Fri Oct 05, 2007 8:35 am

Does anyone know if a defense fund has been set up for the victim - Ms. Thomas? I went to the EFF website and couldn't find anything.

Fri Oct 05, 2007 9:34 am

	Mikuro wrote:
	Quote: The record labels were able to mount a case without any physical evidence ............. Ouch.

and that's the reason this was such a bad precident. If you know anything about IP spoofing this should scare the heck out of you.

Fri Oct 05, 2007 10:43 am

This SHOULD get overturned on appeal. Don't get me wrong, it SHOULD have been dismissed before trial. Heck, without evidence, there wouldn't have even been a suppression hearing, it simply should have been summarily dismissed. I'm not a huge fan of the EFF...I think they often pop off at the mouth about stuff that they don't have a good grasp on. But THIS is the type of case that they should latch on to and get out there to gin up public support and help get this woman a good attorney. Wow...unbelievable.

Fri Oct 05, 2007 11:19 am

	dhp wrote:
	The point is I think she's probably guilty. That's not to say the penalty isn't outrageous, or that the RIAA isn't shooting itself in the foot.

She's as guilty as probably 99% of the people reading this article. That's the problem. The RIAA is cutting of its nose to spite it's own face. They won't stop downloading this way--in fact, I'm sure it's contributing to further piracy through this stupid action. 24 songs? Why a single mother? None of this makes them look good--it makes them appear to be exactly what they apparently are--selfish, greedy leeches, who are not into the business of selling music, but stealing. I have been kind of neutral on this subject until now, but seeing this suit really riles me up.

-Jon

Fri Oct 05, 2007 11:56 am

	Dreadnought wrote:
	Does anyone know if a defense fund has been set up for the victim - Ms. Thomas? I went to the EFF website and couldn't find anything.

The Victim? Really? She's a victim now that she's been convicted of criminal activity? I don't agree with the harshness of the penalty, but I do agree that mass file sharing is a crime and needs to be dealt with.

I'm sorry, but the "poor single mother" (with a BA in Business Administration??) thing doesn't get any points with me. If this was a cocky 22 year old, it wouldn't be any different. You got caught stealing (or allowing others to steal). Deal with it.

Fri Oct 05, 2007 12:06 pm

	dhp wrote:
	Is it possible to "spoof" a MAC address? And what about the username, which happens to be the same one Ms. Thomas uses for lots of other sites/services. And she just coincidentally replaced her hard drive a few weeks after being sued?

MAC-Yes

User Name-Yes

Do I think she did it, yeah. There were a number of odd things, like the replacing of the hard drive.

But to get a conviction I would like to see a lot more hard evidance. This was mostly circumstantial IMO.

Sat Oct 06, 2007 3:45 am

There seems to be a lot of smoke blowing around here. Before making definitive comments, it might be good to go to the paper's website, register, search on the defendant's name, and read all the articles. (I did.) FWIW, the link in the TMO article doesn't work, as access to the newspaper article requires registration.

It should also be noted that Ms. Thomas was accused of providing/offering copyright music for others to download via peer-to-peer. Indeed, the jury found that she had done just that. From one of the last articles in the Duluth News Tribune:

"A jury of 12 Northern Minnesotans sent that message to a Brainerd, Minn., woman — and perhaps put a chill into others — by deciding she’s liable for $222,000 in damages for willfully committing copyright infringement by distributing 24 songs on the KaZaA peer-to-peer file sharing network.

Capitol Records Inc., Sony BMG Music Entertainment, Arista Records LLC, Interscope Records, Warner Bros. Records Inc. and UMG Recordings are the prevailing parties in the lawsuit against Jammie Thomas."

acdc1174 wrote:

This SHOULD get overturned on appeal. Don't get me wrong, it SHOULD have been dismissed before trial. Heck, without evidence, there wouldn't have even been a suppression hearing, it simply should have been summarily dismissed. I'm not a huge fan of the EFF...I think they often pop off at the mouth about stuff that they don't have a good grasp on. But THIS is the type of case that they should latch on to and get out there to gin up public support and help get this woman a good attorney. Wow...unbelievable.

acdc1174, are you an attorney? If so, could you explain what rules of evidence would have led the judge to throw out the evidence of the IP & MAC addresses, username, the songs found on her HD, etc? I'm not an attorney, but several have told me that, in US jurisprudence, questions of fact are for juries to decide. Wouldn't a judge have to consider how a jury would be likely to act in deciding whether to dismiss a suit for lack of evidence? Apparently, the evidence was sufficient for the jury to decide for the plaintiffs. If the jury had thought that the evidence was insufficient, they would have decided for the defendant. Correct me if I'm wrong--if you are an attorney, you'll know much more than I do, but, isn't the standard of proof in a civil case "preponderance of evidence"? The standards are not the same as in a criminal court ("beyond reasonable doubt"), if I understand correctly. Isn't that why OJ could be found responsible for the death of his wife in a civil court, despite having been acquitted in a criminal court?

One interesting note is that, after she replaced the HD on her computer, she loaded something like 2,000 songs in 2 days. She claims that they were all ripped from CDs. (I couldn't quickly find if she had produced the CDs.) That might be possible. If she spent 12 hours a day ripping songs, that would be one song every 43 seconds.

