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Thomas' Testimony and the RIAA's Near-Fatal Error
eldavojohn writes "The long and torrid trial of Jammie Thomas is in its second stage and in full swing. Yesterday, two major events took place: Thomas gave her surprising testimony and the RIAA was threatened for not disclosing new information to the opposing counsel. Thomas claimed she didn't know what KaZaA was before the trial started. She also admitted that the hard drive handed over to investigators was different than the one that was in her computer during the time of infringement. Her testimony from the first trial was that 'the hard drive replacement had taken place in 2004 and that the drive had not been swapped again since.' This is problematic because the new hard drive had a manufacturing date of 2005. The RIAA had its own troubles, almost losing all evidence from a particular witness when they added an additional log file to evidence without the defense being notified of it. The judge mercifully only removed that new evidence from the trial. It was related to whether or not an external hard drive was ever connected to the computer."
If she is innocent until proven guilty - why does she have to give up her hard-drive and "prove" her innocence? Nobody is forced to prove innocence. The RIAA should be given the challenge, without her hard drive, of proving guilt. /shrug (IE: external records, etc.)
Sheesh.
My beliefs do not require that you agree with them.
I think the focus here should be for the defence (may actually be, I don't know) that the fees to pay be reduced to an "acceptable" level, meaning not the life-ruining, impossible-to-pay-unless-you-re-gazillionaire fees demanded by the RIAA.
She "stole" 24 songs. Let her pay a fine of a few hundreds bucks and fucking be done with it. Asking for half a million in damages should be laughed at by any sensible court system, and that's the real problem here.
People fight at the level and in the area they can. We try to fight corporate greed that has nothing to do with music and songs anymore. It's the suppression of our rights as customers. It's the fact that regular people are being targeted by the RIAA, being ruined and bankrupted by a broken justice system with obsolete laws that favors corporations to the detriment of their own customers.
Global economic meltdown cannot be fixed by computer nerds.
Fraudulent elections in Iran cannot be fixed by computer nerds.
Militants in Pakistan cannot be fixed by computer nerds.
North Korea going insane cannot be fixed by computer nerds.
Also, you're no better. Instead of writing a stupid post on a website, you should have tried to do something about the global economic meltdown, the fraudulent elections in Iran, the militants in Pakistan or North Korea going insane.
The HD manufacturing date could be argued out. Those understanding HD recovery also understand that there are scenarios where she could meet her legal requirements and provide a different drive, or she could have been giving the failure date, not the replacement date. We must also take into consideration that a) maybe she isn't the one who swapped it and b) this is a sticker, not digital info from the drive.
All that aside I agree she has her work cut out for her. On firs tread it seems both sides may be pushing the law a bit. I do have a couple questions though:
Has the question of which Kazaa client was installed been answered? There were malware versions of the client, so I would assume these would need to be ruled out.
Has the possibility of the Windows XP "at hack" been resolved? I know this is a real stretch, but those understanding this fairly simple exploit could get around her password. If the computer had been exploited in anyway, it's completely reasonable that the username on Kazaa would match the machine username.
It is obvious the RIAA has set out to make an example of Thomas. If she's guilty then it's understandable that they had to choose -someone-. However, Americans have proven our disregard for our credit scores. All this will prove is that they can hold a big slot on your report, and my assumption is most creditors would begin to glance over them like medical debts if the RIAA makes them common.
-rant over-
Where genius and insanity become confused true wisdom is found
FTA: "Why was Thomas-Rasset's password-protected computer running KaZaA in February 2005, and with the "tereastarr" name, if she had not set up the software? And since no one else had the password, and since her kids were young and had a computer account of their own anyway, who might possibly have used a machine in her bedroom to share thousands of songs without her knowledge?"
Doesn't the replacement HD cut both ways. If the drive was replaced (assuming no recovery) how can we be know her "tereastarr" account on the original drive was password protected, or that her kids had their own account.
Maybe she wised up on her new install.
The RIAA's evidence is compelling.
The IP address was hers, with no WiFi, no NAT, and a password-protected Windows box
The username chosen was the one she's used online traditionally for 16 years.
The problem is, the nearly inevitible $100K verdict will not be justice, even if it is legally correct.
Test your net with Netalyzr
Thank you, eldavojohn, for your more evenly balanced presentation! I appreciate it, it's far less anti-RIAA then has been the usual on slashdot.
