DoJ $1.98M IP enforcement grant
p2pnet news view Movies | Music:- American taxpayers have once again come through handsomely for Hollywood and Vivendi Universal, EMI, Warner Music and Sony Music in almost exactly the same amount a jury decided Jammie Thomas-Rasset owes the Big 4 labels.
Jammie, a very ordinary person with absolutely no significant financial resources, was ordered to find a staggering $1.92 million after being accused of sharing 24 songs online.
Now, “The Office of Justice Programs (OJP) today announced funding to develop national support for, and improve the capacity of state, local, and tribal criminal justice systems addressing criminal intellectual property enforcement,” says Department of Justice acting assistant attorney general Laurie Robinson (right) in a statement.
The amount? $1.98 million.
The Obama DoJ is almost an adjunct of the Big 4’s RIAA copyright extortion unit with many RIAA lawyers ensconced in middle and senior management positions.
The $1.9 million in grants, “will be sent to law enforcement agencies around the country to improve their ability to investigate, prosecute and prevent intellectual property infringement,” says an MPAA (Motion Picture Association of America) fluff release.
“We appreciate the Justice Department’s continued commitment to combating intellectual property infringement and its dedication to protecting the rights of American creators who contribute greatly to our nation’s economic growth,” says MPAA front man Dan ‘The Joker’ Glickman.
” … our nation’s economic growth” was, of course, a slip of the tongue. He meant the growth of Hollywood studios Time-Warner, Fox, Disney, Columbia, Paramount and MGM.
Recipients of the largess include: Bronx County District Attorney, NY ($43,718); Chesterfield County, VA ($199,919); City of Los Angeles, CA ($199,995); Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department, CA ($200,000); New York City, NY ($200,000); North Carolina Department of the Secretary of State, NC ($44,485); National Association of Attorneys General, DC ($450,000); and, NW3C Inc. National White Collar Crime Center, VA ($450,000).
Also receiving handouts are the National Association of Attorneys General, DC ($450,000); and, NW3C Inc. National White Collar Crime Center, VA ($450,000).
No need to stay tuned.
First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win ~ Mahatma Gandhi
very ordinary person - Jammie Thomas-Rasset: file sharing thief, June 10, 2009
almost an adjunct – Jenner & Block – running the DoJ?, April 26, 2009
industry sales division – RIAA lawyer still Penn trustee, July 30, 2004
September, 2009
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September 4th, 2009 at 1:53 pm
Stay tuned, Paulus …
Cheers!
September 4th, 2009 at 1:59 pm
The University of Pennsylvania, where Assistant AG Laurie Robinson comes from, is a separate institution from Penn State, which has been willing to be a RIAA sales arm.
The University of Pennsylvania is a private Ivy League school located in Philadelphia, PA. Penn State is a state-supported university located in the wilderness of State College, PA.
Just a minor factual correction.
September 4th, 2009 at 2:05 pm
Not minor. And I’m embarrassed to say I’ve made the same mix-up before.
Anyhow, fixed, with apologies to Robinson.
Cheers!
September 4th, 2009 at 4:10 pm
Perhaps if file sharers are tried under US criminal law, the higher standard of evidence will make it considerably harder to get a conviction.
September 5th, 2009 at 9:17 pm
This is gross – Big Media mafia criminal extortion gang are now fully integrated into the American government.
Makes you wanna puke.
September 5th, 2009 at 10:06 pm
“The awards will be used to combat intellectual property crimes which have been shown to relate to and support other crimes, including violent crime.”
Violent crime? They’ll be saying selling bootleg DVDs will lead to selling street drugs and then gangbanging.
September 5th, 2009 at 11:21 pm
I’m a Canadian and I’m disgusted with Corporate America! They are the ones solely responsible for the American made recession. Corporations pushed these stupid home mortgage loans on people who wouldn’t normally have qualified for such loans. It was also corporate real estate that kept pushing up prices of homes and condos; underneath it all these high prices were driven by a speculative marketplace. There was a great deal of buying real estate, shelling out money to make glossy changes (no significant renovations, no investment in plumbing or electrical) such as a quick paint job and maybe fix the roof (patch work) and then quickly flipping it (reselling the property).
Banks in Canada don’t turn around and then sell off mortgages as investment opportunities but that’s what U.S. banks did! So everyone was making a killing in real estate except the bubble burst because this was all based on no real value! Real estate was way overvalued, people holding these loans couldn’t afford them–everything hinged on a speculative real estate market where nobody actual held on to property but just tried to flip it over to the next sucker. And banks had the gall to resell all these mortgages for a fast buck to investment groups and brokerage house and they in turn tried to sell them to their customers. When the real estate bubble burst, everyone lost their shirts: people trying to flip properties where stuck with huge mortgages (their properties lost huge value), individuals were defaulting on loans when the changes of these quickie approved mortgages started to kick in (first it was low interest only, now people needed to pay a higher rate of interest and begin paying off principal), banks were stuck with all these foreclosed homes they couldn’t sell, investors in these bundled mortgage investments lost their money so too did the institutions who sold it to them (brokerage house and investment groups). And yet this is corporate fraud was rewarded by American taxpayers having now to be solely responsible for paying off a huge loan which their federal government took out and gave all this money back to these businesses that started this scam in the first place!
