Cringesters sing the RIAA blues

Last week I promised to round up some of the reactions to my piece about the latest verdict in file-swappin’ mama Jammie Thomas-Rassett’s seemingly endless battle against what’s left of the recording industry (“RIAA vs the rest of us: The same old song”). In that one, I wrote about T-Rassett’s third consecutive loss and how it might just be time for her to pay the fine and let a more worthy opponent carry the fight.

The residents of Cringeville had a few things to say about that.

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Cringester K. L. asks why Thomas-Rassett’s lawyers are so lame:

I can’t quite figure out why, after several tries, none of her lawyers could find a jury that was simply eager to screw the RIAA. I’m a bit surprised that none of the juries involved simply decided that the RIAA’s entire case was unreasonable, and decided to nullify the entire case by finding her “not guilty”. Perhaps her lawyers are hoping that, if it goes before enough juries, one of them will do just that.

I suspect it’s because the record company attorneys are very good at weeding out potential jurors who have any kind of techno savvy whatsoever, leaving us with people who firmly believe that downloading a 99-cent song from the InterWebs is tantamount to grand larceny. But they have to run out of those people eventually -– possibly by trial No. 317.

Frequent correspondent B. B. says it’s not the attorneys who are lame, it’s the defendants:

I think the people you cited in your column were more guilty of stupidity than anything else. Jammie Thomas-Rassett’s alleged crime was committed several years after it was fairly public knowledge that P2P users can be identified. … As for the Harvard graduate student [actually Boston University student Joel Tenenbaum], if he used an address in the University’s domain, he was doubly stupid. Colleges and Universities have long since been bludgeoned into making credible efforts to stem “illegal Internet activity” of their students. That would certainly include throwing anyone on the sword to keep from becoming co-defendants in the lawsuits that are routinely filed on behalf of copyright holders.

In other words, he adds, if you’re gonna try and game the system, do it the smart way using anonymizing BitTorrent clients, not P2P nets. (Note: You did not read this here.)

Reader C. B. describes himself as “copyright agnostic,” but believes I’m giving in too easily with my advice to Jammie Thomas-Rassett to just pay the money and move on.

Isn’t it possible that Ms. Thomas has a little friendly backing? We’ve all sat on the sidelines all these years watching the Free Software Foundation among others, and rooting enough for them that we eventually soften up the would-be monopolists. Yes, if you’d included a lead on how to contribute to the Thomas-RIAA defense, I guess I’d contribute myself…

Actually, I’ve done that in the past when writing about Jammie’s battles with the RIAA; the Free Jammie store on Café Press is still open for business, where they’re selling T-shirts, hats, and thongs for a song, so to speak. The site originally set up to accept donations for her defense is now defunct, but you can always help by supporting the nonprofit Electronic Frontier Foundation, which does great work on behalf of people like Jammie and countless others, or Ray Beckerman’s Recording Industry vs. the People blog (ditto). There — have I sufficiently helped you distribute your money?

A different reader with the same initials (C. B.) calls the recording industry lazy, greedy, drunk with power, and out of touch:

The RIAA has always been isolated and out of touch.  The music industry itself has sold us inferior goods for years. I worked in the service end of the recording industry, and I can tell you that mixes done in someone’s basement have made it to distribution without a professional engineer’s touch. To me, the value in a produced bit of music are in the professionals and real studio equipment that goes into recording a quality piece. But the RIAA was a misguided entity long before home computers existed. This is just more of the insane money grab they have always attempted.

Senior correspondent D. C. sees the RIAA as a branch of the Mafia, strong-arming consumers into paying “protection” for stuff they otherwise wouldn’t want. He writes:

…citizens can read books without having to buy the book, and in many libraries LP’s, CD’s, and DVD’s … can be taken home without pay, it is obvious that internet users [are] downloading songs from websites…[for] personal use. I do not believe most users would actually go out and buy the individual song, because they do not want the entire album. At age 93 I don’t see anything on the market I’d download, even if they paid me.

Finally, Cringe fan D. B. checks in from Planet Tinfoil, where he’s unearthed the “hidden truth”:

The RIAA picks the cases they’re most likely to win, then secretly funds the defendants in these cases.  And naturally, they win.

So that who’s been buying all those Free Jammie thongs. Mystery solved.

Got strong opinions about copyrights, the RIAA, file sharing, or geeky undergarments? Post them below or email me: cringe@infoworld.com.

This article, “Cringesters sing the RIAA blues,” was originally published at InfoWorld.com. Follow the crazy twists and turns of the tech industry with Robert X. Cringeley’s Notes from the Field blog, and subscribe to Cringely’s Notes from the Underground newsletter.