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

$24

[schlachter]

How about they ask her for $24.
Seems pretty reasonable.
Would still deter people from sharing thousands of songs.

Re:$24

[sqrt(2)]

Or we can, as a society, reject the notion that non-commercial file sharing should be a crime at all and take back our collective cultural birthright from the parasitic rent-seeking content cartels and their toadies in Congress.

Re:$24

[fyngyrz]

ok, how?

Re:$24

[Fluffeh]

cultural birthright from the parasitic rent-seeking content cartels

I can't agree with this. You can't tell me that the latest boy band single that comes out is your birthright. It is a paradoxically impossible question. If you put the punishment for copyright infrigement at a "reasonable" amount - say, 10 times the price of the CD/whatever it comes on, then it costs more to chase the punishment than it does to get it back. If you put the punishment at a level where it potentially becomes financially feasible for the copyright owner to chase it down, then it is an asinine figure for the actual infringement.

The only solution that I see is for the media companies to make their products so accessible that it is simply no longer WORTH bothering to download it illegally, but the problem is that the folks who put torrents or downloads online do such a damn good job that is makes competing with them very difficult.

Re:$24

[thunderclap]

a 9.0 magnitude earthquake should solve the problem quickly.
OK that was wrong, but seriously the only solution is using the internet against them like we are doing. There is no other way that doesn't shed blood.

Re:$24

[thunderclap]

People are willing to pay for a good product even when offered for free. The problem is the industry has produced any. UK pays for TV so can you name 2 shows you would be willing to pay say $5 a month for? Its all about control. they are losing it and the masses have it.

Re:$24

[jxander]

Therein, as the bard would tell us, lies the rub

If there was an easy way to enforce our rights, we would have done it by now. Best we've been able to muster is OWS.

If there was a hard, but otherwise legal and achievable way to enforce our rights, we'd be marching down that path. Best we've been able to muster is some noise on various websites

.

Have you ever been pissed off at a loved one (boyfriend, girlfriend, spouse, etc) ... and it was over the most trivial stupid inane thing? They left the cap off the toothpaste, or the didn't match the socks properly when doing laundry... maybe left the seat up, or parked the car a bit crooked... whatever. And it escalated into full scale yelling and arguing? I have the strange suspicion that the same thing will be happening on a much larger scale soon. Maybe it'll be file-sharing issues like this, or smart phone lockdown, DMCA, DRM or some other thing that just really should not matter on a big scale, and let the fireworks commence.

Re:$24

[Fluffeh]

can you name 2 shows you would be willing to pay say $5 a month for

That's my point, not a month, but either per episode or per season - and yes.

Off the top of my head: Archer, Dexter, Walking Dead, Falling Skies, Revolution, Game of Thrones, Castle, American Horror Story, Big Bang Theory.

If I could download a decent quality (doesn't have to be super duper 1080p or anything like that) at the time it comes out and without a plethora of ads in it for $1 per episode, or get access to the whole season for say $15 or $20, I would gladly do so. Makes it easy for me to watch what I want to, and at the same time I can be smug in knowing that my money is supporting the shows that I like. It is a total WIN-WIN scenario.

Its all about control. they are losing it and the masses have it.

Absolutely. The problem is that the only way that they can wrest control back from the masses is to *at least* provide the same thing that they do. Make it even better, and the masses will give them control back.

Re:$24

[jedidiah]

> You can't tell me that the latest boy band single that comes out is your birthright.

Sure I can. That's the real purpose for copyright. The fact that you dishonestly cloud the issue by focusing on an example that's easy to deride does not really alter that fact.

The whole goal of the system is to enable "piracy". It's not intended to create a new form of "property".

Re:$24

[mattventura]

Here's the problem. There ARE supposed to be punishments are are strong enough to deter people from committing the crime, but those are punishments, not reimbursement. If I steal money from someone, I would generally be expected to pay back what I stole and then serve jail time as a punishment. Does the victim benefit from me being in jail? No (apart from the fact that there's one less thief on the streets). If you let media corporations sue for such huge amounts of money that it becomes beneficial to them for people to commit crimes against them, they have no motivation to actually prevent the crime in the first place. You know something's wrong when the victim of the crime comes out significantly better off than they were before.

Re:$24

[Anonymous Coward]

You can't tell me that the latest boy band single that comes out is your birthright.

The right to take culture, modify it, and release it back to the world, enriching our common cultural heritage ... that certainly can be argued to be our birthright, in which case the current copyright regime is manifestly unjust. There's a reasonable compromise in which we say that modifying and releasing previous works is a human right, but getting paid for it isn't: in which case copyright should be enforced for commercial infringement only.

Re:$24

[mrclisdue]

Well, not to put too fine a point on it, but it doesn't seem to be working.

Isn't it?

Whilst the "content-cartels" occasionally ruin the odd-person's life, hundreds of millions, if not a billion, people continue to share files, every second of every day. Young whippersnappers under 30 don't even *get* what the fuss is about (or why we even *share* (or own) music files when there's spotify, grooveshark, pandora...)

And I do think it's tragic, and despicable, that even one person is ruined by the various aa's and their/our bought-and-paid-for politicians/legislatures.

