Those famous altruists the music “industry” are at it again. A Minnesota woman has been ordered to pay $220,000 for sharing 24 files online, which would be worth about $24 retail. Nothing like a sense of proportion.
To quote from the
Daily Telegraph article:
“Jammie Thomas, 30, was the first among more than 26,000 people sued by the world's most powerful recording companies to refuse a settlement after being slapped with a lawsuit by the Recording Industry of America and seven major music labels.”
She was picked up by something called Safenet, which is an organization hired by the industry to scour the internet and do things like this.
So in effect the people that have been giving the world the most marked up products on Earth are feeling threatened by some chick with a computer.
There’s also $60,000 plus in legal fees because the woman refused to be bullied.
Thomas was found guilty of copyright infringement by a jury. The article, rather sickeningly, says that the maximum fine is $150,000 per song, so “it could have been worse”. She had 1702 songs in her folder, which the Telegraph, whose arithmetic isn’t terrific, says could have made her liable for millions. Actually it could have been $255,300,000.
A quarter of a billion.
That makes sense. Make billions, then scuttle around like manic obsessed cockroaches trying to get a bit more. Enchanting, isn’t it?
This is law?
Let’s put this in perspective. If you steal $24 worth of anything else, (copyable or otherwise) you’re not liable for $3.6 million. Nor are you liable for a near quarter of a million dollars plus legals.
This isn’t law, it’s insanity. How the legal system has allowed itself to be conned into this level of over-enforcement is bizarre. Who did Thomas hurt? How many multi millionaires suffered? How many mass-producing copyright sharks are getting rich while the industry is hunting minnows? Could the courts be doing something more productive than listening to what are essentially irrelevant, greedy, legal tantrums?
This was probably done to get some case law in place. By rights, it deserves to be the last gasp of a failed industry, hopelessly out of touch with reality. In theory, giving someone a CD for their birthday could be spun into a form of copyright infringement, even if you paid for it. On this logic license is given to the own of the disk, but not for any form of distribution. In practice, it’s a “normal use” of the product. So is file sharing, to a very large degree.
Did Thomas engage in any commercial activities? Did she gain financially? Was she doing something the rest of the world does every second? How many serious property crimes attract anything like that level of proportionate penalty?
The record industry itself is the biggest deadbeat on the planet. If it can squirm out of paying for anything, legally or otherwise, it will. There are a lot of people who’ve never been paid for their work, some of it very successful.
Music lovers, it’s time to destroy these bastards, once and for all.
1. Don’t buy from the major labels.
2. Send your favorite musicians some fan mail telling them to sell online direct. It’s easy, and you can save a lot of money buying and selling like that.
3. Buy that Radiohead album, or anything else sold like it.
4. Don’t buy anything with DRM (digital rights management) on it. They don’t trust you, why should you trust them? Also to the point, why should you pay them to advertise that they don’t trust you?
5. To hell with anyone who supports Safenet, or any other form of media Gestapo.
6. Buy second hand hard copies, not retail.
7. Make sure everyone you know hears about this.
8. Write to whatever duly elected, comatose clown you know and make the point about the relative values in this case. If they get enough feedback, their minders will eventually figure out it's an issue.
Maybe next time they're read the legislation before passing it.
