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Jammie Thomas loses case to RIAA
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The following comments relate to this news article:
article published on 18 June, 2009
Last September, Minnesota woman Jammie Thomas was convicted of sharing 24 unauthorized tracks via P2P and was told to pay the RIAA $220,000 in damages. Thomas was granted a retrial however, which has gone to verdict today.
Thomas was found to have "committed willful violation" of the copyrights on the 24 songs and the jury has this time awarded the RIAA and the media companies $1.92 million ... [ read the full article ]
Please read the original article before posting your comments.
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Senior Member
2 product reviews
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18. June 2009 @ 21:18 |
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I'm not a lawyer but how can the RIAA get away with such large damages? The songs are worth $0.99/each and even with "special" damages I would think the maximum is 2-3 times that price.
$80,000 per song means they were awarded an equivalent of 80,000 times the original damages per song. I would love for someone to give me a legitimate reason for damages that high.
Those damages have got to be unconstitutional because 80,000 times damages is just ridiculous, that would be like someone stealing a pack of gum and being forced to pay the store $80,000 if they got caught.
Peace
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simonf444
Newbie
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18. June 2009 @ 21:21 |
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Both this AfterDawn story and the one on CNN use the term 'download' rather than upload or share - surely this isn't right? Wasn't she being charged with distribution of copyrighted content rather than just obtaining it?
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Staff Member
4 product reviews
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18. June 2009 @ 21:26 |
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Originally posted by simonf444:
Both this AfterDawn story and the one on CNN use the term 'download' rather than upload or share - surely this isn't right? Wasn't she being charged with distribution of copyrighted content rather than just obtaining it?
Correct, the word "downloading" has been replaced with "sharing" in the article now, thanks.
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stuntman_
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18. June 2009 @ 21:35 |
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wow this is sad poor jamie. I am ashamed to live in country where this can happen this is ridiculous
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korgoth3
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18. June 2009 @ 21:39 |
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serves her right that filthy music sharer. Lucky we have the riaa or people like her might be living in our communities, or even teaching our children.
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ivymike
Member
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18. June 2009 @ 21:57 |
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I hope the judgement against her is overturned on appeal.
She is gonna appeal, isn't she?
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Member
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18. June 2009 @ 23:04 |
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Originally posted by korgoth3:
serves her right that filthy music sharer. Lucky we have the riaa or people like her might be living in our communities, or even teaching our children.
This is a Troll, I have seen many trolls in my time and this is one.
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Member
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18. June 2009 @ 23:07 |
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Let this be a lesson...... Get off those noob p2p programs like kazaa and run peer guardian.
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joe777
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18. June 2009 @ 23:08 |
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Originally posted by Pop_Smith:
I'm not a lawyer but how can the RIAA get away with such large damages? The songs are worth $0.99/each and even with "special" damages I would think the maximum is 2-3 times that price.
$80,000 per song means they were awarded an equivalent of 80,000 times the original damages per song. I would love for someone to give me a legitimate reason for damages that high.
Those damages have got to be unconstitutional because 80,000 times damages is just ridiculous, that would be like someone stealing a pack of gum and being forced to pay the store $80,000 if they got caught.
Peace
Well said. It is absolutely scandalous. It is bloddy SPECIAL alright. I am stunned!!!
Edit: I forgot to ask. Does this include the court costs?
This message has been edited since posting. Last time this message was edited on 18. June 2009 @ 23:11
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joe777
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18. June 2009 @ 23:16 |
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Originally posted by Burnasty:
Let this be a lesson...... Get off those noob p2p programs like kazaa and run peer guardian.
Peerguardian is as much use as a concrete parachute, chocolate teapot or a fart in a space suit.
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Senior Member
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18. June 2009 @ 23:49 |
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I agree this is totally unreasonable (not that the original amount was reasonable). At such ridiculous rates, I could sue someone for putting a ding in my bumper and live off the interest from the money I got. It's absolutely appalling that they can receive such a blatently unjust amount of money, and it makes it plain that the legal system is corrupt. (I would not call it a justice system.)
