Another butterfly, another wheel

So Jammie Thomas-Rasset, who appealed after being told to pay $220,000 for illegally sharing a couple of dozen music tracks via P2P, now faces an increased award of $1.92 million.

Both Thomas-Rasset and the twelve idiots jury members are bystanders in a war between the entertainment industry and reality. History will recognise them as blameless. Others will not be so fortunate. The RIAA was a nuisance when it hindered progress towards legal online music sales and struck out blindly at any business or service that could conceivably facilitate unlicensed sharing, but now that it’s attacking the general public it needs to be put down.

More culpable still are the courts handing down these judgements. ‘But it’s the law’ is a Nuremberg defence. In the face of such onslaughts against ordinary citizens, lawyers worthy of the name need to consider the kind of action taken by their counterparts in less mature democracies: resignations, walk-outs, refusals to cooperate or to recognise the court. To say, ‘Well, ma’am, all you did was share a few songs, and you’ve given evidence that you didn’t even know how it worked, but the law says you have to pay the man, and these twelve idiots good people and true have worked out the bill at two million bucks, so you and your kids are poor now’ is the action of a lackey, not a judge.

The EFF’s estimable Fred von Lohmann finds two grounds on which Thomas-Rasset might appeal. He’s pissing in the wind. This is now an issue of human rights, not legal technicalities. Those within the justice system who have the decency to see how wrong all this has become will only make a big enough difference fast enough if they abandon argument in favour of resistance.

And those who don’t, including anyone acting for the RIAA or other plaintiffs in personal filesharing cases, must ask themselves whether they can claim any longer to be playing a part in a legitimate system, or are simply doing wrong. The law in this area is inadequate and inappropriate to its task; to continue to uphold and exploit it is morally indefensible. This bandwagon must be stopped.

Tagged as: Copyright, Internet, Law, Media