Jammie Thomas-Rasset gets hammered

I told you last time that this appeal would fail. She had the stupidest laywer in the world, and her defense was insulting. http://www.theinquirer.net/inquirer/news/1137445/jammie-thomas-lawyers

"Camara thinks the key to victory is to attack the RIAA's litigation strategy, which has spawned about 30,000 lawsuits over five years, most of which have settled out of court for a few thousand dollars."

'Oh, I'm not guilty, they're just suing everyone and I got caught up in the net.'

I'm glad to see the jury called her on this crap.

Jammie Thomas-Rasset got what she had coming to her, and shows the same lack of responsibility to her ruling that she did to stealing peoples music. In her own words: 'There's no way they're ever going to get that," said Thomas-Rasset, a 32-year-old mother of four from the central Minnesota city of Brainerd. "I'm a mom, limited means, so I'm not going to worry about it now'
It's too bad that nobody has taught this woman any responsibility, and to think that she is raising four kids that will one day be a part of our future. I hope, for their sake, that they have a good role model somewhere.

Sounds like it's time for the consumer to speak up here. I for one will NEVER buy another recording from these record labels. If we drive them out of business, more friendy one will take their place. Maybe they will feel as depressed, as this poor women feels now.

They appear to have a role model willing to stand up for herself, to face overwhelming resources lined up against her.
Regardless of her guilt the method of this type of pursuit of individuals is an abuse of the legal system. If parking offences were dealt with this way you'd have your car clamped and impounded by an unlicensed unregulated private entity, quite possibly when parked legitimately. You would then receive a demand for thousands of dollars for the return of your car, and if you failed to pay up you'd be dragged through years of legal proceedings and given a fine several hundred times more than the value of the car and the land it was parked on.
The law should protect the weak, not be used as hammer and anvil by the strong.

This is just an example of a bad jury. There is no proof that the music industry lost $2 million as a result of this. I have heard of judges reducing awards drastically in other cases. That is what should happen here. They need to appeal. Of course, maybe she should just settle.
I will have jury service next week. I will not hand out harsh punishments just to make an example of someone. They must prove that the person did millions of dollars of damage.
I would also not be willing to find someone guilty just because it was their computer. Eric and his allies can drone on forever about strict liability, but nothing can change my mind.
Rather than begging people like Eric Yantz for mercy, rational people must take a strong posture and not back down.

One, the recording industry almost certainly didn't ask for or expect such an outrageous amount. That's entirely on the jury (of course, the RIAA lobbied hard for $750 to $150,000 per infringement). Two, they're going to be falling all over themselves to settle at a reasonable number. If they ever try to collect $2M from this woman, it will be PR suicide and they will never recover.

The problem with all of these awards is that they have yet to show they actually had damages of that amount. They are assuming that every shared file is a lost sale, which it's not. There's alot of stuff that if I could not download it, I would never buy it. It's like game demos. You download it, try it, realize it sucks, then delete it and never buy it. Someone that downloads a song from her more than likely had no plans to ever buy it outright, therefore it is not a lost sale. On top of that, how can they equate $80,000 to ONE song when the entire CD is $13? It would have had to have been downloaded 6154 times to equal that. They have only proved that THEY were able to download it. It just doesn't make sense.

...everything she owns which to her is basically an infinite number even if it's only $1,000. She may have very little but she'll be heading into that area of "not having a pot to pee in" soon.

If you're going to be dumb, you'd better be tough and soon the realization will hit her that "stupid and irresponsible" is not the same as "dumb" by the popular definition.

She's an idiot and some judge will reduce the $1.9m to a real number; the jury was simply sending her a message which she will never comprehend. The only thing that will get her attention is a smack in the face with a tire iron and a real fine of say $50,000. That will stick with her for life since she'll be required to make monthly payments which she likely will for only a short period of time.

She's a typical low witted American (there's lots of us) with little going for her so she'll just sort of fade away. That is unless the music people hound her and that just might happen.

Soooooo .... I'll just continue not buying music and not downloading either. Just my way of getting back that the bastards in my small way. Works for me.

You call this justice? 1.2 Mil for the equivalent of 2 CDs? If she had shoplifted 25 CDs where I am from, she would have gotten off with a $500 fine and a class C misdemeanor. Not that I condone stealing, but get real, who are these wankers who think that just because its digital its worth more and even worse the self righteous jury that handed out such an unjust punishment. Screw them all, I won't buy another CD or purchase any more music from iTunes or AmazonMP3 or anyone else.

I'm glad I don't live in the US.