In this case, a guilty verdict isn't at all a bad thing, if the damages are reasonable. If damages of $200,000 or more are awarded, then the RIAA strategy is validated. They prove that they can win, and that they can win significant damages. It would also give credence to their "Settle or we'll sue for all your money" letters, as an award of that scale could easily wipe anyone out, house and all.
For Thomas, the endgame is the reverse. I'm not at all sure she can show that she is innocent, given her testimony - which is a shame, but not unexpected. Her goal must be to somehow limit the damages to a reasonable amount. Doing so sets precedent - if the RIAA can expect only a few thousand for a case that goes to trial, then it ceases to be profitable for them to try. The settlements will become more affordable, or may go away - why spend $1,000 on an attorney to get a $500 settlement back?
Were I in Thomas's place, I would be far more worried about the Perjury thing, which is an actual criminal offense. She said one thing under oath, and then said another thing under oath, and the statements are not compatible. So, we're in a position where she might win the trial (or get reduced and affordable damages), but end up in jail with a massive fine for lying under oath. Not good.
Never underestimate the potential of Human stupidity. -Heinlein
Where we don't care about anything important like the global economic meltdown or Iran's fraudulent elections or militants in Pakistan or North Korea going insane.
Nope, all we care about is being able to unabashedly steal music and then yell at the people selling it when they try to protect their interests.
Way to rage against the machine, assholes! How about you try fighting for something truly meaningful instead?
You may not be able to see how this affects your civil liberties, or your rights to fair use and the right to not be treated like a criminal, however some people may not be ignorant to such things and for this they do not deserve your simplistic nickelodeon subjugation. (pwndhippy). What are you doing to make certain that there are no tainted elections in Iran? What did you do when there were tainted elections in North America? You should be grateful that people are out there trying to safeguard the civil liberties which you are too ignorant to protect, and I suppose they should be thankful when they have you marching in the streets in IRAN holding hands with the people and counting out their ballots. If you are not able or willing to do this yourself then you are just another armchair general sending someone elses children off to align the world to your moral compass. In other words little man, talk is cheap. So either make the changes your bitching about here, or can the John Wayne act.
Why don't they sue the Internet companies for hosting the material and facilitating illegal copying. Instead of suing end users, grannies and dead people? Or did the CAN-SPAM act indemnify the ISPs.
davecb5620@gmail.com
First off, do you actually know this woman?
It'd be gladly appreciated if you wouldn't throw around what seems like racial insults. kthx.
"The judge mercifully only removed that new evidence from the trial. It was related to whether or not an external hard drive was ever connected to the computer."
Looks from this, that you want the RIAA to win the case with last minute evidence. What side is the poster of this on?
I agree, actually, though I hate to admit it.
BUT - the more serious issue is not the guilt, but the punishment. Chances are she's going to be hit with some kind of multi-hundred-thousand dollar penalty for the file sharing, before lawyers' fees. Is that really justice?
No. So why is the RIAA able to pursue this crap in the first place? *sigh*
Where we don't care about anything important like the global economic meltdown or Iran's fraudulent elections or militants in Pakistan or North Korea going insane.
Read the masthead - we're nerds, not dorks, dork.
Nope, all we care about is being able to unabashedly steal music and then yell at the people selling it when they try to protect their interests
No, we are incensed at the mainstream music industry's blatant evil, including its bribery of Congress to get copyright lengths to insane levels. Personally, I will not respect any copyright on a work made more than a quarter century ago. Most of us DON'T infringe copyright, even copyrights on works that should be in the public domain.
You are free to consider anything I wrote moret than 20 years ago in the public domain, and anything newer as having a CC license.
Free Martian Whores!
(Assuming a first time offense) At worst, I'll probably spend a few months on probation and lose about $1,000 in legal fees/fines. If I download the same CD online (which, for the record, didn't cost the record company shiping or a CD) I'll get slammed with hundreds of thousands of dollars in fines. I don't care if she's guilty -- she shouldn't suffer any more than someone who stole the same music off a store shelf.
"Sorrow is better than laughter, for by sadness of face the heart is made glad." [Ecclesiastes 7:3]
A civil case cannot assign punitive damages unless proven they need to be made and if awarded go to the court, NOT the plaintiff.
And the constitution (the highest law in the land) says that the penalty cannot be excessive.
Where is the problem with the judge adjudicating that $500 is the penalty? It's stiff enough that Jammie will feel the pinch yet not so much she faces eternal punishment for what is, after all, a minor offence.