Ultimately, the few sporadic *gains* by the bad guys pale in comparison to the sheer number of those who don't feel threatened. Or who rightly believe it's an amoral issue unworthy of their attention.

It's not unlike weed use. Are the anti-weed folks winning? Sooner or later (measured in decades...) common sense does indeed prevail.

A lot of us may not live long enough to experience it, though.

cheers,

Re:$24

[AK Marc]

Young whippersnappers under 30 don't even *get* what the fuss is about (or why we even *share* (or own) music files when there's spotify, grooveshark, pandora...)

My wife is under 30 and she doesn't "get" streaming. She buys iTunes and Amazon music. I am older and stream free (and legal). She drops back to claims of playlists and such, but she doesn't have that level of memory of the music, if a few extras were slipped in, she wouldn't notice. Though she doesn't like the ones where she has to create her own playlists manually. But a 6-disc changer in the car, with 6 discs in it, and she still prefers the radio (an older free streaming service). But put it on the Internet, and she doesn't get it.

Re:$24

[ancientt]

I quit buying music albums when they were still on cassettes. The return simply wasn't worth the cost for me. I appreciate music in my life but not enough to spend much money, particularly when I was content with radio.

Then Pandora caught my attention. I enjoyed it enough that I actually paid (and have continued paying) for the upgrade. It's a small cost for getting to hear what I want and being able to get a wide variety. I don't really have to pay for those two things, but I get a slightly higher quality and no ads for the price of the upgrade, plus I'm supporting a company I want to succeed.

Recently I've begun buying albums and tracks again. I only do it on systems where I get a downloaded copy of the music that I can move to whatever device I desire. I don't have a tremendous collection by any means, but I appreciate being able to hear what I want, when I want to, and not pay for full albums when I only like one or two songs.

I am aware that I could download the same songs and albums without paying for them but generally speaking my Pandora subscription, the convenience and the quality of the download I'm able to get at the price I pay makes it worth more than the effort of attempting to do it illegally.

Even if there were no risk whatsoever, my history of purchases shows that I still pay for quality and convenience, particularly where I value the success of the company I'm dealing with.

I know that one user doesn't make the case, but thunderclap is right: Do it well and at a fair price and people like me are willing to pay even if they could get it for free.

Re:$24

[Jah-Wren Ryel]

You can't tell me that the latest boy band single that comes out is your birthright.

Yes, all culture is our birthright. It isn't a question of quality because that is subjective.
Who are you to say that Symphony No. 9 is better for me than the Macarena?

Re:$24

[rubycodez]

it isn't about "the latest boyband". it's saying that any song should not be allowed to be copied for the life of the author plus an additional 70 years. If the author transfers ownership or their identity is unknown the copyright will expire 95 years after publication or 120 years after creation, whichever is shorter.

it's past time to put these power and money grubbing cartel fucks into the garbage can

Re:$24

[rubycodez]

The original purpose of copyright in the USA was to give sole right of reproduction and distribution for a *limited* time, after which the work became the public's (the culture's). that time period was 14 years, with an option to renew for another 14 years if the author was still around and still wished to do so. So 28 years, and then it became the common cultural property. but the system we have today is the opposite of that, to keep things from the people indefinitely. This is done by cabals of power and money grubbing scum who are robbing the people of things valauble to culture.

Re:$24

[fyngyrz]

Isn't it?

No.

hundreds of millions, if not a billion, people continue to share files, every second of every day

Ongoing activity is not evidence of a "win." Look at the drug war for your benchmark. About a million and a half people are in jail over that in the US alone, the war is wrong in every way that matters, yet it continues, people continue to suffer, the jails overflow.... not a win. In the case of file sharing, the laws and the tech are getting more draconian, not less, and the harm is beginning to spread. Again look at the drug war and see the risk you're facing: Just as in the 60s we did drugs with a "so what" mentality, and then many of us (including me) got swept up and jailed, surprise, the system has teeth and they count. You think facing down the corporate interests with a "so what" mentality will win the day, I'm really afraid you're not only wrong, but wrong in a way that's going to get a lot of people hurt.

Young whippersnappers under 30 don't even *get* what the fuss is about (or why we even *share* (or own) music files when there's spotify, grooveshark, pandora...)

Yes, but again, they don't know very much about it yet, nor do they understand the potential consequences. There's a great deal of "Internet Superman" behavior -- loudmouthery and etc. -- but when it comes time to face the judge, that stuff tends to evaporate like the worthless bluster it is.

Ultimately, the few sporadic *gains* by the bad guys pale in comparison to the sheer number of those who don't feel threatened. Or who rightly believe it's an amoral issue unworthy of their attention.

Again, perfect parallel to drugs in the 60's. While we frolicked in the parks and ran naked through the woods, they were just beginning to wrap their heads around strategies that would become more and more vicious, and they've not stopped to this day. You're at the very beginning of your fight with the copyright holders, and they -- realistically now -- hold all the cards. They own the airwaves. They control the Internet. They know your IP and what you're doing with it. They have congress in their pocket. Congress effectively controls the legal system with very little interference from the judiciary (and even when they do take an interest, they usually side with the corporations and the government.)