There is such a thing as punishments being proportional to the crime.

The US doesn't have this. The law, and punishment for breaking said law, is decided by whoever has the money to buy out the lawmakers.

The system is totally corrupt.

Everyone outside the US is looking with total horror at this blatant injustice, where corporations once again demonstrate that they own the US.

Your so-called "rights" aren't worth the paper they're written on, should they ever conflict with the interests of big business.

"If parking offences were dealt with this way you'd have your car clamped and impounded by an unlicensed unregulated private entity, quite possibly when parked legitimately."

This comparison is ridiculuous. Try again.

The music mafia keeps asking for silver. I wonder how long it will be till some one gives them lead instead. They have it coming.

I am in the process of suing a doctor and his hospital because of a wrong diagnosis......the doctor mixed me up with another of his patients and began treating me for a fatal illness. He told me and my wife to prepare for my upcoming death and he continued this mistake for over 6 months.

There is no question that the doctor and hospital are liable but I must prove the financial loss his mistake has caused me....I cannot just present a number to the court.

Why doesn't the music industry need to prove the amount of prejudice they incurred?

but then who'd do all the work?!

...shows it has been bought by lobbyists. I think she's guilty and should have paid 3x the value of each song, which still would have been less than $100. I do hope she resists any attempt at settling, though. To settle would send a bigger message than to go bankrupt. I would like to see these associations go away as a result of the verdict backlash and maybe see a change in the law. Just think if art had been treated like this in past milleniae, we'd have no culture or basis of humanity with which to rip off for the sake of modern music, movies, etc. Full disclosure: I was a victim of the Sony rootkit and price-fixing scheme so I'm a tad biased.

wow! and this is what america defines justice.

Poor utter moronic comments.

You expect her to take the responsibility of paying back 1.9 million dollars? Do the math! Even if she paid all her income which would put her childrens lives at risk and not to mention her own she could never pay back this kind of money.

The record industry is going too far and attacking general populus over file sharing is ridiculous. No money has been exchanged. It just goes to show how out of date the record industry is.

Focusing on live performances will have to be the way they generate income now and then only real artists and musicians will shine. Not the MORONS.

this is soo fucking stupid, if they'd sent her a £50 bill and a threatening letter she would have probably just paid it. £2million is just a stupid figure.
Anyone who buys an album from these companies after this should be bloody ashamed of themselves.

Hey, the bitch stole and got caught. She could have settled for $5K and been done with it but she chose a trial. Jury found her guilty and fined her $220K. She whinned and got a second trial where the jury found her guilty again and sent a message to her to the tune of $1.92 million. Maybe now she'll understand that she isn't above the law. Prison time would be good for this woman and all pirates.

For all those who have chimed in with "she got what she deserves"...please do not expect any sympathy or support if or when a similar disproportionate injustice befalls yourself, as these rich companies abuse the legal system to the detriment of all taxpayers.

Freedom is not something that is just for certain select people; freedom is supposedly a shared privilege of all those in a democracy. Same thing goes for justice; it is supposedly available to all people in a democracy, NOT just those with the fattest wallets. The USA calls itself "the land of the free", but this no longer seems to be the case at all, and the more people who turn a blind, apathetic eye to this loss of their constitutional freedoms and justice, the more quickly these cornerstones of democracy will vanish.

Attitudes like "I ain't no terrorist...I got nothin' ta hide" allowed G.W. Bush to tap your phone lines and other communication without any legal basis. It is high time WE stopped this erosion of our rights and freedoms by the rich and powerful, as they are not entitled to have more rights than any individual in our society. I personally am boycotting companies such as the recording industry and Microsoft (which is also one of the biggest corporate bullies around). Use open source software products (like any of the new excellent Linux distributions), buy music direct from artists, or buy USED CD's and DVD's which supply no royalties to these greedy companies. Works for me.

You steal, you go to jail. We have laws to protect society from criminals. Stealing copyright protected works is a crime. End of story.

Come on, she did steal, she deserves a punnishment. This is true. But not this much, and not as much as even the first ammount of about 5K. John of 'american justice' comment had the right kind of idea, 3 maybe even 10x cost of tracks. Remember this is just 24 tracks here people, at 5K thats $200 a track.

I understand fully that they will never get all pirates so need to get a decent ratio back for each one caught. But there also has to be evidence of sharing, not just saying they did.

It has to be enough to send a mesage, but also proportional to their loss. Which, they cant actually prove because they cant say how many times it was downloaded, if at all, just that she made it avialable to download. Either way though I feel it needs to be a fixed cost per track, and proportional.

