Jammie Thomas Hit With $1.5 Million Verdict 764
suraj.sun writes with this excerpt from CNET: "Jammie Thomas-Rasset, the Minnesota woman who has been fighting the recording industry over 24 songs she illegally downloaded and shared online four years ago, has lost another round in court as a jury in Minneapolis decided today that she was liable for $1.5 million in copyright infringement damages to Capitol Records, for songs she illegally shared in April 2006. ... The trial is the third for Thomas-Rasset, after one jury found her liable for copyright infringement in 2007 and ordered her to pay $222,000, the judge in the case later ruled that he erred in instructing the jury and called for a retrial. In the second trial, which took place in 2009, a jury found Thomas-Rasset liable for $1.92 million. Thomas-Rasset subsequently asked the federal court for a new trial or a reduction in the amount of damages in July 2009. But earlier this year, the judge found that amount to be 'monstrous and shocking' and reduced the amount to $54,000."
Confused? (Score:2)
Re:Confused? (Score:4, Informative)
No, that was the amount after the amount of damages was reduced after the second trial. This is the result of the third trial.
Re:Confused? (Score:5, Informative)
It actually goes on.
But earlier this year, the judge found that amount to be "monstrous and shocking" and reduced the amount to $54,000. Following that, the RIAA informed Thomas-Rasset that it would accept $25,000--less than half of the court-reduced award--if she agreed to ask the judge to "vacate" his decision, which means removing his decision from the record. Thomas-Rasset rejected that offer almost immediately.
The judge's decision stood as a great precedent.
Therefore, the scumwad MafiAA lawyers tried to extort Thomas to have the judge's decision vacated - essentially, make it invalid so that nobody else the MafiAA extortion racket [arstechnica.com] targets can hold up the judge's decision as precedent against them.
Also:
Updated at 8:20 p.m. PT with comment from Thomas-Rasset attorney, and at 9:10 p.m. to emphasize the illegal sharing aspect of the copyright complaint.
Why is it Cnet doesn't say who told them to do that? Some subhuman MafiAA goon lawyer wants to remain anonymous. How typical of them.
Re:Um no. (Score:4, Insightful)
Come back in 18 years or so when you have a firm grounding in the real world and how the legal system works.
The U.S. legal system can be described as many things, but certainly not as having a firm grounding in reality.
Re:Confused? (Score:5, Insightful)
No, that was the amount after the amount of damages was reduced after the second trial. This is the result of the third trial.
What I want to know is: is the RIAA stuffing the jury boxes or what? What kind of moron (much less twelve of them) could possibly turn out such a verdict? Don't they have computers? Don't they have Internet connections? Don't they have children? Do they not understand that they are targets just as much as Jammie Thomas? I sincerely hope that one of those fine, upstanding humanoid asses finds themselves on the receiving end of an RIAA "settlement offer." Poetic justice at its finest.
I just cannot understand how a jury of anyone's peers could think this rational, much less reasonable. I'm more than a little concerned for our future, if this is what our legal system has been reduced to delivering instead of justice. I don't know: maybe her lawyers were just less than competent, but even so this just seems way over the top.
Furthermore, how can a woman that downloaded a mere 26 music tracks be so demonized in court that such a travesty could result? Are the RIAA's attorneys gifted with Satanic powers? This just boggles the mind. Makes me want to run down to the local Best Buy and pocket a couple of CDs, just to demonstrate what stealing music actually means. "Yes, Your Honor, I stole that music. I didn't infringe anyone's copyright, however." Hell, a shoplifting charge wouldn't hold a candle to this "verdict".
Re:Confused? (Score:4, Informative)
Maybe the right question is, even if the RIAA thought "we can win a higher award again if we get a new trial", and even if Thompson thought "maybe this time I'll win or at least get a lower award"... why didn't the court just say "screw you both, this was the ruling, we're moving on down the docket"?
Because the court had no power to do so. The mechanism by which the court reduced damage is called "remittitur." The plaintiff who has his award reduced in this manner has a choice: accept the reduced award or have a new trial.
Is it not time to give up yet? (Score:2, Insightful)
$54,000 is still a lot of money, but it's doable, over a good number of years.
1,5 mil, however, not so much.
Re:Is it not time to give up yet? (Score:5, Insightful)
$54,000 is still a lot of money, but it's doable, over a good number of years.
For a native-American woman mother of four, with a job as a natural resource coordinator in Indian reservation? I might be wrong, but don't think $54,000 is doable either.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Is it not time to give up yet? (Score:4, Insightful)
It's much more important for her to force an unpayable multi million dollar judgment. It might actually open people's eyes that corporations have convinced the government to treat copyright infringement harsher than murder and rape.
A reasonable fine would be on the order of $50 to $100 per song.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
A reasonable fine would be on the order of $50 to $100 per song.
I see where you're getting at but in what world is $50-$100 a reasonable amount to pay for creating more of an infinite resource? Let's say you sell joke books. Now let's say I pick up one of your books in the store and read a joke. Later I repeat the joke to some of my friends and we all laugh. Have I stolen something? Am I a thief? Of course not.
