Court orders Jammie Thomas to pay RIAA $1.92 million
Jammie Thomas-Rasset now owes the RIAA $1.92 million.
(Credit: Jammie Thomas-Rasset)Jammie Thomas-Rasset was found guilty of willful copyright infringement on Thursday in a Minneapolis federal court and must pay the recording industry $1.92 million.
In a surprise decision, the jury imposed damages against Thomas-Rasset, who was originally accused of sharing more than 1,700 songs, at a whopping $80,000 for each of the 24 songs she was ultimately found guilty of illegally sharing.
In 2007, the Recording Industry Association of America claimed in a lawsuit that Thomas-Rasset pilfered 1,700 songs. The RIAA eventually culled that number down to a representative sample of 24.
Thomas-Rasset lost a previous trial in October 2007 when a jury rendered a $222,000 verdict against the Minnesota native. U.S. District Judge Michael David threw out the decision after acknowledging he erred when giving his jury instructions.
According to Ars Technica reporter Nate Anderson, Thomas-Rasset gasped when the dollar amount was read in court.
For the four largest recording companies, the jury's decision is an affirmation of the legality of the industry's copyright claims.
"We appreciate the jury's service and that they take this issue as seriously as we do," said Cara Duckworth, an RIAA spokeswoman. "We are pleased that the jury agreed with the evidence and found the defendant liable. Since day 1, we have been willing to settle the case and remain willing to do so."
According to Ben Sheffner, a copyright advocate and former attorney for 20th Century Fox who attended the entire hearing, one of Thomas' attorneys is willing to discuss a settlement with the music industry.
Greg Sandoval covers media and digital entertainment for CNET News. He is a former reporter for The Washington Post and the Los Angeles Times. E-mail Greg, or follow him on Twitter at http://twitter.com/sandoCNET. 
0%?
I think the jury did a great job of making the RIAA look stupid. If every jury in cases like this did the same, it would make taking people to over this sort of thing redundant and it would cost them money and they would get nothing back...
Now I must get back to limewire ;)
Yes. they would get pennies on the dollar when it forces her to file bankupsy. They will also get the satisfaction of forcing the bankruptsy to begin with.
BTW, some people below said bankruptcy won't work in this case (which I have no idea if true or not).
It doesn't matter if 0% or 100% goes back to the musicians or not. Theft is still theft. If you don't like the music industry, then buy direct from artists. If artists can't make it selling direct, then maybe they DO need the music industry. Just because you don't like to pay for something, doesn't mean you can steal it. I'd love a Porsche (and think they are overpriced... and can't afford one), but that doesn't justify stealing one.
Theft is theft. And infringement is infringement. And the amount she's paying is more money than the CDs brought in in profit. Tell me how that's fair?
And if they get even part of it, do you really think that the musicians will see a dime of it?
Since you aren't intelligent enough to figure out the difference between copyright infringement and theft, you might want to consider getting offline and going back to the third grade.
If you stole a shirt from a store, the penalty would be more than the price the shirt would have sold for. The penalties are there to make 'crime not pay'... not simply to reimburse. Also, since she was sharing the songs out, how many million did people download (at say, $1 each)?
@ pentest -
She took something that wasn't her's and gave it to others. You can use fancy terms like 'copyright infringement' if it makes you feel better... it's still theft. It's like calling abortion 'pro-choice' to tidy it up... doesn't change the reality unless you're fooled by rhetoric.
Apparently you know nothing of this case. It isn't the fact that she downloaded the songs... it's because she made them available. So downloading isn't that big of a deal, it's sharing them.
The problem with this case is that the RIAA could not prove that anyone downloaded the songs.
There's a difference between being punished and being made an example of. I don't know what jerk off judge and jury tried this case, but holy f'n christ, the fine is ridiculous. $80,000 for a song?
Since when did 2 songs equate to the average price of a home in the US? The fine is absolutely retarded!
Was she wrong? Yes. But the punishment doesn't fit the crime. I could understand maybe triple damages, but this is nuts =)
This is not a pro- or against anything other than our civil justice system. Keep in mind it was civil and not criminal. All this was is just a show to try and scare people.
Have a great day!
http://www.law.cornell.edu/supct/html/96-1487.ZO.html
It's hard to say how the Supreme Court will react, given the propensity of the Court to place politics ahead of consistent dogma, whether liberal or conservative.
