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Mom of Two Stung With $220K RIAA Penalty
You're looking at the face of online music piracy. Jammie Thomas, a 32-year-old single mother of two accused by the RIAA of sharing 24 songs on peer-to-peer service Kazaa, has lost her protracted legal battle. Yesterday she was ordered to pay a whopping $222,000 in damages, which amounts to $9,250 for every song shared -- this despite the fact that the RIAA was never able to prove Thomas even had Kazaa installed on her machine. Thomas maintains her innocence. Though the RIAA has sent threatening letters to more than 26,000 people it believes are guilty of illegally sharing copyrighted music, Ms. Thomas is the first to actually fight the RIAA in court. Most others have either quietly settled for fines of a few thousand dollars or had their cases dismissed for lack of evidence, as did an Oklahoma mother last year who was targeted by the RIAA.
We hate to play right into the RIAA's hand, but the Thomas verdict should serve as a warning to the rest of you file-sharers out there. This victory will certainly encourage the RIAA to get even cockier in its strong-arm tactics against accused sharers. So, if you are one of those 26,000 people who received a threatening letter from the RIAA, we hate to say it, but your options are looking pretty limited.
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Comments
10
Subscribe to commentsJimOct 5th 2007 12:08PM
Stealing is stealing. Musicians are getting tired of not getting paid for their work. Buy the music if you want it.
bronxOct 5th 2007 1:17PM
@Jim.. You know what we are.. tired of the music industry stealing from us.. over prized cd's... WTF you must be working for the basterds.. They just do not get it..... and so do you.
missyOct 5th 2007 1:29PM
my one concern is that they cannot prove that she had Kazaa on her computer. Deleted information is still retrievable so...why no proof?
Regardless of the cost of CD'S, entertainers have the right to price their product however they choose...stealing IS stealing but, where is the proof?
I'd caution anyone supporting a conviction without proof.
BenOct 5th 2007 1:40PM
Screw jim and the rest of the RIAA. I'm sick of their extortion methods. They burst into cafe's and bars and demand money for songs not even played there that they have no copyright for. Good for this lady fighting them. Hope she can avoid paying.
JimOct 5th 2007 1:49PM
Bronx, I suggest you spend a little more time on spelling and grammar. A product is only worth what someone will pay for it. If you think it's overpriced, don't buy it. If enough people agree with you, the price will come down. You still don't have the right to steal it.
bronxOct 5th 2007 1:53PM
The artist do not set te prize of the cd the industry does. The artist sees very very little of that mony.. I hope there will be a change like but the cd directly for the artist and just pay him like 7 dollars. that like dubbel the amount of what there getting now....
Trent reznor gets it....
http://yro.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/09/17/1948238&from=rss
sir jay harrisOct 5th 2007 2:17PM
Pirates in the olden days were hung.
current pirates need to be fined & fined heavily.There internet privileges should be terminated as well.
BenOct 5th 2007 3:10PM
Actually Sir jay, pirates in the old day were supported by governments to raid commerce and gold from the "new world."
Yeah its illegal, but a quarter million dollar fine for this is absurd.
jOct 9th 2007 5:54PM
Greedy filth! They have no evidence that she installed the illegal file-sharing software on her computer. That's called "LACK OF EVIDENCE"!!!
And any alleged damages aren't nearly worth $220K! This completely unjust "penalty" just another act of the rampant corporate greed that is destroying the world!
Keep fighting Jammie! Don't let them do this to you and your family!
eAOct 18th 2007 12:50PM
The way I look at it, I support the selective download at a price. One thing that mp3 downloads have forced artists to do is actually provide quality music. 15 years ago, before napster really got around to getting started, you purchased an entire album just to get 2, maybe 3 songs. Now, instead of purchasing an entire album, you can selectively download those songs you want. If a musician wants to get the full price for a CD, that musician will have to create quality music. I'm in favor of the musician setting up a website where a fan can selectively download music and pay a nominal fee per song, but unfortuneatly, the record company, the producer, etc. would all still get a cut. That's just how the business is.