My take on the recent RIAA ruling

So not long ago, a jury ruled against Jammie Thomas, and ordered her to pay the RIAA $222,000 for a total of 24 songs that she "made available" via Kazaa. The judge had instructed the jury that "making the content available for download" did indeed construe copyright violation. The judge has since made a statement that maybe he erred in that instruction and a retrial may be in order.

An interesting note, though, was that the RIAA took it from "making available" to "disseminating" by running MediaSentry, a program which downloaded the 24 songs from Jammie's computer to their own.

Now, at $9250 per song, what I'm dying to know is... if the RIAA downloaded 24 songs from her computer, and did not own the copyright to even ONE of those songs, they are technically violating someone else's copyright. Why aren't they being sued for downloading content that doesn't belong to them???

I am *so* tired of this racketeering by the RIAA and MPAA. Treating customers like thieves is utterly despicable. I wish only karma upon them.

Comments

Banjo said…
No kidding.

How about these anti-piracy ads that you are forced to watch on DVDs and Blu-ray?

I'm sick of seeing all sorts of disclaimers on video formats these days. Like the FBI warnings, public announcement services, disclaimers where people's opinions does not reflect that of the studios and more in multi-languages.

What an annoyance it is for the consumers to be treated like thieves.
May 15, 2008 at 9:38 PM
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