RIAA: Jammie Thomas snubbed our settlement 'overture'
Jammie Thomas-Rasset's attorneys have rejected the music industry's "overture" at settling her case.
Just a couple days after Thomas-Rasset was found guilty of willful copyright infringement and ordered by a jury to pay $1.9 million, attorneys with the Recording Industry Association of America called to ask whether Thomas-Rasset was willing to discuss a settlement, a spokesman for the RIAA said Monday.
Jammie Thomas
(Credit: Jammie Thomas)Thomas-Rasset's lawyers responded that she wasn't interested in any deal that required her to pay any money or admit any guilt, according to the RIAA's spokesman. That was the same response the 32-year-old Minnesota woman gave after a jury decided against her in October 2007.
Contacted at his office on Monday evening, Joe Sibley, one of Thomas-Rasset's attorneys, told CNET News that he wasn't aware of any settlement talks but needed to ask his law partner.
On June 18, a Minneapolis federal court imposed damages against Thomas-Rasset of $80,000 for each of the 24 songs she was ultimately found guilty of illegally sharing. This was a step backward for Thomas-Rasset, who was ordered to pay just $222,000 following her first trial. That decision was thrown out by the judge in the case, who acknowledged that he erred in instructing the jury prior to deliberations.
Throughout, the RIAA has said it is willing to settle and at one point was asking for just $5,000 from Thomas-Rasset. There is a chance that she could walk away from the nearly $2 million damage award by declaring bankruptcy, legal experts have said.
To do that, she would likely have to prevail at another trial in bankruptcy court. To convince a bankruptcy judge not to allow Thomas-Rasset to wipe out her debt, however, the RIAA would have to prove that she had malicious intent, or meant to cause harm, when she illegally shared files.
Some legal experts say proving malice is often difficult to do.
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. 
The damages that the RIAA "suffered" through Jammie's file sharing in no way came close to $200 per song, although there's no way to prove it either way.
I feel so sorry for her...I mean, she should've settled out of court while she had the chance, but having to pay $1.92 million dollars for 24 songs now is absolutely unconstitutional and utterly shocking. :0
$200 is quite reasonable, in my opinion - it's enough to deter others from similar illegal behaviour, but not enough to completely destroy a person's life.
Boycotting the RIAA is a great idea - assuming you don't want to listen to any artist who is on a major label, or any subsidiary of the major label, including many independent labels.
Still, $200 could buy almost all of the CDs for the songs she "shared"
But, I'm a musician who likes to get paid for the incredible amount of work that goes into making music. Downloading illegally takes a cut from anyone who should be receiving royalties. I know people like to say they're taking the money from the companies and the artists who are living extravagant lifestyles, but the artists are generally getting a flat-rate - it's the songwriters who are being hurt the most.
SeizeCTRL - this isn't about whether she stole the songs --- that's not the issue at all --- it's about the lost revenue from others due to her actions. One person's sharing can create very large losses for content creators.
File 'sharing' is a weapon of mass destruction --- it's cheap and easy for any individual(s) to create massive losses for others.
How do you quantify the loss? To say that it is worth $200 per song, one must prove that 200 (or more) people have downloaded the song directly from Jamie Thomas. I'm pretty sure that's totally impossible. Besides, if she hadn't shared those songs, the "free riders" would simply have downloaded them somewhere else. The RIAA still has no clue.
Honest people that work for a living, or create content, and NOT behind her or you.
Go try to be witty on the way down. :P
actually, most of America dislikes the RIAA along with corporate curruption... but I guess anyone who disagrees with your views, are the scumbags of the country who live in the projects and mooch off your tax dollars right?
do I feel bad that Nelly won't be able to buy his 12th SUV because of piracy? nope!!! not in the slightest... I imagine it's very hard for a lot of these artists to live off the millions they already make. do I feel bad for an industry who now wants to tax radio stations for promoting their product? nope! sorry record execs... you guys need to learn to adapt to the digital age or face extinction... the old ways of doing business don't cut it in the modern digital world. if they cannot adapt, then I have no pity!
Great group here.
Poor thing, she's just being picked on.
Anyway, do some math. She shared far more than what they went after. They simply took a small, representative sample in order to make the proceedings easier. The settlement of $5000 would be something on the order of $3 a song for the 1700 she is involved with. Is that unfair? A song costs $1 to buy, and $3 a song would be treble damages, which is pretty standard. And she wasn't just taking them for free, but actively distributing them, that's why there would be damages.
$5000 is a very fair number under the law.
Advanced students might wish to figure out how many people in the music industry you could keep employed for a year at an average of $50K/yr.
You can even use the proof that the RIAA has that other people downloaded songs from her.
Or, you could, if they had any.
The bottom line is that sharing music is wrong, but seeking damages with dubious evidence that effectively ruin people's lives over an action that may or may not cause a minuscule decrease in the profits of an industry that rakes in billions of dollars a year isn't exactly kosher, either.
The evidence is hardly dubious, taken in aggregate. The consumption of the industry's product has gone up dramatically, yet revenue is down. The top 10 artists are a tiny tip of the iceberg and no justification for anything.
Is the lady her own worst enemy? you bet, most recent demands are exhibit du jour.
BTW, if she slipped on a CD on the floor and hurt herself, how much would she sue for? One mill? Two? But that wouldn't be unreasonable or excessive? (yet that sort of thing happens all the time)
I mean, really? "Consumption"? So they can track how many and how often people are indulging in music in general, but they can't present evidence of whether or not people have shared it to others? I'd love to see the numbers on how much music, ill-gotten or not, the average person "consumes" in a period of time. What does that even mean? How do they know much people are listening to music or otherwise "consuming" it without sales numbers? How do they know that WITH sales numbers? So profits are down, but they think people are listening to more music anyway? That's totally worth launching a litigation campaign against customers.
They can subpoena for my activity records when I get to subpoena them for the numbers they're using to show exactly how much money they lose on music sharing, and how they determine that other factors (such as being a bunch of money-hungry d-bags) don't contribute to that loss.
Secondly, I don't expect anyone who has illegally downloaded music on their computer to get the benefit of the doubt, as the evidence plainly shows that they illegally downloaded music. But I would expect at least some sort of evidence if the RIAA is going to claim that someone shared music with others. Oh, but she had the ability to share it, so certainly she did. Funny, I wouldn't expect to go to jail on murder charges just because I had a gun in my house and the ability to shoot it at someone.
Thirdly, yeah, she is her own worst enemy. She or her kids downloaded songs illegally. To make matters worse, she refused settlement when the RIAA gave her a (relatively) good offer. I don't disagree that downloading and sharing music is wrong. What I do disagree with is the RIAA issuing blanket lawsuits and demanding damages on the magnitude they do just because they think someone might have shared music and the industry might have lost money on it. That sort of logic wouldn't hold up in any other forum.
So BTW, if she sued CD manufacturers for fifty times their annual income because she found a CD on the floor, and expected damages because CDs may or may not have a low coefficient of friction with said floor, and she in turn may or may not slip on it in the future, then yeah, I'd say it was both unreasonable and excessive.
Furthermore the music industry has been receiving a small cut of every blank CD and Digital Audio Recorder sold under the Audio Home Recording Act. One could argue that there was no financial loss incurred because the RIAA already got paid for the activity... in fact the RIAA gets paid even if I use a burn a CD with my owen data or music...
Google for "Dred Scott", then get back to us.
She stole songs. The jury awarded the damages. If she can't pay it, I hope she is left with a paper bag to hold her one change of clothes and a nice sturdy box behind WalMart. I have zero sympathy for anyone who knowingly steals anything. Anyone who does is just as big a loser as the person who stole it.
Get over the entitlement thing, people. You are entitled to DICK. The sooner you accept it, the sooner you'll stop being a drag on society.
I love the idea of "baconstang" go steal the CDs from Best Buy you *******. You won't will you?
[CNET editors' note: Prohibited content deleted.]
There's no way she'll be able to pay the court-ordered damages, so the RIAA continues to look like the misguided a-holes they are as long as they keep pursuing the money and it keeps ending up on the nightly news and sites like CNET.
by the RIAA standards, the act of putting the files onto your computer means that they are available to be shared, any hacker can retrieve them. whether you actively pursue downloading to them is irrelevant.
the judge erred in denying this line of inquiry, grounds for appeal; the jury upped the award 5 times, grounds for appeal. this case isnt over yet,. the RIAA did this press release to taint the jury pool, because a good lawyer would be all over the fallacies in this judgment.
Be a dear and post the numbers here with some data to back it up.
You sir, are BRILLIANT!
Harvard law?
Or dental assistant drop-out?
The latter, no doubt.
We're not talking about hypothetical numbers about "the damage [that] happens online". We're talking about proof of harm in a single specific case.
Here's the thing: Thomas almost certainly broke the law -- if even one person downloaded a song they didn't own from her, then yes, she infringed copyright. And I would venture so far as to say that she most likely did it knowingly.
But what she has going for her is the claim that the damages the RIAA is seeking are disproportionate to her offense. And with a verdict of $80,000 per song, the numbers speak for themselves.
