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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.'"
"But once an author has willingly created a work and willingly shared that work with someone else, then all bets are off."
Again, we come back to the law. The law recognizes several types of property. You can't take away something I created from scratch -- I have the ability to wreck your life and, potentially, the lives of those around you. There's nothing you can say or do to stop it. Your beliefs otherwise are irrelevant and unimportant for the intents and purposes of this discussion. I HAVE a right to my property. You're attempting to pull in various ideologies and philosophies into something that, as a lawyer, you should understand is simple: copyright and patent laws exist -- it's already been established: I have a right to my property. You should be arguing what levels of punishment is acceptable for when you steal my property...because at this point if you had any significant amount of downloads, I could wreck your life with a few pieces of paper and a comparatively small amount of cash.