Jammie Thomas loses lawyer but avoids paying RIAA's legal fees
Jammie Thomas
UPDATE: Jammie Thomas is going to have to sell a lot more thongs.
Thomas, the woman ordered by a federal court in October to pay the recording industry $222,000 for pirating music, doesn't have enough money to fund an upcoming appeal and has been forced to look for a new lawyer, according to her current attorney, Brian Toder.
Thomas was the first person sued by the recording industry for copyright violations to argue a case before a jury and was found to have illegally shared 24 digital-music files.
Toder, who represented Thomas in the civil case, told CNET News.com on Wednesday that handling her appeal on a pro bono basis would be too expensive. Thomas has been selling merchandise, such as T-shirts, coffee mugs, and women's underwear, as well as accepting donations, to help raise money for her defense. But the fund-raising efforts have "actually raised very little," Toder said.
"I'm very confident she will find representation," Toder added. "There are many passionate organizations, such as the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), chomping on the bit to help her."
The other good news for Thomas is that the music labels have agreed to waive their lawyer fees, Toder said. After winning a judgment against Thomas, the record companies could have required her to pay their legal costs.
Toder said that because one of the plaintiffs, Virgin Records, was forced to dismiss its part of the case on the day of trial, Thomas was therefore entitled to attorneys fees from Virgin. Toder used that to negotiate with the rest of the plaintiffs and they agreed not to seek fees.
That Toder was not going to handle Thomas' appeal came as news to Fred von Lohmann, senior staff attorney for the EFF, which advocates for the rights of Internet users and has offered support to Thomas in the past. He said the group would most certainly try to help Thomas when the time came but that he couldn't guarantee anything.
"We've helped lots of people caught in the music industry's litigation campaign to find counsel," von Lohmann said. "But I can't say we've succeeded in every case. It's easier for me to find lawyers in San Francisco and New York than it is in Minnesota...If people think we're out there backstopping every lawsuit, they need to donate a lot more money."
Thomas' case, however, has several things going for it, von Lohmann said.
"There is a strong basis for an appeal based on the jury instruction," von Lohmann said. "There's been a lot of speculation that (Thomas) is guilty, but the thing to keep in mind on appeal is that it's not whether the jury got the facts right. It's about whether the right legal standards were applied. A lot of copyright attorneys think the jury instructions were erroneous."
Thomas won't be able to file her appeal until a federal district judge in Minnesota decides on a motion to reduce the jury award. The $222,000 award violates the Constitution, Toder said.
The blog TorrentFreak was first to report that Thomas is looking for a new attorney.
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.
When did blackmailing folks become legal in this country?
Exactly how is offering a small up-front settlement "blackmail?" It cost the RIAA maaany thousands of dollars to sue this gal and if she had a plausible defense she could have won. I just don't see the blackmail: a file sharer is offered to pay a small fee or can go to court where all bets are off.
Did you know you could get a lawyer to send a letter and take down almost any website? Most ISPs take down first and ask questions later. Even with a ridiculous accusation of copyright infringement or DMCA violations, most websites or account can be temporary suspended for several days just with a letter: all before they bother contacting you.
I despise the RIAA methods, although I understand (or have heard )that intellectual property must be protected to be enforced. I have not used any of the file sharing services for years, so I guess thir methods work...
The fact is that if Jammie Thomas had not been illegally sharing files, the
judgement would not have gone against her, and she would not now owe
$220,000. And you may whine on about the forensic techniques used to
determine that it was her doing the sharing, but since copyright
infringement is a civil matter, the plaintiff must only demonstrate balance
of probability (in U.S. terms, "preponderance of evidence" or "clear and
convincing evidence"), unlike a plaintiff in a criminal matter where the
required standard is "beyond reasonable doubt".
"Sharing" copyrighted material when you are not entitled to do so is
immoral, illegal and selfish. Jammie Thomas has been found guilty by a
court of law, on the basis of the evidence presented to that court. People
who selfishly steal the hard work of others do not deserve our sympathy
when they are caught and punished for their actions.
This thing will eventually be reversed.
The only thing the RIAA proved is that they are a bunch of greedy sods with no morals and no future.
The fact is that the RIAA and MPAA don't give a damn about the morality of taking someone else's work - hell, that's what *they* do, to all of the artists that they leech their profits from. All the media companies care about is cash, and relatively speaking, they're *dread* pirates compared to this one woman's supposed wrong-doing.
- donate at freejammie.com
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by artfulactivist
January 5, 2008 10:28 PM PST
- Please donate to Jammie's legal defense fund at freejammie.com
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