Jammie Thomas hit with $1.5 million verdict (File sharing case)

CNET.com ^ | 11/3/10 | Steven Musil

[FTJM]

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.

A jury in Minneapolis decided today that she was liable for $1.5 million in copyright infringement damages to Capitol Records, or $62,500 for each song she illegally shared in April 2006.

The Recording Industry Association of America--the trade group that represents the four major music labels--applauded the verdict.

"We are again thankful to the jury for its service in this matter and that they recognized the severity of the defendant's misconduct," the RIAA said in a statement. "Now with three jury decisions behind us along with a clear affirmation of Ms. Thomas-Rasset's willful liability, it is our hope that she finally accepts responsibility for her actions."

Thomas-Rasset is expected to appeal today's judgment before Michael Davis, the chief judge for the U.S. District Court for the District of Minnesota, who had previously slashed the damage award in an earlier judgment against Thomas-Rasset.

"We intend to raise our constitutional challenge again before Judge Davis," Kiwi Camara, an attorney representing Thomas-Rasset, said in a statement to CNET. "The fight continues."

The trial is the third for Thomas-Rasset, who was originally accused of sharing 1,700 songs--enough to fill about 150 CDs. 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.

[muawiyah]

RIAA would do its members a good deed by getting busy in figuring out how to MARKET the stuff. They won't make any money suing people without money nor will they frighten bankrupt students into buying stuff.

All this sort of thing is doing is enriching lawyers.

[Frantzie]

If she was online sharing 1700 songs then she is scum too. If you don’t want to pay for it - listen to the radio.

[miliantnutcase]

Heh, they can always go back to recording off the radios just we did back in the day.

[roadcat]

If you don’t want to pay for it - listen to the radio.

If you have an internet connection, use Pandora. I enjoy free music daily, largely uninterrupted. Pick your favorite artist, and it plays music by that artist and others of the same genre. Get tired of one, switch to another artist. All free.

[TeachableMoment]

The scary part isnt that rich powerful RIAA has gotten the gov’t to collect $$ for them, altho that this is bad enough, but that a jury of my peers agreed with this.

We need to wake up! It sounds silly to associate file sharing verdict with socialism, but we are being plundered by the elites on all levels, from the value of our dollar, to our children’s future, to our jobs, and now, if the bad serf trespasses on the Corporations business plan, the other serfs will throw the book at him!

I don’t even recognize my fellow man, anymore.

[BBell]

LOL! I remember well in the days of my youth having my stereo cassette player set on play,record and pause waiting anxiously to see what song was going to play next so I could hit the pause button in a split second.

King Biscuit Flower Hour, recorded many of them.

[Defiant]

Pandora is great, for me, it has replaced the radio for listening to music. But for downloading music and creating mp3’s, I get all the music I want for $12/month by combining a Napster subscription that has unlimited DRM downloads with a software program that converts the songs into MP3 without DRM restrictions. The software is Tunebite. It works great. I keep waiting for the music industry to go after Tunebite, but they have not.

[iowamark]

The trial is the third for Thomas-Rasset, who was originally accused of sharing 1,700 songs--enough to fill about 150 CDs. 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. 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.

What a mess!