We always thought that the RIAA's
first-ever filesharing trial victory against
Jammie Thomas was a little suspect since the labels weren't required to prove that Thomas even had Kazaa installed on her machine or was the person using the account in question, and it looks like the court agrees -- it's just declared a mistrial and set aside the $222,000 judgment on the grounds that simply making copyrighted works available for download does not constitute copyright infringement. That's a huge decision -- the "making available" theory is the basis for most of the RIAA's legal arguments -- and it means that the RIAA will now have to prove the unauthorized transfer of each song it wants to collect damages on at the new trial. We'll see what effect this has in the broader sense -- we've got a feeling we're in for a slew of appellate decisions on both sides of the "making available" debate -- but for now it looks like the good guys are finally starting to score some points.
[Via
ZDNet, thanks JagsLive]
Read - Wired article
Read - Decision [PDF]
posted Sep 25th 2008 1:34PM
Kazaa:1 RIAA: 0 Bittorrent:999,999,999
humm... this story makes me want to listen to some new music... *starts bit-torrent client*
THAT'S OVER 9000!!!!!
Didn't McTorrents end that whole served counter thing years ago
I get away with PSP file sharing cause I'm smart enough to use old throwaway laptops with a portable HDD that can easily be hidden or disposed of off my own premises.
I also STEAL WIFI.
Come get me RIAA....wear your F"kin VEST THOUGH.
Wait a minute, people still use Kazaa. IMO she should've got fined for being so stupid to use P2P apps in the first place. If you're going to download 'backups' then be clever about how you going to do it.
Or you could just use some serious encryption... "Last I checked the password was 'RIAA SUCKS' you honor, honest"
RIAApists
"Kazaa:1 RIAA: 0 Bittorrent:999,999,999"
roflmfao
This is great news!
Flashpoint you should be ashamed for yourself, that is ridiculous and this from someone that has no morals on file sharing or much of anything else
Bwahahahahahahahahahahaha!! Take that, RIAA!! Up yours!!
Hard to know who to root for, the RIAA or someone named "Jammie".
Yeah, Jammie definitely isn't the right poster child for file sharing, but at the end of the day it's all about what her case represents.
the RIAA needs to let jammie get back to jammin'.
"-- but for now it looks like the good guys are finally starting to score some points."
Who's are the good and bad guys again?
"but for now it looks like the good guys are finally starting to score some points."
....so the people who are illegally swapping songs, movies, software, etc, are the good guys? I'm not saying the RIAA should be called good guys, but I wouldn't exactly call pirates the good guys, either.
Good guys being the individuals being sued for copyright infringement without any evidence showing they are the ones responsible. Similar to the cease and desist letters I've been receiving at my business even though I'm the only one who works here and am not doing any illegal file sharing. My ISP is threatening to pull my service, I've since added mac address filtering to my security measures because it seems like someone must be nearby cracking my wifi.
@squirrelking - I'd change your SSID, hide it and put some WPA2 protection on there. MAC address filtering will only take you so far. If the RIAA is after you, I'd also recommend saving the router log for the offending MAC address for legal purposes.
Oh - and get a good lawyer.
Wait... MAC Address filtering is not allowed?
Sorry... My Bad. I misread "I've since" as "since I've"
If you have to ask this question, you obviously aren't paying much attention.
The industry corporations that illegally collaborated and were found guilty of price fixing your CDs could never be mistaken for good guys.
The trade organization that invests in lawyers suing their own customers for a QUARTER MILLION DOLLARS for 2 dozen songs could never be mistaken for good guys.
Major victory, very pleased with this great news. BTW, even if they were [insert lame recording artist here] .mp3s, Jammin Jammie is the good guy here. Thanks for playing!
Go good guys! Go people who illegally distribute other people's copyrighted material!
Shouldn't we be cheering our justice system and our system of checks and balances? And our rights as the accused and innocence before guilt?
Stealing/pirating is wrong. Always has been. Always should be.
Agreed, theft of all nature is wrong.
That being said, it would be nice if the RIAA had to form some sort of coherent case, with actual evidence instead of being able to walk into a court room and say "your honor, this is the woman who owned a computer that was connected to the internet and could have possible shared N number of songs" and then having the judge say "I see, [($222,000 / 24) x N] to be paid to the RIAA."
