Although she was stupid enough to escape conviction the first time (2007) she got nailed good this time. Due to IP laws in the US, Jammie Thomas-Rasset (single mom) has to pay a 2.4 milion dollar fine for stealing music from the poor conglomerates who are just trying to earn a fair dollar.
First off she was dumb enough to use a P2P system like Kazaa and secondly she had JUST escaped a massive fine imposed in 2007, which was eventually tossed out as being ?wholly disproportionate? and ?oppressive?.
The fine is absolutely insane though, that is no trecovering a loss, that is using someone to set an example, in this case with fewer songs than most people’s kids probably steal in a day, when their parents aren’t around.
Considering that actually stealing 24 CD’s from a retail outlet and selling them to friends for $5.00 ea would land you a charge of theft under, probably a few community service hours if it is a second offense and a small fine, isn’t 2.5 MILLION a wee bit steep?
With the number of real criminals getting off for mych greater offenses, the only explanation is that she is being used as an example. How can a criminal justice system justify such a penalty for such a minor crime that has not cost anyone much of anything.
Make her pay 10X the CD cost, make her pay $1000 per disk even. Either way, the artists only lost 30 cents on the sale at best, what a sham for the RIAA who needs to sue isngle mom’s for millions in order to stay afloat.
I think record companies are gettign scaredm their monopoly on an industry is dwindling, with mroe and mroe artists producing and releasing their own material, and one prime example against the system by GreenDay who released and album for free download and just went on teh sale of concert tickets, Now THAT’s how an artist keeps his money in his own pocket. Free music, no payments to the RIAA, concert tickets then go to the artist and aren’t used to simply pay back the studio for their costs.
http://www.zitzot.com/single-mother-loses-against-riaa-has-to-pay-24m/