Under the eyes of the law, she was found guilty of sharing 24 songs and the jury decided that it was worth the $80,000.00 per song. I'm not sure if that was the maximum but clearly the jury decided that she was knowingly and willfully committing the act.
To gerrrg, this is a civil court and not criminal court. The penalty is not bail nor does this have anything to do with the 8th amendment.
The truth was that this woman was no poster child and she took a poorly calculated gamble. Clearly since she doesn't have that amount the RIAA will negotiate something less than the award. But you can bet that she'll think twice about file sharing.
Also I don't know if the jury did find in favor of punitive damages. The dollar amounts seem to suggest that they didn't and I don't think the RIAA is going to ask for punitive damages when she clearly can't pay this amount.
Actually, the 8th amendment has been applied to civil cases and to the amount of fines (the amendment itself makes no distinction between "criminal" and "civil" cases). I believe there is some controversy over whether it cane be applied to state civil cases, though certainly it has been applied to state criminal cases.
The US Code does not fall under the US Constitution? Of course it does! And this is a federal case, therefore the 8th Amendment directly applies.
FWIW, the maximum is $150,000 under specific circumstances (which do not apply to this case - the court previously ruled that defendant carried the burden of proof). In any event, the court has the right to lower the damages to $200/violation if the court believes that, "such infringer was not aware and had no reason to believe that his or her acts constituted an infringement of copyright, the court in its discretion may reduce the award of statutory damages to a sum of not less than $200." - USC Title 17 §504 subsection c.2.
The 8th Amendment DOES NOT apply to private civil cases. The 8th Amendment applies ONLY to government actions, NOT to private suits decided in federal court. See the landmark Supreme Court decision: BFI, INC. V. KELCO DISPOSAL, INC., 492 U. S. 257 (1989).
The BFI decision specifically states: "The Excessive Fines Clause of the Eighth Amendment does not apply to punitive damages awards in cases between private parties;"
@skshrews:
You're probably confusing "civil cases" with 'civil forfeiture", which the 8th Amendment does apply to. Civil forfeiture is when the government seizes private property. The classic example is for drug cases, where the government moves to seize assets related to the crime (vehicles, money, etc.) even without criminal prosecution.
Do you *really* think it will make her think twice about it?
Theres a saying that the ultimate freedom comes when you have nothing to lose. Well, unless overturned, she has pretty much the ultimate freedom. It's not like we have debtors' prisons, any more, so she needn't worry about jail time for a civil crime. Given that she's already been penalized more money than she's likely to have ever had, what's she got as a disincentive, now? Seriously: what you're asserting is the equivalent of trying to give someone multiple life sentences - realistically, you're only going to be punishable *once*, so what's the further deterrent?
Debtors prison isn't exactly a bad idea... maybe we should bring it back (along with some modern checks and balances). Bankruptcy wasn't meant to protect the careless or crook. It was meant to keep people out of debtors prison (or equivalent) when things happened beyond their control... and in a capitalistic system to encourage people taking some level of risk. Maybe the court could help decide leniency in 'debtors prison' cases rather than bankruptcy settlements. That might just turn things around a bit in society (make them more fair again... rather than just a bunch of welfare type systems with learned users).
Unfortunately the punishment does fit the crime.
Under the eyes of the law, she was found guilty of sharing 24 songs and the jury decided that it was worth the $80,000.00 per song. I'm not sure if that was the maximum but clearly the jury decided that she was knowingly and willfully committing the act.
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WRONG! The fact is that if you steal a TV from a store, they cannot charge you for the amount of EVERY SINGLE TV stolen from the store. That is what they are trying to do here, and that is what is wrong and why the ruling is wrong.
This is also BLATANTLY against the eighth amendment, and should be thrown out of court. If it isn't.... expect to see the next Revolutionary or Civil War of the United States.
It can add up quickly.
In this particular case they couldn't prove she shared the songs with anyone. Not even once. They simply had no data on the matter so the fine isn't based on how many times she shared the songs. They have no idea how many times. It's just a made up number really at this point.
It can't really be too low or too high based on how much she shared because the amount isn't relative to that. Since we don't know what that number is, it's meaningless to say if it's too much or too little relative to some number we don't have. That being how many times she shared.
It's like saying the drunk didn't get enough time for all the other times he drove drunk and didn't get caught. Well how many times was that? I don't know, we didn't catch him.
All you can really do is say if it's too high or too low based on what we do know. To say if it's too low or too high based on what we don't is just meaningless and doesn't tell us anything.
They would have to show they lost 80,000 in sales from her actions. That means 80,000 direct downloads per song.