The drug war, in the meantime, has turned prison into a for-profit enterprise; it's no longer a negative to the state to incarcerate you (and take all your stuff, ruin your life, etc.) The more, the merrier: They'll just build more prisons and use you as slave labor. So when they begin to really reap the violators -- and you may be dead certain they will -- the prison system is ready to pack you in there like sardines, no problem.

It's not unlike weed use. Are the anti-weed folks winning? Sooner or later (measured in decades...) common sense does indeed prevail. A lot of us may not live long enough to experience it, though.

Now you're beginning to get it. Weed -- only one drug, and one so harmless it's amazing -- is just barely getting traction at the state level, while the feds -- congress and etc. -- continue to maintain the most draconian stance possible. It's been over half a century, and there's been one hell of a lot of suffering just in order to attempt assert the liberty one should have to ingest what one prefers to ingest. It isn't over, and it won't be over for a while, even assuming that in the end, the old, evil men in congress die and people come to power who actually understand liberty and comprehend punishing actual wrongdoing instead of going against every frightening ghost that lives in some weak-minded mother's head and then holding a grudge in the form of creating a permanent lower class of distinctly lower opportunity and economic potential.

Re:$24

[cpt kangarooski]

You don't inherently have a right to something I produce or create

You don't inherently have a right to prohibit people from copying it, distributing it, etc. So where's that leave us?

AFAICT you can't be forced to create something, or to share it with someone else, but if you do, you don't have any right to control what they (and then, others) do with it, unless they willingly give you that right. Which they might, if there were a good enough reason to.

Community service, minimal fines, house arrest, and probation are ways to deal with this.

The state and the taxpayers should not have to shoulder the burden for the private benefit of copyright holders in the absence of a damn compelling reason otherwise. Better to just legalize much of the offending behavior and be done with it.

Re:$24

[Anonymous Coward]

To get you up to speed. Copyright was granted in the Constitution as a limited time dispensation to promote the arts and sciences. Corrupt and abusive influences have manipulated our legal system where "forever minus a day" has actually been stated as a legitimate interpretation of limited time. Because of this, huge amounts of work that should have entered the public domain are locked away. The problem extends beyond simple rent seeking and involves the inability to determine who actually holds copyright for works as the period of time is so long. This is the cultural destruction that results from abusive and corrupt influences being suffered to live.

Re:$24

[anagama]

I'm pretty certain you would love this debate Glenn Greenwald had with GWB's drug czar. If you want to see the drug war eviscerated in the most plain and eloquent terms possible, this is it:

http://vimeo.com/32110912

The Q&A session is definitely worth watching too as GG in no uncertain terms, but with great skill, points out that his opponent is just flat evil.

Re:$24

[Fluffeh]

Amazon Instant has most of those shows the day after air without ads for a couple of bucks per episode.

Amazon Instant Video (formerly Amazon Video On Demand) is an Internet video on demand service, only available in the United States.

Emphasis mine. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amazon_Instant_Video. Having said that, it sounds decent. Bit of a shame that they only provide the files in a format that plays on a limited number of devices:

The optional Amazon Unbox player lets users download higher-quality copies of videos. The Unbox player is compatible only with Windows XP, Windows Vista, and Windows 7. Downloaded films include a full-resolution video file and can include a lower-resolution copy for portable devices. The content can be viewed using the Amazon Unbox Video Player, Windows Media Player, a Windows Media Center Extender such as an Xbox 360, a PlaysForSure portable device. Downloaded videos may be burned to a DVD for storage purposes, but the resulting DVD will not play on a DVD player.

So yes, a step in the right direction, but as per my original comment, the P2P community is still offering a better product. Me personally, I would be happy to pay that $2 per episode to get a decent quality mkv or even mp4 and be able to store it on my server and watch it via my WD media player.

Re:$24

[Mr. Slippery]

Do you own your home? Can I just come and take whatever I want out of your house?

As soon as you can copy it with affecting my use of it, sure.

Information is not things.

Re:$24

[AK Marc]

They exchange donating it to the Public Domain for a temporary limited monopoly. To gain copyright, they must have already given it away to everyone for free.

Though, with DRM, they now get to play the game of never giving it away to anyone, and still claim full protection of law. But people like me claim that is unconstitutional, and if the law reads as such and allows such actions, then the law is invalid, and they have no copyright at all.

The only solution that I see is for the media companies to make their products so accessible that it is simply no longer WORTH bothering to download it illegally, but the problem is that the folks who put torrents or downloads online do such a damn good job that is makes competing with them very difficult.

My favorite critique of this is the Matrix comparison, where (if you buy it) it's saddled with piles of unskippable content. But if you "steal" it, it just works. The "free" product is superior to the paid product. And the makers are still confused on why they are losing...

Re:$24

[ArsonSmith]

Do you own your home? Can I just come and take whatever I want out of your house?

Sure as long as your taking it doesn't deny me from still having it. If you want to build a house that looks exactly like mine and fill it with items exactly like the ones I have that's completely up to you. There is a difference between theft and copying. Although you seem to have taken the MAFIAA propaganda of otherwise to heart.

Re:$24

[cpt kangarooski]

Do you own your home? Can I just come and take whatever I want out of your house?

