RIAA Jammie case: ‘biggest black eye ever’
p2pnet news view P2P | RIAA:- Why Won’t the RIAA Just Give Up?
That’s the headline to a PC World story focusing on the victimisation (our word, not theirs) of Jammie Rasset-Thomas.
The Recording Industry Association of ‘America’ won’t give up because it’s owned and controlled by Vivendi Universal (France), Sony (Japan), EMI (Britain), and Warner Music (US, but headed up by a Canadian), who, encouraged by the way in which governments around the world instantly bow to their every demand, believe they’re outside the law.
They also believe the 21st digital century is the same as the non-digital 20th century where they used the mainstream print and electronic news and information outlets to control what people saw and heard, as well as what they bought in the way of music —- which was, to all intents and purposes, everything.
And that’s the way they want things to stay. Because this isn’t about money. It’s about domination. And in a desperate bid to maintain it, the Big 4, alongside Time Warner, Viacom, Fox, Sony, NBC Universal and Disney, aka Hollywood, are using their obscene wealth, bought-and-paid-for political helpers, and celebrity glitter, to corrupt government leaders into acting as their dupes.
But they’re wrong on all counts, appearances to the contrary notwithstanding.
It’s too late. Far too late.
Because for the first time in history, the people have a voice that’s louder than that of the entertainment industry.
Sued by the RIAA
Jammie, the First Nations mother of four children, has become a symbol for the kartells, on the one side, and everyone who believe in openness, on the other.
The Big 4 labels have been awarded $1.92 million in lieu of 24 songs a misguided jury in Minnesota priced at $80,000 each.
There is, of course, absolutely no way Jamie will be will be able find the money, or anything even vaguely near it. But no worries. The amount serves to bolster the impression that everyone in America is in danger of being sued by the RIAA.
However, that’s as false as everything else associated with the labels and the chances of an individual being targeted in the same way is as near to zero as it’s possible to get.
That becomes obvious when one considers that of the hundreds of millions of people in America who every day regularly and routinely share music with each other online, apparently, only a paltry 18,000 or so have actually been targeted.
And of those, only Jamie has appeared as a defendant in a civil copyright infringement case.
But RIAA lawyers believe in viciously hammering and kicking people, even when they’re down.
Jammie and her own attorneys, Kiwi Camara and Joe Sibley, want a third trial so, tit-for-tat, in its latest move, the RIAA has instructed hired legal gun Timothy Reynolds, employed by Holmes Roberts & Owen, headquartered in Denver, Colorado, to demand Jammie should be barred from “downloading music, sharing music files and distributing songs,” also saying she mustbe ordered to destroy, “all copies of recordings she has downloaded without authorization,” says the Associated Press.
“I doubt anyone was shocked to read about the motion by my attorneys to ask for a new trial,” Jammie told p2pnet.
“The amount of the verdict is outrageous, ridiculous, and completely insulting to the common sense of everyone who has heard about the verdict.”
By way of an interesting digression, another Holmes Roberts & Owen lawyer, seconded to the RIAA, was Richard Gabriel.
This is Jammie’s second trial. First time around, she was ordered to pay almost a quarter of a million dollars.
Gabriel tried that case.
Now, by an amazing coincidence, he’s a judge in, you guessed it, Colorado.
Of equal interest, Jammie’s first lawyer, Brian Toder, was effusive in his praise of Gabriel — while he was still defending Jammie. Toder claims it was all in a good cause.
He’s since gone on to pastures new.
‘Good money after bad’
Meanwhile, “as for the RIAA filing for an injunction against me, first, they have a copy of my computer which they know full well does not have any peer to peer software on it, nor any illegally downloaded songs,” says Jammie,who’s told p2pnet she’ll be standing up to the multi-billion-dollar music labels and their RIAA extortion unit to the last.
She adds:
“They know the original hard-drive on the date of alleged infringement was already destroyed and replaced. So in essence, this motion of theirs is pure grand-standing and a waste of time. Bbut I wish them good luck as my case has already given them the biggest black eye ever imagined.
“But the more moot motions they file, the more they look dysfunctional at best.”
