In the first file-sharing case to go to trial, the RIAA is seeking up to $3.6 million

[Kuciwalker]

Even better, she needs a much stronger doubt to avoid culpability. In a criminal case she would only need something reasonable.

[asleepathewheel]

Originally posted by Kuciwalker
Even better, she needs a much stronger doubt to avoid culpability. In a criminal case she would only need something reasonable.

A huge difference in burdens between civil and criminal cases.

[Wezil]

Originally posted by asleepathewheel


Not a criminal case.

What? Reasonable doubt isn't good enough for you guys?

[asleepathewheel]

Originally posted by Wezil


What? Reasonable doubt isn't good enough for you guys?

Not in a civil case.

[DinoDoc]

Too high a standard for civil cases.

[asleepathewheel]

Not surprisingly, she lost:

(AP) The recording industry won a key fight Thursday against illegal music downloading when a federal jury found a Minnesota woman liable for damages for sharing copyrighted music online.

Jurors ordered Jammie Thomas, 30, to pay record companies $220,000 — or $9,250 for each of 24 songs for which the companies sought damages. They could have awarded damages as low as $750 per song.

Thomas and her attorney, Brian Toder, declined comment as they left the courthouse.

In the first such lawsuit to go to trial, six record companies accused Thomas, 30, of Brainerd, of offering 1,702 songs online through a Kazaa file-sharing account. Thomas had denied wrongdoing and during the trial testified that she didn't have a Kazaa account.

Record companies have filed some 26,000 lawsuits since 2003 over file-sharing, which has hurt sales because it allows people to get music for free instead of paying for recordings in stores. Many other defendants have settled by paying the companies a few thousand dollars.

During the three-day trial, record companies presented evidence they said showed the copyrighted songs were offered by a Kazaa user under the name "tereastarr." Their witnesses, including officials from an Internet provider and a security firm, testified that the Internet address used by "tereastarr" belonged to Thomas.

Toder had argued at closing that record companies never proved that "Jammie Thomas, a human being, got on her keyboard and sent out these things."

"We don't know what happened," Toder told jurors. "All we know is that Jammie Thomas didn't do this."

Richard Gabriel, the industry's lead attorney, called that defense "misdirection, red herrings, smoke and mirrors." And he asked jurors to find Thomas liable to send a message to other illegal downloaders.

"I only ask that you consider that the need for deterrence here is great," he said.

Copyright law sets a damage range of $750 to $30,000 per infringement, or up to $150,000 if the violation was "willful." Jurors ruled that Thomas' infringement was willful, but awarded damages in a middle range.

Before the verdict, an official with an industry trade group said he was surprised it took so long for such a lawsuit to come to trial.

Illegal downloads have "become business as usual, nobody really thinks about it," said Cary Sherman, president of the Recording Industry Association of America, which coordinates the lawsuits. "This case has put it back in the news. Win or lose, people will understand that we are out there trying to protect our rights."

Though Thomas denied wrongdoing, her testimony was complicated by the fact that she had replaced her computer's hard drive after the sharing was alleged to have taken place — and later than she said in a deposition before trial.

The hard drive in question was not presented at trial by either party, though Thomas used her new one to show the jury how fast it copies songs from CDs. That was an effort to counter an industry witness's assertion that the songs on the old drive got their too fast to have come from CDs she owne — and therefore must have been downloaded illegally.

Record companies said Thomas was sent an instant message in February 2005, warning her that she was violating copyright law. Her hard drive was replaced the following month, not in 2004, as she said in the deposition.

The record companies involved in the lawsuit are Sony BMG, Arista Records LLC, Interscope Records, UMG Recordings Inc., Capitol Records Inc. and Warner Bros. Records Inc.

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2007/10/04/national/main3330186.shtml

The jury really hammered her. min was 750/song, they hit her with 9,250/song. The ole jury tax. You do not waste a jury's time (3 days) with a frivolous defense and expect to get away with it.

[Wezil]

Originally posted by asleepathewheel


Not in a civil case.

