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Jammie Thomas-Rasset has massive file sharing penalty reduced
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The following comments relate to this news article:
article published on 23 July, 2011
In 2006, Jammie Thomas-Rasset was sent a letter asking her to settle (for $3300) over alleged unauthorized file sharing of 24 tracks.
She refused and decided to take the case to court.
In 2007, Thomas-Rasset was found liable for $1.92 million in damages, but a retrial saw the fine dropped to $220,000. In 2010, however, a judge reduced the award to $54,000. The RIAA told Thomas-Rasset ... [ read the full article ]
Please read the original article before posting your comments.
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VITAL715
Junior Member
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25. July 2011 @ 16:20 |
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Originally posted by panchdara:
Originally posted by xaznboitx:
Originally posted by leevaley:
Originally posted by xaznboitx:
Originally posted by hearme0:
Originally posted by xaznboitx:
Just notice how they care about people sharing and downloading stuff now ... I wonder why they didn't care when obama wasn't president.
WARNING!!! Conspiracy theorist! Take your nonsense to another, less intelligent place!
well I didn't read people getting sued til 2010 so don't be a smartass
Then dont be a dumbass-the President has more Important things to do
You're stupid because the president also has something to do with this moron.
Yeah... start more wars!Originally posted by leevaley:
Originally posted by xaznboitx:
Originally posted by hearme0:
Originally posted by xaznboitx:
Just notice how they care about people sharing and downloading stuff now ... I wonder why they didn't care when obama wasn't president.
WARNING!!! Conspiracy theorist! Take your nonsense to another, less intelligent place!
well I didn't read people getting sued til 2010 so don't be a smartass
Then dont be a dumbass-the President has more Important things to do
Yes he does dammit! There are lots more wars to start and fail at... lots more poverty in America to create and lots more people in the World to intimidate... the prez got mo betta things to du!
oh look another angsty rebellious teenager that hates the government
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Senior Member
1 product review
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25. July 2011 @ 17:14 |
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Good point plasma247... But some would argue the analogy of "stealing being stealing"; doesn't matter if it's a paper clip or the Eiffel Tower, the punishment should befitting.
My problem, as well as it seems to be shared with others, is that there is grand larceny damages when it's almost petty misdemeanor. Albeit, the case for copyright infringement was brought up, the fact is 'songs' were stolen. They stated the equivalent of 2 albums worth.
If I read you correctly, proper restitution for today's society would be the equivalent of shoplifting the value of two CDs & whatever that criminal record mandates?
Doesn't give the MPAA/RIAA much bragging rights or any breathing room to bully anybody for anything else, but it most certainly seems proper for what the crimes were that originally took place.
I mean, what was the MPAA doing when folks were stealing DVDs off the rack? Or what was ASCAP/BMI doing when folks were making cassettes? I never got busted back in the 70s - 80s...
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plazma247
Member
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25. July 2011 @ 17:49 |
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Exactly Sir Lord, I went to college with a number of people who used to pinch from hmv and alike, many got caught, non went to jail over it..... or were asked to pay $1000's back for their crime. Theft is theft, but as ever one rule can not be applied to every case.
The punishment should fit the crime, someone who steals food because they cant afford any should never be tared with the same brush as those who show no regard others and say break into a house to steal your car keys.
I can think of any other crime where the punishment (in the west) is so far detached from the crime...
This message has been edited since posting. Last time this message was edited on 26. July 2011 @ 12:35
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numscull
Junior Member
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25. July 2011 @ 23:42 |
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Jammie did not steal anything. I do not know why she, and others, are considered pirates or thieves. What she was accused of was "making available" songs that she may have bought or acquired legally. I know she is denying it, but for the sake of argument, the crime she is accused of is giving away ripped music to whomever wanted it through PnP software. She is not accused of making any money from it. It may or may not have prevented music sales (hard to prove, especially how much). And let us not forget, there have been falsely accused people through errors, but most people do not have the resources to fight back. Not all accused are guilty, but they realize it is cheaper to pay a settlement than a lawyer and they do not have the time or will to go through the many years it takes to fight it in court. The RIAA has deep pockets. The common citizens who are being picked on, right or wrong, do not. Who is the pirate here?