The real issue is that computers and the internet have created a truly unlimited resource. When you think about it, copying an MP3 is similar to matter replicati
Re:Is it not time to give up yet? (Score:4, Insightful)
The entire point is to make it so painful, the party will not want to do so again.
I know its not popular here, but reality is far, far different than the pro-pirate crowd constantly attempts to censor and portray here.
If that's the point then it should be a criminal trial with all of the safeguards that implies (including, in particular, the higher standard of proof).
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Note that the original poster there should be relieved that their trial won't last very long, at least. After all, they just admitted guilt publicly... But regardless:
Doesn't matter. Public discourse not included, they're not on trial for stealing a song. They're on trial for distributing a song - at which point, the number of times it was distributed be
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
No, Wait... (Score:5, Funny)
So, 24 songs are worth $222,000... no, actually it's $1,920,000... wait, I mean $54,000... did I say that? I meant $1,500,000...
Who the hell decides these amounts? The guy who wrote the Windows file copy dialog?
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Of course not. If that were the case, we'd have seen an 'infinite' and some negative value as well.
Re:No, Wait... (Score:5, Insightful)
Dope-smoking MafiAA accountants. The same people who decide that a multiplatinum album grossing over a billion dollars in sales, for which the band was fronted $45k each in a year, studio time perhaps $500k, physical production run costs possibly $200k, and $200,000 in "tour support" can somehow lose money [techdirt.com].
See also (though I usually hate linking to wikipoo-dia): http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hollywood_accounting [wikipedia.org]
Re:No, Wait... (Score:5, Informative)
And that's if they even bother keeping track of royalties. Robert Fripp has been fighting for years to even get a proper accounting for the sales of King Crimson and his other records from UMG after it swallowed his old record company.
Record companies are some of the biggest crooks in the business. In the 40s and 50s they took advantage of a lot of artists, paying them peanuts. Even with really big artists like the Beatles they played dirty pool. They tried to screw John Lennon around by paying him Beatles-era royalty rates for his solo stuff despite the fact that he had negotiated higher rates after he left the Beatles. For some time EMI/Capitol was withholding royalties from the Beatles, and it took a court action to finally force open their claws. Then there's the breaches of contracts like EMI did against Pink Floyd over selling songs on online services, despite the fact that the contracts very explicitly stated that the albums were to be sold as a single unit.
Re:No, Wait... (Score:4, Informative)
In Fripp's case, they spent much of the time forcing him to deal with low-level functionaries who had no power to make decisions. The whole thing was clearly a stalling tactic, to make it so time-consuming and potentially expensive that the artist basically gave up. It's one thing to be Pink Floyd or The Beatles and be able to command your own fleet of lawyers, but when you're a relatively small fry like Fripp, who has pretty limited resources, I suspect the tactic can often be very sensible. In Fripp's case, at least what I gather from his blog, he finally threw down the gauntlet and decided that he wasn't going to give up, and I think UMG is finally beginning to crack on it.
The ultimate problem here is that so much attention has been paid to the recording industry's concerns that everyone with any influence is bought into the idea that they represent the music industry as a whole. While obviously not every artist has had a rough time of it, particularly those like Led Zeppelin who had a damned savvy manager who they were paying handsomely enough that he didn't try to screw them over in his own turn, there are plenty of even A list musicians who have discovered that they've been systematically raped by the record companies, through questionable accounting practices which are always the preferred method when your embezzling money. "Golly, your honor, our accountants suck so bad we really don't know what we owe him, but we're pretty sure it's only a fraction of what he claims." That generally seems to be the argument once these things reach court.
Re:No, Wait... (Score:4, Insightful)
>>>Dope-smoking MafiAA accountants.
I still think a bullet to the head of the RIAA CEO would do a world of good. And if he gets replaced, remove him too. And again and again until these idiots stop turning Our citizens into slaves via outrageous 1.5 million dollar/life sentences. Death to tyrants whether they be government leaders (Saddam) or corporate XOs.
Re:No, Wait... (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:No, Wait... (Score:4, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
I'm pretty sure a $1.5M fine to the average American IS a life sentence.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Actually, no, it isn't.
See, the entire reason we as a society have a legal system is so that we don't have to resort to violence to settle our differences when there's a disagreement. Basically, instead of just going around and killing people in anger or revenge or whatever, or having a duel to the death, when we feel we've been wronged, we take it up with the court system, and let them decide who's right and who's wrong, and who should compensate who and how much.
In the old, old days, this stuff was decid
Re:No, Wait... (Score:5, Informative)
P.S.
The Canadian version of RIAA (CRIA) owes *billions* to various singers for music that was used in greatest hits CDs, or TV ads, but never compensated. You see stealing is a-okay if you are the Masters. But not for us Serfs or Artists... we just get screwed.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
I'm not doubting your story, and it fits pretty well with their overall behaviour, but for interest sake, do you have a citation for that?
