SOURCE
"The Recording Industry of America today won its first jury trial against an individual accused of illegally downloading music.

A federal jury fined Jammie Thomas, 30, of Minnesota $220,000 in damages to the six record labels suing her for copyright violation. Thomas will pay $9,250 for each of the 24 songs the prosecution focused on for the case. The RIAA alleges she shared over 1,702 songs in all over the Kazaa peer-to-peer network. Read more about the case here.

Thomas denied any wrongdoing over the course of the three day trial. Her attorney, Brian Toder, argued that although the prosecution had fingered her screen name and IP address, they had little proof it was Thomas behind the keyboard — or that music was actually shared with anyone over the account. Toder suggested Thomas may have been victim to a spoofer, cracker or other malicious intrusion of her home network.

US District Judge Michael Davis ruled the labels did not have to prove the songs were transfered for Thomas to be held liable. The act of making the songs available is enough to constitute copyright infringement, he said.

Davis instructed the 12-member jury the range of the fine was $750 to $150,000 per song."

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I think that we should all send an e-mail to the RIAA webmaster and tell the RIAA to go fuck themselves and drop dead and junk like that.

Keep on downloading; it's none of their fucking business what you do on your own home private computer (stress on the word "private")

Hmm. I note $9,250 for each of 24 songs, as contrasted with the minimum that could have been $750 for each.

Huge battle, perhaps not the war, but a HUGE battle won by the bad guys. Could be a landmark case in several respects.
Add it to the DMCA and the hammers that have come down on file-sharing networks themselves.

This case BEGS to be appealed on several levels.

What I found interesting was that not one word of this trial was even mentioned on any major television network PRIOR to the decision, and since then our own Canadian CTV network announced this major victory for the record industry....they didn't distinguish between the riaa or the cria.....I believe our cria up here is going to try to use this to their advantage as well.

No story at the Washington Post. The NY Times has a place to comment on what you think of the recording industry's "strategy", but the Jammie Thomas story is "See related article." Nothing in the LA Times.

Looks to me like the U.S. mainstream media is ignoring it.

Hello from Spain. (Europe)
Spain: P2p legal. private copy legal 100%.

Desde España os mando un saludo; me parece vergonzoso; creo que desde mi humilde opinión se debería habilitar un paypal para ayudar económicamente a Jamie, y despues hacer un autentico boycott-Riaa y NO COMPRAR NI UN SÓLO DISCO de esas compañias que han arruinado a esta valiente madre soltera que niega las acusaciones.
¿Estas son las tácticas del mafioso presidente de la RIAA, mister Cary Sherman? ¿Extorsionar económicamente hasta arruinar con cantidades escandalosas de dinero? Por lo visto slae más barato entrar en una tienda de música y robar el cd... sale más barato.
Podéis contar con el apoyo incondicional de internautas españoles (spanish) que luchan en la red contra estos abusos.
y pido disculpas por no saber expresarme in english.
mermadon.

comic anti copyright:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/8081021@N02/483083754/

loosely translated

Hello from Spain. (Europe)
Spain: Legal P2p. legal private Copy 100%.

From Spain I send a greeting to you; it seems to me shameful; I believe that from my humble opinion a paypal would be due to qualify to help Jamie economically, and later to do I authenticate boycott-Riaa and NOT TO BUY NOR ONLY a DISC of those companies that have ruined this brave unmarried mother who denies the accusations.
These are the tactics of the gangster president of the RIAA, to mister Cary Sherman? Extorsionar economically until ruining with scandalous amounts of money? By the sight slae more cheap to enter a music store and to rob the CD… leaves more cheap.
You can count on the unconditional support of Spanish internauts (spanish) who fight in the network against these abuses.
and I request excuses by not knowing how to express to me in english.
mermadon.

comic anti copyright:
-------------------------------------
Gracias mucho por sus pensamientos y apoye a mi amigo español.
~Code

loosely translated

Hello from Spain. (Europe)
Spain: Legal P2p. legal private Copy 100%.

From Spain I send a greeting to you; it seems to me shameful; I believe that from my humble opinion a paypal would be due to qualify to help Jamie economically, and later to do I authenticate boycott-Riaa and NOT TO BUY NOR ONLY a DISC of those companies that have ruined this brave unmarried mother who denies the accusations.
These are the tactics of the gangster president of the RIAA, to mister Cary Sherman? Extorsionar economically until ruining with scandalous amounts of money? By the sight slae more cheap to enter a music store and to rob the CD… leaves more cheap.
You can count on the unconditional support of Spanish internauts (spanish) who fight in the network against these abuses.
and I request excuses by not knowing how to express to me in english.
mermadon.

comic anti copyright:
-------------------------------------
Gracias mucho por sus pensamientos y apoye a mi amigo español.
~Code

"No story at the Washington Post. The NY Times has a place to comment on what you think of the recording industry's "strategy", but the Jammie Thomas story is "See related article." Nothing in the LA Times.