That is criminal but downloading a song that literally thousands of people are doing at a time and then prosecuting a few little people millions of dollars that’s sick! Do you realize that American taxpayers are paying off the very same crooks that inventing the schemes that brought down the U.S. economy! Where’s the U.S. District Attorneys? Why aren’t they prosecuting these people who came up with these national ponzie schemes? And do you realize why corporate America is using taxpayer money to pay off these huge pay bonuses to these crooks? These bonuses where based on performances for selling these hyped up investment opportunities (that where useless, speculative and based on a real estate bubble) but the ironic thing is that it’s these very same people who sold these repackage bank toxic assets as investment packages that ruined the U.S. economy, destroyed the stock market, caused investors to lose their money and actually were the sole reason why these corporations went bankrupt! So now that the American taxpayer is propping up these corporation that otherwise would have gone under, these same companies are now giving bonuses to these salesman on a pay for performance job that actually was to sell garbage that caused all this economic chaos in the first place! And yet President Obama took out an enormous loan just to give these corporations money—wow…taking about a con job! These people should be locked up in prison but get this, their the ones responsible for the economic collapse and now they’ve conned the American president to give them taxpayer money in order to stay in business!
So I’m sorry but you Americans have a screwed up economy based on corporate corruption and it’s this very same corporate corruption that pays off politicians to enforce the laws of the land in favour their self-interests. But when corporations cheat investors, they plead innocent; when they sell faulty (ponzi like) investments opportunities that then cause catastrophic economic chaos–they expect the government to clean up their mess (and even repay them with taxpayer money)!
So what are you prepared to do in order to change (ironic Barack Obama ran his campaign on change) this culture of corporate corruption so that you no longer become a victim to this system?
September 6th, 2009 at 1:53 pm
I’ve spent almost two decades employed at a maximum security prison. Out of curiosity, I’ve been taking an informal census on file sharing over the past few months. What I’ve learned is that pretty much all of my co-workers (even the not so tech oriented ones) file share copyrighted content and that Bittorrent seems to be the predominate method for downloading. Every single one of them had no idea of the illegalities involved, nor do the majority of them understand how the process of sharing even works. The picture that is forming is that they do it because everyone else does and so just assume it’s all perfectly legal on that basis alone.
It hard to say whether this was surprising to learn or not since that does tend to be typical human behavior when it comes to determining the social acceptability of any potentially immoral act. I’ve actually told a few of them what could happen if caught uploading but they generally just laugh it off as if I’m joking. There is little doubt in my mind that they probably wouldn’t stop even if they did know the potential consequences. It’s a lot like speeding. People tend to not see any harm in doing that from time to time either even though everyone does know it’s illegal. Lets also not forget the reinforcing effect seen when kids see their parents doing these things. Role models rarely realize just how much influence they have over young minds.
All of this really makes one wonder. If this is how the majority of the public at large see file sharing and it’s not just the tech savvy who are involved in sharing copyrighted works (which anyone who has been frequenting p2pnet for any length of time will agree is indeed the case), then it’s probably a safe bet to say the entertainment industry will eventually lose their battle in the long run. That is unless they really do plan on taking every man, woman and child on Earth to court and bankrupting them just to get their message across. Clearly the entertainment lawyers have their work cut out for them as the message obviously hasn’t come anywhere close to sinking in yet.
September 7th, 2009 at 5:11 am
There is another way of looking at the 1.98 million.
The industry may beat it up and say that it is a major slap in the face for file sharers by proving how “onside” the DOJ is, but I see it from a slightly different perspective.
The industries that America couldnt afford to fail (Fannie May, Bank of America etc etc received over 2 Trillion dollars in handouts…….) and they didnt have to produce one single conviction or add one dollar to the bottom line.
If you look at it this way – it’s clear that file sharing is on the bottom of Obama’s hit-list.
1.98 million ? HAAA Wouldnt buy interdiction services for more than about 3.5 minutes on an America wide basis……..
To me the 1.98 (million that is not billion) is a clear indication that Obama is saying – your on your own boys – good luck, I have more important problems.
1.98 million ? Wouldnt even buy a 3 bedroom cottage on the beach at Venice Beach.
November 20th, 2009 at 12:21 pm
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