that comes out like this, regardless of whether they still “have a problem” with file sharing or not. It means they can at least see the labels for what they are, and are willing to risk the consequences from speaking out. That’s a plus, and it doesn’t mean that down the road, they won’t start to realize that file sharing is not the enemy (as they’ve been conditioned by the labels to believe in the first place). The more artists that do this, regardless of what you think of any of them, or regardless of whether you like(d) their music or not, the better the truth will come out sooner.

To direct insults or implied criticisms at an artist after “coming out” like that, against their labels, is disingenuous and just plain stupid.

Jammie’s penalities have opened some eyes.
I expect to see more artists foregoing new label contracts and dealing directly with their fans in the future.