Friday, October 12, 2007

Single Mom Sued by RIAA

OCT 2007 - The RIAA won their first trial by jury of yet another single mom, this one a native american no less, for $220,000 over illegally sharing (or providing to be shared) 24 songs.

That's over $9,000 a song.


None of them were even any good. These are the songs that you get on the $5 CDs at Freddies, WallyWorld, and gas stations. Shit like Guns 'n Roses, old Janet Jackson, and Journey. In my opinion these songs are all worthless. Nearly every one is played insestantly on the lamest radio stations that fuel most middle class work-days and restaurant kitchens.


What makes this outrageous is that for the jury of peers, this was close to the least amount the woman could have been charged, if they were to convict her guilty - which they did. The record companies could have got a couple million for these outdated tracks, rather than just take their time to create some new and original content for their neglected market.



For the RIAA, the issue is clear-cut. Jammie Thomas, a single mother living in Brainerd, Minnesota, was the Charter subscriber associated with the IP address 24.179.199.117 on February 21, 2005, which is when SafeNet discovered tereastarr@KaZaA logged onto KaZaA with over 1,700 recordings in a shared folder. According to the RIAA, Thomas has used the "tereastarr" nickname online for "many years," leading them to believe that she was indeed responsible for "distributing" the recordings.

- arstechnica



*The RIAA was represented by Capitol Records, Sony BMG, Arista Records, Interscope Records, Warner Bros. Records and UMG Recordings

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