You might very well be able to. Property rights boil down to one, utterly non-sarcastic question: You and whose army?

Your natural right to own property is based on your ability to personally defend it from those who would take it from you. This isn't very useful, as there's always going to be someone stronger, and bigger, and badder, who can overpower you and take it.

So you ask for help from your neighbor; will he stand by your side and defend the things you claim as your property? Unless he is quite altruistic (uncommon), he's going to refuse unless there is some benefit in it for him, typically, that you agree to help him defend his things too. This is the beginning of the armies.

Internally, a group of people working for mutual defense will create rules that they can all agree on to hold their coalition together. But rules, like contracts, are something you only need once willing agreement has broken down. This means that some part of the group will try to enforce the rules against another part that is unwilling. And it's going to come down to force again. Sometimes this breaks groups into many pieces. Other times, there are few enough, weak enough, people that won't abide by the rules, and they can be overpowered and made to comply. The rules that the group develops will basically follow utilitarian principles, at least amongst the subset of the group that is strong enough that its opinions cannot be dismissed.

Assuming that like a lot of Slashdot users, you're an American, how did you think a bunch of people from entirely different continents came to live here? By waging a bloody and long campaign of genocide agains the previous inhabitants. The European settlers ultimately won because they were strong and the Native Americans were weak; this is all that it took to legitimize the settlers' claim to own this land. Likewise slavery; it was legal because the slavers were stronger than the slaves and those who sympathized with the slaves. It was abolished because the anti-slavery forces eventually grew strong enough to kill or otherwise impair the pro-slavery forces.

Even today, this is the unpleasant truth that underlies all property law: If you own a parcel of land, and I trespass on it, you can call the police and they will arrest me and take me away. If I resist, they'll use force. If I resist hard enough, they'll respond with yet more force until I submit, am incapacitated, or die. But suppose that instead, you own a parcel of land, I trespass on it, and I fulfill the jurisdiction's requirements for adverse possession. Now you can call the police, but I can claim that the law is on my side. We can go to court, I'll win (if I have indeed adversely possessed it), and should you attempt to use force against me, now I can be the one to call the police, etc. And if the state decides to take my land, they can use their self-granted power of eminent domain to do so, and this time I not only can't muster enough force to resist, but I can't even find a legal rule to help me; the land is theirs because I have no recourse whatsoever, not because of any other reason. And if a sufficiently powerful army moves in and conquers the land, it belongs to them, because no one is in a position to say otherwise.

Once upon a time, people used to think that the right of property came from God, or from the king or other silly things. But the truth of the matter is that it is all about force and utilitarianism, and this has been pretty well recognized for a few centuries now at least.

Copyrights work the same way: Everyone has an inherent right of free speech, and this encompasses the ability to repeat, verbatim, what someone else has just said. An author who creates and publishes a work literally has no inherent power, merely by virtue of being the original author, to stop other people from copying that work. Instead, the author is compelled for lack of any alternatives (aside fr

Re:$24

[brantondaveperson]

Ok. And you listen to and organise this music how?

Look, I know there are multiple pretty easy ways of copying music around, and that's fine. The point is that it is now easier to legally buy music that it is to illegally download it. Yes, I know it's really easy to download, but the argument that the record companies have made it hard to legally buy music online is incorrect as of whenever it was that itunes dropped their DRM.

Which obviously doesn't excuse them from fining people hundreds of thousands of dollars for uploading a few megs of data. That is clearly absurd, immoral, unethical, and not in the least bit funny.

Re:$24

[sixsixtysix]

But if you are already paying for cable, satellite, etc, you shouldn't be considered a pirate for downloading a copy that you can store wherever, whenever.

"But there's no commercials in those "pirate" releases!", you might say. Well, am I a pirate for fast-forwarding commercials on my dvr? I don't think so. What about the commercials my box "sees" when I am not even home?! Should I not me recompensed for that? Is the technology still too stupid to not realize when the TV is on? Sounds like their problem to me. ;P

I am certainly not going to pay additionally for something I already received through my subscription. It was fine and dandy with vhs-for-hard-copies, so neener-neener.
Btw, the advancements in quality don't even enter into the argument, save for mass-scale bootlegging uses them as sources.

Even just before HD, it was trivial for the Average Joe to capture content, but now it seems more trouble than it is worth (unless there are hdcp-free hdmi capture cards that I don't know about). If the firewire port on my cable DVR box would work as intended, I could just dump the stuff myself. Big Media seems to have crippled it, so, alas, I will continue to use torrents as my recording device. After all, if I can capture something and you can capture something, logically, I could have you capture something for me and vice-versa, so long as we both have subscriptions to said content... and that's just television.

I do have a theory called the Subscriber-Capture Paradox. Basically it means that once something is aired on your subscription service, any previous/subsequent copy you have of it becomes fair use, because, after all, you could have just captured it yourself.

Lastly, before you start calling me a freeloading, good-for-nothing pirate, let me assure you, I DO buy plenty of movies (~800dvds and ~110blu-rays). TV shows...not so much, but our household does have most of what the cable provider offers (including premium channels), as well as Netflix, so I do pay my fair share.

Re:$24

[cpt kangarooski]

Again, we come back to the law.

