Analyzing a music pirate's playlist

chas smith R.I.P. · From: Encino, CA, USA

Analyzing a music pirate's playlist

By Ann Powers, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer
October 6, 2007

Forget about feeling sorry for Britney; Jammie Thomas is pop culture's most suitable empathy sponge today. After Thursday's ruling in the first of what could be many online music-pirating cases to reach a jury, the 30-year-old Native American single mom from Brainerd, Minn. (median household income: $26,901) owes the Recording Industry Assn. of America (RIAA) $222,000 for participating in illegal file-sharing over the peer-to-peer application Kazaa.

It's hard to imagine a more unlikely saboteur than Thomas. Aren't the major labels being defeated by Bapes-wearing gamers jacking Kanye West and Arcade Fire tracks? Thomas does have two children -- ages 11 and 13 -- and the RIAA has made it a policy to go after parents first. We'll likely never know whether she fell on a sword for her kids, but her playlist -- the copyright-infringed songs she's now paying for, at the cost of $9,250 each -- tells another story. And it's a sad one about the impoverished state of the corporate music machine.

Thomas' list has hipsters groaning. It includes some of the most banal Top 40 songs of recent memory: songs by 1980s balladeers Richard Marx and Bryan Adams, quiet-storm beauty queen Vanessa Williams, and the feathered-hair kings in Journey. Teen tastes may be represented by the presence of Green Day and Linkin Park tracks. "In her defense," one respondent posted on the pop-music blog Idolator, "I wouldn't pay for any of these songs either."

But look at the list beyond the prejudices of taste, and another quality surfaces: it's eclectic. A Reba McEntire track represents classic country. There's some Gloria Estefan for that Latin freestyle flavor. It's easy to imagine Thomas chilling out to Sarah McLachlan's "Building a Mystery" after her kids were in bed, or getting out her aggressions after a hard day at the office -- she works for her own tribe, the Mille Lacs Band of Ojibwa, in the natural resources department -- by turning up "Welcome to the Jungle" by Guns N' Roses.

This is a playlist for a family party, wide-ranging enough for everybody to be satisfied. It has a lived-in feel, with songs spanning four decades, probably marking highlights in the life of Thomas and those she loves. What it isn't, though, is something you'd hear on the radio, or be able to buy on any compilation that's in print.

True, Thomas could have burned a CD of these tracks, from the vast record collection she claims to own. She could have purchased the songs again from iTunes. But what she probably really wanted to do was just hear them occasionally, the way you hear songs on the radio. She wanted a wide array of music, easily available. Radio, split into niche markets and limited by tiny, repetitive playlists, wasn't giving her that.

Pop hits saturate the airwaves, television and the speakers at the mall for a brief time, until they reach obsolescence. Occasionally they'll pop up in a television show or on a film soundtrack. But a pop fan who wants a little country, a little metal and some hip-hop in her life won't easily find it in one environment. Her fingers could get blisters twisting the radio dial.

Popular music has always been a leaky commodity, but the major labels have increasingly narrowed their scope to focus on a few superstars and one-hit wonders. The Internet has made eclectic listening easy again. Thomas' crime (if we must label it that) was in not paying for the tracks she allegedly shared. But in a way, it was an act committed in self-defense, against the numbing effects of an increasingly narrowcast mainstream.

Joey Ace · From: Hamilton, Ontario, Canada

Tony Prior · From: Charlotte NC

Yes Joey, the story is that SHE shared Music on line with others, over 1700 shares..

She may very well have paid for the initial downloads,I don't know, but her crime was GIVING away copies.

They didn't say what the time window was for the file sharing, but if it was brief, she probably stood out like a sore thumb.

My guess is she probably sent song files to the FEDS without even knowing it.

David Doggett · Posted 6 Oct 2007 11:40 pm

The way I understand these programs, if you have the software running, and your computer is on, you are sharing, and you have no control over how much you share. It mostly depends on how many songs you have in your files, and whether the songs you have are popular and get a lot of hits, and how much you leave your computer on. She had a wide range of popular songs.

Also, the company spokesmen say they mostly settle these suits out of court for a few hundred to a few thousand dollars. This particular woman refused to settle, and denied everything (still does). The companies actually didn't ask for any particular dollar amount in the suit. The amount was supposedly awarded by the jury.

I'm no friend of record companies. They exploit the artists who produce the products, the same way all corporations and their stockholders exploit the workers who produce the goods. It's a system. It's called capitalism. But the manner and degree of exploitation is another matter.

The issue here is that intellectual and artistic property is protected by copyrights. It is illegal, as it should be, to distribute this material free and unauthorized. The fact that the system is corrupt and exploitive is no excuse for stiffing artists like that.

It use to be that the few big name acts that made a big profit for the record companies paid for the companies to give speculative contracts to unknown new groups, most of which lost money. Because of piracy, the big name groups make less profit for the companies, and it has become much more difficult for unknown new groups to get recording contracts. So we can sit back and relish the crisis that the record companies are in right now. But it is also a crisis for all the new and unknown groups out there who will never get a record contract. It is very difficult for these new groups to produce their own CDs, and to get publicity out. You can cheer for the hard times that have befallen record companies in the digital age. But at one time they gave us lots of new artists, some of whom became our favorites. The digital crisis has greatly narrowed that field, and the companies can only afford the most conservative and narrow promotion strategies these days. That's one reason we hate the narrow group of commercial stars today. And that problem will remain until this all gets sorted out and it becomes clear again how to make investments in the music industry worthwhile.

Tony Prior · From: Charlotte NC

Dave, correct. When you first set up an account with the FILE sharing server sites ( Kazaa) , a DOWNLOAD file folder is created. All songs that YOU download from this sharing account are dumped into that common FOLDER.

That download in that FOLDER is now part of the SEED count for that particular song file. That folder on your PC is available to the Share Server.

IF another person on the FILE SHARE Server(Kazaa) downloads that particular song they will get it from you if your PC is on and connected to the Internet.

Now this brings up an interesting point regarding whether she paid for the first download of a song, if she did, she MANUALLY placed it into the FREE SHARE folder. IF she downloaded it for free it went into the folder automatically.

There are countless folks who DOWNLOAD free songs from these sites but MOVE them from the FREE share folder on there PC into another folder. In these cases, the songs they downloaded are NOT available to be shared .They cannot be seen by the SHARE Server.

A few years back, I have to admit, I did download a few songs from Kazaa, but moved them from the DOWNLOAD folder so they could not be accessed by others, then after thinking about it, never did it again. Just way too much risk for an .89 song.

Point here is this, regardless if the gal says she shared or not, she did. She was/is a member of a share community and got snagged. Over 1700 downloads from her PC is quite an event.

The folks in these SHARE communities know exactly what is going on and how it all operates. They just think that "THEY" will not be the one getting snagged.

The share programs always running in the background unless you shut them down,and they are visible in the tray when a download is active.

Another point about these programs/users is that the largest amount of activity is with BRAND NEW RELEASES which also allows the downloads to stand out like a sore thumb. A release comes out on Tuesday, the activity is at it's peak probably between Tuesday and the weekend on that new release.

Ray Minich · From: Bradford, Pa. Frozen Tundra

The latest blurb I read stated something to the effect that she violated their exclusive rights to distribution...

scott murray · From: Asheville, NC

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