I think that album pricing is too high, not because of the artist, but because of the labels. I do believe the labels are way too greedy. If they truly need 90-95% of the album sales to stay in business, then they're spending too much money promoting crappy artists that wouldn't sell without marketing. Even though I haven't seen artists coming out "en masse" against file sharing I would still understand it from their perspective because they get "maybe" a dollar per album while the industry deserves $13, $14, $15 per album? That's crap. I hope that digital music eventually turns the whole industry on its head and the artists get a much larger percentage of the albums they create and sell.
Lastly, the judgement against this woman is absolutely ridiculous. The courts are not supposed to inflict cruel and unusual punishment. A $2 million judgement against a woman of modest means is certainly cruel and unusual. That is essentially a lifetime sentence because this woman could not pay this sum (most likely) before she dies. If she makes $50k per year, it will take her 40 years to make $2m before taxes and living expenses. Can anyone say, artist or not, that sharing music should be a crime you pay for for the rest of your life? Certainly not. If she were making money off of it, selling the music, then yes, fine, I understand, but this is not the case here.
I do understand that the RIAA offered a reasonable settlement. To me $5,000 is a harsh, but reasonable punishment, BUT I think it was absolutely wrong for the court to impose penalties of $2m. Had the courts imposed a reasonable settlement, we would no longer be talking about this. It would be a done deal and no one could complain. But I don't think its just for a.) the RIAA to go after settlements like this or b.) the court to award them.
i read this and it makes more sense than 99% of all the mouth-foaming rants on the topic.
Stop posting what you don't know about.
You want to come off as "rational" but you're talking out of your backside.
Big artists costs go through the roof 'cause they're stars. Just like movies.
New artists are a black-hole until they make sales.
Most don't.
Success covers the costs of new unknowns until they make it.
Most don't.
The processes, people, and products all cost money.
You guys think CDs are made by a band, one room, and a Mac with ProTools.
Do some research. Or better yet, go see what it takes to put out this product.
Then talk about how much you know about how to price a CD.
A&R has been relegated to history books - most new bands today are required to shoulder much of their own costs until they can prove viability - and even then, contracts are much, much leaner than in the past. New, unproven bands are not slathered with money as they used to be. Comprehensive advertising and marketing campaigns are saved for the few that make it to that certain point - on their own, and have proved they are able to recoup costs.
A great percentage of what the industry calls "overhead" consists of executive compensation, legal costs (think RIAA) and lobbying efforts (again, think RIAA).
Don't tell someone to "do their research" when you haven't done your own.
You are wrong, and I laugh at you.
What do you do, deliver coffee to some exec?
I do work in the industry, and sorry, peddle your BS elsewhere.
Models don't change overnight, and yes, we're outdated and behind the times.
Those costs still exist.
You, OTOH, need to get back to Starbucks...
There are reputable files being shared (like Linux and freeware and some shareware and trialware) and there are illegal files being shared (like most audio and video files along with some programs). Surely, it should be possible to discern between reputable and illegal file sharing. To use an old phrase, "They can put a man on the moon so why can't they stop illegal file sharing?"
So cover the holes, RIAA and stop spanking the kids who fall into the trap.
money used its power against a mother of 4 to bend her over in the court of law. there is no justice in this. nor will there be any consumer love for those responsible.
Legal listeners continue to listen legally, but pay less gradually.
Illegal listeners conitnue to listen illegally, and pay virtually nothing.
Now, RIAA, you are telling me that illegal listeners will suddenly buy musics? I think not. Who buys the products from the companies that sued them, after all? And with outrageous lawsuits, you gained less support from legal listeners.
- by Willie Winkie June 30, 2009 5:52 AM PDT
- I pirate everything. Music, movies, ebooks, software, games; you name it. If it's digital, its mine. Frankly, after enduring, corporate wage freezes, health insurance premium increases and a discontinuation of 401K matching funds, I find that the only way to maintain my standard of living is by spending ZERO on digital content. The money I would have spent on these items is now diverted to make up for the above mentioned cuts. I disconnected my cable except for internet access. HUGE savings! I have to wait a day or two for my favorite shows from HBO. The rest are easily seen on Hulu etc. I'm sure some will say I'm making things tough for their content-creation based jobs but guess what? These same people are also cutting back on my company's product in this totally screwed up economy. And no matter what happens, a lot of the give-backs and cuts workers like me have suffered will NEVER be redressed when times get better. Crappy raises, higher health care premiums, and absent 401k matches are likely here for good. So, very likely, is my pirate lifestyle.
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