Posted on 10/10/2007 9:24:01 PM PDT by Stoat
![]() Internet RIAA Case Juror Speaks: 2 Jurors Wanted $3.6M Fine
Jason Mick (Blog) - October 10, 2007 2:14 PM It turns out that Jammie Thomas could have been worse off The tech news industry has been buzzing with news of the $222,000 verdict in the precedent setting civil case Capitol Records v. Jammie Thomas, the first instance of an RIAA complaint going to a trial by jury. Now a juror from the case has opened up and discussed their feelings about the case and what went on inside the courtroom. While some may feel the $9,250 per song fine levied against Thomas was extreme and unreasonable, she could have been far worse off, if a couple of the jurors had their way. In an interview with THREAT LEVEL on Tuesday, Michael Hegg, one of the jurors from the case, reported that two jurors had tried to sway the other jurors to adopt the maximum fine per violation, $150,000 per piece of copyrighted material. As Thomas was found guilty of 24 such violations, this would have resulted in a $3.6 million fine. Another juror, according to Hegg, was insistent on making the fine as low as possible. The minimum amount per violation, by law is $750. This would have led to a far lesser fine of $18,000, still a significant sum, but over $200,000 less than the $222,000 jury decision. Hegg, a 38-year-old steelworker from Duluth, Minnesota who had just returned home from a 14 hour shift when the interview took place, was unsympathetic at Thomas's plight. He elaborated, "She's a liar. She should have settled out of court for a few thousand dollars. Spoofing? We're thinking, 'Oh my God, you got to be kidding.' [The verdict was] a compromise, yes, we wanted to send a message that you don't do this, that you have been warned." Hegg felt that the fact that Thomas turned a different hard drive over to investigators than the original was particularly damning. He repeated his feelings that she was being deceptive. "She lied. There was no defense. Her defense sucked," he elaborated. Hegg is a married father of two and says his wife is an "Internet guru," but admits to not knowing much about technology issues. Hegg said his opinion and that of the jury was swayed by a number of pieces of evidence presented by the RIAA. One exhibit, viewed multiple times showed that there were 2 million users on Kazaa, the network Thomas was accused of using, on the night RIAA investigators found Thomas's alleged folder. Also, Thomas's use of the name "Terreastarr" on other online accounts, the same as the name on the Kazaa account, helped convince them. Then there was the fact that the RIAA's technical experts matched the IP and MAC address to her computer. Expert testimony had revealed that Thomas had not used a wireless router, casting further doubt on her claims that she was hacked. Hegg seemed almost enraged at Thomas as he concluded the interview by saying, "I think she thought a jury from Duluth would be naïve. We're not that stupid up here. I don't know what the f**k she was thinking, to tell you the truth." Hegg's statements echo the Bush administration's statement earlier this week, that the punishment fit the crime and serves as a good warning to potential violators. The RIAA has a strong ally in the current U.S. administration, which has made major efforts to police copyright infringement and raise the fines for violators, including championing and signing into law the Family Entertainment and Copyright Act of 2005. This law mandated that possession of even a single copy of a film unreleased on dvd could subject the owner to a stay in prison. The law included no provisions for currently unreleased or untranslated foreign films, but so far the motion picture industry has been slightly less zealous in prosecuting infringers than the RIAA. Recent reports put the RIAA settlements at nearly 36,000 individual settlements, by certain estimates. Still there are many around the country who feel that she got off too lightly or was fined too heavily or unjustly. Even the jury seems to have mirrored this same split. One wanted to just fine her the minimum amount, others wanted to fine her the maximum amount $3.6 million dollars. The end result is still the same though: Thomas is going to have to pay, unless her appeal somehow succeeds. Meanwhile the RIAA can rest content with their victory as they ponder their next plan of attack in their colorful battle against copyright infringement. |
They can only fine her for the files for which she was on trial. It only serves to bias the jury to say that she had 17 gigs. If they were to sue her for having 3,000 files, the charge would be what? $117million? Might the jury have found the RIAA’s request a bit obsessive/punative?
I will say that I have not read the transcript but if they proved the case that she also acted as a “server” for other people that downloaded the songs then the high fine can be because of her roll in distribution.
Expect there to be prosecutions for importing CDs before long. Europe did not extend copyrights the last time around. Songs over 50 years old are now public domain there (including Elvis). Some compilations with their earliest material are already showing up in the budget bins.
The UK is looking at changing this because the Beatles and Cliff Richard may soon become public domain and the Beatles and Michael Jackson and Sony and EMI still haven’t made enough off of these songs to survive. A
ll the other musicians who came before them are to be left out in the cold but NOW real artists are being jeopardized. < / s >
It's been upheld by the Supreme Court on at least three separate occasions, so it's quite legal. It's the very foundation of the "trial by jury of your peers" system, actually - that your peers have the right to set aside any law if they feel it is being applied to you unjustly. Judges and prosecutors may prefer in the interest of expediency that jurors remain unaware of their right to nullify the law, but that right exists based on very clear legal precedents.