Here ya go:
Members of the Canadian Recording Industry Association, including the Big Four (Warner Music Canada, Sony BMG Music Canada, EMI Music Canada, and Universal Music Canada), face the prospect of damages ranging from $50 million up to $6 billion due to their use of artists' music without permission. [arstechnica.com]
That line is in the first paragraph of the ars technica article that explains the whole thing.
Re:No, Wait... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:No, Wait... (Score:5, Insightful)
The interesting bit here is the "redacted special jury verdict [justia.com]".
Page down through it, and you'll see that it's a simple set of questions, usually song-by-song. Near the end the jury is asked to set damages for each song. Each entry has $80,000 entered, which is pretty much half-way between the minimum ($750) and the maximum ($150,000).
Every song has the same damages assigned. Were all the songs downloaded the same number of times? We don't know...there is no evidence that the songs were ever downloaded by anyone else, as far as I can tell.
Are all these songs equal money-earners for the label? Who knows?
It's a remarkably lazy bit of life destruction from a senseless and cruel jury.
This is exactly why a judge revised the verdict, calling it "monstrous". He isn't name-calling the plaintiffs. It's directed squarely at an idiot jury.
Re:No, Wait... (Score:4, Insightful)
You've got to hand it to the RIAA lawyers for truly excellent jury selection skills.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Yeah, where the heck are these jurors coming from? I've never been on a jury for a civil case before, but I find it hard to believe the juries on civil cases would be so callous. On criminal juries, at least the ones I've been on, people have been extremely mindful and considerate.
Re:No, Wait... (Score:5, Informative)
So, 24 songs are worth $222,000... no, actually it's $1,920,000... wait, I mean $54,000... did I say that? I meant $1,500,000...
Who the hell decides these amounts? The guy who wrote the Windows file copy dialog?
Just look up "restitution" in google news for recent settlements:
$53,824 for stabbing someone in Pittsburgh.
$150,000 for selling 15 skid steer loaders (whatever they are, they sound big).
$1.5M for giving away 24 songs
See? The law makes perfect sense.
Re:No, Wait... (Score:4, Informative)
They are. [google.com] And clearly you don't know any 3-year old boys.
Re:No, Wait... (Score:4, Informative)
And yet if you walked into a store and stole those 24 songs off the shelf you could probably get away with a warning, maybe with some community service.
I'm not agreeing with any of the damage amounts that have been awarded, but just to be clear, she's not being charged with stealing 24 songs, she's being charged with distributing 24 songs.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
I'm not agreeing with any of the damage amounts that have been awarded, but just to be clear, she's not being charged with stealing 24 songs, she's being charged with distributing 24 songs.
She was convicted of making them available. No proof of actual distribution has been given, only assumed. And that said, on any P2P network one byte uploaded = one byte downloaded so if she was average for the network distributing 24 songs means distributing 24 copies. Not entirely unlike the 24 copies that disappeared off the shelf in the grandparent's analogy. If anybody made copies of those copies that is their copyright violation, not hers and she was hardly the initial seed of anything.
Forget the legal
The system clearly isn't working. (Score:5, Insightful)
Something about the shear inconsistency of the outcomes tells me how broken this system of courts truly is. It's not based on anything real. It's based on appearances, fuzzy opinions, manipulated interpretations, etc. This woman shared some music over the internet, and they want to financially crucify her. $54,000 thousand would take a lot of people a long time to pay off, let alone $1.5 million. That amount would effectively end her financial life.
Re: (Score:2)
There have only been 3 trials. The $54,000 amount was a reduction of the second trial's damage award.
Re:The system clearly isn't working. (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:The system clearly isn't working. (Score:5, Interesting)
The problem is, the laws they are using to prosecute this are almost entirely inapplicable to the situation.
There was never supposed to be a major nasty punishment in law for noncommercial activity. Copyright laws weren't written to assault someone who photocopies a chapter of a book to study from, or even the whole book. They were written to go after the guy who set up a printing press in a warehouse, or an LP-pressing machine, or a CD-burning machine, started burning bootleg copies and then selling them on the street corner or somewhere else for profit while undercutting the copyright owner.
At points along the way, the dishonest content cartels decided they wanted even more power. Thus we got punishments for noncommercial copying, even though users are supposed to have the right to secure their purchases and back up what they have purchased.
Then we got EULA's and all the crappy stupidity that entails, and a legion of idiot, fuckwitted judges couldn't figure out that if it has the form of a sale (e.g. one-time payment, usage in perpetuity) then it is a SALE. Only a few judges ever have enough brain cells to rub together in order to get it right, like the one who ruled in favor of unbundling Adobe packages and selling the pieces one at a time.
As it turns out, most judges are retarded technophobes who were raised at the teat of assholes like Jack Valenti.
