Now that Jaimme Thomas has decided to appeal against the verdict that held her liable to the tune of $220K in the lawsuit against RIAA, the old debate of Copyright laws, Digital Right Management and the RIAA itself have resurfaced.
For starts, the case itself was resolved in a somewhat shady manner. The judge required that the jury merely conclude whether or not the music files were made available for sharing. There was no requirement to prove that the files were actually copied illegally. This is like having to pay a hefty sum for leaving your CD out in public for anyone to copy. How can I be held responsible for what someone else does with my CD? I have no control over that! I am not saying Jaimme Thomas is innocent, but I am arguing that she has not been proven guilty. That in my opinion makes all the difference.
Secondly, there is no way for the recording industry to put any figure on how much money they are losing due to illegal file sharing. So I cannot understand what the basis of the figure $220K which was arrived at. Typically such fines serve two purposes: (a) they serve as a deterrent for against the crime, and (b) compensate the aggrieved party adequately. This fine does neither.
Jaimme Thomas makes $36,000 a year. It will take her over 8 years to pay that sum if she subsists on food stamps, sells her kidney, puts her kids up for adoption and lives under the bridge. Practically speaking, if she is forced to pay the fine, she will have to declare bankruptcy. Hardly fitting punishment for the crime! If over-reaction works, then why not send everyone to the gallows?
Secondly, when the RIAA has no idea how much money it loses to illegal file sharing, and does not know if the the files in question in this case were shared or not, then on what basis can anyone state that the RIAA has been adequately compensated? Especially if the files were never illegally downloaded at all!
If RIAA continues this war path, it will only serve to make people more militant, and serve to detract artists from the recording labels. The internet is serving to be a great equalizer. Artists can now sell their music independently on the internet through sites like Myspace.
So where is RIAA going with this? I suspect to their own demise, or at the least to a self inflicted embarrassment.
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