Jammie Thomas is the woman who was slapped (that’s for you Will) with a verdict of $222,000 for distributing 24 songs absent a showing that she in fact distributing even one song.
She’s appealing & she is accepting donations on PayPal from her website HERE. FIGHT the RIAA!
For more of a rant by me
If you’ve followed this at all, she was a user of the long size defunct (thanks to MediaDefender) KaZaA, and had some copyrighted material in her share folder. The judge’s instructions to the jury allowed a finding in favor for the RIAA absent proof that anyone actually downloaded the songs, and the best evidence produced was that some songs were in fact downloaded from some of the thousands of users on the night that Ms. Thomas’ IP address was logged as having been on KaZaA. Copyright requires the reproduction, distribution or public display of a copyrighted work to constitute copyright infringement. The RIAA couldn’t prove she illegally reproduced the works apparently (seemingly the easy argument), and so they got her on a “making available” theory based in case law that the RIAA attorneys knew to have been overruled (Thomas’ attorney had not discovered it in time).
Today, the first Juror finally stood up and spoke out, declaring that “We wanted to send a message.” I guess that message was that the RIAA’s scare tactics are working and that people who have never even been on the internet (the outspoken juror himself has never even used the internet) are deciding the rights of the internet community, and deciding that in a copyright dispute, copyright law goes out the window.
Well, getting to the point, Jammie is fighting back. Her appeal should be easy, but as she was just hit with the prospect of actually paying $222,000, despite only making $38,000 a year, Jammie needs our help. As someone else put it…”the internet got her into this, the internet can get her out.” Jammie is accepting donations on PayPal from her website HERE. Also, Jammie has the EFF on her side writing an amicus brief in support of Jammie’s motion to overturn the verdict.
Regardless of your sentiment on filesharing, as someone who probably spends way too much time on the internet and probably infringes copyrights whether you know it or not, this is a battle we all should be fighting.
