Rob
09-18-2006, 04:37 PM
http://ryanadamssucks.com/
does anyone know who runs this blog?
I like his article about the plea deal.
As reported by The Tennessean daily newspaper on Friday, the two young Ryan Adams’ fans whose shared misfortune launched this blog, have worked out a deal with the government, pleading guilty to copyright violations in exchange for lighter sentences. Jared Chase Bowser, 21, of Jacksonville Florida and Robert Thomas, 24, of Milwaukee Wisconsin both acknowledged that they made four Ryan Adams songs from the artist’s Jacksonville City Nights album available for downloading on an Internet message board prior to the albums "official" release date, a violation of federal law.
According to the plea deal, says The Tennessean, Bowser made MP3 files of the songs from a pre-release copy of the CD that he obtained from a music reviewer (ouch!) and forwarded the files to Thomas, who posted them to the Ryan Adams fan web site. The original multi-count indictment filed against the felonious pair by the U.S. Attorney in Nashville could have earned the boys as much as eleven years each in the graybar hotel and a mondo big fine. The plea agreement recommends a sentencing range of six months to a year imprisonment, possibly served as in-home probation, and fines of $2,000 or more. Final sentencing is scheduled for December 8 in U.S. District Court in Nashville.
"Recording artists and the labels they record for have an enforceable right to control what happens to the works they have expended time, effort and money in creating," said U.S. Attorney and corporate lapdog Jim Vines in a statement released Thursday about the case. "Misappropriation and unauthorized distribution of those works, even if no money changes hands, is no different than the theft of a tangible object, like a car."
It should be obvious to even a casual observer that Vines needs to take a few more classes in logic, or perhaps cut back on his daily caffeine intake. Posting a MP3 file of a song is no different than stealing a car? Under what draconian system of justice? Over the past twenty years, multi-national media corporations have bent and twisted copyright laws to suit their own greedy purposes, turning non-violent, victimless crimes like tape trading and file downloading into felonies. They’ve bullied music lovers and extorted cash settlements with frivolous lawsuits even while they’ve placed a virtual stranglehold on concepts like "fair use," making a mockery of the founding father’s original intentions concerning copyright.
Anybody who thinks that it’s a good idea to put ANY PERSON into prison for something as meaningless and harmless as sharing a song obviously has NEVER been locked up for anything in their life, has never suffered a day without their freedom. Even local jails are horror stories, with beatings and bullying and coercion the norm. Hell, in Shelby County jail in Memphis a few years back, street gang members held "gladiator" contests pitching inmates against one another. Refuse to "play" and you’d be eating your meals through a straw for months (as one poor guy in the jail on DUI charges found out). You can get better drugs, and even booze in prison…if you have the money…but if you’re young, white and suburban you may as well grit your teeth and grab your ankles ‘cause you’re going to be punked out during the first week behind the wall.
If this seems too graphic, well, it is…prison is a brutal, dangerous place. It fits my definition of cruel and inhumane punishment to place anybody in an environment where they are going to be beaten and ass-raped daily so that a music biz CEO gets a larger bonus and a pat on the back from the boys at the country club. Lest we forget, Adams’ label, Lost Highway (i.e. Universal) asked for the investigation that led to nothing but trouble for Bowser and Thomas, and a compliant U.S. Justice Department jumped to obey the wishes of its corporate masters. Is this really the kind of country we want to live in, where a legal fiction such as a corporation has all the power and "we the people" are expected to be obedient sheep?
To my knowledge, Ryan Adams has yet to say a single word or issue a statement about this case, leaving two fans of his music hanging in the wind while he tours Europe and continues playing the role of "rock star." It’s a damn shame that Adams cares so little about his audience, and an even worse tragedy that Lost Highway couldn’t just show a little common sense and request that Thomas take the songs down from his web site. No, somebody had to be made into an example, and now two young men’s lives are altered in ways that most of us can’t imagine just so that Adams can continue to dance happily on the strings of his major label sponsors.
does anyone know who runs this blog?