Re:The system clearly isn't working. (Score:5, Informative)
There was never supposed to be a major nasty punishment in law for noncommercial activity. Copyright laws weren't written to assault someone who photocopies a chapter of a book to study from, or even the whole book. They were written to go after the guy who set up a printing press in a warehouse, or an LP-pressing machine, or a CD-burning machine, started burning bootleg copies and then selling them on the street corner or somewhere else for profit while undercutting the copyright owner.
Actually, they were written to go after anybody that violated them, and whack them with draconian penalties to make up for the low probability of whacking any particular mole.
The classic precedent is a church choir director who bought sheet music for a song that was scored for voices far squeakier than his choir, transposed it down to make it singable by ordinary people, ran off a few copies for his choir, and sent the modification back to the publisher, gratis, to be used in future editions if the publisher chose to do so. He got whacked for the statutory penalty big bucks (which were worth a lot more in those days) for each of the copies of the derived work he made.
As to "the guy who sets up ... in a warehouse ... a CD-burning machine ... started burning bootleg copies and then selling them ... for profit while undercutting the copyright owner", it also applies to the guy who does the same except he gives them away. THAT's what she's charged with. The file-sharing software made them available for some potentially large number of downloads by others.
I don't like it either. But let's not misconstrue the law or the situation. It confuses the issue.
Re:The system clearly isn't working. (Score:4, Informative)
Actually, they were written to go after anybody that violated them, and whack them with draconian penalties to make up for the low probability of whacking any particular mole.
That's how they are written now. But today's laws are the result of massive lobbying and don't reflect the original design.
As I've pointed out else where in this thread, it was only in 1997 with the passage of the No-Electronic Theft Act that non-commercial infringement (i.e. trading copies for other copies) was made a criminal offense.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
The laws (English laws, which helped shape the US laws) were written in a time when personal copying was a non-issue. The only people who could afford printing presses were commercial entities, and running off single copies was likewise not viable. The laws were written with the assumption that the only people who copied material were other publishers, as they were the only ones who could afford to (for everyone else, the cost of copying far outweighed the purchase price of the goods). There was no point in
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
actually is a
No, that's not what the studies have shown. They show there MAY be a benefit for some players. Period. And beyond that, there has not been a lot to even validate such studies. Furthermore, those same studies go out of their way to ignore a huge body of centuries worth of knowledge on economics. So to say they are far from vetted and confirmed, is an understatement.
Realistically, those studies are complete idiocy. The logic works like this. I have money to buy A or B. Before, a consumer would pick A or B. No
Re: (Score:3)
For A, its a loss.
No, it isn't a loss, they haven't lost anything, they just haven't gained anything, you can't lose something you never had in the first place. That's why this matter is complicated, because it isn't stealing of physical property.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
But why have there been so many trials?
Because the amount of damages doesn't matter when you don't have any money. The damage award might be $1.5M or $54K but in either case it's still more than she will ever pay because she doesn't have any money with which to pay.
When you're so poor that you've got nothing to lose, then you might as well keep fighting until you win (or die trying).
Re:The system clearly isn't working. (Score:5, Insightful)
Considering the amounts they've been hitting her with, what's she got to lose? All but the $54,000 verdict were so high that she couldn't have possibly ever paid them off. Hiring the lawyers is probably considerably cheaper than actually trying to comply.
Re:The system clearly isn't working. (Score:4, Interesting)
Not only is it cheaper, but the longer she creates waves and headlines, the more the rights to the book/film will be worth whether she wins or loses. One appeal wouldn't be worth anything, happens all the time. But at this point, her fight has become rather more unusual, and the extreme variation will doubtless raise a few eyebrows in the publishing world - not because they'd question it, but because underdog stories (especially ones where conspiracy theories can be added by the editors) sell.
A couple more rounds and she'll be hot property.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
I'm seeing stories in the Washington Post, ABC News, the BBC, CNET, Wired and other sites. Which means yes she has had television and newspaper coverage, as well as coverage in trade journals.
Re:The system clearly isn't working. (Score:5, Informative)
Filing chapter 7 will discharge all debts except student loans, back Federal taxes, child support, restitution (due to *criminal* not civil acts), homeowner's fees, debts obtained via fraud.
Source: Federal bankruptcy code, 11 U. S. C. 523.
If this were a criminal case, and she owned the millions, yes; she would be stuck with the debt for life. This is civil.
Re:The system clearly isn't working. (Score:5, Informative)
Unless a judge rendered willful and malicious injury in a verdict, this isn't relevant.
It would be relevant if the plaintiff took songs from an artist, burned them on a CD, and sold them for cheap in front of a music store, or if someone copied a commercial program, sold copies of it in front of Fry's and it was proven they were doing that just to cause harm intentionally to the developer.
This has never been proven in any of the trials. So, yes, she can declare bankruptcy.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
In my opinion, statuatory awards shouldn't be covered under this anyway. Statuatory awards don't reflect the actual injury at all.
Outside of the design of the system (Score:5, Interesting)
Not that anyone really cares about what is best for the people of the United States.
