Jammie Thomas To Appeal $1.9 Million RIAA Verdict 204
CNet reports that the lawyers representing Jammie Thomas-Rasset have confirmed she will be fighting the $1.9 million verdict handed down in her case against the RIAA.
"The Recording Industry Association of America said on Monday that it had made a phone call to Sibley and law partner Kiwi Camara last week to ask whether Thomas-Rasset wanted to discuss a settlement. An RIAA representative said that its lawyers were told by Sibley that Thomas-Rasset wasn't interested in discussing any deal that required her to admit guilt or pay any money. ... 'She's not interested in settling,' attorney Joe Sibley said in a brief phone interview. 'She wants to take the issue up on appeal on the constitutionality of the damages. That's one of the main arguments — that the damages are disproportionate to any actual harm.'"
Re:Of Course (Score:5, Informative)
That's the whole point. The damages are meant to be a deterrent against future abuses. The RIAA is sticking her head on a pike as a warning to others.
Punitive damages can only be awarded in effort to deter the defendant from committing the same infringement again. It is expressly forbidden to make an example of a defendant by awarding a grossly high settlement for the purpose of making others think twice before doing the same thing. It is also expressly forbidden to award higher damages for acts that were not included in the trial. For example, in this case, there were 24 files in question. It's possible the jury said "I'm sure there were a lot more" and award damages with that in mind. They can't do that.
If either of those things occurred, the verdict is immediately nullified. I'm sure they will be raised on appeal, but they will be hard to prove. If you read the jury instructions on this case, it clearly explicates that they are to award damages ONLY for the files in question. There was even a neat little worksheet to help them with it.
Re:not necessarily disproportionate (Score:1, Informative)
Maybe 10 people downloaded a particular song, each of them copied that copy 10 times for 10 friends, and so on, so that conceivably there are millions of mp3 files of that song out there that are all descended from Jammie Thomas's original.
As far as I know, this isn't a consideration. Damages have to be limited to the infringement by the defendant, not what someone else did because of the defendant's infringement.
An example would be this: someone purchases a newspaper from a self-serve machine and holds open the door while he and 10 other people all take copies that they didn't pay for. The actual damages that the first person is responsible for are limited to the paper he stole. While he enabled others to steal newspapers, he did not commit the actual theft. He could be hit with punitive damages related to enabling others to commit the crime, but he cannot be sued for the $3.00 that was lost due to the 10 other people taking papers.
Re:Of Course (Score:3, Informative)
The deterrent is the chance of being caught. In Somalia, or any other country without an effective police force, the chance of being caught is zero, so there is no deterrent. The actual magnitude of the punishment has surprisingly little deterring effect, and in some cases can make crimes worse: back when capital punishment was applied to just about every crime, there was a big incentive to kill all witnesses to reduce the chance of getting caught, leading to many more murders than would otherwise have been the case.