And the law is what I want to change.

Indeed, my top five changes to copyright law would probably be:
1) A system of strict formalities (registration, deposit, fee, notice, renewal) in order to get a copyright on a published work;
2) Very short terms (probably 1 year), renewable a varying number of times depending on the type of work (more for, say, a movie, less for, say, a computer program) but probably no more than 20 terms altogether;
3) Making non-infringing (or at least non-actionable) any otherwise infringing act engaged in by a natural person, acting non-commercially;
4) Placing works in the public domain immediately if they are published, under the imprimatur of the copyright holder, with DRM, and having a government-run program of distributing those public domain works and assisting in cracking DRM systems;
5) Withdrawing from all copyright treaties, instead offering national treatment to everyone unilaterally (but using diplomacy to encourage other countries to do the same, as well as to avoid mutually incompatible laws that would leave authors in a bind)

You should be arguing what levels of punishment is acceptable for when you steal my property

Setting aside that something like copyright infringement isn't stealing property -- because stealing doesn't occur and there's no property at issue -- my point 3 above indicates that if it was me, personally, and I acted non-commercially in doing so, the level of punishment would be ... none.

Re:$24

[cpt kangarooski]

Get enough votes behind it and it won't matter what I support.

I never said that I expected authors to like certain copyright reforms. But that's no reason not to have the reforms, even if it means running roughshod over the authors and publishers.

Re:$24

[mlw4428]

All you will accomplish is the forcing of consumers to accept highly restrictive contracts (not user agreements or licenses) that prevent you from doing anything with the software. Point #3 would ensure that I would code in special lockouts that prevent you from using the software and if I just felt like it, a yanking of your rights whenever I felt I couldn't trust that you didn't share your software.

Copyright law needs to be changed, but not yanked. Again, the law dictates that I have rights to my IP. You should know full well that when you take away my rights you effectively do something like repeating prohibition -- that worked out wonderfully.

"4) Placing works in the public domain immediately if they are published, under the imprimatur of the copyright holder, with DRM, and having a government-run program of distributing those public domain works and assisting in cracking DRM systems;"

You really are a bloodsucking lawyer, aren't you? You effectively just destroyed capitalism in the sense that I, as an author, should get paid for my work...unless I decide not to publish it, which means I can't make money off of it. Tell me something -- do you provide legal services for free? Should we pass a law dictating that all lawyers should be required to do 4382 hours of free legal services and pay 100% of all filing fees and if you lose you also pay 100% of whatever fees/settlements/penalties are imposed on the person you're representing?

I'm truly curious what your law practice is...where you practice, and hell what your practice's name is. I'd truly love an opportunity to put to test all of your theories and if you didn't meet my satisfaction...I'd copy all of your documents and share them to everyone -- with your permission of course. Yes, you may get disbarred, but you don't have a right to be a lawyer anyways. Would you be willing to put your practice up and work for free? If not, then you understand where I'm coming from and are just being a prick because you're too cheap to pay for the work I put into something.

Re:$24

[mlw4428]

Actually it is. America is about equality -- thus far you haven't commented on surrendering your client's files to me. You haven't commented on providing free legal services for at least 6 months out of the, including the payment of all expenses. Do you feel like you deserve to be paid or are inherently better than an author of some creative work? Why do you not live up to the standards you advocate to force on someone else? Before advocating for change, you should be willing to live it yourself -- are you prepared to give me some free legal services? If not, why? Why do you feel that you should be paid, but not me?

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.

Re:$24

[cpt kangarooski]

All you will accomplish is the forcing of consumers to accept highly restrictive contracts (not user agreements or licenses) that prevent you from doing anything with the software.

Well, I'm opposed to adhesive contracts, at least in consumer settings. It wouldn't take much tweaking of the UCC to shut that down, but I felt it was outside the realm of a discussion about copyright.

Individually negotiated contracts, OTOH, are okay I guess. At the very least I'd be willing to take a wait and see attitude. I figure the transactional costs will handle it.

Point #3 would ensure that I would code in special lockouts that prevent you from using the software and if I just felt like it, a yanking of your rights whenever I felt I couldn't trust that you didn't share your software.

I'm guessing you hadn't reached point 4 yet, when you wrote that.

Copyright law needs to be changed, but not yanked.

I agree wholeheartedly. I think that the basic idea of copyright is very good, but the implementation needs serious work. Abolition should remain on the table, but is obviously an option of last resort; it only makes sense when there is not a single possible copyright law that provides a greater public benefit than having no copyright law at all. I don't think this is likely anytime soon.

Of course, I have noticed more and more people who, frustrated with how bad the current law is, are supporting abolition just to be done with the whole thing. This is a dangerous side effect of copyright maximalism, IMO.

You should know full well that when you take away my rights you effectively do something like repeating prohibition -- that worked out wonderfully.

Again, I agree. When you have copyright laws, you take away my right to make copies of your published work. And while this can be justifiable, if I benefit more from that sacrifice than I lose, under the current law much otherwise unobjectionable behavior is being prohibited, the law is widely flouted, and it reminds me a lot of Prohibition.