They are probably lumping in the subsequent sharing by other folks. Rather like a ponzi scheme.
The MAFIAA has once again purchased a legal decision. Anyone who is not thoroughly disgusted by this isn't human. There is no argument that can be made to show that the crime itself is worth $1.92 million, that's just purely and disgustingly silly.
Kudos to the RIAA.... this is the way to go about it rather than enforcing all kinds of crazy DRM that hurts everyone (not the thieves).
Nothing was stolen.
If I went into a book store and copied a book, was something stolen?
Nope.
But that is copyright infringement.
Funny how simple concepts elude RIAA shills.
But... you don't know how many people downloaded the songs. A more equivalent analogy would be stealing a whole warehouse of shirts.
@ pentest -
"If I went into a book store and copied a book, was something stolen?'
Yes, something would be stolen in that case. Theft doesn't require physical property... it is taking something that isn't yours... even ideas.
The world has gone crazy recently.
[CNET editor's note: Personal attack deleted.]
How naive... geez.
Ok.... so you are a band... you buy equipment... you spend years honing your skills.... and all the music you create should just be free for everyone? Wouldn't be many musicians anymore, huh?
So, you are an author.... you write books. You have to spend money on your computer, and feed yourself while you write... but, you have to give your books away, because some punks think it is unfair to charge for them... because they feel entitled to get what they want for free because it isn't necessarily physical?
Or, you write software programs... spend years writing them which costs a LOT of Ramen noodles at the very least. But, you must give them away for free because they aren't physical stuff. Some day, you'd like to have a car to drive and maybe own a home. Guess it's time for a career change according to Lerianis3.
I'm not sure what world you live in... time to grow up.
At $1 a piece, she only owes $24.
If she uploaded them and shared them to other users, then she should be liable for $1 per download of each song.
Of course, that makes sense. So there's no way it will fit in the American justice system.
They're saying she should be responsible for the people who downloaded from her. Even in a civil suit you can have punitive damages, hence the $88K
@LandMineHare - Okay, so by your argument, let's presume that only 500 people download 24 songs from Ms. Thomas-Rasset. Then, additionally, let's presume that the file sharing stopped there.
I'm not a math professor (and if my math is wrong, please, by all means, post corrections), that would be $12,024.00 that Ms. Thomas Rasset *should* be fined. But, if you follow Xerloq's line of thinking, which is more logical IMO, extrapolate out another 500 x 24 songs and the fine escalates to a whopping $6,012,024.00, and Ms. Thomas-Rasset seems to have gotten away with a lenient fine, right?
Additionally, that's only 250,501 people sharing files in that example, or 0.00069% of the (rounded) population of the U.S.
Just some fun with words and numbers...
;^ )
If the sytem was just and fair, the lawyers would not be rich, court fees, attorney fees, would be similar to what a graduate makes per hour - like 20 - 40 bucks per hour depending of experience.
But attorney fees are a percentage of the settlement or award, like 50%. So half of 1.9 mill in attorney fees.
The americal legal system is designed or manipulated so that all those running the system make money, irrespective of which party wins a case.
Please look up the definition of theft or stealing before you post again.
To save you time, also look up copyright infringement.
Have a nice day!
P.S. With that said, I do agree that it was both excessive, and that she was guilty and deserves some form of punishment for her civil violation.
Yes she is technically not a thief, but she is accessory, and Daddio2009 is actually committing libel (written) not slander (spoken) defamation. So I guess you could also use a dictionary.
Yes.
You have a point that this is the direction the industry should probably go.... selling high quantities at lower costs per song, etc..... though I'm not sure about your $ amount. But, there are a couple of problems with this...
1) if the tracks are all available for free on the internet... why would someone pay 10 or 20 cents either?
2) stealing stuff isn't a valid way to get this point across... the ends don't justify the means.
Her only hope is to get married and never work again. That way, the RIAA is left with receiving nothing (then again, they got what they wanted when they got the verdict: a good, hard scare tactic).
A better word: emigration. She can move abroad, live a fulfilling life in a saner society, and never pay the RIAA one cent. Given the economic horrorshow that is now the United States (and will be for years to come), she'd probably enjoy a higher standard of living, too.
Go rich people go.
They're ruining this lady's life forever.
She'll most likely never be able to recover monetarily from this, if she's forced to pay the full amount.
There's something so morally and constitutionally WRONG about these "piracy fines"!
