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Woman fined $1.9 million for illegal downloads
CNN.com ^ | 2009-06-18 | Elianne Friend

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 ...


TOPICS: Business/Economy; Culture/Society; Miscellaneous; News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: bigmedia; copyright; download; judicialactivism; mp3; p2p; riaa; sony; tortreform
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To: NautiNurse

I find that annoying as well. We have a system that takes vinyl to cassette and cassette to CD — all for home use.


81 posted on 06/18/2009 7:50:34 PM PDT by PhiKapMom (Mary Fallin for OK Governor/Coburn for Senate 2010 ! Mark Rubio for FL Senate 2010!)
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To: dayglored
Taking real physical property like cars is stealing. If you don't understand the legal and ethical issues that differentiate intellectual property, file-sharing, and physical property, I can't help you, I don't have the time. Read up on it.

It's still theft, about like sneaking into a movie theater or concert or sporting event without paying. And there is nothing being "shared" because the "sharer" has no ownership right to allow others to copy copyrighted music.

"Sharing" is just a feel good term developed to avoid describing what is really being done: the illegal transfer of copyrighted material.

82 posted on 06/18/2009 7:50:44 PM PDT by Will88
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To: taxtruth
Anyone on this thread that is in the M biz understands this ruling.

Not in the M biz, but this ruling IMO is a complete public relations disaster for you people (and I doubt that's fully understood by those in the M biz).

For those not in the M biz, here's how this worked. Federal law governs copyright infringement and section 504 of chapter 17 of the United States Code, 17 U.S.C. sec. 504, governs damages in copyright cases.

Section 504(1)says: "the copyright owner may elect, at any time before final judgment is rendered, to recover, instead of actual damages and profits, an award of statutory damages for all infringements involved in the action, with respect to any one work, for which any one infringer is liable individually, or for which any two or more infringers are liable jointly and severally, in a sum of not less than $750 or more than $30,000 as the court considers just. For the purposes of this subsection, all the parts of a compilation or derivative work constitute one work."

The law goes on in section 504(2) to provide: "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."

Here, the 32 year old female defendant admitted downloading at least 24 songs. As in all jury trials, the jury was given a set of instructions by the judge. These instructions are prepared by the lawyers, approved by the court, and based on the law. They are instructions on the law, not the facts, and the jury is required to abide by these instructions, i.e., the law, in reaching a verdict and awarding damages.

Didn't see the jury actual instructions, but they no doubt said something like, "If you find that the defendant downloaded a song and if you further find the defendant willfully or knowingly downloaded such song, then you must find for plaintiff and award plaintiff such damages as you find are appropriate in an amount between $30,000 and $150,000." Or something like that.

Interestingly, the jury awarded plaintiffs $80,000 per song on 24 songs. My guess, based on that figure and maximum statutory damages, is that the jury decided to split the difference in slight favor of defendant. Also, I also seem to recall reading from reports of the first trial that there was evidence the defendant lied or was shown to have been untruthful in her deposition testimony.

In any event, the jury's award does not reflect an over abundance of sympathy for the defendant but, as they say, it could've been a lot worse. And it's pretty safe to say the record companies will never collect the full amount of this judgment against this poor woman, but then I don't think that was their goal. They just wanted a head to put on a pike as a warning to the music downloaders of this world.

83 posted on 06/18/2009 7:51:42 PM PDT by Ahithophel (Padron@Anniversario)
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To: Will88
> It's still theft, about like sneaking into a movie theater or concert or sporting event without paying.

Bad analogy. Sneaking into a theater or sports event is evading the entrance fee (theft of services), not a media copyright-related fee. It doesn't matter if you watched the movie or event or not -- claiming you were in the bathroom the whole time doesn't get you off the hook for the fee, right?

> And there is nothing being "shared" because the "sharer" has no ownership right to allow others to copy copyrighted music.

Agreed.

> "Sharing" is just a feel good term developed to avoid describing what is really being done: the illegal transfer of copyrighted material.

Okay, I'll agree with that.

You did pick up that I think what she did was wrong, yes?

84 posted on 06/18/2009 7:58:02 PM PDT by dayglored (Listen, strange women lying in ponds distributing swords is no basis for a system of government!)
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To: Chode

Thats kinda messed up.


85 posted on 06/18/2009 8:00:31 PM PDT by drchoice22
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To: Ahithophel

Good,Now,you understand it cost money to produce a product.
So pay for it.It cost money to make and it’s not for free like many people think.What do you not understand?They didn’t make a product to give to the world for free at their expense did they?Did BMW build a car to give away 20,000 times a day?Music cost money to sell.


86 posted on 06/18/2009 8:05:08 PM PDT by taxtruth
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To: dayglored
but time wounds all heels.