Yeah, I take this mistrial ruling as a move in the right direction for the legal system.
The craziest thing though is the amount. You could literally steal a bunch of CDs from a store, make copies of them and give them away, and you would still get charged less than $222,000 dollars in court for that because it wasn't distributed on the net.
I would NOT hit that.
hehehehehe
don't know what you miss'n fool! CHUNK IN THA TRUCK!!!
Its all about the cushion for the pushin
I'd hit that.
The guy on the right, I mean.
...with a hammer.
I'm going to go ahead and moan about networks not correcting ratios when you're watching HD. Anyone wondering what the fuck is wrong with me can take a look at the frame grab above. How hard is it to pad SD-only video with a pair of vertical borders so that people don't look like HD manatees? Lazy bastards.
No mistake.. She's actually that wide.
It's not the networks fault you idiot.
It the TV users. They have to set it to not stretch. Most cable and satellite boxes will do this for you automatically.
The networks broadcast the content in set ratios and the end user hardware has to be set correctly to display it.
I do have issues though with HD content not being distributed correctly. Some HD content comes in with the screen crawl tech chopped off or station markers off screen and other HD channels are perfectly fine. I've checked that on several different TV at other houses and its consistent
Is it really necessary to call him an idiot?
That said, I can't believe how many people have scurried out to get big televisions for the incredible experience HD offers - and now watch tons of standard def stuff stretched and distorted! And they don't take the time to figure out what the problem is, they just watch it that way. I really can't believe how many restaurants and bars display distorted television.
Oh - and about the RIAA: I can't believe a decent lawyer can't wiggle their client out of every one of these lame cases. If you're a lawyer who loses a Kazaa case you should get a job at Best Buy installing HD televisions.
I agree.. I'd guess at least 75% of people with 16:9 screen TV's distort the picture because they want to "use the whole screen".
Drives me batshit crazy.
It's both the networks (some more than others) and the widescreen owners (again, some more than others). I have a widescreen, set up correctly, and yet, several HD channels insist on that fisheye edge stretching method to broadcast their so called HD content, which is really just SD content stretched to fill the screen. TNT is the worst offender here, but there are others. The new HD versions of History and Discovery also like to broadcast standard def stuff that's zoomed in to about 95% of the width of the screen so you still have black bars down the sides, but very narrow ones, and you also have the top & bottom of the frame cropped off, which makes reading credits & crawls a bit of a challenge since they're frequently only partially visible. It's not like the viewer can adjust the image to see it correctly since that's the way it's broadcast.
He Who Hates That Fisheye Warp His Mom Uses For Everything.
I have my picture set to stretch even though I don't really care for the distortion. This is to avoid the burn-in problem (yeah I know it's called "image persistence" on LCDs, but it's the same fucking thing).
Olevia's seem to be very prone to this and it's not easy to clear up, despite what some people think. So I figure it's best to avoid it altogether and ensure that the entire screen is used as much as possible. I cringe when I see my friends who have the black bars on the side because of how much SD they watch but don't stretch the picture...
Well, if the allegation of having 24 songs in a folder share is reason enough for the RIAA to crush a persons existence (and I guess it is fair enough to assume that 220,000.00 USD is big enough a penalty to cursh Jane Average's existence), then I don't want to know what these people would have suggested to do to her if she had actually stolen something....
So who's the one doing the wrong, the ones downloading the files or the ones sharing the files
The ones doing wrong are the ones that think $222,000 is fair compensation for 24 songs.
Ruining someone's life to make an example out of them so you can afford a bigger jet = the bad guys.
Piracy is not theft, it is copyright infringement.
Hurray for victory against unjust accusations and upholding innocene until proven guilty.
let's go with little guys and call it a day. The way i look at it is they RIAA (and MPAA for that matter) make it so difficult to move around legal music and movies they're basically daring you to pirate it.
RIAA: go to HELL
And what about the thousands of other people who decided to settle out of court? All that money is unrecoverable - since RIAA never had to prove anything and they paid - they are screwed!
F*** the RIAA
Some offtopic:
Why this post is highest ranked?.
