Posted on 06/18/2009 6:29:59 PM PDT by dayglored
A federal jury Thursday found a 32-year-old Minnesota woman guilty of illegally downloading music from the Internet and fined her $80,000 each — a total of $1.9 million — for 24 songs.
Jammie Thomas-Rasset’s case was the first such copyright infringement case to go to trial in the United States, her attorney said.
Attorney Joe Sibley said that his client was shocked at fine, noting that the price tag on the songs she downloaded was 99 cents...
(Excerpt) Read more at cnnwire.blogs.cnn.com ...
I’m not a big downloader but I have D/L’d from time to time. When the RIAA got particularly thuggish I changed my habits - and especially those of my kids. We employed a laptop devoted to no other purpose, devoid of identifying info, and connected via public WiFi hot spots. It’s only booted when it’s being used and it gets scrubbed often.
Whatever material is D/L’d is immediately removed to other media. Meterial that is D/L’d is inspected for metadata and usually renamed and scrubbed.
It isn’t completely untraceable but for practical purposes it is invisible.
Juries can still nullify. It's just that most people don't know that is an option, and it's rarely if ever talked about in the trial process.
Yep.
I infer from your post that all that will really happen to this woman is that she will file bankruptcy.
I have a blackberry. On my way to work I will check the two or three work emails that I got between the time I left the afternoon before and the time I am driving into work. If there are 30 emails, I ignore them and figure I’ll catch them when I get in.
Same thing here: A $15,000 judgement, you can deal with it but it will hurt. A $1.5 mm judgement? Pffth! It might as well be $1.5 trillion.
That's crazy! Someone needs to get smacked.
I thought kids listening while eating in a restaurant with their family was bad.
“I know, but on the other hand, here is a woman who owns a computer and has high-speed internet and yet was too cheap to pay 99 cents per song, and decided instead to steal the songs.”
Regardless what makes this so objectionable for me isn’t that she was punished for breaking the law. She should have been The punishment is what bothers me because it is so disproportionate for the crime. Its like a lifelong driving ban for going 70 in a 65.
Somehow having 1700 songs out for swapping makes me not feel very sorry for her. With not taking a plea bargain, I feel even less sorry.
this is exactly how I feel.
She was wrong. It was against the law. She should have admitted it, taken the plea deal and gone on with her life.
Dat be why we done have dem JNOV motions. The court can still enter judgment for the other party on the theory that no reasonable jury, based on the law and the evidence, could have reached the verdict the one in question did (JNOV: judgment non obstante veredicto or notwithstanding the verdict) What counts is not who nullifies, but who nullifies last.
Copyright laws were changed several years ago. Copyright now holds through the lifetime of the originator plus some number of years, 75 I think. So no, 20 year old music is not fair game.
NOT
Where did they get 12 RIAA-lickers to empanel on this jury? I agree that if she was pirating content she should be subject to a penalty harsh enough to be a deterrent, but I’d think $20,000 or something would suffice. Millions? I think not. Also, I’d have no problem with a temporary hold on these lawsuits till the RIAA members stop abusing Congress to get copyright extended unto infinity, and till the RIAA stops those abusive efforts. They can’t expect us to play fair while they don’t have to. Simple as that.
This was a civil, not a criminal, case, so no presidential pardon is even possible.
Jury nullification is possible in a criminal case, because a judge can't set aside an acquittal and the prosecution can't appeal from an acquittal. Jury nullification is much tougher in a civil case, because both the trial judge and an appellate court can set aside a verdict that is contrary to the law.
$38.2 million......per tire.
Read post #83. They were following the law passed by Congress. Your beef is with Congress, not the jury.
Generally, they can, but there is an exception for judgments based on "willful and malicious" conduct, which would probably apply here.
If she was black she’d be on the Obama pardon list come 2012.
There is no such thing as a pardon in a civil case.
This is why I of ceased buying audio or video intellectual property through any channel that provides income to the entertainment industry - I buy nothing but used CDs and DVDs.
Kinda’ tough on the artists, I know, but I refuse to give a dime - even a penny - to an industry that behaves this way.
My beef is with Juries that don’t know they have the final say. Juries do not have to follow the law. It is in the constitution. Jury nullification. Judges hate it and try to suppress it, but it is a fact. As for congress, I already have an intense hate for them and most other politicians. Nothing new there. Wise up, read your rights as a juror so when you are on a jury deciding something like this you don’t screw people.
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