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plazma247
Member
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26. July 2011 @ 06:09 |
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Originally posted by numscull:
Jammie did not steal anything. I do not know why she, and others, are considered pirates or thieves. What she was accused of was "making available" songs that she may have bought or acquired legally. I know she is denying it, but for the sake of argument, the crime she is accused of is giving away ripped music to whomever wanted it through PnP software. She is not accused of making any money from it. It may or may not have prevented music sales (hard to prove, especially how much). And let us not forget, there have been falsely accused people through errors, but most people do not have the resources to fight back. Not all accused are guilty, but they realize it is cheaper to pay a settlement than a lawyer and they do not have the time or will to go through the many years it takes to fight it in court. The RIAA has deep pockets. The common citizens who are being picked on, right or wrong, do not. Who is the pirate here?
If this was the case i would consider it a pretty hard if not impossible task to prove on any p2p network that the files originated from her.
Someone seeds a file, she downloads it and the seed goes offline, this would look like she was the originally point of share for a time, until other users started to obtain the files.
In a p2p network assuming there is more than one version of x file online the files would only ever be partially downloaded from her, assuming they were wrapped into a rar/zip or some type of archive. The pieces from her would have been pretty much useless until put together with other pieces from someone else to make a complete file.
And arguably Digital copies of music in lossy formats like MP3 are not a true representation of the original file in this case i assume CDDA. MP3/AAC is a lossy format after all, its only a representation of the original file.
How many songs in the past have sounded similar to what ever other song and gotten away with it, although again they were most likely a representation of something else.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eU5Dn-WaElI
or
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/3a/AudiodatenkompressionManowarThePowerOfThySword.jpg
From far away yes, they look the same, but on much closer inspection you can see once encoded into a digital format using a lossy codedc it can no longer be called a copy and only a representation of the original, due to the nature of the way a lossy compression system works.
If she was sharing music from her machine, there was many many users on kazaa and earlier p2p system that just went share disk C, which lead of bank details and all sorts being pilfered, they surely would have to prove she installed the p2p client in the first place and then prove she was actively encouraging others to download from her and knowingly created mp3's or what ever from the original disks for that purpose. If not the best you could argue was that she shared the files either knowingly or unknowingly, but not that she had intention or even knew they were being distributed to others.
Hell i know a while back with amazon cloud system its possible to brute force the name of unencrypted bit buckets and suck their content.. although you dont see the RIAA going after amazon for sharing all the music and videos people were lifting from them from unsecured bit buckets. The owner of the bucket did not know the files were being shared to the world, never the less they were.
http://revision3.com/hak5/synergized_blocks/
How about people with unsecured wifi who have smb/cif or what ever shares on their lan containing mp3 or what ever, they also are potential distributional systems.
Due to the amount of stuff that cant be proven and due to the fact IP addresses in a court are not a representation of X person:
http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/109806-Bittorrent-Judge-Rules-You-Are-Not-Your-IP-Address
This also throws further mud into the water..
I would say they are no different from ACS law and are actually speculatively invoicing people using flawed information/data.
And as others pointed out when the data is collected using means that is essentially hacking/subversion in some cases this data should not be allowed to be used in law.
Interesting if people shared music in a file with a mp3's of X cd or what ever in it and the original copyright holder downloads this file to prove its possible to obtain it from you, they are not breaking copyright in the eyes of the law as they own the original. Where as if the file (archive) also contained an additional file they did not have copyright for, they to would essentially also be guilty of breaking copyright in doing so.... food for thought !
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Senior Member
1 product review
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26. July 2011 @ 11:16 |
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It still seems to me to be a bickering over a control of ownership by the MPAA/RIAA & the subsequent greed entailed with the retail sale afterwards. No matter how they 'spin' (lie is the real word, I'll insert the hyphenated story about putting lipstick on pig here) they aren't even the real owners of the material they are vehemently defending & with the fervor that they're going at it begs to say there's a grossly larger, hidden agenda at its root.
Although I'm tired of my tales of doom & gloom, it seems that here in the US the media is finally seeing fit to echo the rest of our nations mental state & buckling down to report the gross imbalance of standards that seems to be in place in today's society.
To what ends will this lead us & have we all waited too long to start doing any good in a peaceful fashion is probably long since gone. Sit-ins & Cool-aid tests of the 60s ain't gonna do it this time. I've got a feeling that some drastic measures along the lines of what the WW1 veterans did back amidst the great depression. There's still a shroud of BS covering the "Bonus Army" incident & incidents like it involving the military given that prior military individuals can't sue.
My point is, history "is" repeating itself. Like a Hollywood script, its just been updated for a new audience & the RIAA/MPAA is actually stepping up to own this one. My worry is that today's society isn't prepared for a nasty soiled mud & blood encounter (both metephphoric & [hopefully not] literal) that is possibly needed to honestly get rid of the cancer that's got us all choked out.
