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FFH5
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join:2002-03-03
Tavistock NJ

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FFH5

Premium Member

Jammie Thomas loses to RIAA in retrial of infringement case

In a retrial of the 1st copyright infringement case to go to trial, Jammie Thomas lost huge to the RIAA. She owes the RIAA $1.92 million. That is $1.7 million more than she owed in her 1st case, which was thrown out on bad jury instructions.

But somehow, I doubt she will pay very much. Bankruptcy appears to be in her immediate future. But I am sure the RIAA cares more about the win than they do about any money they may get from her.

»tech.yahoo.com/news/ap/2 ··· oading_4
A federal jury in Minneapolis has ruled a Minnesota woman violated several music copyrights in the nation's only file-sharing case to go to trial.

The jury found that Jammie Thomas-Rasset "committed willful violation" of the copyrights on 24 songs. The jury awarded the recording companies $1.92 million, or $80,000 per song.

It was a retrial for Thomas-Rasset, who was also found in 2007 to have illegally shared music files. The new trial was ordered after the judge in the case decided he had erred in jury instructions.

The second outcome was worse for Thomas-Rasset. In the first trial, the jury awarded recording companies just $222,000.
More details here:
»arstechnica.com/tech-pol ··· dict.ars
The evidence clearly pointed to her machine, even correctly identifying the MAC address of both her cable modem and her computer's Ethernet port. When combined with the facts about her hard drive replacement (and her failure to disclose those facts to the investigators), her "tereastarr" username, and the new theories that she offered yesterday for the first time in more than three years, jurors clearly remained unconvinced by her protestations of innocence.

Camara suspects that the jury thought Thomas-Rassert was a liar and were "angry about it," thus leading to the $80,000 per-song damages.
fiberguy2
My views are my own.
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fiberguy2

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Yea.. probably a moral victory for the RIAA. I'm sure if Obama cares about this, he will press for more control and regulation on them too... huh?

However, they'll never see a dime of this money out of her. They're going to have to prove that she's capable of paying it - I doubt she'll file bankruptcy.

However, I also think that this win could backfire on the RIAA and not give them the positive results they'd hope for. While I feel that if she was serving the music, she shouldn't be and there should be a penalty.. a thousand or two, or three? Sure.. 1.92 million? This kind of insane award is, in my opinion, what can and will cause outrage among people and will ultimately give the RIAA a bad rap.

The people still do call the shots in this country.. music is something that many people care about. I do NOT condone theft of, or file sharing, music at all.. however, the penalty here is way out of life - and like I said, can ultimately put their fire out and make it harder for them to get more.

In the end, the RIAA just shot themselves in the foot.

FFH5
Premium Member
join:2002-03-03
Tavistock NJ

2 edits

FFH5

Premium Member

said by fiberguy2:

While I feel that if she was serving the music, she shouldn't be and there should be a penalty.. a thousand or two, or three? Sure.. 1.92 million? This kind of insane award is, in my opinion, what can and will cause outrage among people and will ultimately give the RIAA a bad rap.

In the end, the RIAA just shot themselves in the foot.
In closing arguments the plaintiff's attorney never asked for any specific amount of money. And the RIAA agreed to settle multiple times for much lower amounts. It was the jury that slammed her because she lied repeatedly and covered up evidence.

So if the RIAA takes grief over the amount, it is the jury that shot them and not themselves.

»arstechnica.com/tech-pol ··· dict.ars
Spokesperson Cara Duckworth of the RIAA, who attended the trial, told reporters afterwards, "Since day one we have been willing to settle this case... and we remain willing to do so." The industry appears to be doing everything it can not to appear vindictive in these cases, though Duckworth refused to discuss any details of what a proposed settlement might look like.