Looks to me like the U.S. mainstream media is ignoring it."

====================

The RIAA told the mainstream to sit on the story and pretend it didn't happen because they know that either way, it makes them look bad.

And it does.

I feel sorry for Ms. Thomas, (maybe she can do something on appeal - who knows? Maybe someone outside her window with a laptop really did hack into her wireless network, discovered her username and went to town on Kazaa)

...but in the end this will actually be a win for our side - ESPECIALLY if we can get enough sheeple to pay attention.

Hmm. I hope nobody will be construing Jammie's loss as representing some sort of sacrificial-lamb value to rally the troops against the RIAA.
(There are some likely pitfalls to doing that.)

Her loss is an evil done to us all. (Even IF she actually is guilty of the filesharing deed - which seems likely given the evidence.)

I most certainly do want the public to know about this case. Knowledge is power. Knowledge of the evil deeds done by the RIAA helps OUR side.

I don't see how you could term this as a "sacrificial-lamb" thingy.

But please feel free to enlighten us on any pifalls involved if our side uses this story as fodder for education of the public.

Regarding: (trying to) use Jammie's court-case loss as fodder for educating the public

Oh, goodness, where to start and what not to include. Whew!

I'll try to go for my best shot first.
Look, I knew we've all been "hungry" for an over-due prospect to foster awareness to others of how evil the empire is . . . but, baby, this ain't the one!
You yourself already broached the biggest drawback: that she likely WAS guilty "given the evidence" (and twelve jurors must have likewise decided her side of the story was relatively weak and unconvincing). That's a good tipping point as to what the "sheeple's" reaction might be to our attempts to sway THEIR attention over to "the bad guys" (the really bad guys, the music industry). It could turn out that we would have to spend too much time and effort working to divert them from a conception of Jammie mostly as a pathetic figure that dabbled in wrongdoing and ended up paying an inordinately high price for her indiscretion. That can hinder our goals.
Jammie will not make a good poster girl for our side. (Or for ANYbody's side, for that matter, as I'll explain later.)
You've got to visualize the public mind-set here; that very limiting aspect (perception of obvious guilt) can easily over-shadow what we here want to emphasize, and that, of course, is how the RIAA has been oppressive and unfair in many ways for such a long time (such as, blah, blah, etc., etc.,) so off we go on what the average Joe already may tune out because he continues to focus on that lady who got stiffed for too huge a penalty really DID disobey the law. This may be too tainted a condition to overcome; and he may "hear" lots of stuff from our side about how many ways the RIAA does wrong things, but how impacting will that be? He may "hear" some of what we say as being sort of 'rationale' or 'crybaby', because it might be hard to get Jammie's specific situation out of the forefront of his mind.

What I'm talking about COULD very well be the public's reaction, couldn't it? Are we willing to take a chance that it won't be?

It's simple to preach to the choir. It's a lot harder to preach to the masses.

Here's another worthy admonition: Choose your battles carefully.

Without elaborating further, the bottom line here is that Jammie's court case does not translate well to what WE want a case to be to represent the litany of our laments against the music cartel. Several other potentially better and high-profile examples would have been more appropriate for our side, but, sadly, they did not go to a jury. (The labels didn't WANT those cases to go to a jury, either.)
Yes, I know, we've waited for so long, but we need a better court case to come along.
Or we could try to use some other approach, a different tactic (to get public attention to what they ought to know about).
However, if we attempt to "capitalize" on JAMMIE (spoken with higher volume) as embodying a poor-thing victim of the big bad RIAA, with us trying to launch from her experience to the most important issues relative to the RIAA's bad-ass deeds, it could be counter-productive.

You know, it's really weird or ironic, but the outcome of dwelling on this case or trying to construe it as a value issue for OUR side is probably not any more promising than an attempt on the part of the RIAA would be if THEY emphasized it to try to help THEIR image. This really is a kind of lose/lose event, and the best thing would have been that it never happened. But, since we can't alter reality, we at least have to face facts: This is not one of those things that can actually benefit us in the long run.

At this point, I could discuss some additional reasons, but this is about the time I'd prefer autodidact or someone to chime in and save me from having to write too much. I've been told that if I carry on too long, people tune out, anyway.

Re:
"...but in the end, this will actually be a win for our side - ESPECIALLY if we can get enough sheeple to pay attention."

It would be better not to launch from a position of relative weakness. We need a court case where the defendent's guilt is more in doubt. (That's not Jammie.)

Hey, what we really need is Ray Beckerman's blessing for an independent musician to bring a credible discrimination suit against the RIAA. Does anyone know an indie artist who might qualify?