Jammie Thomas will appeal, lawyer says
It's official: Jammie Thomas-Rasset intends to appeal her case, one of her lawyers told CNET News on Wednesday.
"She's not interested in settling," attorney Joe Sibley said in a brief phone interview. "She wants to take the issue up on appeal on the constitutionality of the damages. That's one of the main arguments--that the damages are disproportionate to any actual harm."
Joe Sibley (left) and Kiwi Camara represent Jammie Thomas-Rasset.
(Credit: Camara & Sibley law firm)Thomas-Rasset has a brief period to file a notice of appeal, legal experts said. The actual appeal can come later.
What this means is that the Thomas-Rasset drama will have a third act. In October 2007, a jury rendered a $222,000 verdict against her but that decision was later tossed out.
Then, two weeks ago, a federal jury in Minnesota found Thomas-Rasset liable for willful copyright infringement and ordered her to pay $1.9 million. Since then, the blogosphere has churned with speculation about how she will proceed. The 32-year-old Minnesota resident said after her latest trial that she would refuse to pay. Still, with $1.9 million in damages strapped around her neck, many have wondered whether Thomas-Rasset would fight on--or cut her losses and settle.
The Recording Industry Association of America said on Monday that it had made a phone call to Sibley and law partner Kiwi Camara last week to ask whether Thomas-Rasset wanted to discuss a settlement. An RIAA representative said that its lawyers were told by Sibley that Thomas-Rasset wasn't interested in discussing any deal that required her to admit guilt or pay any money.
In settlement talks, there's often maneuvering, so the RIAA was unsure which way Thomas-Rasset would go--at least until Sibley made it clear.
"The defendant can, of course, exercise her legal rights," said Jonathan Lamy, an RIAA spokesman. "But what's increasingly clear, now more than ever, is that she is the one responsible for needlessly prolonging this case and refusing to accept any responsibility for the illegal activity that two juries decisively found her liable for. From day one, we've been fair and reasonable in exercising our rights and attempting to resolve this case."
Sibley told CNET News that when RIAA lawyers called a couple of days after the second trial to gauge Thomas-Rasset's interest in settling, they didn't throw out any dollar figures. He did say that following Thomas-Rasset's first trial, the trade group offered to settle for $25,000.
Thomas-Rasset's case has already helped set a series of important legal precedents, including establishing that it is sufficient to show that defendants placed files in their P2P shared folder to prove they intended to make the music available across the network. With the case going to the appeals process, there's a good chance it will continue establishing legal parameters.
"They have an uphill battle," said Ben Sheffner, a former attorney at 20th Century Fox and a rising star on the pro-copyright side. Sibley and Camara "are asking the court to do something no federal court has ever done before. However, this is a good test case. You have a non-wealthy defendant and you have a huge damages award."
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. 
For the RIAA, they seem to have more risk involved, to not reach a negotiated settlement now. If the award is tossed out on the basis of the 8th Amendment, the RIAA stands to lose more than just one award in one trial. And if the award is upheld, they still stand to lose the award to bankruptcy court, which gives the RIAA a pyhrric victory at best.
What I've always wanted to know though is exactly what fraction of those awards collected by the the RIAA actually get back to the musicians. 5%? Even?
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Yes. This case is a skirmish in a battle that has already ended - with the RIAA retiring from the field, (possibly) legally correct but strategically whipped.
And Jammie - she's in a no-lose situation. If she wins, she's a hero and gets to "write" a book. If she loses, she declares bankruptcy, she's a hero, and she gets to "write" a book.
The real problem is that the business people running the RIAA followed the advice of their lawyers - people with expertise in the law and no experience in technology or business. There's a reason why lawyers generally don't run corporations. Their competence only extends to the fairytale world of law, whereas business is about markets: a complex mix of psychology, sociology, and economics.
Now Jammie Thomas is unlucky to find herself a pawn in this copyright battle. However, I don't feel very badly for her. She could have settle for a few thousand dollars. Instead she choose to fight, because she felt she did nothing wrong. But she did, she stole content and illegally shared it. She had day in court twice and was found guilty twice.
In closing, I can say that world of free content will suffer and lavish when it all becomes free. Content provider who are any good will all be working at Mcdonalds. Thanks in part to people like Jammie Thomas who insisted that content should be free. A world of free content, a world of trash.
No, they have a long term strategy, it appears, to use each case to build a body of precedent rulings which enable them as these cases migrate to higher courts to determine the resolution of international copyright application to online digital distribution. They're 'inventing the future' with case law.
"Good girls may not plan ahead but bad girls do."
Btw, we are an absolute laughing stock around the world. People living in realistic countries are absolutely mystified.
But back to the subject at hand, even a settlement for $25,000 is absurd. How about $250.