They downloaded the trial from BitTorrent?
Heck, it's worse than criminal too!
And the lack of proof of harm is more appropriate to criminal censure than civil, where you get what you're owed, not what you think you deserve.
The minimum statutory damages was worked out based on a warehouse making dodgy copies for sale, NOT for P2P sharing. And the dodgy copy scenario is criminal too.
So this is applying a sanction intended against a criminal case to a civil one.
Why should the burden of proof go down if the penalty doesn't?
So, rather than work to fix the law by taming your congresscritters, you prefer to break the law because it is easier than actually fixing the law and then whine when you get caught that the law is unfair. I am sure that will work out great and get things fixed up in no time.
There is no "-1 offended" or "-1 you don't agree with me" mod options for a reason.
Worked for Gandhi.
Worked for Prohibition.
Worked for national speed limit of 55 mph.
Seems to be working for pot.
When information is power, privacy is freedom.
Only if you consider RIAA lawyers to be "the court".
I hereby release this and every other post I make today under the WTFPL.
So, rather than work to fix the law by taming your congresscritters, you prefer to break the law because it is easier than actually fixing the law and then whine when you get caught that the law is unfair. I am sure that will work out great and get things fixed up in no time.
"Voting for justice is as ineffective as wishing for justice; what you need to do is to actually be just. This is not to say that you have an obligation to devote your life to fighting for justice, but you do have an obligation not to commit injustice and not to give injustice your practical support."
"In a constitutional republic like the United States, people often think that the proper response to an unjust law is to try to use the political process to change the law, but to obey and respect the law until it is changed. But if the law is itself clearly unjust, and the lawmaking process is not designed to quickly obliterate such unjust laws, then the law deserves no respect and it should be broken."
- Henry David Thoreau
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civil_Disobedience_(Thoreau)
No sig for the moment.
If anything, the list looked like a buyer's log of someone who was in fact getting music for free but was still buying plenty of DVDs and video games.
My receipts would also look like a "buyer's log of someone who was in fact getting music for free but was still buying plenty of DVDs and video games" because I Don't Listen to Popular Music. Even if I did, I Would Listen To It On The Radio. Or maybe I would be given CDs as gifts. In fact, maybe my Best Buy receipts wouldn't show the purchases because maybe I'd been suckered into one of those 2-cent record-club scams.
I don't recall ghandi going out of his way to stay anonymous. In fact, he made a big deal out of publicly breaking the law, and accepted the punishment to show how the law was unjust.
Explain again how this woman is like ghandhi, because I just don't see it.
DRM-free indie games for the PC and Mac: Positech Games
> Copyright infringement isn't a criminal offense.
Of course it is. If the volume is enough, and/or it's for profit, or pre-release then maybe the state/federal prosecutor's office will go after you.
Slashdot has had several stories about people facing jail time in criminal copyright cases.
without the defense being notified of it.
What is the standard concerning recently discovered evidence? If I were to learn, or realize, (possibly based on witness testimony) during the trial that a particular log file could be incriminating, what would be the appropriate way to enter that log file as a new piece of evidence?
Well, well, that was an interesting post. Just when I had started to more or less believe the "she must be guilty of making available at least" opinion which runs around here.
Too bad I just finished my mod points and have already posted here.
The first thing I am going to do is copy all my real documents to an external drive. Then take the internal drive from my computer and throw it off a bridge in the middle of the night. Let the chips fall where them may. I know "IP logs" and all that, but with no HD to search.....
6.8SPC TR of 550, l xwind at 6, drift rt at 26" drops 77". AT has 503 ft-lbs at 1403 fps. FT 0.86
I don't recall ghandi going out of his way to stay anonymous. In fact, he made a big deal out of publicly breaking the law, and accepted the punishment to show how the law was unjust.
I don't recall this woman going out of her way to stay anonymous.
I don't recall Dave1.0 mentioning anything about anonymity.
In fact, you seem to make a big deal out of some arbitrary fact that isn't particularly applicable because you have a narrative going on in your head that is pretty well disconnected from reality.
When information is power, privacy is freedom.
Would you mind explaining to us just how one would go about fixing an unjust law that was bought and paid for by the entertainment industries? They "donate" to both parties (at least, the two the MSM mention, without MSM coverage none of the other parties have a chance) and no matter which candidate loses, you wind up with a winner who is on the side of industry.
I have three votes - one for each of my Senators, and one for my congressman. The industry gets 435 votes, all of which are far more powerful than my three votes.
