Free Jammie

I just read the news article in the Star Tribune (posted within the last hour) which reports that Jammie has been ordered to pay the RIAA $1.92 million in damages.

Obviously, if this verdict stands, she will have to declare bankruptcy.

But, my question is this: Why didn’t Jammie just pay RIAA the flippin’ two or three grand a few years ago and moved on with life?!?!

This is an updated comment from the Minneapolis Star Tribune this evening:

"Camara [Jammie's attorney] said the defense is contemplating both settlement and the option of appealing the verdict."

My (unsolicited) advice? Settle the damned thing and move on with your life, Jammie!!

I actually read about this case for the first time a few minutes ago, so I haven't done much research. From what I did read, I didn't get the impression she made any money off these downloads. I'm sure in hindsight paying the few thousand dollars would have been the wisest move. I'm sorry if this sounds stereotypical, but I've visited Minnesota and have seen the poverty in certain areas there. It could be the 3,000 may as well have been 3,000,000. It might not be worth your or my effort to fight it, but if you don't have it, why go down without a fight?

i also recently just heard about this case and saw it on yahoo but the spokes man for RIAA stated and i quote "Since Day One we have been willing to settle this case and we remain willing to do so," Duckworth said. so she may still be able to take the deal!

I filed a complaint to the FTC for the suspicion of contempt and abuse of federal court actions brought against consumers.

I outlined that it is not infringement but theft and this business RIAA along with any other should pursue this in a fair and just manner if they truly feel they have been violated with this theft.

Infringement works on a principle of intention of distribution or public domain use of one or more copies of protected works with or without monetary gain. The goal of this law is to prevent the business from losses that by itself can not protect itself from.

This law does not deal with the motive of self gain and personal acquisition of property unlawfully (theft).

The charge of theft is a major deterrent for any normal consumer than copyright infringement, even in these associations adds they admit their intent is to deter theft.

COPYRIGHT INFRINGMENT IS NOT THE SAME AS THEFT FOR THE MOTIVES ARE CLEARLY DIFFERENT. COPYRIGHT INFRINGMENT IS ABOVE THEFT AND HAS A LARGER MOTIVE THAN SELF AQUISITION FOR PERSONAL USE.

I can understand if someone is distributing these works; but not when it's someone downloading them for personal gain. This is grossly inappropriate.

To seek cruel and unusual damages from a case of theft where the total quested value is less than 1% of the amount fined is unconstitutional and to knowingly pursue this rather than theft charges is a contempt of court by method of abusing the power of the court.

Supporting arguments for proof was when this Copyright law was drafted there was no way for the writers to know that a person could have their private information obtained through the court and tried for this law for the theft of this property, if they had I am certain the human consideration how someone can steel 24 gold records off their wall in their offices and still not get a fine to the sum found here of which there is no difference in the context of the law.

The FTC needs to step in if no one else will, so everyone that is bothered by this should fill out the complaint form and do what you can to get someone with regulatory authority to step in on this one.

If this sets in, it will set a precedence that could bleed over allowing for this not to be considered cruel and unusual and the weak and vulnerable will have to suffer.

Here is my complaint:

I am filing a complaint as a concern citizen to report contempt and abuse of multiple federal court actions brought by the Recording Industry Association of America. The claim for action against citizens on a consumer level without intent to distribute copyrighted works but for use in the privacy of their own home even if illegally obtained was never contemplated upon the drafting of penalty for copyright infringement. The only methods where an individual would have a case brought against them was with the distribution or use of content in a public domain. Once a file is downloaded into a residence it ceases to be public domain and turns into a case of receiving stolen property by electronic means. The purpose as described in Copyright Law is intended to dissuade unauthorized public use or distribution with or without monetary gain. A recipient of digital content of an illegal file share or an authorized file share by illegal means into a private domain deals primarily with theft, not distribution thus does not qualify as copyright infringement as the rights to copy is not the motive but rather for self gain or acquisition of the copy material by illegal means, theft. The misuse of Federal Law to prosecute citizens for copy infringement is an abuse and purposeful contempt of court where the Federal Trade Commission should step in to protect the citizens of this nation from frivolous business law suits and encourage the correct form of legal proceedings as described in law and guaranteed by the U.S. Constitution for a fair trial and just trial. Being that this business is operating under the assumption that it has been infringed the FTC should regulate what type of actions against citizens would be valid under the scope of law and also promote the knowledge to citizens on what constitutes theft of copy material versus infringement of copyrighted works and hold businesses that do not prompt proper disclaimers liable for failing to warn the consumer that by performing any action remotely with their equipment where access to illegal material or malfunction of the equipment may pose them to risk of violating federal regulations unintentionally and if uncertain should consult council and/or expert advise before proceeding. The most recent case with a fine of 1.9 Million Dollars is unfair to a single person where a theft charge holds less weight financially, with a title on a civil or criminal record that by itself deters the acts perused by the business in question. I suspect that this business is aware of all legal options and has chosen the path that will reward them the most financially rather than deter a theft or crime and should be fully evaluated and regulated as promptly as possible.