Says PC World:
“The RIAA is unlikely to ever collect such a large sum of money from Thomas-Rassett. Suing a single mom just serves to worsen what has become an ongoing PR disaster for the industry. And the effort is unlikely to have any deterrent effect …
“By continuing to pursue it, the RIAA is simply throwing good money after bad.”
Stay tuned.
Jon Newton – p2pnet
First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win ~ Mahatma Gandhi
July, 2009
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July 11th, 2009 at 2:42 pm
I would almost tell her to stop. The fight is noble but right now everyone knows there is no way she can pay and there is no way they will get any money. What if she wins a reduced fine? Great for us, but that reduced fine may be something that she can pay but will still damage her for life.
Right now RIAA and their employers are losing more and more money with every ridiculous settlement because the public is more and more disgusted. I think this is a bigger win for us and her.
RIAA is being recognized more and more as extortionists and people are not stupid, OK maybe except Minnesota jurors!
July 11th, 2009 at 3:35 pm
I hope she continues…..
This verdict is ludicrous and we don’t need them to have this precedent for there next round of FUD advertisements, they give me a headache.
July 11th, 2009 at 3:44 pm
stupid world fockers.
there are people that try to fock up the world like the riaa!#(
and there are people that want to stimulate the industry like file-sharers!=)
Jammie cheers!!;)
and the riaa fock you $-(
July 11th, 2009 at 5:05 pm
This just evidence the RIAA is having a seizure before its death.
July 11th, 2009 at 8:27 pm
“And that’s the way they want things to stay. Because this isn’t about money. It’s about dominanation. And in a desperate bid to maintain it, the Big 4, alongside Time Warner, Viacom, Fox, Sony, NBC Universal and Disney, aka Hollywood, are using their obscene wealth, bought-and-paid-for political helpers, and celebrity glitter, to corrupt government leaders into acting as their dupes.”
Exactly. That sums up this whole scam nicely. The obscene wealth they got from us, of course. Christ it makes me sick.
I haven’t bought any RIAA controlled music for several years now and heck, it’s really easy to boycott it, because it’s mostly shit nowadays anyway. I’ve recently rediscovered electronica and there’s some truly fantastic independent stuff out there that I can’t get enough of.
July 11th, 2009 at 11:39 pm
@Jon:
“dominanation”
Ya gotta stop makin’ up words!
July 12th, 2009 at 3:28 am
This is obscene, the music industry is writing the law just to protect their precious products! There are laws on the books in each country to deal with theft but what’s happening is the equivalent of the wheat manufacturers of the world pressuring every government to severely punish people who steal bread for example. Even though every country in the world has laws against theft, an equivalent action to what’s happening with the music industry would be for the wheat manufacturers to sue people in court $10,000 per loaf stolen! There’s no logically link between the actual cost of a loaf of bread and it’s loss in profits to a bread manufacturer in relationship to the amount of bread stolen! Plus as I say, every country has laws on its books against theft (not just theft of a particular product) and it’s up these governments to arrest and legally prosecute its citizens.
What’s happening regarding the Internet is big business rather than allowing governments of the world to enforce their own laws, multinational corporations are lobbying governments to make and enforce laws just to solely protect its products and/or services! That’s outrageous and it’s disgusting! So next, let’s abolish car theft, meaning every nation has laws against theft and if someone steals a car(s) and gets caught, he/she up until now have been arrested and have been prosecuted in a court of law by his/her government. Now let’s do away with governments acting independently, let’s have the big auto companies pressure governments of the world to make new laws that just have to do with protecting the products of the car manufacturers. So GM might sue thieves $300,000 per car stolen and Mercedes-Benz might want to press for $750,000 per car stolen; you get the idea.
So where does it stop? This is the scary part because free trade policies are already written by big corporation lawyers, the governments of the world just pass these corporate drafts into law! The governments of the world have laws on their books against pollution but governments have been sued by multinational corporations for not using additives in gasoline that are known to be pollutants and be very carcinogenic. Free trade agreements have forced certain gasoline additives onto countries and if governments have decided not to use these additives in their domestic gasoline supply system, corporations have sued and won in court because of these damn corporate free trade treaties! Some governments rather than paying massive financial settlements to these multinational companies have secretly agreed to place these toxic additives back in their domestic gasoline supply system!
