My feelings are that this is obviously illegal, but the music industry is repeatedly wrong to go after people like they do. As Thomas argues, the damages are excessive but this only makes me think she was lying earlier when she said someone else was using her IP address to file-share. No one wants to take responsibility for their actions: not the person stealing music, and not the industry for being money-hungry and over-pricing its product.
I also have beef with the expert the RIAA brought in for the original trial. Dr. Doug Jacobson, a computer engineering professor at Iowa State University, spoke about the impossibility that the songs were merely ripped from a CD. Thomas' defense correctly points out that he may have been biased, given that the company Jacobson founded, Palisade Systems, deals with personal technology and data security. As a journalist I have real problem bringing someone that has commercial ties to something, even if it is their area of expertise.
Overall I would think that Jammie Thomas is guilty, but should not be punished as severely as she is. There really isn't a good guy in this whole thing, and there won't be until, by some miracle, the recording industry stops trying to suck our wallets dry. Even iTunes isn't perfect; a dollar a song is still to high (buy all tracks for a 13-song album and you're right back where we started), and if you don't use iTunes software or an iPod it's not the most convenient thing in the world. Like the Long Tail article we read earlier, there is a breaking point where people will pay to get convenience over a free product, and for me its not $.99.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment