Those bastards!

$1.92 million worth of the shittiest songs ever made. Seems like a great deal.

So my iPod is worth over $2,000,000,000? Sweet

yes, because infringing on copyright for two dozen songs is worth bankrupting a family for life.

Seriously?

I can see having a fine of 10 times the cost of each infringement as punitive damages ($.99 per song x 10). That makes sense to me.

I don't understand at all. If I have a landlord that refuses to refund my deposit, I can only go after him for twice my deposited amount. not 80000%.

Come on guys...
"Minneapolis federal court found her guilty of willful copyright infringement for sharing more than 1,700 songs. The judge says she owes the RIAA $1.92 million."

WRONG wrong wrong.
The court found her guilty of sharing 24 files, not 1700. She doesn't owe the RIAA 1.92Million, they have awarded that amount in damages against her (using statutory damages, since the actual damages are about $5)

Still, this case will possibly go to retrial again, because of the jury instructions. I'm no lawyer, but as soon as I saw the instructions for the first case, I said it would, and for the reason it eventually did. Either way, don't expect this decision to stand for long.

Andrew Norton
Pirate Party International - [www.pp-international.net]
(Former Chairman, Pirate Party of the US)

She just wasn't a credible witness, as two juries have now demonstrated. If it weren't for the shenanigans of having her hard drive replaced (and forgetting which year that happened in), the outcome could have been different.

For those of you who don't have the copyright law in front of you, the "willful" part is important for the damages. The jury awarded the RIAA about $80K per song, but could have awarded them up to $150K per song.

I dobated 5 bucks to her defense fund back when the original 222k judgement came through. the RIAA did not lose or become damaged enough by jamie thomas to warrant this judgement. None of this money will actually go to the artists mentioned and PR wise it makes the record industry look even worse in a time where they're trying to garner favor with people who've given up on buy songs. Her defense started making abd decisions but even so, jamie won't even be paying that money.

I would offer the RIAA a settlement of $48.

Double the cost of the music..

@Andrew Norton: oh, yeah, the amount. In 07, it was $9250 per song, for a total of $222,000.

This time it was $80,000 per song. The law currently provided for a maximum set of damages of $150,000 per song, which would have been $3.6M

@zigziggityzoo: Exactly. Give them a fine...slap them around but do not endanger and put them into bankruptcy.

Sometimes the old saying "at first you don't succeed, try try again" can backfire.

There is so much wrong with this:
1) They have no proof placing her at the computer actually being the one sharing files.

2) They have no proof she "intentionally" shared files- in other words, if anything it was negligence that caused the file sharing.

3) They have no proof that the songs were downloaded 80,000 times. At most it would be 100 or less per song.

I don't know what's wrong with the people on that jury-

But I say someone has a disco-era-type CD burning party at a stadium in protest.

Are people really that stupid? Out of all the jurors that they could pick they got he idiots that thought that the violations were worth well more than the original purchase price of the items? They are lucky I was not on that jury. I would have given the RIIA a judgement of exactly one penny and of course that would have only been if nullification was not an option.

Its really sad that corporations are greedy and stomp all over consumer rights. Whats even more sad is that that whole jury sided with that greedy corporation. With a judgment like that one has to hope they are watching the former jurors closely to make sure none of them suddenly deposit large sums of cash in their bank accounts.

"Poor woman" for a jury having found her liable for the award? Obviously they, with direct access to the facts, found her liable. She's no longer "the alleged pirate," but just "the pirate." Granted, if I were guilty of such illegal behavior (as she's been proven to be), I'd not want that judgment entered against me either. But I would theoretically have brought the situation upon my own self, you know, had I been caught doing something similar.

Wow that is a lot. It is not like she was selling bootleg CDs on the street for profit.

@zigziggityzoo: They offered numerous times to settle for $3,000 but she refused. I would imagine they will eventually settle but hope they don't try to make her a sacrificial lamb and spend the rest of her life trying to collect.

Yeah...I haven't bought a CD in the last 10 years and then it was only one. Before that I maybe bought two or 3. Crap like this is why I just listen to the radio. When the radio stops playing what I want to hear I'm just going to quit listening all together. That will fix them.

Okay, okay...I'm going to chime in one more time and that's it...

I would say it is more than safe to assume now in 2009 that more people use youtube to listen to music than are going out and buying it new. I don't know the deals they have with youtube or anything, but I'm going to go one step further and say they don't get paid 80K per song youtube shares. Now, whether or not this woman willfully shared these songs does not matter when you relate what she did to what youtube is doing. It can't be hard to copy the songs off youtube, I'm sure it's near as easily done as using P2P software to download songs. The riaa should have to report to court next time what youtube pays them per song and that should be closer to what their "award" should be.

Meh.

All this is doing is setting up the RIAA. There will be a new trial and I have no doubt in my mind that this will end up blowing up in the RIAA's face (eg: blowing up the RIAA's "statutory damage" theory).

1.9 mil is more than this woman is likely to see in her lifetime, and it can easily be argued that the damages awarded to the RIAA are overly punitive. Obviously if file sharing occurred, there was no economic gain from sharing the files, therefore the damages should be considerably less, and as far as I know the RIAA has yet to show that a file sharer has harmed the business.

What surprises me even more is that a jury couldn't see that.

/IANAL, but I'm in school to be one.

@Gokuhouse: so she's innocent until proven guilty, and then still innocent? i can't seem to work up any enthusiasm to feel sorry for someone who lied in court, attempted to falsify evidence, and knowingly committed a crime. I mean, it's not like everyone doesn't know the RIAA is insane and goes for these crazy settlements to use as deterrents; is it really that difficult to just buy the songs so you don't have to worry about it?

It seems that the RIAA might see suing as a better business model than actually doing anything productive.

I hate the RIAA and MPAA just as much as the next guy. I also think the current law is a bit outrageous. However, based on what I have read about this case, she's guilty. She has now been found guilty by 2 different juries while represented by 2 different lawyers (her current one working pro bono). The issue with the hard drive, the issue of the Kazaa screenname exactly matching the screennames she uses for just about every other service for which she is signed up, the issue about files being shared from her network connection... it all points to her. Her old crappy lawyer couldn't successfully argue against any of this. Her new hot shot lawyer also couldn't do that.

Should she get a third retrial? Honestly, I don't think so. Let her appeal the decision. Let her work out a deal with the RIAA. If she can do anything at this point, it's fight to have the allowable damages changed to something more reasonable than $150k per offense (which, in this case would be per shared file). The thing about distributing copyrighted materials is that each time someone downloads a song from you, that's $1 that isn't going to the RIAA. It's not just $24, it's $24 multiplied by the number of times each song was downloaded.

Frankly, I think she has a lot of balls to get up on the stand and lie about not using Kazaa. I think she deserves to pay something. I feel bad for her kids, but she made the bed she sleeps in.

@balthisar: That's where you're wrong. It's a civil case, not a criminal one. She is not "guilty" of anything.

A civil case is much different than a criminal one. There is no presumption of innocence, and the plaintiff only has to show the defendant has a certain percentage of liability to collect damages.

@balthisar:

The issue here is the penalty.

Its like being given life in prison for shoplifting gum.

Its not "justice" in any sense of the word.

What would be cool is if some big musician (PRINCE? He's in Minnesota) paid her fine.

@ncpeters: The quote in the article says they are still willing to settle. This is just a bunch of people getting themselves worked up so they can feel some good old fashioned righteous indignation.

@RunawayJim: But you have to keep in mind that most if not all of the people that download songs for free would never had actually purchased the songs. They only get them because they are free.

She is not a pirate. There are no pirates in this case. Stop calling them pirates.

You think with all the news about real pirates, people would stop using that word for mere copyright infringement. Unless copyright infringement requires machine guns.

I remember in high school I took a business class and one day we had a store to learn about sales/advertising/supply&demand/etc. I sold candy bars, but most people had burnt copies of CDs and sold them to students for like $5 each. The kids made a killing with those CDs ($100+), but I bet the RIAA would have a heart attack if they knew about it. Not sure if that is still in practice, this was 7 years ago.

@PunditGuy:

So she should consider herself lucky????

@sgtcody: Yes, yes it is. Just not to you...

@notsogreatsatan: No, she's neither innocent or guilty. It's a civil case, not a criminal one.

I'm not sure anyone (but her)is disputing that she shared the songs. The problem is we're not dealing with sane people here. Sane people can see that most people wont make 1.92 mil if they work for 30 years and don't spend a dime. Someone has to say "Okay, this is bs. You can't charge 16 dollars for a cd and charge .99 cents for a download through iTunes and then say that 150,000 dollars is fair for a copy obtained otherwise."

@ncpeters: She's a crusader, and I give her credit for that. Unfortunately, the problem with this case is that she (or someone with access to the computer) clearly pirated some songs. In a civil trial, that's enough to make her culpable.

She needs to either stop using "it wasn't me!" as a defense in her appeals, or she needs to make the argument that no unauthorized distribution of copyrighted material can be proven (which it can't, p2p programs don't keep logs like that, and media sentry can only prove that they downloaded the material, and they are authorized as investigators of the RIAA to download).

