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RIAA hounds alleged filesharer in a third trial
ALLEGED FILESHARER Jammie Thomas-Rasset, the first person to be tried for peer-to-peer filesharing in the US will be dragged through the courts for a third time as the RIAA rejected a federal judge's decision to lower its damage awards, according to a RIAA blog post yesterday.
Thomas-Rasset was ordered to pay £145, 000 in statutory damages for infringing copyrights on just 24 songs. The court had to throw this decision out after making an error in jury instructions and Thomas-Rasset was retried in 2009. At her second trial she was ordered to pay statutory damages of a whopping £1.2 million but the judge reduced that damage award to 'only' £34,500. That still works out to about £1,437.50 per tune, which is rather an astronomical amount more than Apple charges on Itunes.
We reported back in May that Jammie Thomas-Rasset was already on her second team of lawyers because her first team quit their pro bono representation. Now the RIAA has rejected the judgement and forced a third trial.
RIAA vice president of communications Cara Duckworth stated in the blog post, "If another trial is what is needed to close the book on this case once and for all, then we are left with no choice but to reject the Court's remittitur and proceed to a new trial on damages."
The black heart of the RIAA's decision to once more haul Thomas-Rasset through the courts is that it believes the judge's rulings are counter to copyright laws.
It said, "Neither the Copyright Act nor any case law distinguishes - as this Court did - between 'commercial' and 'non-commercial' infringers for statutory damages purposes. Moreover, neither the Copyright Act nor any case law contains any authority for capping damages at three times minimum damages in particular cases."
"It is not for the courts to fashion a limit on damages for any particular type of infringer or any particular type of infringement. That job belongs exclusively to Congress."
There's certainly no love lost between the last judge and the RIAA's attack dogs. Both previous judges were openly critical of the apparent injustice of this lawsuit. One asked Congress to amend and update existing statutory damages law and the other commented that the RIAA's lawyers conducted a very nasty campaign.
This will be the third time around for Thomas-Rasset. Making this mother of modest means the poster girl for alleged illegal copyright infringement once again is a cruel stunt by the RIAA. In fact, the RIAA blames Thomas-Rasset, the apparent victim of its oppressive campaign to make an example out of her, for the forthcoming third trial in this case, claiming that "American taxpayers should not have to bankroll a publicity campaign that the defendant and her counsel apparently seek."
The RIAA and the recording companies are simply wrong. The sole responsibility for the cost of this third trial to the US taxpayers should be laid at the feet of the RIAA and its Big Music members. It's a freak show publicity campaign initiated and prolonged by the RIAA in a muscle-flexing gesture to terrorise filesharers by threatening them with extreme punishment. µ
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Time to get real. If you pirate you're going to be punished like any other criminal. Smarten up or pay the price. Whinning don't change anything.
Joe Biden is Definately a puppet for the content mafia and Obama is at the very least, their lapdog. First place Obama went to after being elected was to California to celebrate with his content mafia buddies there who helped foot his bill in being elected. Also, Obama carries on about keeping everything in the open but please, do a search for "secret treaty" and you'll see just what a puppet his administration really is.
You're missing the point. The problem here is that the damages are absurd.
Let's imagine that you nick a couple of Mars bars from a corner shop and get caught. You've committed an offence, fair enough. Now imagine that after 2 court cases, you are told to pay the corner shop £250,000 in damages. Wouldn't you consider that to be an outrageously excessive fine?
You appeal and the judge knocks the fine down to £6,000. Now that's still an enormous fine for only nicking about £1 worth of confectionery and most people would agree that you're still being severely punished for your crime.
That's the problem. I'm not arguing that Jammie Thomas is innocent, but the original fine was absolutely obscene. It's been cut to a lower but still pretty gigantic amount. The record industry should accept that, pocket the cash (well, however much she can pay) and move on. Instead, they're trying to complain that a 6,000% fine isn't enough. And I think that £145,000 should cover their legal costs as well.
Sorry, but regardless of guilt, pushing for a higher fine than that for just 24 songs is just pure greed and is taking the piss.
If the RIAA were to go bust tomorrow, I honestly would throw a party.
I know just perfect use for that enriched uranium ;).
And what PR success would it be among internet users!!! :)
BURN HER!!!!!!!!
The justification for property, that is real property, is that it is a scarce good with mutual exclusivity that is best utilized when there is an exlusive owner or a group with exclusive ownership.
The representation of an idea is scarce in this same sense. If I make a marble statue I have a property right to the statue because I had a property right to the original block of marble; I own this embodiment or representation of the idea as well as the representation of the statue that exists in my brain.
However, the idea itself is not that kind of scarce good. If I let you look at my statue and you make a similar statue I still own the representations of my idea that I owned before, but now you have one too.
Intellectual property is not a kind of property right at all, it is a state-granted monopoly on the reproduction of representations of an idea. The state allows me to infringe on your property rights and prevent your from using your property in certain ways, that is the essence of so called intellectual property.
If you have a CNC machine and a block of aluminium there are certain shapes you may not machine out of that block without someone elses permission. If you have a piano there are certain sequences of notes you may not play in public. If you have a hard-drive there are certain sequences of ones and zeroes you may not write. If you have a c-compiler there are certain algorithms you may not represent in code.
The justification for intellectual property is identical to the long discredited mercantilist justifications for other monopolies. It isn't true that patents, trademarks and copyright are necessary to stimulate creativity; on the contrary, they are a hindrance as they completely abolish the evolutionary mode of improvement(consumer selection against many similar and derived ideas). They are nothing more than a rent-seeking exercise like any other.