I'm 100% behind you on that, but it will never happen because congress is an easy buy when you have billions of dollars available to you.
Nope.
Either way, to destroy this woman won't even put a blip in file trading across the world. Russia and China probably trade every song ever made by all artists every week. If you have P2P software, you are probably getting half the music from Poland or Russia. To make an example of this person is almost sick if even if you wanted to stop the practice. In America, most of the files are probably on 15 year old kids computers. Probably 10% of the parents care enough to look to see what their kids are doing. Probably 90% wouldn't know what P2P is anyway. So the RIAA has to go after the parents to collect anything.
I've thought about this for years and I honestly can't come up with a solution that is realistic. Code writers are 2 steps ahead of the music industry since the MP3 was invented. The only solution for the artist is to figure a new way to sell/rent/lease their music. Every security method is hacked before it comes out. If it can be put on disk, the disk can be reproduced. I don't know what the answer is. I do know That Russia and China are cheating us out of HUNDREDS OF BILLIONS in trade income. We buy oil, they steal our property. It would go a long way to balance our trade deficit if we got the money for our software, music, and movies. It's hard to get all weepy over Tom Cruise or the Dixie Chicks loosing money though.
America 200 years ago was like China today. We didn’t respect foreign publishing rights on sheet music.
Someone in the US got sued during WWII for publishing a translation of A. Hitler’s Mein Kampf illegally.
Somedays I wonder if we will soon be able to listen to “the white zone is for loading and unloading only...”
The Vichy Chicks aren’t seeing their tours cancelled and low ticket sales because of downloading. There are other factors at work. They shot themselves in the foot insulting their audience repeatedly. That audience walked and political activists stepped in to financially support an act that musically they did not enjoy.
The prerogative of jury nullification is part of English Common Law. English Common Law is part of current American law. QED.
The RIAA needs to face antitrust action.
Do you have a case cite for that from the English Common Law?
Since you claim it is founded in common law, you would have to agree, wouldn’t you, that it certainly would not be applicable in Louisiana.
Defendant knocks Web illiterate juror in RIAA case Tech news blog - CNET News.com
Jammie Thomas
She doesn't raise her voice or get angry when a reporter asks her to read a story where she is called a "liar" by a member of the jury that found her guilty of copyright violations and ordered her to pay the recording industry $220,000 in damages.
She calmly reads the quotes by juror Michael Hegg, from Duluth, Minn., that appeared Tuesday in a story by Wired.com. She then draws a bead on where Hegg said he is a father, former snowmobile racer and has never been on the Internet.
"I don't need to say too much, obviously," Thomas told CNET News.com on Wednesday. "They admit that they are computer illiterate. This person (Hegg) has never been on the Internet, so how can he say whether my story is possible? I've been contacted by Internet security experts who said that spoofing my address would have been trivial. Internet illiterate people are not going to be able to understand that."
Thomas was sued by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) for sharing 24 songs online and infringing on intellectual property. Instead of settling for a few thousands dollars like most of those sued by the group, Thomas is the first to take her case to a jury.
In the interview with Wired's David Kravets, Hegg, a steelworker, said that during deliberations, the jury concluded after only five minutes that Thomas was guilty. He said that they spent five hours trying to decide what to award the recording industry. Hegg, 38, said the jurors did not believe her story that someone spoofed her IP address.
"She should have settled out of court for a few thousand dollars," Hegg told Wired. "Spoofing? We're thinking, 'Oh my God, you got to be kidding.' She's a liar."
Thomas, 30, has announced that she intends to appeal the case brought against her by the RIAA, She said she is seeking to argue her case before someone who is more tech-savvy.
But if Thomas can produce experts that can at least prove its possible her IP was spoofed, why didn't she present them in court?
"We didn't have the money to put those experts on the stand," Thomas said. "(Hegg) can say my story is not true, but at the same time you're talking about a person with no technology background whatsoever. He said his wife is an Internet guru, but his wife wasn't on the jury."
Thomas also was disappointed that the jury may have been punishing her for crimes committed by others.
"We wanted to send a message," Hegg said in the Wired interview, "that you don't do this, that you have been warned."
Thomas doesn't believe the law allows that.
The jury "saw those feeds that showed 2 million people shared using (file-sharing service) Kazaa and they want to hold me responsible for that," Thomas said. "The law states that you can't hold me responsible for the actions of another. This is one of the reasons why I'm appealing."
On a separate issue, a Web site created to accept donations from supporters has crashed after receiving more than 500,000 visitors, Thomas said. Freejammie.com is being moved to a new host server and should reappear in a few days.
Thomas said the site has raised more than $9,000 and the money will go to pay her legal bills.
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