Camara acknowledged the settlement offer and said that his side would certainly investigate it, but he made clear that he intends to file numerous motions if Thomas-Rassert wants to continue the fight.
Here is the closing argument from the plaintiff's attorney:
»arstechnica.com/tech-pol ··· liar.ars
In the end, he concluded by saying that the labels cared about the legislation and that "the need for deterrence here is great." As for the amount of a damage award? That's up the jury, but the recording industry is not asking for the full $3.6 million that the Thomas-Rasset defense team keeps bringing up.

Bit00
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join:2009-02-19
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Bit00 to FFH5

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to FFH5
The extortion and greed reaches new bounds with this one. $1.92M for ZERO proven lost revenues is insane, especially when they never proved a single song was downloaded by anyone other than the copyright holder or an agent of the copyright holder.

Again, the copyright law clearly says that DISTRIBUTION is required for infringement to occur. In this case NO PROOF of distribution was provided. The entire judgement is based on the assumption that distribution occurred. $1.92B based on an unproved assumption. Quite incredible.

The endless criminality of the RIAA racketeers is ignored while their bribery of Congress that results in such outrageous awards is rewarded.

Just goes to show once again, there is no justice so long as Corporations are writing our laws through proxy whores in Washington.

Meanwhile like the birthday case, all this will do is piss people off. The RIAA will not see a dime and all their zillions they spend on lawyers did nothing but buy them bad press.

FFH5
Premium Member
join:2002-03-03
Tavistock NJ

2 edits

FFH5

Premium Member

said by Bit00:

Again, the copyright law clearly says that DISTRIBUTION is required for infringement to occur. In this case NO PROOF of distribution was provided. The entire judgement is based on the assumption that distribution occurred.
They proved distribution occurred. The defense claimed they couldn't prove it was Jammie that did the distribution though. But the plaintiffs offered plenty of evidence it was her and not someone else in her house like she claimed in this trial. She tried to blame her ex-husband. The jury didn't buy it and felt she lied thru her teeth.

»arstechnica.com/tech-pol ··· liar.ars

Reynolds' main task was to show that the evidence did in fact point to Thomas-Rasset and not just to her machine. He did so using the following arguments.


Tereastarr. Sure, her family might have known the name, but Thomas-Rasset had used it exclusively as her online username for more than a decade, and for "absolutely everything." Her contention that the name was known to others and might have been used by them contradicted sworn deposition testimony, said Reynolds, that no one else used that name.

The first ex. Yesterday, Thomas-Rasset identified her ex-husband, Justin Gervais, as someone who liked much of the music in the share folder and as someone who spent several week-long stints at the house in late 2004 doing babysitting while Thomas-Rasset was away for work. Reynolds asked if it was credible that after a 2004 breakup, Gervais would then use a computer he rarely accessed, in the bedroom of his ex-wife, to download more than 1,700 songs? And Thomas-Rasset testified that she had never seen him listen to music on the computer and never seen him use KaZaA.

The hard drive. This issue was the "ultimate misdirection" in the case, said Reynolds. Thomas-Rasset had said many times under oath that the drive she turned over to the RIAA and to her own investigator was the one in the computer at the time of the alleged infringement. This was false (as she was forced to admit on the stand)... and Thomas-Rasset only changed her story after her own expert had some doubts, went back to the drive, and found a sticker saying it had been manufactured in 2005.

The second ex. This was the most important claim. Ex-boyfriend Kevin Havemeier was dating Thomas-Rasset in early 2005, when the alleged infringement was detected. Most of his testimony on the stand was confused; he couldn't remember his dates, but one thing he remembered clearly (and had been consistent on through both trials and his deposition) involved the hard drive. When Thomas-Rasset received a notice about a potential action against her, Havemeier told her that investigators wouldn't find anything, since she had replaced the hard drive in March 2005. He told her this before she turned the drive over to investigators, before she claimed that it was the correct drive, and before she swore in depositions that it had been replaced in 2004. In other words, Thomas-Rasset knew exactly what she was doing when handing over the wrong hard drive. Thomas-Rasset simply says that Havemeier is lying or incorrect on this point.

