Jammie Thomas Refuses To Make RIAA Propaganda In Exchange For Reduced Payment

from the laughable-propaganda dept

However, the 36-year-old mother of four and the nation's first file-sharer to challenge a Recording Industry Association of America lawsuit, said she would rather go bankrupt.



"I'm not doing it," the Minnesota woman said in a telephone interview today.

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Back in 2009, Kevin Cogill, who was given two months house arrest for uploading a pre-release version of Guns 'N Roses' album, was also required to create a propaganda video for the RIAA about how terrible infringement is. Instead, he didn't do that, and started doing interviews explaining how the RIAA "f**** people in the a**." Amusingly, the RIAA then claimed that it wasdecision not to have Cogill create the propaganda video, because there would be "unnecessarily high production costs."Given that experience, it seems a bit bizarre that the RIAA has suggested that it would accept a lower payment than the $222,000 verdict (the one of a few verdicts that is now the final verdict) requires if Jammie Thomas were to do the same sort of propaganda. She, however, has made it clear that she has no interest in doing that . As she told Dave Kravets at Wired:Of course, bankruptcy declared after the court ruling may not be that helpful, as I don't think she can get out from the amount owed that way (a bankruptcy lawyer recently explained that it is possible, in some situations, to get out of such rewards by declaring bankruptcythe case is final, but once it's final... not so much). Of course, the RIAA isn't that interested in the money anyway. The focus here has always been on making "an example" of Jammie Thomas and others, in the mistaken belief that it would scare people away from file sharing. That, obviously, would be the same goal of any propaganda video, and it would almost certainly fail.The issue is that the RIAA and other maximalists still think this is an "education" issue, rather than an issue about how people want to access and share content. The "education" doesn't stop infringement, and it never has. Putting someone that was put through the wringer by the RIAA legal machine in front of a camera would just be even more ridiculous, because pretty much everyone would realize that a forced statement was not sincere, and that propaganda made in response to a required payment of hundreds of thousands of dollars really would just do more to highlight what an incredible bully the RIAA really is.

Filed Under: copyright, jammie thomas, jammie thomas-rasset, kevin cogill, propaganda

Companies: riaa