RIAA - Evil soul-sucking bastards

This is terrible.

A single mother who took a stand against America’s biggest record companies over music piracy was fined $220,000 (£108,000) yesterday.

Jammie Thomas, a Native American from Minnesota, is one of 26,000 people whom the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) has sued over the past four years for alleged use of music “file-sharing” software.

The 30-year-old made legal history after refusing to pay an out-of-court settlement, as all others challenged over their behaviour before her had done, but her failure to carry the case is likely further to embolden the music industry in its attempts to protect copyright.

A federal jury sitting in Duluth, Minnesota, ordered Ms Thomas, who has two children aged 11 and 13, to pay the six record companies that sued her $9,250 for each of 24 songs they focused on in the case.

The sum is equivalent to about five times her annual salary.

This is getting ridiculous. This has nothing to do with protecting artists. This case focused on 24 songs, how the hell so they get $9250 for each of them? The RIAA didn't prove, nor were they legally required to, how many times the songs were downloaded.

Cary Sherman, president of the RIAA, which co-ordinates the lawsuits, said after the verdict: “We think we’re in for a long haul in terms of establishing that music has value, that music is property, and that property has to be respected.

Nobody doubts that music has value, but these lawsuits, coupled with ridiculous ineffective DRM, only alienate customers and make more people want to stick it to the man. Ruining a woman's life for sharing a few songs just proves that the people running the RIAA are heartless, greedy, evil bastards.