‘Settlement’ master named: RIAA v Thomas
p2pnet view P2P:- This has to be a first.
A special ’settlement master’ has been named in Capitol v Thomas, says Ray Beckerman on Recording Industry vs The People.
Judge Michael Davis, who’s been presiding ever since Vivendi Universal, EMI, Warner Music and Sony Music and their RIAA were told they’d get almost two million dollars from Jammie Thomas-Rassett (seen here with her family), “has appointed a Special Master to promote meaningful settlement discussions”, says Beckerman.
Not only but also, “The Special Master’s fee will be $400 per hour, and payment will be made by the plaintiffs”, he says.
So the the RIAA will pay 400 bucks an hour to re-examine a decision that’s already been made. Then presumably, there’ll be yet another extremely expensive court case.
Hasn’t the official Big 4 extortionist already been told $54,000 is the maximum?
Do they want the amount lowered? If they do, why don’t they just say ‘Thanks Jammie, we’ve had all we can get out of you and caused you enough grief — pay us $1 and we’ll forget about it.’
But that’s not likely. So what’s the point of this?
Definitely stay tuned.
… and identi.ca
Recording Industry vs The People – The Court appoints special master to promote settlement promote meaningful settlement discussions in Capitol v Thomas, June 19, 2010
two million dollars – Jammie Thomas-Rasset: file sharing thief, June 10, 2010
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June 21st, 2010 at 4:18 pm
“So the the RIAA will pay 400 bucks an hour to re-examine a decision that’s already been made.”
Ahahahaha, they are never going to get a dime out of that woman, she doesn’t have any money. Which is probably what the $400 an hour “settlement master” is going to tell them, if he doesn’t decide to jerk them along to jack up his fee.
June 21st, 2010 at 4:26 pm
“So what’s the point of this?”
A case example for when they re-launch the sue em all campaign.
June 21st, 2010 at 5:06 pm
The main thing they’re worried about is the judge’s $54,000 “adjustment” setting a new precedent in future cases. $54,000 just doesn’t sound scary enough to them. That’s why they tried to get her to settle for $25,000, but only if she asked the judge to vacate his newest ruling.
They’re screwing themselves beyond belief, and they just don’t understand WHY Jamie is doing what she’s doing. Apparently, being business people, they’re unfamiliar with anything resembling “integrity.”
June 21st, 2010 at 5:18 pm
The logic of proceeding to trial, when the maximum amount recoverable is less than the cost of the trial, eludes me.
June 21st, 2010 at 5:19 pm
I think the Judge is just hoping that the Special Master can talk some sense into the RIAA.
June 21st, 2010 at 6:24 pm
@ Ray Beckerman
Sorry Ray, but the words “RIAA” and “sense” in the same sentence??? Never happen!
Meanwhile I do appreciate the efforts that you and other intelligent lawyers are putting forth.
It continues to baffle me that our judges in the US are so naive and blinder-ed to the obvious
BS the RIAA feeds them as to these cases. I’m not a lawyer, nor do I play one on TV, and I can
see just how ridiculous these claims are! So thanks Ray, for all that you do!
June 21st, 2010 at 6:40 pm
You would think since THE PEOPLE are being abused by the corporate media empire’s sue-em-all campaigns, that lawmakers would draft legislation putting a cap on damages for online, non-commercial copyright infringement. This would be common-sense legislation to solve a problem that is causing life-altering consequences for the victims, such as Mrs. Thomas.
Or, how about legislation that says if you offer someone a pre-litigation settlement, the maximum you can then sue them for is the amount of the settlement offer x2. Not x1000 like they currently do in order to put a financial gun to people’s heads to convince them to waive the right to a fair trial.
BUT NOOOOOOOOOOOO, the legislators are too busy sucking the big phallus of the big-business corporate establishment giving them whatever they need in terms of new laws, and ignoring the needs of the ‘little people’.
What a sick joke the US democracy has become. Your gov’t works for the corporate empire, and IGNORES the needs of everyone else, no matter how desperate your cries. Ask yourself, what has your congressman, senator, or president done to protect YOU and YOUR INTERESTS? Not a god damn thing, but the second the corporate empire is in trouble, the sky’s the limit. Bail-outs at the taxpayer expense, protection from litigation, caps on civil damages, exemptions from laws, anything that is needed.
Canada is no better. Look at this copyright legislation that has been tabled. Really, go take a few hours and read the entire thing, and consider the implications. You might as well, your member of parliament sure as hell isn’t going to. It was practically written by the legacy media empire. It’s cleverly worded, yet it really does nothing to affirm your individual rights or protect you from predatory litigation. In fact, it does the opposite.
Get ready to become victims, just like Mrs. Thomas, because the Canadian gov’t is not on your side. Their bread is buttered by the corporations who get them elected. The corporations want a new whip to beat the living $hit out of you when you cross them, and that’s what this copyright bill is all about.