Re:Outside of the design of the system (Score:4, Insightful)
Copyrights were never really meant to target individual citizens? Says who? I don't see any support for that claim in the Constitutional basis for copyright law; or in the first copyright act; or in any other subsequent copyright act that I've read...
In fact every copyright act I've read is explicitly not merely a regulation on business, as they specifically assign liability for infringement even if it isn't commercial in nature.
Perhaps you're mistaking how you'd like to see copyright used as somehow representing what it was "meant" to be used for?
Re:Outside of the design of the system (Score:5, Informative)
In fact every copyright act I've read is explicitly not merely a regulation on business, as they specifically assign liability for infringement even if it isn't commercial in nature.
You are ignorant then. It was only in 1997 that non-commercial infringement became a criminal offense. [wikimedia.org]
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
The case was civil law not criminal. The criminal areas of copyright law are in any case almost never used so it's the civil stuff (which applies to all persons natural or otherwise) that matters
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
The case was civil law not criminal. The criminal areas of copyright law are in any case almost never used so it's the civil stuff (which applies to all persons natural or otherwise) that matters
Thjat's a meaningless and arbitrary distinction when claiming that copyright law was meant to target private individuals at least as much as businesses. Just because some laws targeted everybody doesn't make the emphasis on for profit piracy any less.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Copyright/trademark/patent laws were meant to target people making money from other people's IP. For example, if someone makes shoes with a brand trademark and sells them, they are liable for the trademark violation. Or if they are selling for profit burns of Justin Bieber CDs, they are liable for copyright violations. Same with someone using a patent someone else owns for profit.
None of these laws were used against individuals for nonprofit use, -ever-, in the history of the US. Until the last decade.
Re:Outside of the design of the system (Score:5, Insightful)
Economically speaking, you have profited from the copying.
Let's say a CD is set at a market value of $12 and you have $50.
Instead of buying that CD you instead download the songs from that CD.
You now have $50 cash and $12 worth of music for a total of $62 of value. You are now effectively $12 richer than you were since you have the music and you retained the $12.
If you bought the CD you would have $12 worth of music and $38 in cash for a total of $50 of value.
Re:Outside of the design of the system (Score:4, Insightful)
Tell me where I can get $12 - or indeed any money - for my pirated MP3s. If you can't relatively easily convert it to real money, then it's not "commercial gain" and speaking as if you had $62 is bullshit. Obviously you are getting some personal benefit from it - people rarely do things to harm themselves - but it doesn't practically have any value to sell. This is exactly what differentiates commercial and non-commercial activity. Actually it's probably even stricter than that, as things that do have a commercial value like a user dose of drugs can be considered to be for personal use, but being unsellable is quite definitive. Oddly enough the US decided to claim swapping one unsellable pirated copy for another unsellable pirated copy to be commercial gain, but in my book 0 + 0 still equals 0 real money.
Re:Outside of the design of the system (Score:5, Insightful)
And what exactly is wrong with that? I thought one of the wonders of capitalism was that although some people might have a smaller slice of the pie, the pie itself is always growing. Well, in your example, the pie has just grown by $12. Isn't that something we should be celebrating, not suing over?
Re:Outside of the design of the system (Score:5, Insightful)
Economically speaking, you have profited from the copying.
No, this is a make-belief. Alice buys the internet connection and pays a few cents for torrenting 4 albums. She then spends a few hours listening to them. This is all pure loss for Alice, in economic terms. Somehow this escaped your analysis.
Instead, you reason, if the copyright holder sets the price at $10 per album, then Alice's "gross profit" is $40. And if the copyright holder sets the price at $1000000 per album (which is entirely legit and practical the under current law), then, again, in line with what you are saying, Alice's "gross profit" is $4000000. So you are saying that her "profit" is whatever number the copyright holder says it is. This, of course, is just the kind of unadulterated bullshit that has NOTHING to do with economics or profit, as understood by anyone with a working brain.
Re:Outside of the design of the system (Score:5, Insightful)
Let's say a CD is set at a market value of $12 and you have $50.
Instead of buying that CD you instead download the songs from that CD.
You now have $50 cash and $12 worth of music for a total of $62 of value. You are now effectively $12 richer than you were since you have the music and you retained the $12.
Can I sell the files and get the $12? If not, then I do not "have $12 worth of music", just like my PC that I paid $2000 for is no longer worth $2000. Worth is determined by how much you can get by selling it and not by how much someone else asks for it (in this case, someone might pay $12 for the retail CD, but would not pay the same $12 for the same songs on a CD-R).
Also, you do not know if I would have bought the CD for $12 if the songs were not available for download. I could probably have taped the songs off the radio. Or borrowed the CD from a friend and copied it. Or downloaded some other songs.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Copyrights were never really meant to target individual citizens; copyright is a regulation on businesses, and should only be applied to businesses.
Of which you can provide numerous citations from common law tradition, case law and statutory law to back this up, right?
