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First RIAA Case Victim Finally Speaks Out
An anonymous reader writes with a link to an article at P2P Net about the very first victim of the RIAA's file-sharing litigation sweep. The site gave Jammie Thomas the chance to explain in her own words what the last two years have been like. She recounts her experiances with subpoenas, Best Buy, and most of all, stress. Even after all this time, her case is still in legal limbo: "As for what's next, my attorney filed a motion to have the verdict thrown out or to have the judgment reduced based on the constitutionality of the judgment. This is not an appeal, this is a post trial motion. We are currently waiting for the plaintiffs to file their response to our motion. The judge will not make a decision on that motion until after the plaintiffs have filed. The timeline for appeals is we have 30 days after the judge decides all post trial motions before we file any appeals ... I do know personally I cannot allow my case to end this way, with this judgment. My case will be used as a sledgehammer by the RIAA to force other people caught in the RIAA's driftnets to settle, even if they are or are not guilty of illegally sharing music online."
I'm glad that this person is not thinking solely of themselves, but of further cases down the line. They are fighting on principle against the RIAA to help other people out.
I wonder if people can donate to their legal fund?
http://blindscribblings.com - Tasty pop-culture in conceptual fashion.
she was NOT the "victim" of the RIAA, they were judged to be the victim of her actions if anything.
If you mod me down, I will become more powerful than you can imagine....
Sigh. No. Wrong.
She was judged to be LIABLE, not guilty, based on the fact that she had offered files for upload, despite earlier cases where such an offering was not considered to be fact enough to prove infringement. A fact which was hidden from the trial judge even tho it was known to the RIAA attorneys, who should have disclosed that to the court.
This should be tossed on that fact alone.
Now, when will we see the RIAA sue EMI?
So in what way is she the victim, again?
In the way that she was asked to pay $222,000 instead of a couple thousand (or even some hundred dollars, taking into account the price of $0.70 per downloaded song the RIAA gets).
In short, the RIAA wants her not to pay them back what they "lost", but they want to make an example of her. Just like the UFO hacker who was treated like a terrorist by the Bush administration.
aside from the fact that directly contradicts a previous federal court ruling that making available is not infringing.
upon the advice of my lawyer, i have no sig at this time
So kind of like when you steal a candy bar from a store and the only punishment is to pay back the 55 cents for the candy bar?
Well isn't that called restitution? yes, there must be a punitive damage. But come on, two fucking hundred dollars? The punishment does NOT fit the "crime" (it was NOT a crime, the lawsuit was civil, not criminal) in any way.
So kind of like when you steal a candy bar from a store and the only punishment is to pay back the 55 cents for the candy bar?
Your right, its more than $.55. But what is the actual punishment for that? Is it it $200,000? No. I didn't think so either. Not even if you stole 24 of them. Not even if you stole 240 of them. Seems to me $220,000 is right out of line.
The way I see it is she paid $2,000 for the activity and she paid $220,000 as a penalty for trying to run and hide under the cloak of the anti-RIAA movement to get herself out of a jam
I see. So if you stole 24 candybars, and then plead not guilty, and tried to get sympathy because you stole them from WalMart who is disliked by a big chunk of society, so you tried to ride that wave of discontent -- THEN you should have to pay $220,000??
Sorry, nope still I don't see it. You still only stole 24 candybars. Your penalty should be based on what you actually did, not the defence strategy. If you want to punish her for "trying to hide under the cloak of the anti-RIAA movement" charge her separately with that, and convict her for it. Otherwise get bent. (Good luck with that by the way, since its not even remotely illegal. And besides the RIAA itself is a cloak the labels hide under to hide from any negative PR blowback for what they do while wearing that cloak.)
The "making available" argument comes from one case in the 4th Circuit that applied the theory against a library that made unlawful copies of a piece of art available. Most who are familiar with the case believe it was supposed to be limited to libraries only. It was really a stretch to find liability. The copyright statute says:
"(3) to distribute copies or phonorecords of the copyrighted work to the public by sale or other transfer of ownership, or by rental, lease, or lending;"
17 USC 106
Nothing in the statute says anything about "making available" to the public. In fact, in that same opinion, the court said "In order to establish 'distribution' of a copyrighted work, a party must show that an unlawful copy was disseminated 'to the public'" Even after saying that, it went ahead and made the library liable for infringement because they had no record keeping in place and therefore could not prove if the work had or had not been checked out. There was no proof showing that it had been checked out or seen by the public. It'll be nice to have another appeals court look at this issue. It would be even nicer to have them read the statute correctly and require proof of distribution.
and by the way, it's "plaintiff," not "prosecution." Copyright infringement isn't a crime.
The jury left the box convinced she was a liar, and showed absolute contempt for her defense as a whole. The most she can expect to accomplish now is to minimize the damage.
The one fact that can't be erased is that a jury found for The Big Bad Wolf and not Little Red Riding Hood. That should - but almost certainly won't - silence talk of Jury Nullification.
The jury is small-C conservative. It believes in the rule of law. It does not share the Geek's sense of entitlement.
You can win on the facts. You cannot win on your "right" to a free media fix. Your "right" to lay out a free smörgåsbord of "The Transformers" and twenty other flicks for ten million of your closest friends on the P2P nets.
In some ways I think it's easier - if not it could become a (greater) flamefest whether you should pay for something you *probably* did and possibly not, preponderance of evidence and all. Since the evidence sounds rather compelling, we can move right on to the main dish IMO - should you be liable for $10000/song you're sharing? I think it tastes a lot like "Well, everybody's speeding but we only caught you so you get ten years in prison". It's not interesting to me that RIAA managed to get a conviction, copyright is law and file sharers are plenty. What's interesting is whether the courts will let the RIAA turn liability law (damages) into punitative law (penalties). Statutory damages were originally supposed to be an approximation of actual damages where those are hard to calculate, but there's no fucking way she personally did $220000 worth of damage to the RIAA. In then takes the effect of a fine, payable to a private company. While there are a few punitative elements in civil law like 3x damage for willfully infringing a patent, there's nothing where it's 99% penalty and 1% damage.
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
This was a civil trial, not a criminal trial. In civil trials:
To sum up:
When you mix these terms up you sound ignorant, like when your mother confuses the difference between USB and ethernet cables or your sister confuses the terms uploading and downloading.
"Your mother" jokes to follow, I'm sure.
I am not a lawyer. This post does not constitute any form of legal advice.
She's not black.
She's Ojibwe (Chippewa). She's a member of the Mille Lacs Band.