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EricCarr
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19. June 2009 @ 00:12 |
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I bet the artist of the songs she was "sharing" will not see a dime of this money.
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Staff Member
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19. June 2009 @ 00:22 |
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Originally posted by Pop_Smith:
I'm not a lawyer but how can the RIAA get away with such large damages? The songs are worth $0.99/each and even with "special" damages I would think the maximum is 2-3 times that price.
$80,000 per song means they were awarded an equivalent of 80,000 times the original damages per song. I would love for someone to give me a legitimate reason for damages that high.
Those damages have got to be unconstitutional because 80,000 times damages is just ridiculous, that would be like someone stealing a pack of gum and being forced to pay the store $80,000 if they got caught.
Peace
And I forgot to add it in the original article, but the jury had the right to fine her $150,000 for every song, so they gave her "a break" only fining 80k per song.
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stuntman_
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19. June 2009 @ 02:25 |
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I have a feeling the jury was paid on this one
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Member
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19. June 2009 @ 02:50 |
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While Jammie may, I restate MAY be guilty, this award is definitely guilty of being ridiculous. It is a sickening thing the way the court systems work now. If you have money then you can get whatever justice you want. I could list examples but why do this as everyone has seen or heard of them. As for the statement that she could still settle well it just shows how truly hypocritical these "people" and their organization have been all along.
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Senior Member
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19. June 2009 @ 03:07 |
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Originally posted by DVDBack23:
And I forgot to add it in the original article, but the jury had the right to fine her $150,000 for every song, so they gave her "a break" only fining 80k per song.
Thanks DVDBack23 for pointing that out. I looked it up and sure enough in the U.S. copyright law (See here for more.) Section § 504 says:
Quote:
In a case where the copyright owner sustains the burden of proving, and the court finds, that infringement was committed willfully the court in its discretion may increase the award of statutory damages to a sum of not more than $150,000.
If someone can prove that they were not aware the sharing was occurring the minimum "award" is $200. I assume this means that the maximum is still the $150,000.
Quote:
In a case where the infringer sustains the burden of proving, and the court finds, that such infringer was not aware and had no reason to believe that his or her acts constituted an infringement of copyright, the court in its discretion may reduce the award of statutory damages to a sum of not less than $200.
This law is extremely out-dated and needs to be abolished or at least a new one needs to be put into place. It's most recent revision was 10 years ago, but then again I've read of court cases being settled because of a law from the 1940's that wasn't ever updated.
Peace
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iamgq
Junior Member
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19. June 2009 @ 03:40 |
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Originally posted by stuntman_:
I have a feeling the jury was paid on this one
With unlimeted dowloads at itunes probly.
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bomber991
Member
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19. June 2009 @ 05:14 |
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Originally posted by Pop_Smith:
I'm not a lawyer but how can the RIAA get away with such large damages? The songs are worth $0.99/each and even with "special" damages I would think the maximum is 2-3 times that price.
$80,000 per song means they were awarded an equivalent of 80,000 times the original damages per song. I would love for someone to give me a legitimate reason for damages that high.
Those damages have got to be unconstitutional because 80,000 times damages is just ridiculous, that would be like someone stealing a pack of gum and being forced to pay the store $80,000 if they got caught.
Peace
Hmm, how about just for the heck of it, let's try and figure out how much data 24 songs uploaded 80k times would be.
Ok, how long is the average song, 5 minutes? And the normal bitrate is 128kilobits per second, which is (128/8)=16 kilobytes per second. 5 minutes is 300 seconds, so the average song is (300)(16)= 4800Kb.
Alright, now that average song size 80,000 times is (80,000)(4,800)= 384,000,000 Kb or 375,000 Mb or 366.2 Gb of data transfered.