It's shocking, to say the least. The RIAA has no heart at all...and apparently, neither do the judges.
If it were that easy, everyone who got hosed with a big fine or had a big debt would do it.
Unfortunately, international banking reciprocity/cooperation laws would find her bank account garnished no matter where she lived in the 'first world' (as opposed to 'third world')...
Hey.. you wanna play, you gotta pay. She took the risk, she got caught.
I'm not sure what is unfair or 'unconstitutional' about the fines. Pretty simple... steal or be an accomplice to stealing... you get into trouble. Seems pretty simple to me.
If you take something of value from me, it is theft. If you illegally damage my ability to make money, you are stealing from me. It doesn't have to be physical property. If I make an invention and you take the idea and produce it so that I don't make money off it.... that is theft as well.
By serving out the songs, people who would have otherwise bought them, downloaded them... resulting in a loss of sales. You can call it by all kinds of names to try to get around it, but the basic concept is theft.
Everyone would be so much better off.
BUT, that doesn't excuse theft. I think Ferraris and Porsches are overly expensive too... that doesn't give me a right to go steal one. What kind of insane reasoning is this anyway?
The artists (if they feel they aren't getting a fair deal) should sell direct, etc. If they can't pull this off, then they DO need the industry... and maybe they ARE getting a fair deal.
It should go because the punisment doesn't fit the crime. Justice hasn't been served and something is broken with the system. The RIAA could shrug off that fine. Most citizens can't.
The songs are just 99 cents on amazon, is that too much money to pay for music?
If the songs are just 99 cents from Amazon, why is she being fined 80,000 dollars per song? Is that fair? Is that justice? If I go into a store and steal a pair of socks worth a dollar - do you think it is fair that I should be fined 80,000 dollars for that theft? If so, you're an idiot.
I don't think that I could get away with writing a piece of software, then when someone posts it on the web for download, I can come back and say, "Oh the app was worth $80,000 and it was downloaded 7,000 times, I need compensation. :)
However, the RIAA doesn't care about that. For them, the bigger prize is in the absolute power of being the sole controlling source of music, incoming and outgoing. They're latching onto a dead business model that relies on selling and reselling copyrighted information to individuals in different forms of physical medium, which they can control very easily. It started with LPs and EPs, moved to 8-track, cassettes, and eventually CDs. Maybe no one remembers, but they were ramping up the push to audio on DVD, as yet another physical medium that they could resell to people, even though standard audio CDs already provided excellent sound quality that only the pickiest of audiophiles would find unsuitable enough to want another, higher quality medium.
Thing is, now that digital formats can encode media at quality the same and higher than physical mediums, the argument for a physical medium is made moot. The cost for a physical medium is higher than digital distribution, the convenience isn't there compared to digital files, and again, the quality is actually "worse". They're fighting to keep control over the industry when the industry is growing more aware of their uselessness in the scope of things. Artists don't need a protector anymore because the digital medium provides everything an artist could want to get the job done efficiently and inexpensively.
Downloading "illegally" really doesn't mean a damn thing, it's just bald-faced argument that companies use as a scare tactic that, for some people, is working. For those that know what's going on, however, it's not. To them, it's a transition phase that's being severely hindered by very, very greedy people. Amoral people that use sympathy as a tool to further their own benefit, knowing that people stuck in black and white politics will only see something they believe to be bad as bad, without understanding the greater, more damaging impact that living in the past has on society as a whole.
They can call arguments for downloading just an "eloquent ruse" to make "thievery" not seem immoral, but the truth is that they're trying exceptionally hard to cover their ***** and pull the wool over our eyes so we can't see what's really going on behind closed doors. By blatantly ignoring hard evidence, statistics, and outright lying to the public about the benefits that file sharing has had, focusing only on the negative impact file sharing has had on certain aspects of the industry, the RIAA is demonstrating how irrelevant, damaging to the industry on a whole, and pathetic they really are. They had their chance, but they've blown it, which means they're going to die a very slow, very painful death.
Jammie Thomas was dumb and tried to fight against evidence that was already well established and accepted by a jury once before. She's done nothing to help the problem. The offense doesn't justify the punishment here and now she's going to be the poster child for the RIAA to point fingers at when they intimidate yet more people into seeing things their way. It's unfair, but she blew it. If there's anything to be mad at her for, it's that, not for downloading and sharing music.
Me thinks the RIAA is going after their customers. I imagine this girl has probably bought plenty of music in her life, and they are treating her like a criminal and basically telling the world that they will do that to all their customers in the future. Great plan, eh?
