The RIAA defendant who lost her jury trial, Jammie Thomas, is telling her side of the story on p2pnet. Of particular interest: She claims that Best Buy made the decision to replace her hard drive, under the terms of her extended warranty, 6 months before she was served with the RIAA’s subpoena.
I have read many comments and articles that I had my hard drive replaced after I learned of my suit. This could not be further from the truth. What most people don’t know, if I did have my hard drive replaced after I was served the initial complaint to this suit, that would be considered spoliation of evidence, which is a criminally prosecutable offense. All the following dates, keep in mind so you can see the timeline yourself.
The day MediaSentry (the RIAAs ‘investigative’ company) said I was caught illegally sharing songs over KaZaa was February 21, 2005. My computer crashed approximately 2 weeks later. The only reason I know why it crashed is this: my boys were playing a video game and in the middle of some epic battle on their game, the computer froze up, then the screen went black, and in my child’s frustration, the side of the computer was smacked. After that, the computer would not load and I would receive error messages.
I brought my computer into Best Buy for repairs on March 7, 2005. Remember, I brought it in for repairs under the extended warranty, not to have the hard drive replaced. And if anyone who has used a large chain electronic store to repair their electrical equipment knows, these companies do not replace hard drives on the whim of the customer if they have to pay for the hard drive replacement covered under warranty. They try to do whatever is cheaper for the company, which normally means fixing the issues with the hard drive. With my hard drive, the issues couldn’t be fixed so Best Buy, not me but Best Buy, made the decision to replace the hard drive.
The RIAA didn’t subpoena my personal information from Charter until late April 2005, almost 2 months AFTER my hard drive was replaced. As with all RIAA subpoenas to ISPs, I was not notified of the court date when the subpoena was issued. I was only notified after Charter Communications was served with the subpoena. This letter came late April 2005, again 2 months AFTER my hard drive was replaced. I didn’t officially hear from the RIAA until late August 2005, almost 6 months AFTER my hard drive was replaced. The lawsuit itself wasn’t officially started until April 2006, over 1 year AFTER my hard drive was replaced.
As you can see, I did not replace my hard drive to hide any evidence of anything. The replacement wasn’t my choice and I would have to be psychic to know 2 months in advance my personal information was going to be subpoenaed and a year later, I would be sued.
Yes, all this information was given to the jury during the trial. The main problem that arose concerning my hard drive was the date I gave my attorney for when the hard drive was replaced. I didn’t check the records for Best Buy before I gave my hard drive to Mr. Toder, so when I told him the hard drive had been replaced, the date I gave was January or February of 2004. Obviously, after we received all the information from Best Buy, we saw that the hard drive was replaced in March 2005. We also found out I didn’t even own the computer until March 2004, one month after the date I told my attorney.
The “replaced hard drive” was the RIAA’s basis for claiming that Ms. Thomas concealed the evidence of her copyright infringement, and was cited as the reason that the RIAA could not produce any actual evidence of file-sharing. The lawsuit concluded when a judge ordered Ms. Thomas to pay $222,000 for allegedly sharing 24 songs.
This story raises some interesting questions about the implications of surrendering broken hard drives to retailers like Best Buy. Interesting questions, and scary ones, too.
Jammie Thomas: her story in her own words [p2pnet](Thanks, David!)
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@Skeptic:
Of course they can’t indemnify you from your violations of other people’s rights. If you set fire to a parking garage, and my car burns, I can tell you “give me $30k, and I won’t sue you.” I can’t say “give me $30k, and I won’t sue you, and I guarantee that none of the other people who had parked in that garage will sue you either.”
@SKEPTIC -
You seem to have taken my analogy out of context: The huge guy warning had SOLEY to do with her CONTINUING to run p2p software on her machine making mp3′s available to other p2p users after she’d been warned. Basically, the RIAA said we’re coming and MOST smart people either stopped using the software or simply moved the mp3′s to a non-shared directory. She opted not too. Despite the warnings.
But that was only her FIRST stupid move. #2 (or #3, I can’t tell because recollection of the timeline is impossible to follow – probably yet ANOTHER reason she got nailed in court) was to pass on the first offer. ALL THE OTHER PEOPLE WHO HAVE BEEN FINED BY THE RIAA AND PAID HAVE BEEN LEFT ALONE. One guy paid $10K because his daughter had a bunch of crap on his computer… Somewhere along the line her computer “broke” and that was another stupid mistake, etc. etc. Basically, she has an indignant, “you can’t do this to me” attitude… and THAT’S why she got popped.
