I’m a huge free music advocate being that I’m a Grateful Dead fan and also into other jamband music (Widespread Panic, String Cheese Incident — our first date, etc) which happen to allow the free taping and distribution of their music.
Well, for bands locked into ridiculous contracts with members of the RIAA, they don’t typically allow their music to be shared freely and thus the RIAA (as many of you know) have been on a crusade to eliminate the MP3 distribution method from the face of the planet, unless of course they profit from it heartily.
The RIAA has been known to go after people who have never committed copyright infringement and in an upcoming case, which will take place in Duluth, MN, they are up against an opponent in their first jury trial.
According to the article, this wouldn’t be the best case for them to allow to go to trial being that, “there is no indication of the defendant having committed a copyright infringement.”
Good luck Jammie Thomas, I hope you feed them your shit and make them swallow it too.
Related posts:
Loading ...
October 4th, 2007 at 8:30 pm
I died a little inside today. It’s really unfortunate that her defense was as lame as it was and it’s even more unfortunate that the jury felt that $220,000 was an acceptable amount to award.
Wow. The cluelessness of the jury pool is incredible.
October 4th, 2007 at 8:45 pm
I have to admit I was little disappointed as well. Based on what I read of the defense I can understand how the jury found her at fault. The $220k is outrageous IMHO, although the jury could have awarded a lot more (up to something like $150k/violation where they actually decided on $9250/violation).
One has to wonder though if even $9250 is outrageous for one song. I believe it is.
October 5th, 2007 at 7:58 am
One has to wonder though if even $9250 is outrageous for one song. I believe it is.
Copyright infringement monetary award guidelines were put in place originally for large scale counterfeiting operations, not sharing music.
The individual “sharing” songs on the Internet doesn’t gain anything financially from these transaction as those making bootleg copies and selling them on city street corners do. It’s fairly obvious to me that either the logic behind the reason for those fine amounts wasn’t explained or wasn’t allowed to be explained.
If I was her defense lawyer and I noticed that the trial would have at least called someone to the stand to mention that… IANAL ;)
October 15th, 2007 at 9:31 pm
Now her lawyer has called upon the original court to reduce the fine to something more realistic.
October 15th, 2007 at 10:43 pm
Yup, of course the judge will probably ignore the true value of online music (about .70/song) because they don’t understand.