From another article in the newspaper (copied here for your convenience):

"In reaching their verdict, jurors obviously didn’t believe Thomas, who testified Wednesday that she had never heard of KaZaA and never used the peer-to-peer file sharing service on her computer.

But a computer security expert for the recording industry said all computer forensic evidence points to Thomas being guilty of copyright infringement.

Investigators for the plaintiffs provided jurors evidence that the IP address (a number assigned to a subscriber connected to an Internet Service Provider), a modem Media Access Control address and Thomas’ username all link her to the pirating.

In his defense of Thomas, Toder said he and his client can’t explain what happened but that it wasn't proven that his client shared copyrighted files. Toder offered theories that there could have been a computer party at Thomas’s home or someone could have been outside her window with a laptop."

Go to the newspaper site for more.

Whether one likes it or not, the jury may well have made the right decision based upon the facts in the case. Ms. Thomas may, indeed, be "guilty" (in a civil, not criminal sense--Thanks, Bosco, for reminding us of the difference). While they may often act like bullies, that doesn't make the record companies wrong by definition.

Sat Oct 06, 2007 3:07 pm

JonG: You try that "single mom" stealing donuts routine at WalMart and tell us how it works out for you. The "smallest among us". Dude, the gender feminists who run your college's humanities department are going to rip you a new one. 1/2 of new mothers in America are "single mothers". Every time I see the reference to Ms. Thomas as a single mother, it reinforces what a flaming turd burglar her lawyer is. "Hey Mr. Reporter, make sure to note that Ms. Thomas boyfriend promised her he loved her to get her in the sack, then ran off with another woman when she got pregnant."

And you know, that's a perfect analogy for what the EFF and other copyfight protagonists did to her. "Hey Ms. Thomas, you fight this. We're all behind you and you'll be an important figure in the war for info-communism. Lots of men will love you and you'll never be a single mother again." Funny how Fred von Corksoaker isn't offering to pay the hotel bill now.

And now for another civics lesson so that you kids will have a better sense of when to fight and when to settle when the labels come after you for sharing with 1 million of your closest MySpace friends... In a civil trial, the jury is first tasked with finding that the defendant is or is not liable. If they find that the defendant is liable, they are then tasked with awarding compensatory and/or punitive damages. Punitive damages for copyright infringement can vary wildly per instance -- by statute. Depending on the venue, attorney fees may/must be awarded by the judge to the winner, aka "loser pays". That alone should offer a strong incentive to settle a case. So here we are at 200 large and change based on findings of infringement of a handful of specific songs.

Now, is Ms. Thomas actually on the hook for $222K if she doesn't appeal? Perhaps not. The record companies have a judgement. They can seek to collect it, they can sell it at a discount to a collector, they can use it to negotiate a reduced settlement (while racking up attorney time at $500+/hour). There's another thing the record companies can do here, and my bet is on this direction... They ask her to pay the original $3Kish settlement, sign an agreement to not steal music again, and issue a statement describing how the copyfight pimps at EFF dragged her into this and weren't there for her when she lost. Some of us already know that EFF stands for "chicken $#!%" and such a statement would make more people aware. And besides, if you're stealing music wholesale these days, you're plain ass cheap. You don't even need a credit card to use iTunes Store.

Sat Oct 06, 2007 5:34 pm

Hey Jon... Save me a little trouble here. Paypal me your lunch money and give yourself a wedgie. I mean really, what are you 12? Is everyone who has a different perspective from you a bully? Just an FYI, many participants here know exactly who I am, what I do, and what my chip is in this game. Wanna know what Mr. anonymous Bosco is most proud of? He designs and writes software that is giving a giant boost to Native American early childhood literacy. http://RealeBooks.com if you need that, http://face.RealeLibrary.com if you want to see what the kids are doing with it. He designed and wrote a free screen sharing application that is used weekly by tens of thousands of people. The web page editor at Tucows.com personally uses his foto trimming software for the 75% of simple photo editing tasks that don't need Photoshop. ComponentX.com if you need those or a pouch for Adidas+iPod. And it's in my user profile here, imagine that. So Mr. Bosco is not just some anonymous prick on the iPO message boards.

As to your beef. It's called "confirmation bias". You see an example of the industry going after a weak, defenseless single mother, and you conclude that that's their strategy because you think that's their strategy. If they end up with a sample that matches demographics of our nation, 1/2 the moms they nab will be single moms! It's up to you if you want to be that intellectually dishonest, or if you just want to be ignorant. Few people will recognize it for what it is and call you out on it. Authors of stories like the article above do the same thing and think nothing of it. Heck, do you think Jeff Gamet will correct the error about the RIAA's involvement as an organization in this? I don't. But should you ever find yourself in Ms. Thomas' shoes, just give some thought to the price of being a martyr for the cause. Because the reality is that she shared music, she got caught, she covered it up, and she now owes $222K for not settling. And the people who convinced her take the arrows for them aren't mopping up the mess.

Sat Oct 06, 2007 8:11 pm

Credit me with an assist and it's all good.