Huge fine in US file-sharing case
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Soldato
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£1.2m... for 24 songs?? 
Shirley there's people who've shared thousands of songs, why are they going after this poor woman?
Shirley there's people who've shared thousands of songs, why are they going after this poor woman?
How can this be allowed?
I thought the whole point of a justice system was that the punishment would fit the crime. This is like giving someone a life sentence for stealing sweets.
To make this slightly more than a link and run, Jammie Thomas-Rasset has been found guilty, for a second time of copyright infringement. The damages awarded by the jury this time are $80,000 per song (at her previous case, they were $9,250 per song).
No doubt some people will be up in arms, but having followed the trial, and witnessed her abysmal defence, highly unconvincing claims that were shot down in the stand as lying, and general attitude to the whole thing, she got the verdict, if not the punishment, she deserved.
Arstechnica coverage of the case
Edit: To explain the damages, they are statutory, not compensatory. Statutory damages are laid out in legislation, and do not depend on demonstrating loss or costs incurred. In the case of copyright infringement, the US statute gives a damages range of $750-$150,000 per infringement, and the amount awarded is entirely down to the jury, not the RIAA or other parties.
No doubt some people will be up in arms, but having followed the trial, and witnessed her abysmal defence, highly unconvincing claims that were shot down in the stand as lying, and general attitude to the whole thing, she got the verdict, if not the punishment, she deserved.
Arstechnica coverage of the case
Edit: To explain the damages, they are statutory, not compensatory. Statutory damages are laid out in legislation, and do not depend on demonstrating loss or costs incurred. In the case of copyright infringement, the US statute gives a damages range of $750-$150,000 per infringement, and the amount awarded is entirely down to the jury, not the RIAA or other parties.
If the amount's awarded by the Jury, why not come up with some realistic figure she might have a chance of paying - then she would have to worry about it.
Because the defendant was probably the most incompetant person to ever take up the witness stand who spent most of the case insulting the juries intelligence with lies?
Why? All they have done is follow correct judicial process, the court has then applied the fine as laid out in US law. how is this the RIAA being loathesome? They've actually been perfectly reasonable and have pretty much said they won't pursue it. You can't blame the RIAA for prosecuting some one who is pbviously guilty?
![[TW]Fox](/data/man-of-honor/2009.png){kind=avatar}
She deserves an $80,000 fine per song she had 'shared'?
[TW]Fox;14316799 said:
Exactly.
She was guilty, and as such she deserved some punishment, whether the punishment fits the crime is a matter for both appeal courts and looking at the statute.
She almost certainly didn't help her case trying to play the jury for fools, and her Lawyer definitely didn't help with his frankly awful defense work and attitude in the courtroom. To me it looks like these factors had as much influence on the damages the jury awarded as the actual infringment.
Soldato
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How did she get caught? Was she sharing using kazza? lol
Because their response is completely disproportionate to the crime. If I had any doubt before (I didn't) that the RIAA are led by a bunch of money-grubbing fat ********, it's gone. Instead of adapting their business model to be more relevent to the current state of technology, they just take the lazy option of litigation against anyone who dares use said technology.
she was doing what most casual pirates do, using the easiest, cheapest and most obvious tool available. Thats why Napster was so popular, then people moved onto Kazza and now people are using bit torrent and the pirate bay. The pirate bay is garbage but it's hugely well known and popular, your average downloader is neither savy enough or bothered enough to be using SSL encryption behing 13 proxies, it's all about convenience.
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