The Bolshevik Revolution had its reasons

The Omaha World-Herald reports on just what kind of country we are today:

In October, Tommy Jelinek, a member of the Nebraska National Guard, returned home from a 15-month tour in Iraq and moved in with his wife at the apartment she had rented while he was gone.

Two months earlier, when Trista Jelinek applied for the apartment at Villa Vinee, a complex near 78th and Howard Streets, she told the staff of her husband's pending return and listed him as a future tenant.

But instead of a homecoming, the Jelineks say, Tommy Jelinek got an eviction notice.

In January, about three months after he settled in with his wife, an apartment manager required Tommy Jelinek to fill out an application to be on the lease.

Then, on Jan. 24, the manager notified Trista Jelinek that she would have to evict her husband.

The reason: A credit report indicated that he had "delinquent credit obligations."

The management company, Robert Hancock & Co. of Omaha, has stood by its decision to evict Tommy Jelinek, despite the Jelineks' attempts to resolve the matter.

Deborah Sanwick, an attorney for Robert Hancock, said the company requires every adult listed on a lease to have good credit. That way, if one tenant moves out, the company isn't left with another who can't make the rent payment.

Tommy Jelinek, who works for an insurance company, informed the manager that he had paid the bills on his credit report. The Jelineks also questioned why Tommy's credit score mattered — noting that Trista Jelinek had paid the $685-a-month rent on her own before her husband's return.

"I can't tell you how frustrating this has been," said Trista Jelinek, a crisis counselor on the Boys Town National Hotline. "We've asked them how we can make this work.

"But they just keep saying, 'It's our policy.' This should never have gone this far."

Tuesday, a judge issued a temporary restraining order, halting the eviction until a hearing can be held.

Dear RIAA: You Custer. Us Crazy Horse.

Thanks, RIAA! Now what the people are doing with your labels' music isn't stealing anymore. It's a political protest.

And I say "Power to the People!"

When the recording industry resorts to treating its customers like common criminals for ripping CDs they've bought onto the hard drives of computers they own, as detailed in this Washington Post story, it's time to engage in political acts aimed at bringing down those corporate tyrants:

Despite more than 20,000 lawsuits filed against music fans in the years since they started finding free tunes online rather than buying CDs from record companies, the recording industry has utterly failed to halt the decline of the record album or the rise of digital music sharing.

Still, hardly a month goes by without a news release from the industry's lobby, the Recording Industry Association of America, touting a new wave of letters to college students and others demanding a settlement payment and threatening a legal battle.

Now, in an unusual case in which an Arizona recipient of an RIAA letter has fought back in court rather than write a check to avoid hefty legal fees, the industry is taking its argument against music sharing one step further: In legal documents in its federal case against Jeffrey Howell, a Scottsdale, Ariz., man who kept a collection of about 2,000 music recordings on his personal computer, the industry maintains that it is illegal for someone who has legally purchased a CD to transfer that music into his computer.

The industry's lawyer in the case, Ira Schwartz, argues in a brief filed earlier this month that the MP3 files Howell made on his computer from legally bought CDs are "unauthorized copies" of copyrighted recordings.

"I couldn't believe it when I read that," says Ray Beckerman, a New York lawyer who represents six clients who have been sued by the RIAA. "The basic principle in the law is that you have to distribute actual physical copies to be guilty of violating copyright. But recently, the industry has been going around saying that even a personal copy on your computer is a violation."

RIAA's hard-line position seems clear. Its Web site says: "If you make unauthorized copies of copyrighted music recordings, you're stealing. You're breaking the law and you could be held legally liable for thousands of dollars in damages."

They're not kidding. In October, after a trial in Minnesota -- the first time the industry has made its case before a federal jury -- Jammie Thomas was ordered to pay $220,000 to the big record companies. That's $9,250 for each of 24 songs she was accused of sharing online.

WHAT I WOULD LIKE to know is this: How many people use iTunes software? How many have used it to rip their CDs onto their computers? How many people have music on their iPods that originally was on a CD they bought?

Now, does the RIAA think it can lock us all up? It might get some of us, but the ones it doesn't -- and that number will be legion -- will kill the record labels dead.

Book it.

You act like you're George Armstrong Custer. We are Crazy Horse. And we buy WhoopAss by the case.