OR she could argue that the current fee model is unconstitutional (it may be, but it hasn't been tested in court).

OR she could argue that media sentry is acting illegally as a private investigator, in that they are not licensed. This varies by state, and I believe she has already tried.

What she IS succeeding in, though, is making the RIAA look like assholes, and strengthening the case for the weakening of copyright laws (which absolutely should happen according to any researcher with knowledge in the area who has not been paid by either the MPAA or RIAA to write a report otherwise).

@RunawayJim: I think she will get a new trial based on the size of the damages that were awarded.

Seems to me any fine above and beyond what you would get for the theft of the physical media is in excess, and even for that a punitive jail sentence is often used in lieu of financially destroying a family (including those innocent members). 1,700 tracks would equate to around 170 CD's, or $1700 in total stolen property.

The ignorance of keeping her files in a shared folder (or an open garage) should not equate to a $2million fine.

On top of the craziness of this, and my perception that this is a total waste of our courts' time I have trouble with the matrices the RIAA uses to figure out damages.

I wonder if the artists will be getting the royalties from any of this? My guess would be no.

Okay, not knowing much about these kinds of lawsuits and preferring to obtain my music legally, I have a question.

How much is the RIAA really going after people, and for how long can they possibly sustain this? I mean, this is really ridiculous. She can't possibly pay nearly $2 million, so what's the point?

I get that the illegal download culture is probably even bigger now than it was back with Napster (and its ilk) but did they catch her actively downloading and uploading files or was this a case of her doing it in say, 1998 and caught up with her years later?

It's hard for me to really get the entire story because there just isn't much information detailing the entire saga.

@Blueskylaw:
The RIAA doesn't even try to make money off these lawsuits. They're trying to create a deterrent. They'll never get the $1.9 million - they'll probably settle for ~$3k like they do with everyone else.

This is why you get a seedbox in another country.

@Blueskylaw: They didn't learn from SCO.

If she were smart, she would take that 1.9mill figure and not settle, go to every media outlet that would hear her out and just lash into RIAA about bankrupting her family over a measly 24 songs.

Twist the facts as much as she can get away with and just dig into the RIAA for destroying her life. Once it's all said and done, another huge chunk of credibility will be lost with the RIAA, then she declared bankruptcy and wipes the slate clean.

F*ck the ..AA's

The $192 million is to pay off the jury.

Isn't there a law against as excessive punishment?

@Andrew Norton: First, thank you for pointing out the 24 song item-I was about to say that myself. Second, the article indicated RIAA is still willing to settle for the $3,000-$5,000 they've extracted from others. What's your take on this? Or am I just misinterpreting-you're obviously following this closer than I am.

@wcnghj: She's not in much of a position to bargain...

@JGKojak:

1) Her IP, and MAC addresses of her cable modem matched the person sharing the songs. Also the sharer was using a username that she had used for years.

2) She was using Kazaa. That means she should understand what the program does. She knows that she is downloaded songs for free when she shouldn't and there are several notices that say that you are sharing.

3) I agree here. However she was sharing these files for months. Making them available for download.

4) BONUS! She replaced her HDD and lied about it. She also continues to deny it was her when faced with undeniable evidence.

The fine is outrageous but she does deserve to pay something.

@grapedog: You are running on the assumption that the RIAA actually has credibility..

The RIAA, I'm sure, doesn't care about the judgment more than they care about the precedent it sets. If the Jury would have returned a verdict of, say $5 or $23.76 (24 * .99), you bet your ass the RIAA'd be all over that in appeal.

I think the jury did us ALL a favor because the next thing that will happen is they will challenge the statutory damages, as they are outrageous. She didn't make a profit (or any money for that matter) off sharing music so statutory damages shouldn't apply.

@darkrose: That's what the appeal is for. The appeals process will be where she can get the amount reduced. She does not deserve a third trial. She had the first judgement thrown out. That jury ruled in favor of the RIAA. She had a second trial. This jury found the same thing. The LAW allows for penalties up to $150k. The only way to get that law changed is to appeal. Retrial after retrial will likely end up with the same result, just different amounts. If she wants the amount reduced, she needs to appeal.

@Gokuhouse:

It's probably even easier, the wait is smaller if it's a random song.
http://www.listentoyoutube.com/

You'd probably have to accept lower quality, but many pirates don't even care anyway.

I'm all for intellectual property rights, its what makes this country great, but this is ridiculous. Organizations that sue their customers shouldn't expect to remain relevant long.