Just taking a wild guess... but I'm going to go with: "People feel the same way I do?"
because the cat is going to grandma's house?
Because his pic is awesome. Nerds have a soft spot for cats. Who knew?
Adorable kittens FTW! :D
It's that most everyone feels the same as you... about cats... about the RIAA...
Dammit CNN... you invented cable news. You obviously know something about video production.
Why do you stretch out your 4:3 video to "look" like widescreen on the web?
Bringing the funny....
"Davis' U-turn is a big blow to the RIAA's legal jihad against filesharers. "Requiring proof of actual transfers would cripple efforts to enforce copyright owners' rights online – and would solely benefit those who seek to freeload off plaintiff's investment," a lawyer for the association said in a court filing in May."
from http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/09/25/jammie_thomas_again/
So... What happens to the people already sued on those grounds? Can they go back and have the decision overturned?
Probably not. My understanding is that this is the first time a decision has been made. Everyone else has settled with them (usually for $3000 I believe). Someone correct me if I am wrong.
Is this bringing joyful tears to anyone else's eyes?
Uhh, I want to deny it but yes.
Yes
Above comment @andyg8180.
Engadget:10
Engadget's comment system: 4
The Public Library, "making available" for centuries.
When will the RIAA start suing used CD stores? Half the albums I own (after I downloaded them to make sure they were not crap), I bought from various used CD outlets because I can get them for half or more off the price I would pay at a place like Best Buy, which is already the lowest priced place to buy new CDs. Not every person who downloads an album was going to buy said album and not all of them will like and keep said album for the long term. Calling downloading theft requires proof of intent and that is impossible on a large scale. Is borrowing your friend's copy of an album to listen to theft? By the RIAA's standards, it appears that it is. The way they talk, the only people that should be able to hear music are the people that buy it. That's an outstanding way to make sure your artist's fan base will never grow. Good call. Then you can drop them for not going triple platinum and blame it all on the internet. On behalf of every small band that got signed, screwed and bankrupted by underhanded record execs, I proudly give the RIAA the finger.
I believe I read something (maybe even here abouts) that mentioned an RIAA lawyer or exec or other shill complaining about loud music that people play on their PMP's or other personal players. Said individual's thought process was that if other people could hear your music player because it was so loud, those other people should have to pay to for listening in and/or the one playing it too loud would have to pay a fine. It is much like the statement I heard about some advertising exec saying that he/she hated when people got up and ignored the TV when the commercials come on and that they should be fined or their TV service/reception cut off. In other words, people should be forced to watch the commercials. When asked about whether the viewer could get up to use the restroom, the exec begrudgingly agreed that it might be ok to do that.
You have flaw in your premise. In your scenario, your friend legally obtained a CD and then lent it to you to listen to. However, downloading music to "preview" is not the same. The RIAA, artist and music studio, did NOT give you permission to borrow their music. Your example would be better if you said you broke into your friends house and took his CD to preview but have every intent to pay him for it in the future assuming you like what your hear or else you will give it back. Not the same.
HOWEVER, with that out of the way, Die Scum Die!!! Any blow the the capitalist RIAA is a victory to music fans everywhere. I blame the RIAA "cops" for making sure no good music has be released in the last decade. "Hey we need more money from your hard work Mr. musician to make sure continue our hard work suing without merit all bad people sharing 24 songs while you starve. By the way, any money gained from suing the pants off of everyone won't end up in your pockets. So please make more music for less as soon as you can"
Now if only the MPAA would get the same treatment.
No, that would be breaking and entering and larceny, because I stole a tangible item without having permission. Downloading an album is not stealing from the person who bought the album and offered it online. It is, at best, borrowing from "some guy on the internet" to see if you like it and, at fast, streamlined tape trading. If you are young and unfamiliar with tape trading, go up and ask Metallica and Slayer how they got a fan base in the 80s. It's the same thing, on a massive scale and it made a lot of small, struggling bands into career musicians (note that I did not say it made all of them rich).