I also just now made a comment to Phil Defranco and asked him what he thought about all this, maybe he'll be like his usual self and comment honestly what he thinks.

Stay tuned to sxephil on youtube.com

Yeah, well, good luck with that, Kronah.

I'll make one guess and one prognostication:

First, the guess: You are a student or other similarly situated person with tons of time on his hands.

Second, the prognostication: You will accomplish exactly...ZILCH.

lorentjd wrote:ognostication:

First, the guess: You are a student or other similarly situated person with tons of time on his hands.

Second, the prognostication: You will accomplish exactly...ZILCH.

first: wtf?

second, why is it that anytime someone takes their best idea of what the right thing to do is, some cynic shoots it down as useless? granted, you might be right, but why is that so important that you have to take it out on everyone else?

the only thing that ever made this world worth living in is people trying to do the right thing. it doesn't always work. in fact, it usually doesn't. the only people on this planet that are worth a damn are the ones that try anyway. people that sit around berating them for doing the right thing? what will that accomplish? you'll get to feel smug and secure in being right. whoopty-doo. someone quick, hand you a nobel.

i'm glad someone still bothers. oh and... if you need "tons of time on your hands" to get something important done, then i hope more people have more free time. this reverse snobbery where you're only someone that matters if you're being worked to the bone like a slave is a load of nonsense- i'm sure fighting slaveowners was more pointless than what some people like jammie have been trying to do... but it was the right thing to do.

but damn, at least they tried! if what's left of the human spirit is so gone in you that you can't grasp that, i really feel sorry for you, because people that can't understand that are going through life half-dead. it's your attitude, not kronah's that will amount to "ZILCH." unless s/he ends up as cynical as you are, s/he will make a difference, eventually.

yeah, maybe it's time for jammie to settle. but if no one stands up to these people, they'll just get walked on. what's more disingenuous than going after people that have nothing, for doing nothing, and then saying you're willing to "settle?" it wasn't settling when they became predators, and it won't be settling ever- it's like a rapist saying he'll settle for "a little tongue and some groping." it's still assault.

i'm glad not everyone just sits back and blames the victims for not taking the easy route. imagine how much lousier the world would be if everyone did- we'd all be better off dead.

put a little more thought into what you say, that would be great.

Well, tubejay, I wouldn't characterize the right to file share as being equivalent to fighting slavery.

I agree with you that the development of society requires change agents who are willing to try and fail to ultimately get some greater social good accomplished.

But, file sharing?

Com'on. Who has a "right" to music produced by others?

The RIAA has never done anything that has impinged on my rights. If I want music, I buy it. If I don't want to buy it, I don't obtain it.

I appreciate both sentiments here.
I'll favor the encouragement always and give what I can in return.
Though the negative perspective always shows the strength of the obstacle involved; but, was there an obstacle nature could not move?
The point here though is not to move but to allow time for peace.

See by setting this precedent in the court system it is allowing a belief of punishment by example that not only affects this person’s life in a way disproportionate to the claim, but those of their children, as well as any other would be target of this scheme.
No average citizen can pay this in reality so a payment schedule for life must be made.
Paying restitution for life for something that is neither a felony nor the actual cost of the songs, even if you calculate actual sharing.

Why take it so far, because it is very disproportionate and I do not believe that this was in mind or even currently qualifies the pretense of the legal standard.
Since this is a federal matter it concerns all those whom may find themselves brought to action, which can be on a whim and the evidence may not always be clear to clear the accusations.

By this definition it is a racket, using the US Court system no less to pull it off.
If I remember right they were talking about doing it for years, but were waiting for file use to get popular enough so that people would not care if this happened to a few people.
This keeps the lawyers on retainer and funds their agreements with the firms, so they don't have to use as much, if any, member dues to pay it.
It's complete B.S.

Since the US Court system seems to looking the other way about the constitutionality and the majority of citizenry doesn't seem to care, it's down to the FTC; so sure it's a long shot, but aside from finding evidence to support the rumors on the racket, it's the only way to fix this aside from the Supreme Court itself.

As a measure then, it is a long shot, especially if I'm the only one, but I'm hoping some kind of ball might start rolling, and the butterfly can make a quiet storm once again.


As far as my time, most of it is either at work, working for a pharmacy doing customer service, working on my own business, laying down plans for my inventions, writing more lyrics, contributing information to whomever needs it for the sake of progress or chillaxin until I find a cause worth fighting for, like this.

Do I have a lot of time, well if you really knew me wouldn’t that be a silly question to ask?

What is time but a pillar I gaze upon in the interest of watching for something or someone new?

In the end though I always get my way, what can stand in the way of time?