Morality and law are disjunct. When government imposes price and wage controls it is an imoral act; the black market that arises is a direct consequence is illegal, but not imoral.
When governments ban alcohol or impose punitive taxes, this is the imoral act not the brewing of moonshine. When governments force blacks to sit at the back of the bus, this is the imoral act; there is nothing imoral about blacks refusing to sit at the back of the bus. When Governments engage have a draft for a war that does not need to be fought the draft-dodgers are branded as criminals, but they've done nothing imoral. When government cartelized the airline industry it was illegal to compete; even non-price competition such as serving dinner instead of sandwiches were illegal, but there was nothing imoral by circumventing this imoral law bracketing a filet mignon between two tiny pieces of bread and calling it a sandwich.
History shows that imoral laws such as patents, copyright and misuse of trademarks will not be abolished until there is widespread mass-disobedience.
wut a cunt.
"maybe bonny will get cancer from not eating enough antioxidants. she just dont get it. hope she enjoys chemo."
Maybe she'll get prison time in the third trial in addition to a multi-million dollar fine. She just don't get it. Hope she enjoys the Iron Bar Hotel.
Suppose you were an idiot. And suppose you were a member of Congress. But I repeat myself.
- Mark Twain
Really, how much money has RIAA spent lobbying the gov't to pass DMCA?
24 songs should be about, say, 3 CDs. Worth, say, $60 at a local music store. What fine would stealing $60 worth of stuff land you in the Land of the Free, the Home of the Brave?
This whole thing is a joke. Making a digital copy costs RIAA cartel NOTHING. Stealing a CD would cost them a dollar, or the $10-20 in revenue lost from NOT SELLING THAT CD. Yet fine for one is large, and fine for actual theft is small. Go figure. Quite frankly, they should start accepting refunds for the CRAP their artists make when punters like me demand a refund for CRAP I bought. That is about the only way to stop piracy.
The more laws, the less justice
- Marcus Tullius Cicero
Very nice troll, sir!
Obama and Biden?
It seems there is a network of commenters mounting an underground comment offensive against the incumbent US administration trying to badname them in particular for all the evils of the day.
Surely the Democrat party is more sympathetic to the liberal arts industry (as opposed to the liberal arts movement) but to pin robotic subservience onto the heads of the executive ... that's just namecalling calculated to grow a subconscious suspicion of the named parties in the minds of the community.
Yes, it's a conspiracy. A loosely organised one, but a conspiracy nonetheless.
It sounds like the RIAA sure know to whom their puppet-strings are securely fastened. They paid off the President and Vice-President of the USA, and now they will be jerking those puppet strings, HARD.
What a disgusting travesty of justice... a coin-operated President. The Obama administration will go down alongside Nixon as one of the most corrupt governments in US history.
Everybody needs to realize that you can't get blood from a stone. Just let the RIAA bozos sue you, go bankrupt and that's it. You have to be willing to do this when it comes down to the nitty gritty when you upload songs to the net. After spending a ton of cash on blood sucking (daddy paid for my education and "I'm better than you" attitude) lawyers, and getting nothing back, they will stop. It's all about the cash. Jail time? Ditto. After putting thousands or more people in jail at the tax payers expense, the government will soon back down on these cases, as it is costing them CASH that they could spend on fine dining, luxurious trips and "we are all friends here" kickbacks. The corporate greed going on these days is enough to make a working guy go insane. If they don't get better profits than the month before they put a task force on the reason why. What a joke. I don't expect to go to the gas pump and see a lower price than the day before and before that....or maybe I should!
@ Skydiver
You are a retard. Learn the difference between "theft" and copyright infringement.
They are two totally different things.
Last month the Supreme court declared that the First Amendment gives corporations the right to spend unlimited money to influence elections in the U.S. If you think the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) was bad. Wait till the politicians elected by corporations' money start writing laws!
@Skydiver
Don't be a moron! We know it's wrong, and the person should pay, but not the price they are asking. There has to be a cap and a proportion of the fine to the value. The RIAA/MPAA is as corrupt as the politicians they pay off and all of us should fight this! Email your congressman and ask for cap limits on restitution.
@Skydiver... You are a complete cretin. Nobody has tried to justify this "theft". I suggest you do a little background reading on this case and see how amoral the RIAA's actions have been.
PS... look up the definition of theft.
PPS... specifically "perminently deprive".
PPPS.. then explain to me how she is guilty of theft of any kind.
This is all a fear tactic by the RIAA. they need this so anyone else they go after will be afraid to fight it in court.
The next Jury should find her not guilty just to send a big FU to the music industry.
Hey, she broke the law, and multiple juries have awarded damages to the RIAA. The potential fines for file sharing are well-known. As they say, if you can't do the time, then don't do the crime.
It galls me that so many people try to justify this theft. None of their arguments holds any water. Just because you think the price of something is too high, that doesn't mean you are allowed to steal it.
The RIAA clearly hasn't got a clue. Terms such as "public relations" obviously mean nothing to them. Can they not see that such action just furthers the publics' belief that the RIAA and associated labels are just an evil, corrupt and bullying cartel?
And last time I checked, the public generally has a problem about doing business with organisations they consider to be morally evil.
The only thing this farcical trial will achieve is to further alienate the general public and drive record sales even lower still. Nice job RIAA!
Big bully, give the lady the litigation money she needs to make the playing level. Of course you keep winning, you have the money needed to win. Pick on someone your own size you Bully.
If she demanded a duel, would you be just as anxious?
for each action there is an equal and opposite reaction. that being said, i've decided the jury will state her innocence on this round and mobs will amass around the riaa headquarters with pitchforks and torches.