Jammie Thomas – Sued For Illegal Download – Are You NEXT!?

Should you be scared or not?

If you were to keep up with the news about file sharing & piracy lawsuits and the actions the RIAA and MPAA are taking against offenders, I think you’d be frightened and even startled a little bit…and to be honest, you should be.

You should be frightened because on one hand, you’re probably offending an artist by taking “money out of their pocket”…

On the other hand these people will find your computer, sue you, and leave you with a bad taste in your mouth.

For so long have I waited for the industry to find an alternate solution, suing someone over file sharing is only going to make matters worse because no matter what they do or say, there’s more than one way to skin a cat. Sure it might cut down on it for a little while, but as technology advances – we become more free to do what we want, when we want, how we want.

For instance, let’s not have a big drawn out conversation about copyrights when MySpace has single handedly made Copyright’s a non-issue for anyone who ever uploads a file. If you want to get a song from anywhere, all you need is a program like SoundForge. Heck you can even download a free audio program and download someone’s song off their Myspace page.

Ooops!

Is one artists music any more safe than the other? No. The way we communicate and share ideas is so different now than it’s ever been and the speed at which we can share those ideas is ultimately what poses the biggest threat.

In time, trying to eliminate file sharing will become as irrelevant as trying to convince President Bush that we never should have went to war. It’s too late, face it, we’re here now and everyone should get over it. I guarantee you, the only way the RIAA will actually find a work-around to this problem is when we get further down in the 2020s when songs can only be listened to by individuals who have some sort of – mental-id number. Either the brain will be tagged, or the music will actually be tagged. For instance if you purchase Green Day’s new album, you will only be able to listen to if the system in a surrounding area (think a wireless network) detects that you (meaning you have some chip in your brain, or you transmit some neurotic vibe[spoooky]) have already purchased the album.

When that happens, then they can eliminate file sharing. But one thing strikes me odd right now.

This new artist Soulja Boy is at the top of the charts right now and it’s all over the internet, almost anybody who pays attention to MTV or BET has heard this song. You can’t help but hear people drive down the street with it blaring from the trunk of their (unpaid for) cars. Allegedly this guy got his break through by using file sharing systems – Kazaa, Morpheus, etc. and packaged .mp3 files that were totally the opposite of what their name implied. If someone were looking for a 50 cent song and he was one of the up loaders of that song, the user would get his newly created song instead of 50 cent. (yes we will discuss this technique later).

So surely the investigators are going to look into how much money they can extort sue him for… or are they going to grant him some mysterious pardon because he’s an international superstar and they can make far more profits if they don’t pursue him. Let me make this perfectly clear…

I am sure Soulja Boy has some songs that he didn’t pay for on his computer, prior to using his marketing ploy to distribute his material through these file sharing networks. I am also sure that the RIAA is not going to pursue him; because now he’s a superstar and they are making money.

Yes. They will make a TON of money due to the “pirating” community that helped him launch his career on the Internet. If there weren’t thousands and thousands of people pirating and sharing files (illegal downloading), then this guy would still be playing on a farm and there wouldn’t be any Superman dance.

In any case, it’s all backwards. People hate the RIAA but almost everyone loves the Grammy Awards. The RIAA loves to sue customers when they can, just so they can use fear tactics to slow down file sharing. Ultimately people will do what they want and what they think is best. I do think, however, that the RIAA should get smarter and grant some licenses and download rights to people who are in the Music Industry community.

This poor woman, Jammie Thomas, is probably going to start a website and start her own community of RIAA haters. I would join, but I think I should probably stay neutral here for obvious reasons. So here’s what you do, and yes I’m telling you because you need to know.

If you share or have songs that you did not buy… you are participating in illegal activity. (Almost everyone is…it’s no secret) That means if you email it, if you share it, if you share it on Kazaa, or if you use BitTorrent – you’re being naughty and the RIAA reserves the right to hunt you down and pursue you legally for money that you probably would rather spend on distributing your music.

The only advice I have for you is to protect yourself. I know some of you are with the ani-file sharing community; but I’m sorry – the world thrives on information and here it is.

Protect yourself. Look into ways to block access for people to spy and look into your computer… If I told you anymore, I’m sure they’d try to shut my site down and I really am not having that.