Either we have a world where laws are solely made by independent governments and are enforced by them or we live by a system of corporate written laws that are then forced upon the governments of the world. Then people who break these laws will no longer be accountable to their countries but instead will be held accountable to the big corporations who they stole from; you can’t have it both ways! Either government shall make law or corporate lawyers will make the law but in a world (such as we live today) where both types of parallel systems of laws are being made eventually one of them will have to stop making laws!
Which type of world do you wish to live in?
July 12th, 2009 at 12:40 pm
Everyone in the US is at risk for any corporation suing someone. Even when they realize they made a mistake, they then go for dropping the case in return for secrecy. Some corporations after having seen they made a mistake continue to pressure a settlement from the victim. The average citizen is no match for a billion dollar industry which is willing to collect even from the innocent. Remember, where the individual was innocent and the corporation goes ahead anyway and forces payment, the practice violates criminal laws. First, the summons and complaint filed with a court had to have been falsified if the person was innocent. Where no evidence of the victim having done anything wrong the court complaint makes false claims. Lying to a judge and lying to a court all for a profit in the form of a settlement. Even though these are crimes, do not turn to the Department of Justice to defend where criminal laws were broken. Do not look to the victim witness programs to protect you. Directv sued some 30,000 people essentially stating that all these person’s viewed there programming with out having paid. I was sued by them, had the receipts in hand showing that I paid. Made no difference. Knowing that I had paid they wanted me to pay them anyway. They claimed I did not pay to both a court and a judge. I still have my receipts showing I paid! Problem is, I fully intended to go to a trial and prove my innocence. In the federal system, trial is the only place you can prove this. Well, $7000 in legal fees prior to trial and the demand for another $20,000 to have the trial was out of my league. So sign the secret agreement and be on my way. Crimes committed when you sue someone knowing full well you have made the complaint up? Yep, that’s a crime. But who cares? So long as they do not file a false complaint against me. Want to read about it? Both court complaints are there. The one filed by the corporation was almost all false and they knew what had happened when they filed. $250.00 to file and no one knows what is false and what isn’t.
Check out this site: http://www.digitalrightownertheft.com/
July 12th, 2009 at 1:50 pm
What a waste of time and and taxpayers money. She was found guilty on all counts, so let’s be it!
Let her pay for her own stupidity and move on.
She has commited a crime which was proven without a doubt. And she had to fight it instead of admitting her guilt.
Everybody knows that P2P networks are dangerous places to steal the copyrighted material from, and yet, Jammie like chartacters contnue to “share”. And then, when they are busted, they cry like little kids because they have no idea what to do.
Should have thought of it before, didn’t ya?
July 12th, 2009 at 2:53 pm
p2p networks are actually the safest place online, they are governed by users that know technology, and diversify content, and distribute information that is hard, and sometimes, impossible to come by.
The entire world has embraced p2p file sharing as a means of free communications, and it is not illegal to step on draconian copyprivilege for your natural right. The MAFIAA has themselves to blame for the current situation, so feel free to share intellectual property as far and as wide as technologically possible, so that others may be enlightened by the misdeeds of the content kartels and eventually eliminate them from the equation so that artists and fans can connect, and future creativity is restored, not trampled.
stw
July 12th, 2009 at 4:56 pm
“She has commited a crime…”
NO.
She has committed a CIVIL act known as INFRINGEMENT!
People really need to get this one straight.
July 12th, 2009 at 7:47 pm
“She has commited a crime…”
The entertainment corporate parasites does not know what crime is save for the crimes they are comiting themselves.
Soon someone will show them what they mean by “crimes” is very different.
July 12th, 2009 at 7:50 pm
Either a law is passed to protect the citizen against big huge totalitarian corporations or some corporate rats will die.
This is inevitable.