$250 is more in the realm of what an actual minor violation should entail.
Lets take a look at statutory damages for other things, like where a credit company purposely misreports your credit record. This practice is done for various reasons that enrich the companies that do it - but its technically illegal. Instead of being held liable for actual damages, that statutory damages actually serves the purpose of LIMITING the amount of the reward, not increasing it.
And its limited to $1000 for this type of violation.
But you copy an MP3 into your folder, and its $80,000 per son.
Uh huh. and the RIAA pushed for this all the way.
And Jammie gets a special discount for sharing a LOT of songs??? (1700) "Add a second murder at a half-sentence off!" (OK, I admit that's taking it a bit far). Multiplication is a pretty simple thing --- each song is a certain amount of damage to a lot of other people, times the number involved. It's not the RIAA's fault that she decided to share ALL those songs (she's only being prosecuted on what, 20 of 1700?) Nor is it their fault she was stupid enough to do it without doing the math, or that each time she appeals, juries are finding her subject to even larger penalties (in no small part due to her dodgy actions).
So quit whining about the constitutional outrage of it all. There are a lot bigger problems. She's an idiot, thought she could get away with it. She's judgment-proof to start with, and being propped up by external legal money. RIAA isn't in this for the money, Jammie is trying to claim she did no wrong, and that can't be left unchallenged.
And to cut you off quick, I don't work for the RIAA, but I do get stolen from each and every day by file sharers, and I won't let people try to pretend that's OK. There are no big companies here, just some losers with their hand in my pocket.
When the police want to deter speeding, they start writing tickets. A speeding ticket is an embarassment, its a time waster, many people cannot afford them and go to traffic school instead, at $100 a pop, they sting. You get too many of them, the financial penalties increase.
Study after study shows that districts that write a lot of speeding tickets -- the drivers slow down. New Jersey is one of the 'worst' places to be a driver, they ticket often, they have also lowered accident rates.
$100 tickets are effective....they don't stop speeding completely.
But thats not a criticism. If you murder someone you will go to jail for life, and yet that hasn't stopped murders completely.
The issue is effectiveness. $100 tickets are effective.
This $80,000 per song business...its just has no place in a reasonable society. the RIAA does not need this type of overwhelming power, that is not granted to other people -- we don't use it for speeding, we don't use it stop businesses from overbilling ( a quite common cheat)...we don't use it as a tool in so many other ways.
Heck, if Jamie didn't pay her court costs, the fine's not going to roll in at 80,000. Who gets power like this?
For such a minor thing. The RIAA can play by the rules we all do, and no, they shouldn't have this power, not in any way, shape or form, and not get to use it as the starting point to settle down to some equally ridiculous sum like $25,000 later.
Leaving out the machine gun aspect, you should understand that the RIAA are not the creators, and that's rather the point.As you'll see on the Wikipedia page, the RIAA represent music distributors and this is why they are fighting a foolish and desparate rear-guard action, including taking their customer to court.
The model has changed, but they won't accept it. Digital distribution is here to stay, and the fat margin's they've been making out of physical distribution of media are disappearing. As with any business, they must change with the market or they will disappear - unfortunately they do not appear to understand this.
I believe most people who would be classified as 'pirates' by the commercial media would be more than happy for their dollars, pounds or whatever to go to pay the creators of the music they like. What they dislike is the major portion of the money they pay actually _not reaching_ the artists. Again, the model is changing and digital distribution coupled with viral marketing through social networks will, hopefully ensure a larger percentage for the originators of good music....
The jury granted the maximum damages-- $80,000 each-- for just 24 songs, but the actual number of songs involved was allegedly much higher, and the jury may have been accounting for that difference.
Far from being in a "no-lose" situation, the more Thomas fights, the more damage she takes to her public reputation. The people in a real no-lose situation are the lawyers, as usual.
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Shell in Nigeria...
Haliburton and the rest in Iraq...
Bechtel privatising water in South America...
Eli Lilly, the CDC, and mercury damage due to vaccinations...
McDonalds and other 'corporate partners' putting junk food in US schools...
Monsanto et al with genetically modified crops...
The Corrections Corporation of America and privatised prisons...
The banks comprising the 'Federal Reserve' providing the fiat US dollar from nothing and then chargint the American government, and thus the people of America and the rest of the world, a hefty interest fee for the privilege of using the paper...
The list goes on... It's how the world works unfortunately my friend
The RIIA is no different to any other influential industry body or major corporate player, seeking to ensure a continuing revenue stream for their section of Corporate America, in whatever way they can, without any regard for issues of ethics or morality.
- by underwaterbob July 4, 2009 4:46 AM PDT
- The RIAA did not create anything, and they only marginally represent the creators. They more accurately represent their slavemasters.
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