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Jury Fines Music File Sharer $1.92M -- For Only 24 Songs
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Jason Mick/DailyTech
June 19, 2009
New fine is nearly ten times the fine in the original mistrial
In a move that sent a harsh message to those who would consider challenging the RIAA’s legal campaign against filesharers, a jury found Jammie Thomas-Rasset guilty of copyright infringement late Thursday and ordered her to pay an astronomical $1.92M USD in damages.
The case is the sequel to last year’s original trial, the first RIAA case to go before a jury. That trial also saw a guilty verdict. The damages in the previous case was smaller, but substantial, at $222,000. The case was declared a mistrial due to the judge informing the jury that “making available” was equivalent to copyright infringement, something that recent rulings have challenged.
Ms. Thomas-Rasset, a married mother of four was back in court Monday ready for round two. This time she was represented by Kiwi Camara, the youngest person to matriculate to Harvard, also known for a racial controversy during his time at Harvard. The case turned sour quickly, though, with Mr. Camara’s early defenses being thrown out by the judge.
In the end the jury found Jammie Thomas guilty of sharing 24 songs, including tracks by Green Day, Aerosmith, and Guns ’n Roses. It chose to fine her a shocking $80,000 per song, for a total of $1,920,000 USD, nearly 10 times the original verdict.
Ms. Thomas-Rasset, who works as a natural-resources coordinator for the Mille Lacs Band of the Ojibwe, met the verdict with shock and frustration, stating, “There was nothing I could do. Now the record industry has a $2 million award against me. The only thing I can say is good luck trying to get it, because you can’t get blood out of a turnip.”
The RIAA says it didn’t have to come to this. States Cara Duckworth, an RIAA spokeswoman, “From day one, we’ve been willing to settle this case for somewhere between $3,000 and $5,000. We appreciate the jury’s service and that they take this issue as seriously as we do. We are pleased that the jury agreed with the evidence and found the defendant liable.”
The settlement brings into question the fines enabled by the No Electronics Theft (NET) Act, which allows for up to $150,000 per item in cases of willful copyright infringement. Fred von Lohmann, a lawyer with the consumer group Electronic Frontier Foundation, complains, “The disproportionate size of the verdict raises constitutional questions. Was the jury punishing her for what she did, or punishing her for the music sharing habits of tens of millions of American Internet users?Was the jury punishing her for what she did, or punishing her for the music sharing habits of tens of millions of American Internet users?”
The RIAA blames filesharers like Ms. Thomas-Rasset for the drop in music sales from 1999 highs of $14.6B USD, to the current level of $8.5B USD per year. The organization looks to continue its legal campaign against filesharing Americans, buoyed by the victory. Meanwhile Ms. Thomas-Rasset’s lawyer, Kiwi Camara hopes to launch a class action lawsuit against the RIAA this summer, with the help of a Harvard law professor.
© 2008, DailyTech
nobody
3 months ago
2 comments
this is insane, this just goes to show how messed up our system is, and this is a good example of why our economy is the way it is.... 1.92 mil? really? even if she paid 50000 a year it would take close to 40 years, yet another fine example of how truely messed up things are with our system... realisticaly how much will they see of that ? probably very little, if anything... and so really at that point, what is the point??? media sharing doesn't hurt the artists... if anything it helps! if you take into account on how much a major record company would spend on advertising a new album, people sharing their music is like free advertsing... if the artists are really that good and their music is very much liked by the person that downloaded the song, they might just want to go see the artists perform, in a world where we have internet video, internet radio, and etc... you can listen or watch anything your heart desires.... I still feel that if your not selling something for a profit (bootlegging) you should be able to download anything you want....
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. what if my pursuit of happiness means that i love listening to music? what happend to our morals and values?? when did we as a whole accept corporate greed as a good thing?? When exactly is enough, enough? and where do we turn when our system fails the rest of us? I used to think that lady holding the scales of balance that used to be in every courtroom stood for something.... fairness... balance....
They say that true justice is blind... but ultimately even the blind know what money is....
yoddel
4 months ago
140 comments
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grantsscott
4 months ago
20 comments
A ridiculous amount that will likely never be collected.
atmtarzy
4 months ago
2 comments
I would really like to see some sort of legitimate justification as to why fining somebody $80,000 per copyrighted song made available makes sense. Did the RIAA really lose $80,000 per song just because this one person was making the song available online? I've seen torrents that have 14k downloading peers, but they're for season finales of shows like House or Prison Break, not for songs by Aerosmith or the Black-eyed Peas, and even then, assuming the RIAA makes $1 for every song sold, every single one of those songs had to be downloaded 80,000 times from Ms. Thomas' computer for her to be considered at fault for $1.92M of damage to the RIAA's profits. Assuming each of the songs is 3MB, that's 72MB for all 24 songs. 80,000 times that is roughly 5.76TB. Assuming an upload rate of 512KB/s, it would take Ms. Thomas 3 months of seeding to upload that much information. That's assuming she used it completely for the uploading of those 24 songs during the period of making the songs available.
Can't the jury do some damn math?
Bootlegger
4 months ago
166 comments
Maybe if the recording industry would sign artists who actually create music worth listening to then people would buy the music. I think their real revenue problem comes from "independent" musicians who can self release to the world without having to be bled dry by the music industry.
$1.92M is extremely excessive and should be appealed immediately, and if the ladies lawyer made such a poor showing then she should seriously consider finding new legal representation.
ccorliss
4 months ago
162 comments
RIAA needs to GTFO. You know why record sales are down? Because record companies have barely put out any music worth paying for since 1999. RIAA is a useless organization, and I hope this class action lawsuit strips them of everything they have.
PureEvil
4 months ago
196 comments
im curious what type of jury were in there to even allow this and also 3000 to 5000 to settle was not so bad on the riaa part.
TimC
4 months ago
586 comments
That's too much money in my opinion to charge for just 24 songs. They need to get a grip.
deanmyrick
4 months ago
38 comments
I wonder why there are no comments here? Well, let me be the first to congratulate the RIAA!