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plazma247
Member
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26. July 2011 @ 12:31 |
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Your right lord i too feel the wind of change is on us on a global scale.
Humanity will probably never stop perpetuating these cycles for as long as greed and the desire for power is a human experience, eventually the balance is corrected, until another greedy power mad figure fills the vacuum that was left behind.
Although this time technology has change the rules of the game, ok in the real world it has arguably been detrimental to some level. Primarily in the way the local community spirit I grew up with has nearly disappeared. But it has allowed people with common goals, interests etc to reach out to a far greater pool of like minded people on a global scale.
The old style media, like tv, radio, news papers which for many years were peoples only way of learning about events in a one way flow of information are now having to follow the various social networks etc. These I firmly believe are taking over as a primary way for people to access this information and the old style media essentially value adding and playing second fiddle.
I have faith in my fellow members of human race, were a real mixed up bunch, but largely most people are a pretty good bunch, there will always be the bad apples. The difference now is were able to discuss and point them out to the rest with far greater ease.
But Sir Lord, you, me and everyone else have the power to shape a new world and to ensure the mistakes of the past are not forgotten for as long as possible. As mind kind tendency for repetition is born out of lessons that we once learned getting forgotten and/or hidden from sight.
Its our duty as the current generation to ensure we pass the lessons on.
This message has been edited since posting. Last time this message was edited on 26. July 2011 @ 12:32
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Mysttic
Senior Member
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26. July 2011 @ 12:54 |
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Look at it this way, she fought this long, she may as well finish it
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Senior Member
1 product review
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26. July 2011 @ 13:41 |
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@ Plasma247... You're right, we have to do our best to perpetuate the virtues of right from wrong & hope the bulk of it keeps going. I suppose the defeatist would say, "once I'm in the ground, who cares?". I leave that argument for the theologians & philosophers to argue till time's end, but I say if it didn't matter why do we defend so vehemently for our kids, even when they're wrong. And to borrow from Bear Bryant, "If it doesn't matter who wins or looses, why do they bother keeping score?"
I've done my best to teach my kids despite the gross contradictions enticing them daily, but they're old enough now I can only hope I did right & wallow in self loathing if I failed. I served my country as one example of what one man in a mix of thousands of men & women can do & what the cost (a shattered body & mind) can for penance. Has it served as an example? Time's going to be the judge of that one too.
I'll stand toe to toe with the pampered, powdered keisters of the elitists of our government as I did when I was in Korea & refused to go to attention for Rumsfeld. I successfully argued my point then, I can do it even better now. I lead my guys into some really stressful situations & never once let them down, but would never ask folks to put me in a governing office.
My problem with those folks is they seem to think that talking & legal-ing up is the way to bully people around. Another form of school ground politics if you will. Where I can easily out argue these idiots, I have the disadvantage of being ill-funded. Meaning, no money = no networking of mega connections to other outranking sources that money can buy & privilege out of a situation.
Thus my particular favorite alternative source of litigation arises... violence. Something a politician is easy to administer, but never to engage personally. They'll talk a good game, but gutless when duty calls.
Which begs to call, what is it going to take to make all these lawyers, politicians & corporate moguls stop the BS? I think I've already put a silk handkerchief over my sledgehammer & kind of 'rocked on' with Mysttic... I think she should body slam the RIAA lawyers on the way out of the courtroom...
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numscull
Junior Member
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26. July 2011 @ 23:44 |
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Senior Member
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27. July 2011 @ 13:19 |
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@numscull... another case for what I was ranting about. Either here or another forum, the RIAA just wants to blanket strong-arm people into paying extortionist moneys in hopes of a 'legal lottery' payoff. If something gets court attention, they just 'hope' they'll lawyer up strong enough against a weak opponent that a law will be enacted allowing them to misbehave uninhibited.
But just like I have argued with some other folks the RIAA/MPAA are idiots... they don't do their home work, they take ghetto approaches to law and slimy, greasy political attempts at getting their way. All under the hospices of making money & the judicial system is getting piss pot tired of it. Almost to the point they're about to open the flood gates on the internet portals & take out adds on all the TV stations & tell folks it's "Free for All Saturday!!!". There is no moral implication of this shite having anything to do with "the good of the artists or the well being of the public".
Burden of proof rides on the accuser in a court of law & it is still (supposed to be) innocent until "proven" guilty. The ONLY exception to this standard is if you are in the military. Then those rights are reversed.
This message has been edited since posting. Last time this message was edited on 27. July 2011 @ 13:25
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