I like his article about the plea deal.
As reported by The Tennessean daily newspaper on Friday, the two young Ryan Adams’ fans whose shared misfortune launched this blog, have worked out a deal with the government, pleading guilty to copyright violations in exchange for lighter sentences. Jared Chase Bowser, 21, of Jacksonville Florida and Robert Thomas, 24, of Milwaukee Wisconsin both acknowledged that they made four Ryan Adams songs from the artist’s Jacksonville City Nights album available for downloading on an Internet message board prior to the albums "official" release date, a violation of federal law.
According to the plea deal, says The Tennessean, Bowser made MP3 files of the songs from a pre-release copy of the CD that he obtained from a music reviewer (ouch!) and forwarded the files to Thomas, who posted them to the Ryan Adams fan web site. The original multi-count indictment filed against the felonious pair by the U.S. Attorney in Nashville could have earned the boys as much as eleven years each in the graybar hotel and a mondo big fine. The plea agreement recommends a sentencing range of six months to a year imprisonment, possibly served as in-home probation, and fines of $2,000 or more. Final sentencing is scheduled for December 8 in U.S. District Court in Nashville.
"Recording artists and the labels they record for have an enforceable right to control what happens to the works they have expended time, effort and money in creating," said U.S. Attorney and corporate lapdog Jim Vines in a statement released Thursday about the case. "Misappropriation and unauthorized distribution of those works, even if no money changes hands, is no different than the theft of a tangible object, like a car."
It should be obvious to even a casual observer that Vines needs to take a few more classes in logic, or perhaps cut back on his daily caffeine intake. Posting a MP3 file of a song is no different than stealing a car? Under what draconian system of justice? Over the past twenty years, multi-national media corporations have bent and twisted copyright laws to suit their own greedy purposes, turning non-violent, victimless crimes like tape trading and file downloading into felonies. They’ve bullied music lovers and extorted cash settlements with frivolous lawsuits even while they’ve placed a virtual stranglehold on concepts like "fair use," making a mockery of the founding father’s original intentions concerning copyright.
Anybody who thinks that it’s a good idea to put ANY PERSON into prison for something as meaningless and harmless as sharing a song obviously has NEVER been locked up for anything in their life, has never suffered a day without their freedom. Even local jails are horror stories, with beatings and bullying and coercion the norm. Hell, in Shelby County jail in Memphis a few years back, street gang members held "gladiator" contests pitching inmates against one another. Refuse to "play" and you’d be eating your meals through a straw for months (as one poor guy in the jail on DUI charges found out). You can get better drugs, and even booze in prison…if you have the money…but if you’re young, white and suburban you may as well grit your teeth and grab your ankles ‘cause you’re going to be punked out during the first week behind the wall.
If this seems too graphic, well, it is…prison is a brutal, dangerous place. It fits my definition of cruel and inhumane punishment to place anybody in an environment where they are going to be beaten and ass-raped daily so that a music biz CEO gets a larger bonus and a pat on the back from the boys at the country club. Lest we forget, Adams’ label, Lost Highway (i.e. Universal) asked for the investigation that led to nothing but trouble for Bowser and Thomas, and a compliant U.S. Justice Department jumped to obey the wishes of its corporate masters. Is this really the kind of country we want to live in, where a legal fiction such as a corporation has all the power and "we the people" are expected to be obedient sheep?
To my knowledge, Ryan Adams has yet to say a single word or issue a statement about this case, leaving two fans of his music hanging in the wind while he tours Europe and continues playing the role of "rock star." It’s a damn shame that Adams cares so little about his audience, and an even worse tragedy that Lost Highway couldn’t just show a little common sense and request that Thomas take the songs down from his web site. No, somebody had to be made into an example, and now two young men’s lives are altered in ways that most of us can’t imagine just so that Adams can continue to dance happily on the strings of his major label sponsors.