You might as well tell me the way to get to the moon is to flap my arms real fast.
Free Martian Whores!
You should propose that Slashdot open a poll about the question of Jammie's guilt/innocence (and what exact "infractions": downloading, making available, and uploading).
> most commentators here
No such thing, here. See recent post by QuantumG. Oh, darn, I don't find it, and it doesn't seem to have hit Google yet (or I'm forgetting his exact phrasing).
Or by commentators you mean the editors? Yes, I get the impression they are more uniformly in the anti-RIAA camp, but not that they are in the "it's OK if you can do it and get away with it" camp.
Is there any relationship to the RIAA's decision to go after stupid folks using Kazaa and eDonkey vs many of the other folks with exponentially more material gathered from other 'questionable sources' on the web that might require more 'web savvy'? Seems natural that preditors would target the slow and stupid first.
Ghandi proposed non-violent civil disobedience as an effective weapon against injustice.
No matter how bad the rhetoric of the **AA's gets, almost no one considers file sharing violent.
But it is civil disobedience.
And yes, you are correct that Jammie hasn't reached Ghandi's spiritual level yet. But that was already clear to, er, most of us, even the poster to whom you replied.
Of course, if RIAA crucifies her enough times, who knows what might happen.
You have three votes. I have 3 votes. The each and every voting age American on slashdot has three votes. Your parents have six votes. Your siblings have 3 votes each. Shall I go on?
If you can't convince the people you know to support your cause, maybe you should take a better look at your cause.
Either quit your fucking whining, stop breaking the law (which hurts your cause), and start a grass roots movement to change the law or shut the fuck up. I don't care which but I am fucking tired of hearing "It's too hard!" when you don't even try.
You want to go to the moon? Quit whining and build a fucking rocket to get you there or shut the fuck up. I don't care which you do, just do it.
There is no "-1 offended" or "-1 you don't agree with me" mod options for a reason.
There is often three basis on which to restrict information: state secret, inciting fear and violence, or civil restrictions. If any one of these restrictions is allowed for frivolous reasons, then information will be unduly restricting, and people will be unduly subject to the control of others. The RIAA and other organizations wish to control the flow of information to maximize profits. Some of us understand the relationship between information and power, and though we agree that RIAA organization right to earn a profit, if possible, we deny that the overwhelming concern should the profit of a private organization, rather the overall freedom of the populous.
So when you talk about the RIAA, the Iran Election, and financial meltdown, you are talking about interrelated issues. The RIAA certainly wants the internet to be well controlled to insure that consumers do not have the opportunity to acquire music through alternative methods that might tend to diminish the control of the RIAA over music distribution. Some of these methods, like iTunes, are legal and fair, but diminish the profits of member companies. The existing Iran government wants to control the internet because it provides a means for people to exchange data that suggests the election results may not be valid. Like the RIAA, the profits of the Iran government are not increased by the information dispersion potential of the services like tweeter.
The financial meltdown is harder to see in terms of hoarding of information, but I think it was lessened due to information flow. Certainly we are going to avoid the disaster of the great depression. We see that many people were cheated in the home loans, so money that would have gone to saving executive pay is instead moving to the average person. It is no longer possible for congress to set an earmark to save a friends business and not save constituents houses as well. Though many decry the regulations that force public company to publish all financial data, if this data is transparent we will likely see an end to the manufactured profits that led to the meltdown.
At the end of the day, the vested interests need to control information to minimize the risk that will someday be not vested.
"She's a scientist and a lesbian. She's not going to let it slide." Orphan Black
So, rather than work to fix the law by taming your congresscritters, you prefer to break the law because it is easier than actually fixing the law and then whine when you get caught that the law is unfair. I am sure that will work out great and get things fixed up in no time.
The technique is referred to as Civil Disobedience, and it has worked well for at least 100 years. The general sequence of events goes like this:
Like all processes involving a government, this takes longer than anyone thinks it should, but eventually, common sense overwhelms special interests.
Have faith
You haven't met my parents or my siblings, have you?
My guy supports shorter copyrights etc., but their guy fights pedophiles and is against killing babies.
BFD! The RIAA got away with a tiny slap on their pinkie finger, nothing more.