I did like jon's 're: poor baby' post 3 down from top, with the car impound example. I felt this summed up the arguement fairly well.

If 1% of illegal downloaders were caught and fined this $200 a track, the RIAA would make billions, and thats not whats its lost. Thats more than the industry is worth.

Again I agree with D-OveRMinD, Many downloads are so people can hear the tracks, if an albums crap people wont listen to it, but its so easy to download as a method of trying an album first. This does lead many people to keep the download and not buy album however. The problem lies in that no one wants to spend money on an album anymore if its going to turn out to be shit. Meaning good music will loose out on sales. But this brings us onto....

In the UK live music is now making more money than record sales. People can get music for free off net, If you're good people will want to see you. Thats how you make your money now, by making good music. If you're good, people will still want to pay money towards you. It just means you've got to tour a bit more.

The mafia name INQ has given them is very fitting. their main method is to give out letters asking for cash, and threaten you if you dont pay up. In this case they were brought up so they have upped the money, ok, through a jury, but its now a stupid ammount. Sending a message is one thing, but sending a message which says pay up or you'll owe us loads is wrong. Just like mafia saying, pay a small protection fee or pay for new windows. It has to be proportional to loss.

Sorry for length, I've done much research into this subject over the past year and feel strongly about it. Sorry for rambling, its late and im tired.

Get a clue you morons. Almost across the board you commentors accuse her of stealing. Stealing is defined by law as 'depriving someone of their property'. Jamie was convicted of 'file sharing' copyrighted music. A gray area assertion at best.

Illegal distribution is part of copyright law. Copyright laws are not gray at all, they are quite clear. She violated the law and is being punished for her crimes. Maybe she'll learn from this experience.

The argument here is not if she's guilty or not. The main argument is that if she is found guilty the punishment HAS TO BE PROPORTIONAL to the crime. To do the Music Industry needs to offer proof of ACTUAL losses, not make up some funny statistical numbers and call it reality.

As it sits even settling for the initial $5k is not fair. All it does is give RIAA and the Music Industry a new market to profit from. It is an abuse and a perversion of our law system.

Dig some more into their scheme and you find that all the money from settlements still has to find its way to the people they supposedly defend.

If the RIAA is going through all this effort to protect copyright of its holders, the artists. How is it possible the actual artists are not seeing one penny?

There is no law that states that the punishment must fit the crime. That's a baseless belief. Just this week Somalia dictated the amputation of one hand and leg of some thieves who were convicted of stealing cellphones.

Jammie Babe blew it. She should have paid the original fine of $220,000. Now she'll pay $1.92 million or more. Three stirkes and she's out. The punishment will definitely teach her a lesson and discourage other braindead pirates in denial.

Jammie Thomas Rasset has been making headlines as a person who has been made an example of, who really doesn't deserve it. Jammie Thomas Rasset has been sued by the RIAA for illegal downloading from Kazaa, and they want some instant cash to the tune of $1.9 million, for downloading 24 songs – 2 CDs worth. Intellectual property needs to be preserved, but given the history of the music industry, even a casual examination reveals that they only care about the gravy train, rather than the artist's intellectual property, and many recording contracts give almost all licensing to the record companies, which is who is behind the huge need for cash advance loans of epic proportions for a href="http://personalmoneystore.com/moneyblog/2009/06/19/woman-sued-riaa/" title="Jammie Thomas-Rasset Loses $1.9 Million Suit by RIAA" Jammie Thomas Rasset /a .

The fact that some folks find the $1.92 Million fine excessive is a good sign that progress is being made. The whole point of punishment is to use pain to change the habits of criminals. Perhaps Jammie will change her ways after she loses everything she owns or spends time in prison?

piracy will never never ever die. making a copy of something does not mean it's theft.

one day when atomic scale assembly is possible, you'll be able to copy your neighbors car and still leave theirs in the driveway. did you steal it?

@Eric Yantz.. i hope you were just trolling... if not i hope karma bites you in the ass and your children download stuff on kazaa, then we'll see if you have whats coming to you ;

I'd say the Karma in this story is that Jammie committed a crime and refused to accept responsibility for her actions. Denial didn't change the law. The jury made it clear to Jammie that despite her denial, she is a convicted criminal who must pay $1.92 million in fines. No doubt that she's the one who got bit on the arse.

99.9% of major label songs aren't even worth a dime- utter crap, it is.

Two lessons here....

1. don't steal crappy music

2. "borrow" good indie music