Posted on 11/05/2010 9:27:54 PM PDT by JoeProBono
MINNEAPOLIS, - A Minnesota mother was ordered by a jury to pay $1.5 million to the Recording Industry Association of America for illegally downloading and sharing 24 songs.
Jammie Thomas-Rasset was ordered to pay the sum, $62,500 for each illegally downloaded song, by a Minneapolis court after two previous convictions were thrown out on appeal, the New York Daily News reported Friday.
Thomas-Rasset was ordered to pay $222,000 following a 2007 trial but the decision was declared a mistrial upon appeal.
She was next ordered to pay $1.92 million in a June 2009 trial, but the judge lowered the amount to $54,000. The RIAA offered to settle for $25 million, but Thomas-Rasset instead appealed the decision and ended up on trial a third time.
Good luck collecting $.50 from her....
I’m not for illegal downloads, but it’s this kind of ridiculous overreach that is damaging, not downloading 24 songs. Let the punishment fit the crime, huh?
That we have this kind of “justice” when we blithely allow illegal aliens to invade the country and the system just shrugs says so much about the state we’re in.
I think this is something that the new GOP congress should take a look at. I know stealing is against law and I do not need a lecture on copyrights. However, this unreasonable.
The copyright laws are ridiculous. The length of time for an artist, writer, or composer to collect royalties should be the same length of time that inventors have for a patent: 17 years.
After that, anyone can own the song.
WTF was the jury thinking?
Automatons.
Exactly, damage awards ought to have some relationship to actual damages.
Right. How about giving that judgement to the site where she got the songs, not to a poor Mom who is just trying to save a buck.
The RIAA just had to make an example of her and did it beautifully. Will this stop downloads? NO.
Aren’t legal downloads pretty ceap these days? Isn’t price $0.99 per track these days?
It is like that. And I am sure she wasn’t downloading 17 year old songs!
How about a lecture on smaller government and the ills of a nanny state?
ceap = cheap
I was thinking the same thing! Where did they get this jury? I know that every single one of them has gotten a movie or song illegally at some point in their lives! I can not believe they would do this to another person!
Especially since sites have been shut down over this in the past. It’s like suing a user and leaving the drug dealer on the street. I mean, 24 songs? How many musicians is she putting out on the street?
Yep they are. Exactly what I use to pay for a top ten 45 record in 1973!
The judgment is ridiculous, but it isn’t the downloading, it’s the uploading. She made the songs available for any number of other people to download from her computer.
News stories always say people were clipped for downloading, but it’s always for having a shared folder people could download copyrighted material from.
HA! Awesome point.
I'd ask the members of the jury, "How many of you have not purchased a CD but had a friend burn you a copy?"
I figured that. I asked that question because it seems a bit ridiculous these days to download illegally when tracks are fairly cheap from legal sources.
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