Law Suit = Ruined Life

The RIAA has started taking it upon themselves to sue the pants off of people, 24,000 of them. Now, it is understandable that they would want to be sure that their assets are safe and not being taken away, but who are They to do it? They simply seem to be the parasite of the music world, a parasite more powerful than the host, which is the music labels and the artists. The reason I bring this up is because the first person to lose a case to them was Jammie Thomas.

She has a website up that's asking for donations to help her pay the 222,000 dollars that the court ordered her to pay. She makes about 36,000 a year. 222,000 dollars means that if she could only pay 5000 a year until it is paid off she'll have payments for 44 years! She'll be 74 by then!

So in order to take the edge off of the suit, she is asking for donations and they can be given to her here:

www.freejammie.com

These websites have more information about the RIAA, what music labels are associated with them and copyright issues. Go sign the petition:

http://w2.eff.org/share/petition/

www.boycottriaa.com

I have read that Jammie has asked that the judge overturn the verdict since the total worth of the songs equals about $24 in legal downloads. And she is also appealing the case, so perhaps things will turn out good for her and she will no longer need donations. I'll give an update on whether she replies or not.

Finally, I find it interesting that the RIAA offered a Clean Slate policy that would grant immunity to the people who vowed to never download copyrighted material and destroyed any that they previously had. Doing so meant signing a legally binding affidavit that didn't actually protect those that signed such documents totally. They recently did away with the program however. Here's the full story:

http://www.news.com/2100-1027-5195301.html