RIAA To Appeal Thomas-Rasset Ruling 275
Posted
by
timothy
from the you-know-they-would dept.
from the you-know-they-would dept.
frank_adrian314159 writes "The RIAA will appeal the ruling that reduced Jammie Thomas-Rasset's $1.92 million fine for file sharing to $54,000. '"It is a shame that Ms. Thomas-Rasset continues to deny any responsibility for her actions rather than accept a reasonable settlement offer and put this case behind her," said RIAA spokeswoman Cara Duckworth.' Joe Sibley, an attorney for Thomas-Rasset, said his client would not settle for the $25,000 that the RIAA has asked for. '"Jammie is not going to agree to pay any amount of money to them," Sibley said, adding that it doesn't matter to Thomas-Rasset whether the damages are $25,000 or $1.92 million.' In addition, Thomas-Rasset's attorneys say that, win or lose, they plan to appeal the constitutionality of the fine."
It's not an appeal (Score:5, Informative)
Unconstitutional? (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Collection is not the point (Score:3, Informative)
No, but thank you for playing. She was convicted of lying to a federal agent during an investigation even though a) she was not Mirandized, b) she was not under oath and c) what she lied about was not against the law.
Re:Ah, to be judgement proof... (Score:5, Informative)
You misunderstand the precedent. Your cite says that that the Eighth Amendment ban on cruel and unusual punishment does not apply to excessive fines when the government had nothing to do with the fine. That makes sense because the Eighth Amendment bars the government. The Supreme Court has held that excessive punitive damages violate the Constitution, but the Due Process clause, not the Eighth Amendment. [wikipedia.org] I note without further comment that the person getting screwed in that case was BMW.
Re:Collection is not the point (Score:3, Informative)
a) She didn't have to be Mirandized. She wasn't arrested at that point.
b) Doesn't matter. She wasn't in a court of law.
c) Doesn't matter. It's against the law to obstruct justice and lie to the FBI.
Read item 23 [thesmokinggun.com] and item 26-27 [thesmokinggun.com]
Re:Mispleling in summory (Score:3, Informative)
Because she is dedicated to having the unconstitutional statutory copyright-infringement damages declared unconstitutional. If I was in her position, I would offer to settle the case for a payment of $2-million.
Re:Mispleling in summory (Score:5, Informative)
I thought they had only proven 24 songs. At least that's what the article says.
"Last year, a federal jury ruled Thomas-Rasset, a mother of four from Brainerd, willfully violated the copyrights on 24 songs."
Re:Ah, to be judgement proof... (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Collection is not the point (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Mispleling in summory (Score:5, Informative)
She was sharing thousands. Only 24 were involved in the trial. However, since their initial offer was made before they sued, the correct number to use in determining the per song offer is the number of songs actually shared, not the number later used at trial.
Do you often pay for things just because somebody says you owe them money? The correct number was the number they could prove at trial, not the one they pulled out of their ass.
Re:Ah, to be judgement proof... (Score:1, Informative)
The Due Process clause expands most of the Bill of Rights to non-Congressional actions.
Since the Due Process clause is the only thing applying the protections of the Eighth Amendment to non-Congressional actions, excessive fines technically violate the Constitution via the Due Process clause. The same goes for state laws that violate freedom of speech; it is technically the Due Process clause that makes them unconstitutional, not the First Amendment.
BTW IANAL FYI, GG BBL.
Re:Mispleling in summory (Score:4, Informative)
Legally, I think they are obligated to accept it since it's legal currency being used to pay a debt.
The law may actually specify limits precisely so that someone doesn't try to have fun at the creditor's expense that way. I've no idea if US has that in its legal tender laws, but e.g. here in Canada, cent coins are legal tender only for debts not exceeding 25 cents, dollar coins are legal tender only for debts not exceeding 25 dollars, etc (limits are defined for all coin denominations). There are no restrictions on bank notes, though. I also know that Australia and NZ have similar restrictions, and it looks like so does EU.
Re:It's not an appeal (Score:4, Informative)
So - in a trial limited to "the issue of the appropriate amount of statutory damages", what really is discussed during the trial?
Well, there was no proof of a distribution, so I would imagine the key issues would be, for each of the 24 songs:
-what was the wholesale price of an authorized download?
-what would the expenses have been? and
-what percentage of unauthorized downloads represent lost sales.
I.e. if the mp3 download of a particular song would have sold for an average wholesale price of 71 cents, the royalties would have been 31 cents and the fixed expenses 5 cents, and for every 5 unauthorized downloads there would have been 1 lost sale, I would compute the actual damages as follows:
71 cents minus 36 cents = lost profit of 35 cents
20% x 35 cents = 7 cents actual damages.
Under Supreme Court deadlines, any award of statutory damages exceeding 28 cents for that recording would be suspect, and any award exceeding 63 cents would be presumptively invalid.
Re:Mispleling in summory (Score:4, Informative)
I betcha that if Thomas-Rasset would agree to a private, sealed settlement for a dollar, the RIAA would jump on it. They simply do not want this decision to stand.
If the case is settled, then this decision will stand. This decision stands for the proposition that even in a case where the plaintiff wilfully infringed, and even lied under oath at the trial, the maximum possible recovery is $2250 per infringed work.