I'm sorry. My bad.

I really do need to pay better attention sometimes.

[asleepathewheel]

Originally posted by Wezil


I'm sorry. My bad.

I really do need to pay better attention sometimes.

Well, the op's article was imprecise, so no worries.
I hate when people use the word "guilty" in the context of a civil lawsuit.

[Wezil]

I should have known by the style of cause it was a civil case. I just had a brain fart.

[Aeson]

Originally posted by asleepathewheel
Well, the op's article was imprecise, so no worries.
I hate when people use the word "guilty" in the context of a civil lawsuit.

I'm sure I've been guilty of that from time to time.

[SpencerH]

Originally posted by Kuciwalker

Couldnt she argue that it was for her own use and she didnt want it freely available to all.

She could also argue that pink unicorns installed Kazaa and the music on her computer without her knowledge or consent.

I'm so glad to have a comment from the peanut gallery. Perhaps you dont know the history behind peer to peer networking and are ignorant that it wasnt designed for uses such as Kazaa and others have put it to.

[Provost Harrison]

I think somewhere around £50 would be appropriate for the level of criminality here, but this stinks of corporate control of justice. A bit of proportion is in order here, methinks - to fine someone an amount that is life-destroying is completely out of order

[reismark]

IMO, it doesn't look like the verdict is going to hold up. There's a major issue in how the presiding judge in the case advised the jury as far as the standard of liability:

According to Ars, the judge's instruction, which was handed out to counsel last night, initially said:

"The mere act of making copyrighted sound recordings available for electronic distribution on a peer-to-peer network without license from copyright owners does not violate the copyright owners' exclusive right to distribution. An actual transfer must take place."

But the Judge this morning, accepting Richard Gabriel's argument, changed it:

Gabriel cited Perfect 10 v. Amazon.com and the original Napster case to support the RIAA's view that making a file available for distribution over a peer-to-peer network was a violation of the Copyright Act. "If there's an index and something behind it, that's distribution," argued Gabriel.

The judge seemed particularly interested in UMG v. Lindor, and while that particular case was being discussed, Matt Oppenheim of the RIAA was consulting the "anti-RIAA blog" The Recording Industry vs The People. Gabriel noted that he was lead counsel in that case as well and that the decision cited in the case wasn't applicable to the matter at hand.

Toder disagreed, but at the end, Judge Davis amended the instruction to say that the "act of making available for electronic distribution... violates the copyright owner's exclusive copyright." That decision should make it easier for the jury to find Thomas liable.

http://recordingindustryvspeople.blogspot.com/2007/10/riaa-convinces-trial-judge-to-accept.html

http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post...-wraps-up.html

Only problem is, the case that actually gave the RIAA's argument teeth was one the RIAA's lawyer didn't mention - Atlantic v. Howell. And there's a good reason they didn't: They won it in August, but then it got vacated.

In Atlantic v. Howell, the pro se case in which a judge stated that "making available" was actionable, the pro se defendant sent the judge copies of the amicus curiae briefs which had been submitted in Elektra v. Barker, and the Judge vacated his previous order, setting the matter down for further oral argument on October 18th.

http://recordingindustryvspeople.blogspot.com/2007/10/judge-in-atlantic-v-howell-pro-se-case.html

http://www.ilrweb.com/viewILRPDF.asp...derVacateOrder

Translation: No way in hell this verdict survives an appeal.

[Kuciwalker]

Originally posted by Provost Harrison
I think somewhere around £50 would be appropriate for the level of criminality here

Consider that the penalty should both be proportional to the crime and inversely proportional to the probability of getting caught.

[Darius871]

Originally posted by Provost Harrison
I think somewhere around £50 would be appropriate for the level of criminality here, but this stinks of corporate control of justice. A bit of proportion is in order here, methinks - to fine someone an amount that is life-destroying is completely out of order

Hey don't blame the justice system; it's just applying statute from the corporate-controlled legislature. If people don't like it they could vote differently, or whatever.