Downloading music is obtaining of information. The RIAA simply wish to control how that information is distributed, which to an extent, I can actually understand. If they came at these laws with intelligent, logical guidelines, I would be willing to listen, but "you downloaded, therefore you cost us a sale" is neither logical, nor factual. It has polluted the minds of small artists the world over and done nothing to help music proliferation of music as a whole. In short, this whole Mcarthy-like witch hunt stifles the growth of the art of making music. Of course, the RIAA knows this. If they didn't shut things like Napster down when they did, small bands might have figured out that they don't need big labels to become well known.
@ bionic radd
I would just like to verify your statement about the "every downloaded album = a lost sale".
Every album I have purchased in the last 5-10 years has been because I downloaded the album, or otherwise acquired it for free (borrowed and copied from a friend, etc.).
So going on the RIAA's logic:
If they had stopped me from downloading even 5 years ago, that would have prevented the sale of about 50 albums (about 10 a year).
With most albums averaging 12 tracks that's 600 total tracks.
They ruled $220,000 for 24 tracks, so that's $9166.67 per track.
This brings the RIAA's total in prevented song sales to...
$5,500,002.00 in damages.
Looks like you guys might have to fire one of your gold-plated-suit-wearing lawyers, or ebay one of your LawsuitExpress Learjets...
The biggest year for CD sales ALL TIME was the last year of the original Napster website. That happened for exactly the reasons posters are giving above - try before you buy. The RIAA closed Napster down and they've been suffering ever since. They are empirically suicidal.
Who wants to live in a world where sharing is a crime? There's a special place in Hell for these people.
Well...she probably will still owe 200,000$ in legal fees...
Damn lawyers.....
If she wins, I believe the RIAA will have to reimburse her for all her legal expenses.
No they will pay for all her legal fees :) :) :)
24 songs from iTunes: $24.
24 songs from the RIAA: $220,000
Telling the RIAA to go screw themselves: priceless!
Getting the RIAA defeated in court: Priceless
Not having to pay $9,000 for "Mambo No. 5": Priceless!
So does that mean that the people the RIAA bilked out of money because they didn't go to court can sue the RIAA to get the money back?
No, I believe if you settled with them, you sign a document admitting fault and whatever else they have charged you with in exchange for being charged "only" several thousand dollars as opposed to several HUNDRED thousand dollars. This is the "landmark case" and is great news indeed that it has been overturned, thank god.
One of the things that sticks out the most to me about these cases, is that the fine PER SONG can go up to $150,000 USD. Meanwhile, the actual value of a song is 1-2 dollars. So then, why is this not being heavily reported on and seen as a major step against this sort of lunacy:
"While the court does not discount plaintiffs' claim that, cumulatively, illegal downloading has far-reaching effects on their businesses, the damages awarded in this case are wholly disproportionate to the damages suffered by plaintiffs. Thomas allegedly infringed on the copyrights of 24 songs -‐ the equivalent of approximately three CDs, costing less than $54, and yet the total damages awarded is $222,000 – more than 500 times the cost of buying 24 separate CDs and more than 4,000 times the cost of three CDs." - Judge Davis
So, if you are not very networking savvy, like most of the consumers out there, and don't know how to set up WPA encryption on your WiFi network, you're pretty much screwed when somebody uses your connection to download illegal stuff? RIAA, I salute you with my middle finger...
well, actually no.
If you decide to leave your wireless network as open, it is very possible to argue that it was not you who downloaded the files and that because your wireless network is open, it could have been anyone. The RIAA would have no way of proving that it was YOU who downloaded the songs, etc.
illegally downloading 24 songs...$222,000
stealing 2 CD's from a store...$250 fine (maybe) and a slap on the wrist
hmm...
Awesome.
[rejoices]
No Proof, No Crime. If assailants can get out of serious crimes on a technicality (OJ, cough, cough), then I think the burden of proof should suffice here also.
About danged time!
There "claim" would be equivalent to me leaving my CD's unlocked on the shelf at the office and having someone with a laptop in the same room. Thats technically making available for distribution. I mean nothing to stop that person with the laptop from popping my CD's in his laptop and copying them. Takes about 90-120 seconds per cd on a good machine.
The idea that making available is the same as infringement is absolutely ludicrous I am glad we finally got a judge with a piece of gray matter in his skull.
If its $9,250 a song than I know people who owe $74,888,000