And it’s not just for the little-people. Any software company that even *thinks* about innovating in the field of P2P in Canada is going to be sued into oblivion under this new legislation. They will say “you’re enabling infringement” and that’s the end of your software company. I should know, I ran a company that developed an extremely popular P2P app several years ago and we were run out of business in the states by the RIAA, based on the twisted logic of the Grokster precedent. It’s called ‘contributory infringement’, a concept that was created not in written law, but solely in the judiciary, and it’s coming to Canada, where you soon won’t be able to develop any innovative software if it steps on the toes of any establishment player. Even if you are in compliance with all laws, this copyright bill gets you close enough to the edge where you’ll likely have to spend millions on lawyers just to prove your innocence.
It’s disgusting what our so-called free society has become. The people won’t even emit a collective gasp as their freedoms slip into the abyss of corporate interests.
Just keep watching your hockey games and slurping up that Tim Hortons coffee while the country your forefathers fought for swirls down the drain.
June 21st, 2010 at 6:51 pm
@ AngryCanadian
very nice piece. and i 110% agree with you.
some examples: the \bpi wrote laws for the DEB in the UK.
Ban on websites, at a mere whim, etc, etc
June 21st, 2010 at 7:31 pm
This is their problem: If the sue someone with money this person can hire top notch attorney and the RIAA is almost certainly going to lose the case. So they attack people with no money. The problem with that though is that people with no money are unsolvable so no money can be extracted from them regardless the court decision.
So the corporation of parasites are wasting the investors money just to be able to say: we are right and the public is wrong.
Of course this does not achieve anything since the public was who were giving them the money!
BOYCOTT THE CORPORATE PARASITES OF ENTERTAINMENT!
No CD, No DVD, No Movie theater, no cable and no paying for download under any form and under any circumstances.
June 21st, 2010 at 7:42 pm
@ RW: ‘they attack people with no money’
The entire sue ‘em all campaign had that as its foundation. Otherwise, it would’ve gone nowhere.
Bullies don’t pick on people who can defend themselves.
Cheers!
June 21st, 2010 at 7:46 pm
“It’s disgusting what our so-called free society has become. The people won’t even emit a collective gasp as their freedoms slip into the abyss of corporate interests.”
We have to destroy the big corporations right now and by any mean before they finish destroying our society our democracy and take away our freedom.
This is our countries our lands our oceans and our planet and we have to defend it against the corporate parasites and criminals.
We have to get ride of the big banks and replace them by the credit unions. Then we have to destroy the oil companies and replace them by non-profit organizations. Finally we have to obliterate the entertainment companies and rebuild the industry without the parasites of yesterday.
June 22nd, 2010 at 9:51 am
“RayBeckerman: The logic of proceeding to trial, when the maximum amount recoverable is less than the cost of the trial, eludes me.”
I’m sure you as a lawyer are used to analyzing legal tactics towards an ultimate strategy of winning a case, and on that level you are absolutely right. On that level the only possible logic is to simply drop a case when the financial costs are greater than any possible gains.
However I think they are looking at a very different picture than you are. I think I see the logic for their behavior in that picture. For a lawyer “winning the case” is the big picture, that is the strategy level. The RIAA doesn’t actually care about this case in itself. For the RIAA this entire case is purely the tactical level. The RIAA’s strategy level is the national and even global copyright conflict, millions of people downloading stuff, and the potential of many thousands of court cases.
The financial gains or losses of this case do not figure into the RIAA’s reasoning at all.
The RIAA wants the general public to be afraid to download stuff. They especially don’t want masses of people fighting them in court. They essentially have a suicide bomber legal strategy. Don’t download stuff because they randomly obliterate people, and you might be next. In particular the strategy says to people not to waste the RIAA’s time trying to fight them in court because they will send out the equivalent of “suicide bomber” lawyers. You can’t win a fistfight with a suicide bomber, and you can’t win in court against suicide bomber lawyers. Even if you win the fistfight, even if you win on each and every legal point in court, they will still obliterate you no matter the cost to themselves. The strategy says you MUST pay off their “settlement offers” in the first place. The strategy says it doesn’t matter if you’re innocent, it doesn’t matter if you can win on each and every legal issue, they don’t want you to even THINK about fighting them or they will pay whatever it takes to obliterate you.
They are obliterating an upitty defendant on principal. The logic that you really need to examine is their moves in this case as tactics towards the bigger picture legal landscape and future cases. You need to examine what bigger picture legal precedents they are attempting to set while obliterating the defendant, and what bigger picture legal precedents they are desperately trying to PREVENT from being set along the way. That’s the level where their logic is operating.
June 22nd, 2010 at 10:42 am
My only wish is that there would have been ten thousand people like her. The RIAA would have had to spent a fortune in legal costs, far more than they could possibly hope to get back.