Re:Outside of the design of the system (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:The system clearly isn't working. (Score:4, Informative)
Moral of the story (Score:2)
When you are in a hole, stop digging. This applies more to her "lawyers" than to herself though.
Re:Moral of the story (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Moral of the story (Score:5, Insightful)
No, they were smart enough to see a chance at free advertising and took it.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
oh, I saw that, even with minimum effort, they can dig their heels in and fight a clearly unwinnable case out to 3 trials over 4 years (and counting), all of which will have cost UMG $millions, none of which they'll see.
Re:Moral of the story - Nope (Score:5, Interesting)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Moral of the story - Nope (Score:5, Interesting)
First, let me say that I do NOT think that she is deliberately trying to get absurd rewards. I just don't buy that argument. But playing devil's advocate and agreeing with it...
That's the point. The Supreme Court takes cases based largely on two criteria: First, that there is an important constitutional issue to settle. And second, that lower courts have arrived at different decisions. If every court that has ever heard a case agrees on how it should be handled, there's little reason to step in -- unless they want to reverse it. I don't see any reason that lower appeals courts wouldn't also consider cases along such lines.
This is one case with one set of facts, and yet four different outcomes. On the one hand you have a couple of jury decisions obviously attempting to apply the law, but arriving at pretty wildly different decisions. $1.92MM is over 30% higher than $1.5MM just in percentage terms, and almost half a million dollars higher in absolute terms. And then of course the first jury with a $222K verdict that is nearly an order of magnitude different. That alone is an indication that the law may be too vague and require clarification, either by the Congress or the judiciary.
At the same time we have judges raising constitutional concerns. An award that is "monstrous and shocking" is essentially code for "in violation of the Eighth Amendment," and his reduction took the damages from the highest the case has ever seen to four times less than the lowest jury award. That's significant. So startling, in fact, that the RIAA offered to let her settle for half that ($25,000) if she asked the judge to vacate his verdict -- it is so vastly different, in short, that it has the RIAA worried it might be used as precedent.
These are all extremely intriguing things for appeal, and for a higher court to step in and go "alright, wait a minute here; something obviously is not right." If they do so, and if they agree that following the law leads to unconstitutional awards, or even that the law is so ambiguous that justice is not being served leaving it so wildly in the jury's hands, it may end up with the law being struck down.
Re:Moral of the story (Score:5, Insightful)
When you are in a hole, stop digging. This applies more to her "lawyers" than to herself though.
If the hole deeper than you can climb out of no matter what, why not keep digging and bring the asshole who tossed you in there down with you?
Meanwhile in Germany... (Score:5, Interesting)
Arstechnica just posted a nice companion piece to this: http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2010/11/42-german-p2p-fine-stark-contrast-to-seven-figure-us-judgments.ars [arstechnica.com]
"REPENT, HARLEQUIN!" (Score:2)
Said the Tick-Tock Man. [wikipedia.org]
Seriously? (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Seriously? (Score:5, Insightful)
Many jurors go into the courtroom with the idea that their purpose is to convict criminals and make them pay, and that anybody who is a defendant must be a criminal. They think the defendants are not like themselves at all. The do not think they are peers.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
I know someone who said, of being on trial, "I would like to think that if you have made it this far in the system, it's because you are guilty."
This is a perfect example of the difference between civil and criminal cases. In a criminal case, the suspect is supposedly presumed innocent until proven guilty. In a civil case, the defendant is the one who needs to prove their innocence.
This is just another symptom, showing how the whole system is broken.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
While my own experiences are quite similar to yours, studies have shown that people tend to trust law enforcement witnesses more than any other witnesses, believe that defendants wouldn't be in court if they are guilty, and a host of other biases that do unfortunately lead to problems. Ideally, judges are able to instruct juries properly to eliminate those biases, but judges aren't perfect either.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
One minor correction: it was the Plaintiff, not the Defendant, that chose not to accept the $54K verdict.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
A jury of your peers is really a jury of people who weren't smart enough to get out of jury duty.
See also: Any survey results ever.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
There is no "jury of your peers" or "presumption of innocence" in a civil trial.
Except that Jammie Thomas, despite her laughable attempts at defenses and the nerds who keep wanting to believe them, is guilty of the infringement that she was charged with. The awards, though, are somewhat ridiculous. This idiot should have just settled when she was ahead to begin with.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
She has never been ahead, for her $25k is almost as bad as 2 million. She is hoping for a higher judgment every time.
The Jury is Out... (Score:4, Interesting)
Are we now going to get all the people who illegally made mix-tapes for their friends in the 1980s and fine them too?
Legalized Extortion and Racketeering (Score:3, Insightful)
Disease v. Symptom (Score:4, Interesting)
earlier this year, the judge found that amount to be 'monstrous and shocking' and reduced the amount to $54,000.
[the jury] decided today that she was liable for $1.5 million in copyright infringement damages
The jury is instructed to apply the law without considering whether the law is constitutional. The judge is applying his perspective on constitutionality. Given a 30x difference in outcomes, it seems that there is a pretty severe disconnect between the law and what is right according this official boundaries of this nation's legislative charter.