Now 24 songs at 366.2 Gb of data each comes out to 8,788.8 Gb of data or 8.58 Terabytes!!!
Time to look at the time it would have taken her to upload that much data. What's the average upload speed, 512Kbps? That's 64 k/s.
8.58 Tb = 8,785.92 Gb = 8,996,782.08 Mb = 9,212,704,849.92 Kb.
(9,212,704,849.92 Kb) / (64 Kb/s) = 143,948,513.28 seconds = 2,399,141.888 minutes = 39,985.698 hours = 1666 days = 4.56 years of solid constant uninterrupted uploading of these shitty 24 mp3's.
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AfterDawn Addict
1 product review
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19. June 2009 @ 06:16 |
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This is just terrible...$80,000 per song?
...And if you can prove that you did not know about it (like if you were hacked or you have spyware), then you still have to pay at least $200 per track!
Just think, you back up your 500 cds to your computer so that you can put them onto your ipod whenever you want. Someone drops a trojan or something on your box and starts sharing them...the miniumum fine to you would be about $1,200,000. I assume that the hacker would not be charged, as it would make convicting the victim more difficult.
...That's like giving someone life in prison for cocain distribution just because a smuggler's airplane crashed on their property.
The lesson is clear: if you are ever charged with piracy, RUN!!! Even if you have solid proof of your innocence, run anyway...you can't beat the charge when the judge works for RIAA.
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korgoth3
Newbie
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19. June 2009 @ 06:17 |
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Quote:
Originally posted by korgoth3:
serves her right that filthy music sharer. Lucky we have the riaa or people like her might be living in our communities, or even teaching our children.
This is a Troll, I have seen many trolls in my time and this is one.
you might have just figured out what "troll" means on the internet, but you have yet to figure out what sarcasm is.
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Member
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19. June 2009 @ 06:19 |
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only in America
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Member
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19. June 2009 @ 08:05 |
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I seriously doubt she will end up paying that much. Such huge awards have been overturned before for being unconstitutional. There is no way a single person who isn't filthy rich would be able to pay such a sum.
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gnovak1
Member
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19. June 2009 @ 08:58 |
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I read where she was offered a settlement of $3,500 and turned it down. Maybe she should've taken it. When it comes to those money hungry RIAA bastards, sometimes you have to bite the bullet. It's hard to beat those guys especially with these dumb laws.
Plus i cant see where downloading only 24 songs killed the industry so much as to warrent this rediculous amount. What about the millions of people now downloading illegal music every day??
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duke8888
Junior Member
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19. June 2009 @ 09:21 |
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I am not surprised about the outcome of this case. I wish she would have settled with them instead of going to Federal Court but she was advised very badly I can say. Back in 1993 I was involved with setting this precedent in a federal case
http://www.loundy.com/CASES/Playboy_v_Frena.html
They went after me to get the law on the books because at the tome Compuserve had millions of pics as well as AOL and they didn't want to spend millions to fight this case so they went after the little guy without deep pockets. They won and Compuserve and AOL immediately took all of their pics offline. I was sued for over $6 million dollars but we came to a much lesser amount which was paid by my insurance company but I am unable to tell you the amount because of the disclosure I signed. So with this new copyright infrigement law it has been used many times over as they even sued their own employees who placed web sites up with their own pics owned by the company. My attorney called me yesterday and told me about this lady and what happen and we weren't surprise with the outcome.
He said she should have taken the 1st offer but she refused it so now she has to face the real truth of the matter and its so sad.
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duke8888
Junior Member
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19. June 2009 @ 09:26 |
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Originally posted by Ryoohki:
I seriously doubt she will end up paying that much. Such huge awards have been overturned before for being unconstitutional. There is no way a single person who isn't filthy rich would be able to pay such a sum.
Wrong she can try to overturn it but as a previous post she could have been charged $150k per song but they gave her a break $80 per song. In my case I was lucky I settled after the verdict for a much lesser price but I have a feeling the RIAA will not be so generous.
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