Verdict in First RIAA File-Sharing Jury Trial: Guilty

Authored by Mark Hefflinger on October 4, 2007 - 10:26am.

Duluth, Minn. - The first defendant to face a jury trial in the Recording Industry Association of America's (RIAA) over 20,000-lawsuit strong campaign against illegal file-sharing was found guilty on Thursday, and ordered to pay $220,000 in damages.

Thirty-year-old Jammie Thomas was found guilty of "willful" copyright infringement, and will pay $9,250 in damages for each of the 24 songs in question, or a total of $220,000, Ars Technica reported.

The copyright infringement lawsuit against Thomas was the first to ever actually go to a jury trial; most of those charged have opted to settle the claims for around $3,000 to $5,000 each.

Closing arguments were made on Thursday before the jury was sent to deliberate, ending the three-day trial during which the recording industry tried to establish that Thomas had offered over 1,700 songs in a shared folder on the Kazaa file-sharing network in 2005.

On the witness stand, Thomas testified that she was not the Kazaa user "tereastarr," despite using the same handle on e-mail, website logins and at Match.com.

Thomas' attorney Brian Toder said during his closing argument that the industry had failed to establish that "this actual human being was behind the keyboard," and that Thomas was "not the person marauding as 'tereastarr'," Wired News reported in its courtroom coverage.

In a coup for the record labels suing Thomas for up to $3.6 million in damages, U.S. District Judge Michael Davis told jurors on Thursday that Thomas could be found liable "regardless of whether or not distribution has been shown," backing up its argument that simply the "making available" of songs in a shared folder counts as infringement -- even if it can't be proven that anyone ever downloaded the songs.

In a foreboding sign for the defendant, two hours into deliberations the jury asked the judge what the minimum charge per violation could be, Wired reported.

While the maximum fine is $150,000 per song, the jury was told the minimum fine is $750.

http://blog.wired.com/27bstroke6/riaa_trial/index.html

http://tinyurl.com/2yomks (DMW previous coverage)

Published in DMW Daily, October 4, 2007

Next story: XM, Sirius Merger Shareholder Vote Set for Nov. 13

Email this page

add to:

del.icio.us |

digg | Yahoo! MyWeb | Slashdot

Comments

The RIAA has shot themselves in the foot.

Submitted by anonymous (not verified) on October 4, 2007 - 4:05pm.

This case’s appeal is going to put a busted ostrich egg in the face of both the judge AND the RIAA. The instructions were clearly outside of the scope of the law, and on top of that, the RIAA never actually proved that DAMAGES occurred. Also, why has no one argued that the DOWNLOADER is responsible for infringement rather than the person “making available?” In the real world, if you make a copy of a CD for someone else, you’re infringing, but if someone makes a copy of a copyrighted item that you, the library, or a rental chain like Blockbuster lends or rents to them, THEY have committed the infringement. There is no feasible way to defeat this analogy. The actual copyright violation occurs not because of the (potentially accidental) availability of the file, but rather because the downloader, copier, or ripper willingly and intentionally chose to make a duplication of the file that would not fall under a fair use exemption. The jury has essentially made you liable for infringement if your friend borrows a CD from you and decides to rip it without your knowledge or consent before returning it. I would expect Blockbuster to file an amicus brief for the appeal, because if this ruling is allowed to stand, Blockbuster is “making available” a TON of copyrighted media, and they commit copyright infringement with every rental that chooses to duplicate the rented item. They made it available, after all. The utter stupidity of the instructions is easily found when the implications of those instructions are applied to all situations that would fall under the wording of those instructions, and that’s why this is going to be one hell of an EASY appeal.

RIAA - Their own worst enemy.

Submitted by BB (not verified) on October 4, 2007 - 7:34pm.

I hope you don't mind me SHARING this with you.... at least not as much as the RIAA executives who take this kind of action as fair... or even trivial! A single mother ordered to pay nearly quarter of a million dollars? Truly fair penalties are one thing but the people that are most guilty are those that create or apply laws that totally fail to weigh the circumstances and capabilities without, I sense, being biased toward government influencing, gluttonous wealth that has way less respect for the vast majority of us... far less than she had for the risk of file sharing. I wouldn't mind seeing the giant have to turn red with embarrassment if there's a market retaliation. It would give me more pleasure than anything they could ever record. I'm in no rush to buy another CD or movie nor could I endorse the action by being a patron. Life has much more than these people think they have to offer. Disgusted. -BB

USA:s justice

Submitted by anonymous (not verified) on October 4, 2007 - 10:59pm.

USA:s justice about copyright is sick. They are shaming themselves to ruin someone like this. They haven't LOST ANYTHING! They have potentially lost something. They should be ashamed of themselves. Poor woman... :(

f*ck RIAA

Submitted by robbie (not verified) on October 5, 2007 - 7:28am.

I say: we set up a site to collect the money for this poor lady, or pay a good lawyer to f*ck those companies.

i agree to the first

Submitted by anonymous (not verified) on October 5, 2007 - 8:11am.

i agree to the first suggestion, Kazaa should set up a link on their site urging its users to donate $0.99 (the cost for a song on most LEGAL sites) to Jammie until the fine is payed off. Its not asking much from everyone who would have payed much more money if they would have purchased the songs.

Thieves deserve what they get

Submitted by anonymous (not verified) on October 5, 2007 - 8:10am.

The fact is that dowloading music you didn't pay for is stealing. Giving music that you've stolen to other people is stealing as well. I don't have any sympathy for thieves who get caught and punished.

Regardless...the punishment

Submitted by anonymous (not verified) on October 5, 2007 - 10:56am.

Regardless...the punishment does not fit the crime. And to base the whole case on "damages"...or I should say "potential and perceived damages without proof" is ridiculous. Good that the RIAA won. However, the US courts are embarrassing themselves with these kinds of verdicts. I said enough. I see stupid people...

"I don't have any sympathy

Submitted by anonymous (not verified) on October 6, 2007 - 3:08am.

"I don't have any sympathy for thieves who get caught and punished." You'll say this until the RIAA comes after you as well. They've been working like a Mafia, collecting "settlements" which are actually protection money from students at colleges across America. This is without even having proof that any of those students had committed file-sharing offenses. More suspiciously, when Harvard told them to "take a hike" they stopped sending threats of litigation there. Its quite obvious this is just extortion.