What do we do to find the law to be 'monstrous and shocking'? What is the process for finding the legislature and DoJ to be 'monstrous and shocking'? For finding that they do not derive their just powers from the will of the governed and have violated their sworn duty to The Constitution in favor of their sponsors' will-to-power?
Most interesting part (Score:5, Insightful)
The most interesting part, for those of us who read the article, is:
But earlier this year, the judge found that amount to be "monstrous and shocking" and reduced the amount to $54,000. Following that, the RIAA informed Thomas-Rasset that it would accept $25,000--less than half of the court-reduced award--if she agreed to ask the judge to "vacate" his decision, which means removing his decision from the record. Thomas-Rasset rejected that offer almost immediately.
RIAA is scared their tactics will no longer work. When faced with more reasonable verdicts, their defendants are probably more likely to fight it out in court, making RIAA's whole business litigation plan useless.
Has anyone taken this to the bands in question? (Score:5, Insightful)
Every last one of these acts will have a twitter / facebook / forum etc... at least a couple of them are going to be people who interact with their fans on there in person.
Do they know that this is being done in their name? We know that songs are http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capitol_v._Thomas#The_24_songs [wikipedia.org] so let's start asking them the question...
I can absolutely guarantee (Score:5, Insightful)
Everyone in the US is guilty of copyright infringement at one time or another. Most people don't ever think about copyright, or if they do, it's to make up the rules as they go.
I wonder how the jury would react if they were sent invoices for damages for their past and current infringements, based on the ridiculous damages they approved for this woman.
Juries (Score:3, Insightful)
I can't imagine sitting on a jury and handing out an award like this, even if she is guilty of the charges. It's like people lose all sense of reality in the jury room. I wouldn't know for sure because when I give my occupation as "satellite communications engineer" I'm generally excused by the defense in the next breath.
However, you listen to the juror interviews after some recent high profile cases with questionable verdicts, and you can see how a lot of them get wrapped up in the pseudo-religious fervor of CIVIC DUTY[TM] and lose themselves in the minutiae of what are in many cases pretty clear situations if you just hold on to your common sense.
I love the "our hands were tied" excuse. So screw the jury instructions or whatever you imagine is tying your hands. It's *your* baby in that jury room. Give the correct verdict. Maybe it'll get overturned by another court, but at least you did the right thing.
Jury made the same mistake as before (Score:5, Insightful)
100,000 people download a song. Each person is criminally liable for their own download. Fines should thus reflect people trying to be cheap and get a $1 product for free. Something on the order of $2-$20 per song would probably be the right amount.
100,000 people download a song. One person is determined to be the criminal mastermind and fined for the infringement of all of those people. So a fine on the order of $200k-$2 mil is probably the right amount here. But because you've made one person pay for everyone's infringement, that one fine indemnifies the 100,000 from any charges for the crime.
What the RIAA is trying to do is get a fine on this woman as if she were the criminal mastermind behind it all, and then apply the same fine to the other 100,000 people. It just doesn't work that way logically. Either each person is responsible for their own actions, or one person is responsible for everyone's actions. It's totally illogical to argue that each person is responsible for everyone's actions.
As has been pointed out, the real problem here is that the RIAA is taking copyright laws written to be used against commercial copyright infringement, and using them against individuals. Commercial copyright infringement (e.g. mass-producing bootleg CDs) fits the "criminal mastermind" model, and the fines were set up to reflect that. If a bootleg shop got caught, they'd be sued, fined, and the people who bought those bootleg CDs weren't liable for anything. Totally different situation, totally different penalties, which the RIAA is misusing (or abusing if you prefer) against individual infringers.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Jury made the same mistake as before (Score:5, Informative)
Hi Ray - any chance of explaining why there is another trial here? It isn't clear from the article.
trial -> invalidated
trial 2 (effectively the first trial)
trial 2 appeal (it's an appeal)
trial 3 (why, how?)
thanks!
The 1st trial had to be done over because the Judge had been misled by the RIAA as to the applicable law on what it takes to violate the distribution right. The Judge later did some reading, realized his mistake in believing the RIAA lawyers, called a foul on himself, and scheduled Trial #2.
Although he had made similar mistakes in Trial #2, he didn't call a foul on himself there. The jury returned another huge verdict. There he was looking at the verdict from the damages standpoint only. He declined to reach the constitutional issue [in my view erroneously] and decided it on "remittitur" grounds [a general 'common law' remedy]. He granted "remittitur" and reduced the verdict to $54,000, but this was provisional only -- the RIAA was given an option to either accept the award, or have a new trial. The RIAA opted for a 3rd trial instead.
The judge set it down for a 3rd trial -- on the damages issue only. I don't know why the judge thought it appropriate to have a 3rd trial. I think he was wrong.
If a DUI costs about $10,000... (Score:3, Informative)
... you would have to get 3 DUIs per week for a YEAR to reach 1.5 million dollars. Clearly one person sharing music online is as big a danger to society as 150 drunks on the road.