Now she sets up a “paypal” donation site, shilling for donations for her defense fund, which I, for one, find ridiculously insulting. Why should I give MY hard-earned money (which I can be using to legally purchase music, by the way) to fund the defense or pay the suit of some indignant, stupid person who thinks the rules apply to someone else?
No, I used your non-analgous analogy to show the vacuousness of your argument and the extortive practices of the RIAA–practices that you are defending.
@Skeptic:
Right, right… using big words… nice execution of rule #1 in any internet debate.
It was a very concise analogy had you bothered to think about it. I NEVER defended RIAA practices – reread my posts. What I DID do was try to draw people’s attention to the fact that everyone seems to be rushing to the aid of someone who’s, frankly, an idiot. I’ll summarize my prior posts:
#1 She was warned (we all were) and she failed to heed said warning.
#2 She was offered a settlement, a relatively fair one when compared to the settlements that other “violators” received. Her offer was slightly over $4K (trying to find that figure – or the fact that she was even offered a settlement – was tough actually because everyone wants to fight the big, bad RIAA who’s suing a poor, single mom) and several other received offers of $10K. In short – it’s a reasonable fine for breaking a law.
#3 She ignored said settlement offer.
#4 At some point (it’s unclear when in the process this happened) her “damaged” computer hard drive was replaced and the original destroyed or otherwise unavailable. I’m no lawyer but to me, it sounds like she took a play out of the Enron handbook and tried to purge evidence. Apparently, a jury of her peers agreed with me – that there was SOMETHING on that hard drive that was of interest.
Now, we are supposed to donate to her legal fund.
Absolutely not. This is once again a failure to take personal accountability for ones actions. She broke the law and then made a series of very bad decisions.
I’m not FOR the RIAA – I’m against blindly defending someone on the grounds that they’re the lesser of two evils.
Does that clear things up for you or should I draw you a picture?
The extortive demands of the RIAA are no more an “offer” than the “offer” of “protection” by one’s local mob. The RIAA makes demands, regardless of whether or not you are innocent. But, if you are the child of and RIAA label president, the RIAA let’s him give you a talking to instead.
You don’t defend the RIAA practices? I beg to differ. Your constant criticism of the defendant and characterization of her refusal to capitulate to their demands as being ipso facto unreasonable on her pert is very much a de facto defense of the RIAA.
None of us (I assume) were in the courtroom. We didn’t hear all the facts but a judge and jury found her guilty and even her own attorney has intimated he thinks she has no chance at winning her appeal. And thanks to Bush, she cannot get rid of this judgment fully via bankruptcy. Do I think the penalties were high? Yes, but that is copyright law. And there is current legislation in Congress that will raise the penalties even higher. Copyright law is not small claims–the statutory penalties were created to be intentionally high in order to punish those who violate copyright law. Nobody wants to be ripped off even if it’s for 99 cents. Current statutory minimums for that 99 cents song is $900.
While I do sympathize with the fact she was penalized above the minimums and will now owe close to 500K when she probably can’t afford it, I think she was guilty but of course, she must pretend to deny her guilt because she is filing an appeal. I’d have more respect for her if she said yes, I did this but I don’t think the penalty is worth X amount.
@Skeptic:
Okay – I’ll play. In this case, I AM defending the RIAA’s practices.
She broke a law (after being warned), opted not to pay the fine and lost to the big man. I don’t feel sorry for her.
She turned $24 worth of songs into a lifetime of debt and it’s her own damn fault. Note: the JUDGE, not the RIAA, imposed the penalty, which I think is more than a bit excessive. I happen to agree that she shouldn’t be able to run and file bankruptcy – whatever happened to personal accountability?
I’ll make another analogy you won’t understand: You can’t walk into a grocery store and decide you don’t want to pay for eggs. If you DO and get caught, you’ll be arrested and end up in court. You’ll probably have to pay a fine. The point is that you don’t get to pick what rules you follow and what rules you don’t. We were told, years ago, that sharing music was illegal. As in stealing. As in against the law. Same as stealing eggs or anything else.
Her attorney should be beaten. He should have NEVER let this case go to trial. This was the absolute WRONG case to go to trial. They had her. It was obvious. They should have settled.
Self serving remarks by plaintifs, defendents and their lawyers are essentially worthless. Presumably the jury heard testimony under oath and made a decision based on the evidence presented to them. So comment criticizing the verdict are not persuasive from those who did not hear evidence or at least studied the transcripts of the trial.
On the other hand, comments criticizing the law and the judgement penalties can be informative and may motivate support for changes in the laws.
Too bad I can’t just send a grenade at the RIAA-team in tremlous and decon their base or SOMETHING…