The RIAA needs to WAKE UP and realize that we are now living a world where songs are maybe worth 10-20 cents apiece, and adjust the costs of CD's to live in that world.
For another, to Daddio: no, "theft" is a criminal offense. This was a civil case.
Thirdly and lastly: what the heck? This is ridiculous. Fortunately, I'd already decided several years ago never to buy an album from an RIAA artist again, and I've stuck with that. If a local artist produces an album locally, I may buy it if I like their music. Or if some big-name act goes public with their stuff and gets out of the RIAA, then I may buy that.
But please, don't buy anything from an RIAA artist. That just feeds the beast.
Everyone, pass the damages on to the RIAA by not buying their crap. Starve the beast.
The only money the RIAA will get from me is my contribution to help pay off her RIAA debt.
CNet, when the Jammie Thomas fund is established, please post a story.
Thanks.
Every once in a while, though, there's a disc that's so good, I feel like I HAVE to get it.
So...in my moment of temptation...I end up buying an album every once in a while.
If everyone just did their part to boycott the sharks, though, the MAFIAA would start sinking. Fast.
It's funny. I've started buying a lot of music lately. The only time I manage to get a new and RIAA funding CD is when someone advertises it as used but it was really new.
Actually you can sue parties in civil court for practically anything, including "theft". OJ was sued for wrongful death and lost in civil court even after he was acquitted of murder in criminal court. The only difference is the verdict really, is she guilty of theft or liable for theft. Either way the ruling pretty much means she's a thief.
Every business model is about scaming the public, that is where the money is, even medicine is based on it, its the best way to make money, sure you can be nice and say give away here and there free songs, or say surgery, or medicine to make it look nice in the publics eye but in the end the model is the same for any industry that wants to advance and pay its shareholders.
brokenlaw, that is not true. If you want to make money in the long term, provide the best value to the customer. This does not mean give them the lowest price. Quite often the lowest price is a rip off that has no or negative value. Quite often the top of the market will have by far the best value when viewed from the long run.
Quality is value. Cheep is most often a con.
Time to start boycotting RIAA artists, again. There are plenty of great indie artists on the internet who have nothing to do with them.
marvin
[CNET editor's note: Offensive content deleted.]
The RIAA has abused its interpretation of copyright, to the detriment of us all.
You can say she was guilty, and therefor deserves what she got, but a guilty verdict does not justify any punitive action short of execution. This is clearly excessive, and a jury willing to impose that kind of penalty just tells me they were clearly out of touch with the capacity of this person to pay restitution and a history of RIAA abuses, or that they favored the RIAA from the start.
I don't care how you want to spin it, if you look at this case for the basics of what it is, common sense tells you this judgment is not balanced, nor fair.
So much for that theory, eh?
- by Xirphoid June 18, 2009 4:40 PM PDT
- Most people miss the real valid points here. Was she guilty? Yes. Is the fine excessive? Maybe. Is the 'RIAA' learning from it's past mistakes of over-charging for content? Mostly, see the above posts regarding Amazon, etc.
- Reply to this comment
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- by ddesy June 18, 2009 4:52 PM PDT
- Is the fine excessive? That's not a maybe but a rather huge definitely!
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- by Renegade Knight June 19, 2009 7:56 AM PDT
- The new RIAA model explains why so much modern music sounds like poorly mixed crap which gets in the way of some truly good music.
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Showing 1 of 5 pages (243 Comments)To understand my point is to understand what the RIAA does these days, besides being the "big 4" and holding "all the copyrights", etc. The main business the RIAA does anymore is mainstream promotion and branding / mastering / and duplicating music en-mass. There are few independent labels that can muster the capitol to do nearly the same, if not better. Ultra Records, anyone?
What you have today is a shrinking "RIAA" type labels, and growing independents. Some huge, some bedroom/garage-scale, that can simply leverage their promotions at astonishing levels.
Do you really think the RIAA will continue it's mass-market promotions & classic business model? Not really. Why should they PAY for the promotion or the studio work when most average artists and producers do all the work for them? They wont.
Most of the RIAA these days is simply a "machine" that makes CD's to be put on shelves at Walmart, etc, and offers new deals that covers internet royalties, licensed copying, etc, leaving all the rest of the work to be done by the artists and producers; while eating the majority of the royalties collected.
Now you see why there is a huge upswing of indie artists and labels, many of which don't care to be signed by a major label.