Thursday Evening Links > Jammie Thomas loses to RIAA in retrial of infringement case

said by Bit:

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.

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.

said by Bit:

There was no proof anyone other than the copyright holder's agent downloaded the songs.

said by digitalfreak:

You just know TK popped a chubby when he saw the news.

said by fAcEtIOUs:

Guess what? The copyright holder's agent is legally a member of the public. So it was distributed.

said by Bit:

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.