LOL

87 posted on 06/18/2009 8:07:10 PM PDT by org.whodat
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To: dayglored

Any jury that would do this should be charged with criminal negligence.


88 posted on 06/18/2009 8:08:03 PM PDT by calex59
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To: dayglored; a fool in paradise

I stole intellectual property today by hearing it coming out of somebody’s car radio! You’d bettah pay those royalties next time you sing “na na na na hey hey, good bye”. 50,000 stadium fans singing it on national television and it’s a pretty good buck for the RIAA (plus a few cents for the starving artist.)


89 posted on 06/18/2009 8:11:33 PM PDT by Revolting cat! (Let us prey!)
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To: dayglored
Bad analogy.

Great analogy. There is no perfect analogy, but copying copyrighted music and experienciing movies or live events without paying are both cases where the thief is not taking physical property from the owner, but is depriving the owner of compensation he or she has a right to from anyone using their non-physical product.

The only near perfect analogies are for practical identical situations, such as copying software instead of music. Of course, software is also "shared" on file "sharing" networks, as well as movies and music videos and digitized books and audio books.

90 posted on 06/18/2009 8:12:53 PM PDT by Will88
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To: PLMerite
But then again, how much did Pontiac spend on research for the Aztek ?

That was a result of an all womens design team. WSJ did an article about it as I recall

All Lefties too I'd wager. You'd a thought they would have aborted it.

Oh, that's right they did.

91 posted on 06/18/2009 8:16:59 PM PDT by Balding_Eagle (Overproduction, one of the top five worries for the American farmer.)
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To: PLMerite

“But then again, how much did Pontiac spend on research for the Aztek ?”

What was the Aztec?


92 posted on 06/18/2009 8:22:25 PM PDT by Checkers
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To: taxtruth
What do you not understand?

Women, string theory, Mandarin Chinese, and the lyrics to Harem Scarem's Paint Thin. Can you help me out with any of these? Cordially, A

93 posted on 06/18/2009 8:26:26 PM PDT by Ahithophel (Padron@Anniversario)
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To: Ahithophel

Me to.


94 posted on 06/18/2009 8:28:16 PM PDT by taxtruth
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To: PhiKapMom
We have a system that takes vinyl to cassette and cassette to CD — all for home use.

Sounds like a handy setup. I was tickled a few years ago to find a little MP3 player (like an iPod) that lets me load my CD collection. Bought a portable speaker set, and it's great for boat and beach gatherings. Last year, loaded it with patriotic tunes for Independence Day fireworks on the water. Worked beautifully when we had several boats tied together! It's my micro boom box.

95 posted on 06/18/2009 8:36:37 PM PDT by NautiNurse (Obama: A day without TOTUS is like a day without sunshine)
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To: Checkers

“What was the Aztec?”

It was...not pretty:

http://www.time.com/time/specials/2007/article/0,28804,1658545_1658544_1658540,00.html


96 posted on 06/18/2009 9:14:29 PM PDT by PLMerite ("Unarmed, one can only flee from Evil. But Evil isn't overcome by fleeing from it." Jeff Cooper)
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To: dayglored

I guess it could be worse. Two hundred years ago in England, a child of 10 who stole a loaf of bread could end up on the gallows.


97 posted on 06/18/2009 9:27:59 PM PDT by ccmay (Too much Law; not enough Order.)
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To: PhiKapMom
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.

Some people might not know how Kazaa and other file-sharing programs work, so here's a little rundown:

In Kazaa, you can search for a song (or other type of file) you want, you get a list of all the people online who have that file, and you can download it from them. Once you have fully downloaded the file, you are automatically a server now. In other words, once you've downloaded the file, other people can then download it from you. So, if this lady or her kids or whoever downloaded 1700 songs and never moved the files, then her computer would have become a massive download library whenever her computer was connected to Kazaa. If she had downloaded them, and then moved the files to another directory so that others couldn't download from her, she probably never would have been caught.

This doesn't really change her situation, but most users of Kazaa and other file-sharing programs don't understand very well how they work, and so they can get caught by this kind of thing. It is my understanding that the RIAA types really only focus on the uploaders, mostly because those are the only ones they can catch.
98 posted on 06/18/2009 9:40:32 PM PDT by fr_freak
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To: dayglored

What a crock of sh*t! I can’t believe an American jury could be this stupid.

parsy, who thinks this ought to wake up some freepers about how evil big business can be.


99 posted on 06/18/2009 9:43:26 PM PDT by parsifal ("Knock and ye shall receive!" (The Bible, somewhere.))
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To: dayglored

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.


100 posted on 06/18/2009 9:48:30 PM PDT by CharlesWayneCT
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