Mistrial for RIAA's $222,000 defendant
Updated at 12:10 p.m. PDT with quote from the RIAA.
A federal judge on Wednesday threw out the verdict against Jammie Thomas, the peer-to-peer network user ordered to pay the recording industry $222,000 for allegedly sharing music online.
Jammie Thomas
U.S. District Judge Michael Davis of Duluth, Minn., declared a mistrial in the case against Thomas, who was charged in October with violating copyright law by making 24 songs available for others to download on the Kazaa network.
Davis set aside the verdict on the grounds that he misguided the jury, telling jurors that simply the act of making a copyrighted song available for sharing amounts to infringement. The judge first indicated in May that he was considering granting a new trial.
In June, the Electronic Frontier Foundation and other consumer and industry groups weighed in, also claiming the jury instructions were erroneous.
The Recording Industry Association of America argued that the jury instructions were valid.
"Requiring proof of actual transfers would cripple efforts to enforce copyright owners' rights online--and would solely benefit those who seek to freeload off plaintiff's investment," RIAA attorney Timothy Reynolds wrote in a court filing.
Thomas is the only individual charged with copyright infringement by the RIAA who has taken her case to trial.
RIAA spokesman Jonathan Lamy said Davis' decision was not surprising, but the RIAA still had confidence in its case.
"As with all our illegal downloading cases, we have evidence of actual distribution--an assertion this court and others nationwide have made clear constitutes infringement," he said. "We have confidence in the facts assembled against the defendant."
Stephanie Condon is a staff writer for CNET News focused on the intersection of technology and politics. She is based in Washington, D.C. E-mail Stephanie. 
Requiring proof of actual transfers...
Requiring proof...
...proof?!?
They don't need no stinking PROOF!!!
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.
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Oh, wait; my bad. They do.
The downside is, Thomas still has a ton of legal bills to settle.
You know? I'd love to see some sort of federal statute that basically said something like ' if the plaintiff is or represents a corporate or other group entitiy, and loses the lawsuit, the plaintiff must automatically pay --appeal or not-- all legal costs incurred by the defendant ' or somesuch. If the losing plaintiff appeals, they should pay anyway, just into an escrow account until it's settled. In the case of class-action suits, the losing attorneys pay directly.
That alone would eliminate both the extortionist suits brought by the RIAA (or others), and knock down the class-action suits. Unless you seriously had a case, you (the plaintiff) wouldn't risk it as easily or as quickly.
/P
Too bad for RIAA, somebody should have told them that in this country it's INNOCENT until PROVEN guilty, not the other way around, and also, that the burden of proof lies with them, not the people their extort -- I mean charging.
@wolf: Sadly, civil suits don't have the same onus of "innocent until proven guilty" concept, because civil suits don't determine guilt - they only determine whether or not a defendant is liable. Also, the standard of evidence is smaller. In a criminal suit, you have to prove beyond a shadow of doubt that someone is guilty. In a civil suit, you only have to prove "preponderance of evidence", meaning that in spite of doubts, the evidence is strong enough to basically say that the defendant is liable for the action being sued over.
/P
In other words, we want to be able to have no actual evidence to convict you. WOW.
Scratch that, we need a new espresso machine in the employee kitchen. Make that 2 million illegal downloads from your site. 3 million if we decide we want a popcorn maker too.
It sounds like maybe he finally wrapped his head around the reality of the situation, and realized that some people could make a simple mistake and share their own legally purchased files, without transferring them and actually being an illegal distributor of IP material.
This is going to be an important legal precedent, if it goes through like this. Make the RIAA/MPAA prove the actual "harm" they make SO many claims about.
Industry vultures, take note! I bought over 400 CD's in the 1990's... Now I only buy independent labeled discs, because of ******* companies like the RIAA harassing customers. (Plus most of the mainstream stuff is garbage anyway!)
In response to some comments, I support music industry, because I believe that content shouldn't be free. Free music means crap music in my mind. If you want good music, you should pay for it. Freeloading content means no one will want to invest in good music or bother promoting good music, which means discovering good music will be harder. Also, if you think the music sucks today, just wait if people don't start paying for music, it will only get worse. Free content means crap content.
Reminds me of the joke about the woman who took her husband's fishing boat out onto the lake just to releax and read a book. The game warden pulls up and asks for her fishing license, and when she says she doesn't have one, informs here that he is going to have to write her up a ticket. She protests, saying she wasn't fishing, she was just reading a book. The game warden says, "Yes, but you have all the equipment with you. For all I know, you might start fishing at any time." She replies, "In that case, I will be filing a charge of rape against you." The warden says, "But I haven't raped you, I haven't even touched you." She replies, "Yes, but you have all the equipment and for all I know, you might start at any time."
I also question the facts when somebody is arrested for possession of burglary tools. I carry pliers, flashlights, pry bars, and a ski masks in my car; is this burglary tools?
A local woman carried a concealed gun with her for protection, and the local sheriff decided that her having it with her at a soccer game made her a bad character and canceled her gun permit.
We are allowing the right to be convicted only on proof beyond a reasonable doubt to be eroded.
However, good for Jammie Thomas. If you're going to charge someone with a crime, you had better be able to proof your allegation.
Just think of the hundreds of billions if not trillians in damages that the RIAA and MPIAA could get from the US government. I doubt that would ever happen, but it's a good argument to dispute that making the content available equals infingement without any evidence to back that up.
I'd love to see them try suing the government though. And really- if they can go after one person, then they *must* go after the library system as well as it is just as 'guilty' for making content available to the public.
Hmm, does that mean that libraries are also guilty of copyright infringement on all the books because the publishers aren't getting money for each time someone checks a book out?
They actually think that they don't need to prove copyright infringement to win?
No wonder the big labels are going down.
the RIAA needs to stop suing people and start altering their business model to new market dynamics.
- by cohaver September 25, 2008 11:37 AM PDT
- RIAA was in Denver Giving large amounts of money to the Democrats For what to have the Justice Department go after you and me And making a police state
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