Thomas Seeks New Lawyer to Appeal the RIAA
Written by Ben Jones on January 01, 2008Things seem to be going from bad to worse, for Minnesota’s Jammie Thomas. After incurring a hefty judgment in the October trial vs the RIAA, she is now having to look for new representation.
Thomas, served with a $222,000 judgment in October 2007 has recently published to her website, freejammie.com, that her existing lawyers, Brian Toder, and associates, will not be working on her appeal.
Some may see that as a mixed blessing. Toder, a maritime law specialist, was hardly the most appropriate choice of counsel, and this showed in a frankly lackluster non-existent defense.
Ms. Thomas explained to TorrentFreak why she initially chose Toder for the case “I had no idea who could represent me for my case and Mr. Toder was listed on another attorney’s weblog, Mr. Ray Beckerman, as being the attorney from Minnesota who handled cases such as mine.” she also said, “I feel Mr. Toder performed as best he could considering the financial situation I am in and how much I could afford to pay him and his firm.”
The notice on the website says that all the donations will still be used for her new defense: “She [Thomas] confirmed that the donations collected here are still going into her legal defense fund and will be used to finance her appeal. She is now in search of a capable attorney ready to take the appeal either pro bono or for what is raised through fundraising efforts.”
Donation details are at freejammie.com
Previously: TorrentFreak’s Most Memorable Quotes of 2007
Next: Top 10 Most Pirated Movies and TV Shows of 2007
88 Responses
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The RIAA must have ruined here life with a fine like that. Shame on them. It’s not as if she songs she “stole” were worth $222,000! Disgusting.
wow
huh stupid asshole’s (RIAA go to HELL)
Why doesn’t she contact EFF ?
If You Think about the contrasting losses, the RIAA’s loss really pales into nothing compared to Jammies. Jammie has just lost pretty much her whole life, all her monetary plans and life visions, I mean, who CAN afford to lose over 200k? IN comparison, the RIAA has lost 24 songs in sales.
The resounding message is clear.
FUCK OFF RIAA.
You’re not making any new friends, and you’re losing all your old ones.
[quote]IN comparison, the RIAA has lost 24 songs in sales.[/quote]
They didn’t even loose that - they just didn’t gain it like they expected/hoped.
It’s absolutely insane that they expect that RUINING PEOPLE’S LIVES is going to bring their profits up - even more insane that they are willing to do so for their profits.
Come on people - pirate more.
Hope she gets a normal jury and not some stoneage incompitent farmer roughnecks that was biased from the start..
oh and a lawyer that provides defence..
This case is incredibly ugly, there is no way she deserves this huge fine. I donated $100 to her back in October, and I hope it goes well for her. But the legal system in the US seems to be a nightmare, so I don’t know how much hope there is.
So all I can say is: Let’s boycott these scumbags, I haven’t bought anything from the RIAA-labels for the last 5 years. If enough people stop buying their releases, they will go out of business and thus not be able to ruin any more lives.
I look forward to the day most music is released directly by the artists, that is the only model I am willing to support.
Thankyou.
[quote comment="253544"]FUCK OFF RIAA.
You’re not making any new friends, and you’re losing all your old ones.[/quote]
Yup.
This is just another step towards metaphorical death for the RIAA, their methods get them NOWHERE..
And if they don’t stop, they should at least come to a decision (somehow) similar to “If you can’t beat them, join them” - and the first bit is definitely not going to happen.
“f enough people stop buying their releases, they will go out of business and thus not be able to ruin any more lives.”
no your wrong, they will make less money and sue more people so they make more money
It’s ridiculous to contrast RIAA loses versus gains or talk about whether she “deserved” this fine. It’s like you people have no concept of property rights. Life isn’r fair children. Sharing is “stealing” and if you don’t like it, write a letter to your congressman. You can’t justify taking someone’s property just because they’re rich. I think some of you people have watched Robin Hood too many times.
No point writing to congressmen, they’re all bought and sold already.
Sucks to be in America. Feel sorry for you Americans out there.
You should all rise and demand a Democratic system.
RIAA is crowd of sick corrupt dude. You can’t talk with the “company” on a human behavior. Money, money and more money is the only thing RIAA care about. As long RIAA assfuckers is not dead nothing will change.
Money Money Money is the American way. That’s the concern of every company and industry. I don’t understand where all the hate comes from? You guys hate the RIAA because you don’t want to pay for music?
Money Money Money is the American way. That’s the concern of every company and industry. I don’t understand where all the hate comes from. You guys hate the RIAA because you don’t want to pay for music?
[quote comment="253596"]Money Money Money is the American way. That’s the concern of every company and industry. I don’t understand where all the hate comes from. You guys hate the RIAA because you don’t want to pay for music?[/quote]
It’s not people don’t want to pay for music, they do. They just want to be RIPPED OFF!
