Jammie Thomas gets new lawyers
ALLEGED FILE SHARER Jammie Thomas has a new team of lawyers for her retrial who believe they can put the music industry in the dock.
According to Wired, Thomas's former lawyer had to quit because the pro-bono case was all pro and no bono.
The RIAA wanted Thomas to have to face it alone in court rather than get a new legal team. If there were a legal sanction for her to be bound and gagged during her retrial we guess they would have plumped for that too. The judge hearing the case is likely to approve the new team.
Thomas's new legal team includes Texan Kiwi Camara and a pair of Harvard law school mates, Joe Sibley and former Netscape engineer Tim Nyberg.
They are all students of professor Charles Nesson, founder of the Berkman Center for Internet and Society at Harvard University. Nesson is currently defending a former Boston University student the RIAA has accused of file sharing
Camara thinks the key to victory is to attack the RIAA's litigation strategy, which has spawned about 30,000 lawsuits over five years, most of which have settled out of court for a few thousand dollars. The idea is that the RIAA has no real evidence against file sharers, it just strong-arms them with threats until they pay up. µ
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Our defense is that the RIAA is aggressively protecting their copyrights. Looks like it's time for a new team already.
I dislike the RIAA as much as the next person, but if I were a juror I certainly would not deliver a not guilty verdict based on that argument.
The reason why the RIAA's way of extorting money out of people is so wrong is that they give you a finacial carrot and a financial stick.
Its either, we are youing to sue you and win for $1,000,000 and your going to have to pay all of the expenses, lose your partner, house, car and all of your money. Of you can just pay us $5,000 now to go away. PS: We dont have any hard evidence that you actually illegally downloaded those songs, but we are going to confuse everyone in court and make it look like we actuallay have proof.
Andy
One of the last great things about america is if you do not agree with whatever made up grievances a person is being charged with, you have the freedom to say not guilty on account the grievance is stupid.
An example of this would be Joe Soandso is brought in for jay walking. You the juror feel jay walkers are nifty so you state not guilty on the grounds the law against jay walking was written by morons with money.
Aggressively protecting their copyrights is very different from using strongarm tactics and intimidation. And, similar to mogwai's post, the jurors have a right to convict the RIAA if they deem it appropriate. That's what jurors are for.
The RIAA's actions are parallel to a protection racket.
"pay us $1,000 or we'll sue you for $10,000" is little different from a thug saying "pay us $1,000 to 'protect' your store or we'll do $10,000 worth of damage".
The growing movement of the large corporations to usurp individual rights and replace them with the old system of labor exploitation is the real issue. When private business can convict citizens and impose their own interpretation of human rights the gas chambers and concentration camps are just around the corner.
Thread closed. Move along now. You don't have to go offline , but you can't stay here.
Godwin's Law Clerk
The RIAA needs as much light shone on its extortion racket as possible. (^_^)
Being ACCUSED of any crime is a lose -lose situation in the U.S. Sample: A Cop doesnt like your attitude so he just makes up (fakes) a charge against you and takes you to jail on friday. Well you can't get to see a Judge till monday so you spend 2 days in jail(if your too poor to have bail/bond money),you still spend hours in jail and be pictured and printed even if you do have bail money. Then you take time off work(lose money) to show up for the court date set by Judge . So even IF your found 'Not Guilty' it still cost you time and money. Police like it so much this being how it is, they have a Joke saying they brag around : 'You can beat the ticket ,but you can't beat the ride!' ha ha .
Anotherwords they humiliated and detained you and cost you ...just because they can!
Now here is what should be done to make it FAIR and JUST . When you get found Not Guilty , The court should PAY YOU for the unnessary damage,time,money it cost you. But this will never happen because the current system is set up FOR the system and NOT FOR YOU !
riaa Is Terrorist Organization & NOT One word of Authority Is true Until YOU say So. It Dosn't OWN copyrights, It claimed to Control Angle of Cut In Record Grooves, To Standardize Industry. Like USB Standards Owning everthing digital or Ultee' ,For Gods sake.
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The RIAA lawyers forget that they are officers of the court and members of the bar of the United States District Court. For advocating the dstruction of american jurisprudence and the federal rules of civil procedure, they should all be disbarred.
Great, your example works in a criminal setting. In that system, the case must be proved beyond reasonable doubt, and to that end you can have the court appoint you a lawyer (a 'public defender'). Ok, he'll be overworked and underpaid, but it's someone.
In a civil trial, the evidence is balance of probabilities - they only need to prove their case to be stronger than yours. You also don't get a lawyer. If you can't afford one, you don't have one. Civil litigation is also fantastically complex (I've been involved in a few copyright, and trademark cases)
The RIAA et al would actually HATE for these cases to suddenly be tried under criminal law. Heck, they hate civil law badly enough that they've tried to avoid taking it to court with a named defendant enough (but they should learn how properly to do it from Davenport Lyons).
Mr Toder claims he's spent $130,000 in billable hours on this case. Considering his total activities during the case can pretty much be summed as 'enter, sit down, wait til the end of the day then leave' you wonder what it's been on. Although his lack of interest might be something to do with him trying to drop this case since before the first trial. He's a maritime lawyer, not a c/t/p one.
We will see how this goes though, now she has a lawyer interested in more than some media attention, and racking up the billable hours.
“We think the jury is going to reject this strategy,” Camara said. “The RIAA strategy here is not to try any of these cases.”
Umm. But they ARE trying THIS one. Aren't the jurors going to think, "we're supposed to rule on THIS one"?