Copyright Law

Richard Marx Says Jammie Thomas ?Got a Raw Deal?

By soulxtc

Notes that during the pre-digital age, when the music industry controlled distribution, it chose to “ream the consumer and fill their pockets” rather than nurture the industry by providing the “highest quality of music to the fans.”

Many are still stunned by the recent verdict in the retrial of suburban mother of two Jammie Thomas. For illegally ?making available? 24 songs in her KaZaA shared folder she was ordered to pay $1.92 million USD in damages. At about $80,000 per song, instead of scaring or “educating” file-sharers into halting the illegal practice it has instead illustrated just how out of touch the RIAA really is.

For music artists the verdict has been equally appalling.

Electonica wunderkind Moby wrote on his blog last week about how the verdict was “utter nonsense,” that “punishing people for listening to music is exactly the wrong way to protect the music business.”

Now acclaimed rocker Richard Marx has released a statement about the verdict which has equally choice words for the RIAA.

?As a longtime professional songwriter, I have always objected to the practice of illegal downloading of music. I have also always, however, been sympathetic to the average music fan, who has been consistently financially abused by the greedy actions of major labels,? said Marx. ?These labels, until recently, were responsible for the distribution of the majority of recorded music, and instead of nurturing the industry and doing their best to provide the highest quality of music to the fans, they predominantly chose to ream the consumer and fill their pockets.?

Could he be any more correct? Music fans were locked into the RIAA’s distribution system lock, stock, and barrel for years, allowing it to abuse the monopoly by charging $20 or more for albums with 2 or fewer decent songs by mediocre artists at best.

NIN frontman Trent Reznor was still lamenting price gouging just a few years while browsing the aisles of a record store in Australia. He was irate that his record label was selling his latest album at the time, Year Zero, for almost $30 USD.

“As the climate grows more and more desperate for record labels, their answer to their mostly self-inflicted wounds seems to be to screw the consumer over even more,” he said.

On this Marx and Reznor agree, and $80,000 per song only makes their true intentions all the more obvious. The RIAA doesn’t care about music fans or artists, and honestly, it’s our fault for thinking it should.

Why? Because all a record label is concerned with is profits, it’s not there for community service work or to improve music as we know it. They only see an artist as a ?means to make revenue.?

The verdict is personal for Marx because his song “Now and Forever” was among the 24 Jammie Thomas was convicted for illegally “making available.”

Marx goes on to say in his statement that he’s outright “ashamed” to be part of the verdict and finds it “misguided” that the RIAA would try to hold her accountable for the “continuing daily actions of hundreds of thousands of people.”

So do we Mr. Marx. So do we.

That’s why the verdict will have little of a deterrent effect. The size of the award is so outlandish they might as well have found her liable for ten or even a hundred million. How they expect to get $1.92 million for a mother of two with a meager income is beyond me, and her pain will ultimately be the RIAA’s pain in the end as the publicity from the verdict makes it look even worse in the eyes of music fans and the artists it claims to represent.

jared@zeropaid.com

Full post as published by ZeroPaid on June 26, 2009 (boomark / email).