Seriously, this is so out of whack. There is a reason punitive damages exist but this is like executing people for speeding. If Jamie earns--excuse me, NETS--$50k per year, this would take 30 years to pay off.
Just make payments like Microsoft does (Score:3, Interesting)
She just needs to author 24 songs and perform them. Record the performances and give the RIAA or individual studio the rights to the songs she wrote. Since the jury said 24 songs are worth 1.5 million her debt is paid. I see an opportunity to retire early here. Where is that sheet music pad I got at the swap meet last year...
The Real Damages are $1.20... total (Score:4, Informative)
There was NO evidence of her being a "distributor" which would have required
-proof of dissemination of copies
-proof that the dissemination was to the public at large, AND
-proof of a sale, another transfer of ownership, a rental, a lease, or a lending.
There was no proof of any of the above.
So all there was was 24 downloads.
Wholesale price [70 cents] minus saved expenses [~ 35 cents] = 35 cents lost profit from a lost sale.
35 cents x 15% [the ratio of lost sales to unauthorized downloads according to music industry statistical companies] = 5 cents.
5 cents x 24 files = $1.20.
The statutory damages should not have exceeded $100 in all.
Re:The amounts are outrageous (Score:5, Interesting)
You can't legally COPY someones work
Sorry, but we live in an age where copying is something that happens automatically whenever people use their computers. If you sent me an electronic copy of a book you wrote, my computer would automatically copy the book multiple times as part of its normal operation; I would also very likely make further copies when I back up my files, migrate to a new computer, and so forth.
The problem here is that people keep trying to define a difference between the sort of copying that is part of a computer's normal and routine operation, and sharing files with other people. It is an extreme blurry line -- multiple people may use one computer system, or a multiple computers with multiple users may be connected to the same LAN, or a computer might be connected to more than one LAN, or to the Internet, etc. Exactly where do you intend to define copying as a violation of the right you claim to have over dictating copying? If I have a digital copy of your book, can my roommate who shares a computer with me read it? Can my roommate copy it from my home directory to his home directory? Can we both read it at the same time, using two separate digital copies? What if we have two computers, connected to some sort of computer network; can the book be copied from one computer to the other? What if we have one computer with two processors and two hard drives? What if we have many computers in some sort of cluster? What if we are using a distributed OS?
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
But the message is crystal clear. You can't legally COPY someones work and especially you can't share it.
I'm a writer and I want to get paid for copies of what I write. NO ONE has a right to take my work and
share it with others or copy it without paying. I have every right to expect that what I write IS MINE
TO SELL or give away - but it's MINE.
If you never show it to anybody, it is absolutely yours. If you show it, or distribute it, it is no longer yours in an ownership sense. Copyright is an artificial and temporary right which is granted only as incentive for you to share your creations.
Technically, you don't want to get paid for copies of what you write. You just want to get paid for doing what you like. It just so happens that getting paid for copies of your product is the primary economic mechanism for this compensation in your case. An
Re:What do you expect from MN... (Score:5, Insightful)
Miss Bachmann, like her favorite founding father Thomas Jefferson, considers copyright a bad idea. He said: "If nature has made any one thing less susceptible than all others of exclusive property, it is the action of the thinking power called an idea, which an individual may exclusively possess as long as he keeps it to himself; but the moment it is divulged, it forces itself into the possession of every one, and the receiver cannot dispossess himself of it. Its peculiar character, too, is that no one possesses the less, because every other possesses the whole of it. He who receives an idea from me, receives instruction himself without lessening mine; as he who lights his taper at mine, receives light without darkening me.
"That ideas should freely spread from one to another over the globe, for the moral and mutual instruction of man, and improvement of his condition, seems to have been peculiarly and benevolently designed by nature, when she made them, like fire, expansible over all space, without lessening their density in any point, and like the air in which we breathe, move, and have our physical being, incapable of confinement or exclusive appropriation. Inventions then cannot, in nature, be a subject of property."
He also wrote to James Madison, author of the Constitution:
"I like the declaration of rights as far as it goes, but I should have been for going further. For instance, the following alterations and additions would have pleased me... Article 9. Monopolies may be allowed to persons for their own productions in literature, and their own inventions in the arts, for a term not exceeding ___ years, but for no longer term, and for no other purpose." Jefferson's preference for the term of copyright was submitted to Madison a few days afterward. The proposed term was that of 19 years, based on the average author's lifespan after publication. Today that length would be 35 years, and nowhere near the current 150 granted to Disney and others non-humans.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Downloading and distributing music is illegal
So is parking your car in the wrong place.
We all know why the amount is so high
Yes, we do: modern copyright law was written for the benefit of businesses like the RIAA's members, rather than for the benefit of society.
If examples are made of them, they will eventually slow down.
Thus explaining why so many people use illegal drugs, despite nearly a century of prohibition and "making examples of" people who break those laws.