Despite the fact that the RIAA admitted from the very beginning opening statement that they will not and cannot show any "distribution" to anyone but their own paid investigator; that having music files on your own computer of CD's you own isn't illegal regardless of how you got them; that the Defendant has the CD's of all the songs in question; that the copyright registrations being used in the trial are of questionable validity for this purpose, if not fraudulently obtained in the first place; that any "evidence" that they found on her hard drive was the result of an outrageous fishing expedition; and that there are no actual damages and that their statutory damages are unconstitutional -- this court, and the entire legal system in general, seems bound and determined to find some way to give the RIAA absolutely everything they want to prop up their buggy whip business model!
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
She's already fucked if she's found lible and only fined $1 because she would also be on the hook for all of the RIAA's extravagant legal expenses, which are in the hundreds of thousands by now.
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
psst: civil rights movement
The "problem" with civil disobedience is that it only works for really important things, and even then, only some of the time. I'm sorry, but IP law isn't considered by most people to be injurious enough that civil disobedience will work.
If by 3 votes, you mean one for your Representative and one for each Senator....
I live in Minnesota, you insensitive clod!
"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
If I download the same CD online I'll get slammed with hundreds of thousands of dollars in fines.
You stole one disk from WalMart, retail value $20.
You uploaded one disk to 15,000,000 of your closest friends on the P2P nets. Retail value $1 a track through iTunes.
You did it for the bragging rights or the meet some arbritrary upload/download ratio on your P2P net.
Guy Lombardo and his Royal Canadians. ain't gonna cut it.
The goods have to be factory-fresh.
If you think it worth arguing that the download isn't still in your shared files folder, go ahead.
But, if you benefit from a crime, you share responsibility for the damages which flow from that crime.
In for a penny, in for a pound.
Personally, I will not respect any copyright on a work made more than a quarter century ago. Most of us DON'T infringe copyright, even copyrights on works that should be in the public domain.
So, you will infringe on copyrights older than 25 years? What evidence do you have that most of us DON'T infringe copyright? Why 20 years? Are you saying that if I wrote something in 1987, and I am still making money from it... You think you should be able to rip it off and start making money on it yourself? Yes the current laws are kind of messed up, and a lot of it has to do with Mickey Mouse. But in the US, it looks like it is currently life of the author +75 years, or roughly 100 years after creation (95-120 actually) Personally, if I create something of value, I'd like to think I can make money on it for more than 20 years.
My guy supports shorter copyrights etc., but their guy fights pedophiles and is against killing babies.
The real question is- why doesn't your guy fight paedophiles and take a stand against killing babies?
Why are you voting for someone who supports paedophiles and baby-killers? If your person takes the same stance as the latter person, the only apparent difference between the two choices is the copyright issue.
In this case, you'll need to go outside and convince other voters to shorten copyright so that pirates like Ms. Thomas can have easier access to other people's music. After all, it's only a crime if you get caught- and you can't get caught if the time frame is shorter!
Global economic meltdown cannot be fixed by computer nerds.
Say that after I make a "trainer" to add +65535 to the important stock exchanges.
fraudulent elections in iran cannot be fixed by computer nerd
That is what *you* think, but with my hax0rs skilz it is trivial to get into Iran's election counting system and make W.Bush the next president of Iran (oh.. you said FIX..., well, maybe W.Bush is not a good choice)
Militants in Pakistan cannot be fixed by computer nerds.
See a story that appeared later than this in slashdot about air drones or UAVs we just need to hang sharks with frickin lasers
North Korea going insane cannot be fixed by computer nerds.
I would not make that statement so general, I think the problem is Kim Jong-il
Ubuntu is an African word meaning 'I can't configure Debian'
so she tried to wipe her hard drive purely because she was spring cleaning?
Not exactly ghandiesque is it?
DRM-free indie games for the PC and Mac: Positech Games
I don't believe long copyrights are constitutional, regardles of what the Supreme Court says. The Constitution is explicit on this - the purpose of copyright is to give incentive to authors so thet theire works will go into the public domain. A tewnty year coopyrigh was lobg anough for 18th and 19th century authors, why isn't it good enough for today's? Why should a Janis Joplin, Jimi Hendrix, or Jim Morrison song still be under copyright decades later?
If you wrote a book in 1897, it would have been in the public domain by 1909. Nobody is getting ripped off. You don't own your work, you merely have a monopoly on its distribution.
I'd like to make money by sitting on the beach and drinking beer, but that's not going to happen either.
Free Martian Whores!
Not exactly ghandiesque is it?
You keep working that narrative dude, all your live long days.
When information is power, privacy is freedom.