If copyright were far more important -- like desegregation -- then I could see pushing it on a public that was not happy about it. But it's not anywhere near that level. Copyright really is of trifling importance in the grand scheme of things, somewhere in the neighborhood of building codes that require white picket fences or bans on jaywalking.

You really are a bloodsucking lawyer, aren't you? You effectively just destroyed capitalism in the sense that I, as an author, should get paid for my work...unless I decide not to publish it, which means I can't make money off of it.

Melodramatic much?

Right now there are a plethora of ways that you, as an author, cannot get paid for your work. For example, if you sell a copy of a book, you can get paid for it that one time only; after that, everyone can resell that same copy again and again and again and you don't see a dime.

All I'm doing is creating a single exception which would allow natural persons (as distinct from artificial entities, like corporations) to act freely -- as they basically already do -- provided that it is strictly non-commerical. No ads, no tip jars, no file sharing ratios, nothing.
You can still sell copies to people; some of them will buy it. You can still sell copies to other entities, or to people engaged in commerce.

Copyright, remember, doesn't guarantee that the copyright holder will make money, it just funnels a goodly portion of whatever money there is in the direction of the copyright holder. The funnel is not changing, but the available pool of money may shrink somewhat.

I would agree that it is a big deal. I have traditionally thought of this as the nuclear bomb of copyright exceptions. But after a long time of mulling it over, I support it. Filesharing is the new drinking, and banning it is as futile and dangerous as Prohibition was. And Pr

Re:$24

[cpt kangarooski]

Why do you feel that you should be paid, but not me?

Why do you think that you couldn't get paid by offering your creative talents as a service, as opposed to what I imagine is your current practice of creating a work at your own expense and then selling copies?

Before I went to law school, I used to be a professional artist. And I supported myself quite comfortably selling my artistic services. I didn't need copyright to get by, and my clients didn't care about it either.

And there are other ways of making money from art. Fine artists (painters, sculptors, etc.) typically get paid for particular pieces. An original painting can command prices that no other copy of the same work can. A Van Gogh can go for millions; the life-sized poster of the same thing is a few bucks, because people will pay for provenance.

As a lawyer, I sell my services because I can't sell anything like copies. What would I do? Sell copies of a brief or a memo tailored for one case to some completely different client? Sell the outcome of a court case? The idea is nonsensical. But lawyers, doctors, plumbers, and even a lot of programmers and artists work in the service economy. Give it a try sometime.

America is about equality

Yes, there would certainly be an equal vote for the legislators who would draft the reforms and (indirectly) the President who would sign it. And the reforms would certainly affect everyone equally. So that problem is solved.

If you thought, though, that authors as a profession are entitled to an equal share of the income made in this country, well, you must not know many authors. The cliche of the starving artist exists for a reason. Copyright never guaranteed you a living; just a chance at one. And it would still do so even if substantially altered.

Re:$24

[fyngyrz]

While I agree that the content providers are out of control and that the congress is in fact just their legal arm there is still the problem that content has a cost to produce. If everyone didn't pay for it and everyone stole it then the content would dry up.

Some content does. Notably movies. Music, not so much. I'm a musician, I have a complete 32 track studio in my home, along with a full band's worth of instruments. If you brought me several rhythm guitarists, a singer, a keyboard player, a bassist, a drummer and a lead player, all without gear, I could set them up, record them, either together or by individual tracks, and produce a high quality master CD for them for zero cost beyond what I've already invested -- and what I've invested (some years back now) is less than a cheap car, and even that was far more than you'd have to spend today to do the same thing. Or, if I went acoustic, I could walk into a bar, sit down, and begin to play and sing. No cost other than my time. Dinner, a few beers (not too many or the performance... ugh, lol) maybe a few bucks in a hat... that'd make it practical, if the audiences found me worthy. Attention from the opposite sex used to go a long way too, though today, I'm settled down.

So bands... no. Most television productions aren't worth a plugged nickel. The acting is terrible, the scripts worse. Something like Avatar or the new Star Trek... some spending happening there and no way around it as yet. Less in the future, I think, but still, gotta give your point to you on that front. All I can say there is I own both recordings; not even a slight urge to grab them for free. Well worth the cost. I'd like to be able to back them up, lest something happen like what happened to Heavy Metal (rights bitch fight), or perhaps one of the kids using it for a clay pigeon, etc. I can't.

If everyone didn't pay for it and everyone stole it then the content would dry up.

No, you really can't make that argument. There wouldn't have been any music, opera, plays, street performers prior to about 1920 if that was the case. But there were. There are other forms of funding that the arts can extract from society than direct charge for recordings. We can ague the merit of those methods, but you can't say they didn't work, because they most assuredly did. I suspect they'd work again, and in such an environment, we'd see some very fine performers, as well as a good bit more variety. But that is, of course, just my opinion.

What you're missing here is that music, and I presume other forms of performance are, is a joy to produce. I'd kick you out of the way to get a space to play. It's not always about money. Ask yourself if you'd have to be paid to have sex. It's kind of like that. I couldn't tell you how many times I've played for free, both solo and with bands. And I'm pretty good -- fifty years of experience now, rock, blues, hard rock, even some folk, that's me. I just love music and performing musically, and that's true for a very large portion of the other musicians I've known over the years. Fame isn't the prime motivator for everyone, nor is money. Sex, well, yeah. ;)

I personally try my best to not purchase music and content from other than the artist.