Lol, again thank you for the kind words, they've already helped clarify some things that some have forgotten about.

lorentjd wrote:Who has a "right" to music produced by others?

everyone. in the beginning, all ideas and expressions were public domain, everyone could share. they had a right to share as much as they had a right to free speech. they had a right to share as much as native americans had a right to live in real freedom, before america came and established property. i find jammie's situation particularly ironic given her heritage. there are arguments to be made for property, it's one way to manage materials that are finite in quantity. i'm not here to argue for the right of people to go into a store and steal gum, as much as the record labels would like to say that file sharing is no different. that would decrease the amount of gum they have to sell.

rather the record labels would have me believe that every time you copy a song, that's one less song they can sell. it isn't true at all- a more honest argument can be made that if sharing was decriminalized, it would help sales of records. but the industry with its tight control would not have that tight control. try that with gum. these arguments are made not based on the finite reality of gum but patterns of 0's and 1's- patterns from which any number of copies can be made. every time you double your storage you double how many copies you can make, then the limit becomes how many things you can enjoy. the rest is the imaginary ideal of copyright- and it's not useless either.

from the beginning, american copyright (indeed all american intellectual property) was based on a very simple idea: congress may grant a "monopoly" limited in scope (noncommercial use was not always restricted) and duration (originally 14 years in the united states, with a single possible extension for a total of 28 years) to encourage artists to create and charge for access to these limited monopolies. above all they stopped commercial publishers from competing unfairly. also- unless you bothered to copyright your work, (and unless it was commercially worth the investment of a registration fee) your work was still public domain- everyone had a right to it. this is a system that recognized that all artists build on public ideas, and eventually the public should be able to build on their works in kind. it was not a one-way street like it is now.

in that world, disney was able to get all his best ideas from other people, without paying for licenses. he was able to do legally what today would be criminal, and when he died his corporation turned his legacy into an empire that first and foremost made certain no one would ever have the rights he did. they would steal from the future to lock up the past. there is great hypocrisy and imbalance at work. the really astonishing thing is that people have had so much kool aid to drink that someone who would never be likely to have 2 million dollars gets fined that for copying 24 songs- based on an investigation and so-called evidence that reeks of housewives playing private detective... and some people think this is actually a reasonable idea.

people have been conditioned to take this concept of "intellectual property" much too literally. it was not ever written to make a song into a pack of gum, and the only people rewriting it that way are the same people trying to tell you this is the way things are- these are the rules. they would know the rules, they made them up, and it was only a decade or two ago before they made sampling illegal, too. that's more than 2 centuries of sampling being fair use. freedom keeps eroding, and the public is defending the people taking their rights away, all for the sake of artists. meanwhile, the artists want to put their videos on youtube and the labels force their removal.

i'm all for making this issue about the artists- if the artists had a say, the artists would let me do a lot more than the labels ever will. the artists are not out for blood. if this was about the artists, that would be an "extra" $150,000 in jammie's pocket, as we know that at least richard marx would not have sued her for that. the riaa is a faceless machine, and it's this machine we're arguing the rights of, not ours, and not the artists. give the artists their faces back, and this will get a lot more honest and a lot more reasonable a lot faster. i would never support an artist whose idea of justice is anything akin to what we've seen this year- and i don't have to. i support cc licensed music. i buy cc licensed music, because cc licensed music allows the artist to decriminalize sharing. that's the kind of artist i want to do business with. the kind that wants to do business with me, not exploit my inability to find a good lawyer.

as for riaa label music, i got bored with the same old pap. if i was bored before capitol v. thomas, i'm far more bored with riaa label music now. i feel deeply sorry for any artist that is still trapped with the (m)usic (a)nd (f)ilm (i)ndustries of (a)merica- most of us can avoid being exploited by them, although few or none of the artists can- except the new artists that can avoid them, thanks to the internet. this is not about artists protecting their business. this is about distributors protecting their control. the artist builds his business on art, the distributors have always built a business on controlling distribution. they could make money in more creative, less exploitative ways- as they are not wholly useless to the artists even now- but they do not want to change, they want to keep their empire.

even profit pales next to the merciless seduction of control. it is priceless, and filesharing upsets it- but i'm okay with that. we need to be if we care about having the same rights our parents had- not just to occasionally share music without paying for it- but to do so without getting sued for millions- to do so without warrantless wiretapping- to do so with the same rights to sample that disney had. do you think steamboat willie was an original work? it was a derivative (a "ripoff") of something that had only only been released two years prior. today he would pay $150,000 for that, and people would ask him if he really believed he had a right to steal steamboat bill.

at any rate, those were saner times for copyright. patents were not as ridiculous as they are now, but some of the arguments were similar. they were arguments warned about by that old pirate, thomas jefferson. people are taught to believe this is about the internet when it's just as much about the constitution (i'm not referring to the first amendment or any other part of the bill of rights, although people should think about the spirit of that law as well.)

but don't take my word for it. take the word of the american graphophone company, the predecessor of columbia records- in response to claims by music composers that musical recording and player piano rolls could be used to infringe on their rights:

"all talk about 'theft,' [...] is the merest claptrap, for there exists no property in ideas musical, literary or artistic, except as defined by statute."

how much (and how little) it's changed! i wish jammie thomas could have simply replied "that is the merest claptrap..." she's fighting against the same argument that would have shut down the recording industry that's suing her today- but congress decided that some things were more important than copyright. i find myself agreeing with that sentiment not only for the native americans (as if we should be lecturing them on taking what's not yours!) but for everyone in this nation of perfect control that jefferson feared.