Jammie Thomas Denied Supreme Court Appeal

sarysa writes "The Supreme Court has refused to hear the latest appeal of the 7 year old Jammie Thomas case, regarding a single mother who was fined $222,000 in her most recent appeal for illegally sharing 24 songs. Those of us hoping for an Eighth Amendment battle over this issue will not be seeing it anytime soon. In spite of the harsh penalties, the journalist suggests that: 'Still, the RIAA is sensitive about how it looks if they impoverish a woman of modest means. Look for them to ask her for far less than the $222,000.'"

Comments

Re:$24

[fyngyrz]

Just back after watching it through.

Several things. The irony of the prohibitionist saying that people using drugs could never admit they were wrong and so needed to be stood up to, during an evening where a great deal of what he was saying was wrong, and people were standing up to him, was quite poignant.

The lesson here is that even when the arguments are couched in terms of empirical data, the prohibitionists are in no way inclined to listen. The defender of drug prohibition was an ex-government figure; even outside the context of having to back the administration that put him in that position, he couldn't admit he was wrong. And he was so very, very wrong.

Not that it matters, but several opportunities were lost, I thought, WRT claims of violence consequent to legalization; low prices deter thievery, availability deters seeking illicit sources, these are obvious but there was no contest offered, which was too bad.

Why I say it doesn't matter is because here, in the context of a Brown university hall, these arguments will have no effect. Half the hall left after the talk and before the Q&A; the level of engagement was minimal. Most of these kids, to be blunt, don't care. They don't care now, when their peers are actively engaged, and they'll care even less when the concern of the day is how to pay back the student loan, the mortgage, and why-o-why did we ever let that pregnancy come to term. The odds of any of them becoming political figures that can make a difference are depressingly low, and frankly, those few are the ones most likely to know better than to try to handle a political hot potato. So really ... doesn't matter. A great speaker indeed, but one who wasted an evening unless he found a good restaurant there.

Looking back on the effect he had on his opponent -- none -- consider what would happen if you put this empiricist, full of vigor and data and common sense, up in front of congress. Do you think it would change anything? I don't believe it. The drug war is a cash cow and a power cow and they simply won't let anyone back it down.

That's how I see the coming copyright war. All the signs are there. I sit through four or five warnings on some BDs and DVDs that I have purchased. I'm starting to see absurd monetary awards. Those same warnings point out there are criminal, not civil, penalties for various infringements upon the rights holders. HDMI incorporates HDCP, and my expensive receiver no longer offers the simple ability to record, or to down convert from say, HDMI to component or even composite. The barriers are going up everywhere, and the penalties are being crafted right now, as are the legal precedents that are going to be the bloody edge of the axe that strikes the collective neck of the current and forthcoming generations.

I wish I didn't see it that way. But I do. I hope I'm wrong. But I'm almost certain I'm not.