This is an excellent strategy and I encourage you to pursue it. I always buy a CD from a live performance, if they offer one. Or several, hell, I'll buy your whole catalog if given a chance and you gave me a nice evening.

What you have to do, though, to make that strategy really effective, is get everyone you know to pursue it, and they their acquaintances, etc., ad infinitum.

Re:$24

[Zencyde]

Seriously? All that what you've explained should tell you is that we take copyright law entirely too seriously. If it NEEDS absurd charges to be worth pursuing, it's probably not worth protecting. Being wasteful with money is not a way to run a country. If something is more expensive to protect than the thing that is being protected, it is not worth protecting. How is that difficult to catch on to? Manage your country like you would your personal finances (assuming you don't live paycheck to paycheck). Waste your time, effort, and money on the things that have a return on investment, not the things that drag you further into a hole. How many hours of court time was wasted for this crap? For something that can ultimately be represented as a base-10 number, which is inherently not copyrightable, we are wasting a lot of damn time. 8 years of court time and a woman losing what would amount to a house, when no one's livelihood was at risk? I'm sorry sir, but your logic is damning.

Re:$24

[Anonymous Coward]

hard copies(mp3 or any file counts as this) don't use bandwidth, don't require an internet connection, can NOT be taken away from you.

Re:$24

[zenasprime]

Thank you. As a creator myself, I often find this argument ridiculous and obviously from the mouth of someone who is NOT a creator. They don't understand that I create for the joy of creating, not the possibility of monetary reward,

Re:$24

[somersault]

Really just a desire to get high is in itself a proof that something is very wrong with a person

Sooo.. is the desire to go for a walk in the park, or have a nice hot bath or shower on a cold day also proof that there is "something very wrong with a person"? I rarely buy alcohol, and have never bought weed (though I have smoked it a couple of times). I hardly even drink coffee these days. But sometimes it's enjoyable to do these things. Why does there have to be something wrong with someone who wants to do change their environment for a little while, either physically or mentally?

Re:$24

[arth1]

Actually it is. America is about equality

*blink*
America is about opportunity, not equality. If anything, the system depends on inequality, and abhors equality.

Do you feel like you deserve to be paid or are inherently better than an author of some creative work? Why do you not live up to the standards you advocate to force on someone else? Before advocating for change, you should be willing to live it yourself -- are you prepared to give me some free legal services? If not, why? Why do you feel that you should be paid, but not me?

I'm not the gp, but you miss some big differences.
- A lawyer (and yes, this word leaves me with a bad taste in my mouth) does not demand payment when you copy his work. Other lawyers copy and cite law cases pretty freely, and so does the public. NYCountyLawyer does not come after us if we cite his legal opinion, nor does he employ collection agencies. in short, a lawyer has to keep on working to make money, and can't rest on his laurels and continue be paid for something he did 20 years ago.
- We are not obliged to pay for services we didn't sign up for.
- If I hire a lawyer, I pay him. If I hire an artist to perform, I pay him. If the lawyer hires a PI, he pays him (and charges me for the expenses. If the artist hires a songwriter, he pays him (and charges me for the expenses). In no way does the PI and lawyer continue to get paid in perpetuity.
- You are free to use the same system as the lawyer. You can sell your creative works under contract instead of giving it to the public in exchange for the public giving you limited (or they were supposed to be limited) copyright protections. If you cannot make a living that way, you have to ask yourself whether your services are really that wanted or needed.

Re:$24

[Quirkz]

Painters and musicians I can almost see in a service economy. What would you have the novel writers do?

The RIAA is sensitive.

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Reminds me of the exchange of Good Will Hunting.

Will: He used to just put a belt, a stick, and a wrench on the kitchen table and say, "Choose."

Sean: Well, I gotta go with the belt there.

Will: I used to go with the wrench.

Sean: Why?

Will: Cause fuck him, that's why.

SCOTUS Lowered Exxon Valdez Punitive Award

[ebno-10db]

Yet the Supreme Court happily lower the punitive damages in the Exxon Valdez case. From http://www.marketwatch.com/story/us-supreme-court-orders-reduction-in-exxon-valdez-award

Justice David Souter, in the court's majority opinion, said the punitive damages award should be brought into line with $287 million in compensatory damages awarded

So spilling millions of dollars of crude oil into the ocean in a grossly negligent act, destroying the local environment and wrecking people's livelihoods is not a big, but file sharing? There's a threat to the Republic!

Re:SCOTUS Lowered Exxon Valdez Punitive Award

[Anonymous Coward]

Jammie Thomas didn't make any campaign contributions.

Re:SCOTUS Lowered Exxon Valdez Punitive Award

[ebno-10db]

"Justices do not campaign. They are appointed ..." by people who receive bribes (oops, I meant "free speech" campaign contributions) and revolving door jobs (oops again, I meant highly merited post-political positions).

Re:SCOTUS Lowered Exxon Valdez Punitive Award

[Anonymous Coward]

Justices do not campaign. They are appointed by someone that campaigned, go through a confirmation process by many people that campaigned, and join the Court. I hate to rain on your "Everyone's bought" theory.