Napster. Thomas-Rasset had used Napster for a college course and had written a paper on it, arguing that it was legal. She also admitted that she followed the court case that shut Napster down and knew that it was not legal. Given her knowledge and experience with file-sharing, her claim never to have heard of KaZaA and never to have downloaded files might seem suspect.
The defense agreed that distribution occurred. But tried to blame someone else in the house. That defense didn't work.

Bit00
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join:2009-02-19
00000

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Bit00

Premium Member

Wrong it was NEVER proved. Only the copyright holder's agent downloaded the songs. Kazaa didn't keep records of transfers. It is IMPOSSIBLE for the RIAA to determine or prove distribution occurred. The RIAA lawyers said it was only logical that distribution occurred because that is why Kazaa existed.

»www.google.com/hostednew ··· 98TC2401
quote:
Although the plaintiffs weren't able to prove that anyone but MediaSentry downloaded songs off her computer because Kazaa kept no such records, Reynolds told the jury it's only logical that many users had downloaded songs offered through her computer because that's what Kazaa was there for.
Making available is not infringement and I have ABSOLUTELY had shared items in Kazaa back in the day that NEVER saw a single upload.
said by Judge Wake in his ruling that making available is not infringement :
"The court agrees with the great weight of authority that section 106(3) is not violated unless the defendant has actually distributed an unauthorized copy of the work to a member of the public," wrote the judge in his order. "Merely making an unauthorized copy of a copyrighted work available to the public does not violate a copyright holder's exclusive right of distribution."
»news.cnet.com/8301-10784 ··· 4-7.html

There was no proof anyone other than the copyright holder's agent downloaded the songs. Zero, zilch, nada, none.

This jury awarded $2M on an assumption. There wasn't even anything close to a preponderance of evidence showing anyone downloaded songs from her which is REQUIRED for any award.

At no time was distribution proved to have occurred.

FFH5
Premium Member
join:2002-03-03
Tavistock NJ

FFH5

Premium Member

said by Bit00:

There was no proof anyone other than the copyright holder's agent downloaded the songs.
Guess what? The copyright holder's agent is legally a member of the public. So it was distributed.

Jim Kirk
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join:2005-12-09
49985

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Jim Kirk to Bit00

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to Bit00
You just know TK popped a chubby when he saw the news.
mcd1
join:2007-05-19

1 recommendation

mcd1

Member

said by Jim Kirk:

You just know TK popped a chubby when he saw the news.
I lol'd.

This really gets him/her off I noticed.

fifty nine
join:2002-09-25
Sussex, NJ

fifty nine to fiberguy2

Member

to fiberguy2
said by fiberguy2:

Yea.. probably a moral victory for the RIAA. I'm sure if Obama cares about this, he will press for more control and regulation on them too... huh?
Unlikely. Hollywood and the music industry are some of the most flaming liberals on the planet.

Bit00
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join:2009-02-19
00000

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Bit00 to FFH5

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to FFH5
said by FFH5:
said by Bit00:

There was no proof anyone other than the copyright holder's agent downloaded the songs.
Guess what? The copyright holder's agent is legally a member of the public. So it was distributed.
Guess what, not according to Judge Wake they aren't. Copyright holders can not infringe on their own work. Their agent is authorized to obtain a copy of the work via P2P otherwise they are also in violation of Title 17 soon as they copy it. Can't have it both ways TK.
Expand your moderator at work

Cnote
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Re: Jammie Thomas loses to RIAA in retrial of infringement case

said by Bit00:

In this case NO PROOF of distribution was provided. The entire judgement is based on the assumption that distribution occurred. $1.92B based on an unproved assumption. Quite incredible.
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"Unproved assumption"! Hello??? Ever heard of the OJ Simpson trial? Who needs proof of any crime for conviction (or vise versa) when you have a jury of "a moron's" peers? (unlike peers of the accused). Why be shocked? It's tough to find 12 intelligent people in one room at the same time these days.

cableties
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cableties to Jim Kirk

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to Jim Kirk
So you're saying Liam and TK have the SAME chubby?