July 12th, 2009 at 8:14 pm
“What if she wins a reduced fine? Great for us, but that reduced fine may be something that she can pay but will still damage her for life.”
ya. But she can still go Bk chapter 7. This is what I will do. Can not pay have no money. Fuck the RIAA! Now they have to foot their bills! Hahaha! That’s all what matter! Who got the black eyes? Hum? Pluds this help us spread the boycott. Day by day, night by night people by people the boycott continue to spread and is now involving the movies!
These corporate demons are so fucked! This is not even funny.
July 13th, 2009 at 8:00 am
I suppose Reader’s Right never loaned a friend a CD, but if they had done so, maybe that friend would have listened to it and decided they didn’t like it enough to buy it.
That’s called informed choice. For a long time the RIAA expected us to buy music without hearing it. How many times have we been burned?
So now we’ve gone from one extreme to the other. But “they” write the laws. I suppose Reader’s Right believes that laws are always correct and should never be tested in court.
The absurd conclusion of this trial is just what we need to force some in-depth examination of the issues of copyright and control. No damages have been proven. If, according to the law, no damages NEED to be proven, maybe this is an unjust law?
July 13th, 2009 at 10:23 am
“She has commited a crime which was proven without a doubt.”
Actually, in civil court, it’s preponderance of the evidence, meaning more likely than not or 51% more evidence, not proven without a doubt. But considering you keep saying she committed a crime, when in actuality this was a civil suit, I doubt you would understand this concept as well.
Idiot.
July 14th, 2009 at 7:07 am
“She has commited a crime which was proven without a doubt.”
Actually there was a good deal that wasn’t proven without a doubt. In fact not only were there a lot of inadequately answered questions, but also a lot of unasked ones as well. This is why I’m not really surprised by the jury decision. Anyone who knows law and has bothered to study this case closely (which you clearly haven’t) will tell you the whole debacle was a farce from beginning to end. Personally I hope she continues to fight what has clearly been a miscarriage of justice. Witch hunts of any kind have no place in a free society. If you don’t believe that then I sincerely hope you find yourself persecuted for your own beliefs some day.
July 16th, 2009 at 9:30 pm
It occurs to me that much legal battling is done on previously proven grounds. It seems ludicrous to me that cases are argued, supported, or won based upon precendent cases that had a particular finding sometimes regardless of what logical sense supports either side. (I am reminded of the Holiday Ham story where each generation prepared the feast by cutting the ends off of the roast beast without knowing that the “traditional recipie” owed this process to the fact that the meat didn’t fit into the only small pan that was available to the chef at the time!) This makes it even more frightening every time something stupid happens in court because it is perceived to strengthen future cases that might follow suit. If the “thus as it was and so it shall be” method of preserving the status quo is to be implemented, if we can illustrate that “as it was” is NOT, in fact, “as it is” then we can successfully avoid that pitfall.
I am not understanding how copyright laws conceived because of a printing press are even applicable in the digital realm or why they even should be related. The IAA’s have manipulated the entire concept into a way to protect industry income based on distribution and monopoly control while at the same time are claiming that it is all to protect the “creative rights” and have spun everything to portray individual artists and idea people as victims of copyright violations. It seems to me that the first order of business should be to stop fighting them on their own turf and unspin the concepts on a different level. The whiz kid seems like he might be capable of this kind of thinking… anybody got some alternative strategies that are more outside the box?
August 4th, 2009 at 3:09 am
“Voxleo asked “…anybody got some alternative strategies that are more outside the box?”
Yeah… don’t consume content that is protected by stupid copyright restrictions. Just don’t. Seriously… you don’t need it.
What we need is content that is “released” without any restrictions on distribution, where anyone can consume or build on it without restrictions. Something like the Creative Commons Share-alike scheme. To get there, we need a system where artists earn their money up front, before the content is released. A pay-for-production system instead of our current pay-for-consumption. Once we get that, then all the rest will fall into place and RIAA et-all will simply burn in hell, where they belong. I’m working on a pay-for-production system (http://keliso.com) but it isn’t ready yet. It, or something like it will be along soon, and that will be the beginning of the end for the old Media companies. Hang on… this current level of legal stupidity won’t last much longer. Until then, boycott.