And who gives a shit about the American way. It’s over for America, your economy is dying.
The only difference between the devil and the riaa is that the devil asks for a contract before he takes your soul.
[quote comment="253596"]Money Money Money is the American way. That’s the concern of every company and industry. I don’t understand where all the hate comes from. You guys hate the RIAA because you don’t want to pay for music?[/quote]
That’s right. Spreading culture should be free. Fuck you, and fuck RIAA.
I’m sorry Malarkey, but I beleive you are wrong.
We hate the RIAA because they are talentless middlemen who will do anything to hold on to their lucrative monopoly. They do not care about music at all, their only interest is in further lining their own pockets. They want us to pay repeatedly for the same content over and over again. They are buying politicians, they are buying laws, and they have no respect for an individual’s fair-use rights. Having bought the politicians, they are now getting the US government to attempt to strong-arm other countries into adhering to the RIAA’s rules by withholding entry to the WTO. Globalisation is great when it benefits the corporations and their share prices, but when it benefits the consumer they are up in arms - for example the case of CD Wow selling out of Hong Kong to the UK and the resultant court case taken by the record label’s body in England. I say fuck them, they have been ripping us off for years and now it’s payback time.
To the commenter above, people hate the RIAA because they ruin peoples lives by abusing the court system with predatory litigation that relies on the ignorance of the justice system instead of it’s own merits. It seems most people understand that but I guess it must be over your head.
Those who equate sharing with stealing are fucking retarded. There is no property taken you dumb shits.
Who gives a crap anyways, the corporate media industries have one foot in the grave, just read their SEC filings. Soon they will have gotten their last drop from the sheeple and will have to go shove a thumb up their ass and sit in the corner while the rest of the economy leaves them behind.
They don’t have a choice anyways, anonymous P2P solutions are gaining new users every day. Once fully adopted, nobody will have to worry about these bullshit lawsuits.
If you want to make a living by commercialization of creative expression, you’d better start looking for another career now. There will always be people who create music, whether for pay or not. The only loss we’ll see is commercial fad pop garbage like Britany Spears and whoever else is the latest fap trophy of the week. Good riddance.
by ‘commenter above’ I meant #14 BTW
ask the eff.org for some lawyer reccomendations! pfff dummies
[quote]Life isn’r fair children. [/quote]
Why just dismiss something that is wrong so easily?
Maybe I’ll use the government to steal 200,000$ from you - you’ll protest, so will others - I’ll dismiss that with “life’s not fair”.
[quote]Sharing is “stealing” and if you don’t like it, write a letter to your congressman. [/quote]
Sharing is not stealing - sharing as a definition, no government can change it.
You have no concept of freedom, child.
[quote]You guys hate the RIAA because you don’t want to pay for music?[/quote]
I hate the RIAA because they persecute people for sharing and ruin lives.
[quote comment="253612"]I’m sorry Malarkey, but I beleive you are wrong.
We hate the RIAA because they are talentless middlemen who will do anything to hold on to their lucrative monopoly. They do not care about music at all, their only interest is in further lining their own pockets. They want us to pay repeatedly for the same content over and over again. They are buying politicians, they are buying laws, and they have no respect for an individual’s fair-use rights.[/quote]
Your newsletter, I want to subscribe… xD
The content creators have fought tooth and nail to oppose every new technological advance that comes along. If they’d had their way, we wouldn’t have VCRs, DVRs, recordable CDs or DVDs. We wouldn’t even have cassettes. They found that they couldn’t stop file sharing, so now they’re trying to sue it out of existance.
$220,000 for a couple dozen songs is ridiculous. No matter how wrong it may have been, there is no way that their “losses” came anywhere near that much. I seem to recall that she was convicted of sharing 24 songs. If you figure that it costs $1 to download a song from iTunes, and you estimate that every song was downloaded 100 times, that puts their losses at $2,400. A much more realistic figure, especially considering that they have no idea how many times the songs were downloaded, or even IF they were downloaded from her system.
Consider the difference in buying a CD online and buying a song. To buy a CD, you go to Amazon.com or one of dozens of other retailers, place the order, pay a single price and you get your music (albeit, not immediately). To buy a song download, you usually have to join a monthly service, pay a monthly fee, install special software, pay for each song, download it in a special DRM crippled format, and you may or may not be able to burn it to CD, or transfer it to a portable music player. That’s IF the service has the songs you want.
Some companies are now selling DRM free songs, but the selection is still pretty slim compared to what’s available on the P2P networks, but it IS a step in the right direction.
Companies could put their entire catalog online for next to nothing and people would buy because it would be legal and risk-free. They’re just too scared of technology to do it.
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