Jammie Thomas-Rasset is a 32 year-old mother of two, from Brainerd, Minnesota. In 2007, either her ex-boyfriend or one of her two sons (then ages 10 an 8) downloaded and shared 24 songs off of the the Kazaa peer-to-peer network. Look what happened:
The recording industry secured a resounding victory when a Minnesota jury awarded the four major labels $1.92 million in damages after unanimously finding that Jammie Thomas-Rasset had willfully infringed on their copyrights by downloading and sharing 24 songs on the Kazaa peer-to-peer network.
The mammoth size of the verdict, representing $80,000 per track, may help dissuade more P2P users from illegally downloading music, and for that the labels are happy. “We appreciate the jury’s service and that they take this as seriously as we do,” RIAA spokeswoman Cara Duckworth said in a statement.
“We are pleased that the jury agreed with the evidence and found the defendant liable.”
The jury didn’t just find the defendant liable. They crushed her like a bug and ruined her life.
Thomas-Rasset’s attorney, Kiwi Camara, said he was “very surprised” by the size of the verdict and signaled a willingness to talk about a possible settlement with the labels.
Gee, you think?
Actually, they might appeal this verdict and the record companies are willing to work out some kind of deal, so she won’t be on the hook for the full amount. Still, the thieves on Wall Street don’t get hit with these kind of penalties, but a single-mom in Brainerd, Minnesota gets run over by a locomotive.
Simple answer to your title question: No.
at least they didn’t sell her children into slavery.
Most artists get very little from actual recordings. That’s way they are on the road all the time.
it’s also why it costs $80 to see a concert.
In the spring, I had the opportunity to talk with one of my favorite singers from the 80s and he couldn’t be more disgusted with the recording industry. His band got dropped and fucked over so many times, just as soon as they hit 30.
He finally opted out and records under his own label, but now at 51, he’s on the road almost constantly. Without a big record deal, he was disappointed with the crowds, but just shrugged his shoulders.
Tickets for his show, by the way did not cost $80. I paid less than that for the show and the pre-show meet and greet.
Totally off point, but an attorney named Kiwi Camara? Sounds like she just stepped out of the pages of some noir murder mystery.
Un-possible! This is just absurd. Who the heck was on this jury anyway? They should be shunned by decent people.
And, Thomas-Rasset should appeal this verdict, of course. No deal should be allowed to let this precedent stand even if the record companies accept $1.92 in lieu of not remotely being able to collect $1.92 MILLION from a housewife.
Idiots were obviously on the jury. And you can bet they were prescreened to make sure of that.
I sure hope she appeals all the way up to the highest levels. This is an issue of fundamental civil liberties. Contrary to the headlines, it’s the real pirates who won this round. The RIAA needs a stake in its moldy heart.
And remember, friends don’t let friends buy “music” from any RIAA member.
I doubt she has the money to appeal. This was one of those “make a statement” cases corps file to scare the bejeebus out of people. It’s ludicrous. As for the jury award, they may have been hamstrung by the wording of the applicable copyright law statutes. I never did any intellectual property cases when I practiced, but it might simply be a case of the jury following the instructions given to them by the judge which would have been based on the applicable law.
I’d have to really research the basis for the judgment and the applicable law to know for certain.
Well, there is one small ray of hope. The Electronic Frontier Foundation is supposedly looking at an appeal on constitutional grounds:
So save the money you might have wasted on an RIAA-tainted recording and send it to the EFF instead.
That link should be: http://techdirt.com/articles/20090618/1950315285
This site won’t let it work for some reason.
The RIAA buys a shameful law then uses the taxpayers’ money to harass Americans for downloading the crap RIAA’s members spew. The RIAA has never had to prove that their goombas have lost a dime on downloading, but that doesn’t matter in the land of the free. As with the bankers and financiers, the leeches win and everybody else loses. The RIAA lives by ripping off the musicians and the public while they preside over an ever more stinking flood of vile noise for sale.
Those who liked living in a free country might consider never, ever, paying for any recorded music again from any seller tied to the RIAA.
.
I couldn’t open your link and found this one.
Getting the money back
But not even this sort of attack on the RIAA’s methods goes far enough for Camara. He tells Ars that he and Harvard Law professor Charles Nesson will file a class-action lawsuit against the industry at some point after the conclusion of the Thomas-Rasset case in an effort to make the labels pay back all monies taken in from settlements with file-sharers.
Or, in Camara’s words, he’s going to “get the $100 million that they stole.” (The RIAA tells Ars that the $100 million figure is inaccurate, and RIAA general counsel Steven Marks indicated in a recent Ars op-ed that the labels had lost money on the campaign.)
The idea behind the suit is that the RIAA has illegally threatened people, using void copyright registrations, and scared them into paying an average of $3,000 or $4,000 apiece to fend off the threat of federal litigation.
I suppose team Nesson/Camara has struck out before the innings started.
"But I will not let myself be reduced to silence."great news!! Probably they say is it isn’t 1 mil because it is 999,050 or something.
[is that what the MN courts are doing instead of seating Al Franken?]
This is ridiculous.
I read that she was involved in a previous inconclusive trial over the downloading of thousands of songs. Is that true?
Of course, that doesn’t mean it the punishment dished out in the current trial for downloading 24 songs is proportionate, but still…
Shouldn’t they be suing the sender, not the recipient?
And if the sender downloaded it, wouldn’t/shouldn’t they have to find the original person who posted it as they are/should be the ones who agreed to the license agreement?
If a store on the web sells me a book, am I liable for knowing whether it was a legal copy? It’s different if he gives it to me?
Copyright and Patent law needs a MASSIVE overhaul.
b-b-but if the government doesn’t use the system so their failed business plan can still make them too much money, how will they keep making too much money? They’d have to get real jobs, which they’re totally unqualified for.