Fixed it for you. The end result of all of that seems to be appointed stooges who agree with a given set of political views.

I never cease to be amazed that the supposedly nine most knowledge people on the laws of the nation can never actually agree on how those laws should be applied. It's like they're not seeking out facts, but national opinions. It's not like the supreme court hears cases where that need to determine who's lying to cover up a crime. Rather they mostly hear cases where both sides mostly agree on the crime, but differ on the legality of it.

Wrong, wrong, wrong...

[Anonymous Coward]

$15.00 - It's the equivalent of 2 crummie albums, the music wasn't very good, and she had no one profited in the way the law was designed to penalize, back when music publishing was a print only business.

This can't really be what equal treatment under the law was desigend to accomplish.

Re:Wrong, wrong, wrong...

[Alwin Henseler]

Equal treatment under the law? But yes, absolutely! No matter who you are, what you believe, or where you're from, an equal amount of justice for every dollar you have. How's that not fair?

Hrmph

[dyingtolive]

Sensitive about impoverishing a woman, sure. I believe it.

I bet all they'll ask of her is a modest $200,000 and that she appear on television, making a public statement demeaning herself on behalf of the record companies. Fuckers should burn.

Re:She refused a $5000 settlement offer.

[TemperedAlchemist]

Since when should the legal system be like playing roulette?

Like Death for Bicycle Theft

[rmdingler]

When I was 6 years old, my father took me back to the store where I'd stolen a pack of gum with the money to pay the owner. After a rather sheepish apology that involved no eye contact from me at all, the proprietor accepted my dime and my remorse. My punishment was to return to the store after school and sweep for a week, every day after school. In the movies, that's how the story ends, with an errant youth learning a valuable lesson. In riaal life, his 11 year old son kicked the shit out of me every day but one... and that one day was the worst because I waited all day for the beating that never came.

Re:She refused extortion.

[Overzeetop]

Those were essentially extortion offers. Pay us or we'll break your financial knees.

What an insult

[jamessnell]

$200K+ for sharing 24 songs? Those profound douche-baggery. I'm so glad that newer methods are emerging to kill off the record label. This is an example of the industry that we call "The legal system", milking the life-force out of lady justice and then ripping her corpse apart and devouring it without a napkin. There's no measure of justice involved at all. Was there REALLY $222K in damage? Hell no, she helped advertise a brand, of sorts. What a disgusting farce. Glad I don't live in the states.

Dear editors,

[jxander]

Just a suggestion to help parse better, the phrase "7 year old Jammie Thomas case" should instead be "7 year old Jammie Thomas case"

Except with the actual link, and not just bold font... I'm lazy

This way, it's easier to recognize the CASE is seven years old, not Jammie Thomas.

Re:She refused extortion.

[ebno-10db]

She broke the law.

So do jaywalkers and people who drive 5 MPH over the posted limit. What's your point, that "breaking the law" justifies any fine or punishment? How about $1M for the next minor infraction you commit.

Re:She refused extortion.

[vux984]

She broke the law.

And so what? So for a minor civil infraction that caused virtually no measured or measurable damage to anyone we should take away her house?

People break the law all the time. Breaking the law isn't carte blanche for the anyone to take everything you have, and then some.

For her situation, with 24 songs shared, first offense. Anything over $500 is WAY out of line relative to what she did. This sort of thing belongs in small claims court.

If she had shoplifted a CD (24 songs) from a Walmart and it was a first offense a $200,000+ fine would be utterly outrageous.

Forgiven debt/judgement is taxable in the US

[LordWoody]

Let's not forget that any forgiven debt is a taxable event in the US. It is seen as a gift and counts as "income". But I suppose it's still better than paying the full bill.

lesson learned

[shentino]

Do not piss off the corporate elite or you will regret it.

Re:She refused extortion.

[shentino]

Her crime is pissing off the RIAA and trying to duke it out with the establishment.

Move to Oz.

[TapeCutter]

In Oz, there's no fine, they can only sue for provable damages. Most cases would not even pass the $50 minimum damages claim required for it to be heard by the small claims tribunal. MAFIAA lawyers can not harrass people with extortion notices (they have tried and been shot down before they could even lick the stamps). In short they have two choices, sue for provable damages, or shut the fuck up. Neither of which achieve their aims of sacring people into compliance with their bussiness model, consequently no individual has ever been fined or sued by an Australian court for file sharing.

In other words the Aussie justice system lives up to the Aussie cultural value of a "fair go", (at least as far as file sharing is concerned ;).

Obama

[Frank T. Lofaro Jr.]

Stop blaming Obama for everything.

He inherited this mess and is doing the best he can, with Congress tying his hands.

Obama doesn't personally OK everything the Department of Justice does, he doesn't have the time to do that!

His time is spend trying to fix this country despite a Congress which is trying to block him for almost everything he is trying to accomplish, often due to hateful reasons that have no place in civilized society.

Obama has done a LOT to make gov't more accessible (White House Android app, We The People petitions, etc). Stop bashing Obama, remember Clinton signed the DMCA and Bush the 2nd signed the Patriot Act, etc, etc.