Martian

Okay, first the background.

About a year ago (October 2007) the RIAA filed a suit against one Ms. Jammie Thomas, a 31 year old single mother of two. They alleged that Thomas had illegally shared 24 songs on Kazaa, and offered her a 'small' settlement; the size of said settlement has not been disclosed on any source I've found, but judging by typical RIAA practice it was likely a fairly large sum by most peoples' standards, probably over $10 000.

Ms. Thomas refused the settlement and the case went to trial. Three days later, the jury decided that Ms. Thomas had indeed infringed copyright, and would have to pay $222 000; a total of $9250 per song.

Ms. Thomas filed an appeal, but before that could be addressed, the presiding judge overturned the entire case on the basis that he'd given a faulty jury instruction; he further noted that the damages awarded were excessive for a case where the defendant had not attempted to profit off of her alleged piracy. Thus, a retrial would be required.

That more or less brings us up to speed. Now it turns out that the RIAA is unhappy with this, and is filing for permission to appeal the judge's overturning the case.

Details here. Warning: the blog is not well designed.

If the RIAA is successful in appealing the judge's decision, the original verdict will stand and Ms. Thomas will be liable for the $222 000 damages awarded, which I wold imagine would put her into bankruptcy. That is, unless she happens to be an extremely wealthy single mother of two.

A lot of folks are watching this case very very closely. It will, in essence, define the US stance on online file sharing, by declaring exactly what evidence needs to be provided in order to prove copyright.

DISCLAIMER: I do not condone illegal filesharing or copyright infringement in any way, shape or form.

That said, the very thought of this makes me sick. The original decision was exactly what the RIAA was hoping for, since it provides them with a legal precedent (there hasn't been one to date, since no other suits have gone to trial) and will lend some real weight to their extortion campaign. I don't necessarily disagree with the concept of defending copyright, but the idea that the RIAA should have the right to threaten people indiscriminately bothers me, particularly when one considers that their investigative methods seem to be a little flawed. Given that the combined cost of the individual songs adds up to somwhere around $23, or at most $500 if we assume purchases of full CD's at high ball prices, the judgement does seem a bit excessive, to say the least.

I am not a lawyer. Merely a musician and lover of music. However, I'd rather see my music pirated rampantly than have it enable an organization to pull shit like this. Maybe that's just me, though.

__________________
I wake up in the morning more tired than before I slept
I get through cryin' and I'm sadder than before I wept
I get through thinkin' now, and the thoughts have left my head
I get through speakin' and I can't remember, not a word that I said

- Ben Harper, Show Me A Little Shame

Willravel

Using Kazaa as late as 2007 = dumb. Kazaa hasn't been reasonably safe since maybe 2004ish.

I'd say that the RIAA isn't the right organization to be pursuing these people. The RIAA and MPAA have already gained massive animosity and have repeatedly demonstrated a willingness to use unethical means to pursue people they feel are guilty.

If the woman pirated music and was caught, then she should pay. Should she pay over $9,000 a song? Of course not. I'd say she should pay $100 a song + lawyers fees up to or matching $5,000.
Those ideals are important and should never be ignored.

highdro69

Though I do agree with the concept of punitive damages, I think to inflict them this harshly in this scenario abuses the concept. Obscene punitive damages were originally sought for to not only punish large corporations for unethical practices, but to set an example to discourage further abuses by other corporations. But due to the resources needed by record industry lobbies and the like to take normal Joe-schmo individual people through such lengthy litigation is counter productive to the very idea; an infinitely small number of intellectual property thieves are ever prosecuted and rarely pay, making the idea of it as a deterrent laughable. Though I do agree that the record industry has been hemorrhaging money since the popularity of P2P programs has exploded, I am vexed and, frankly, pissed off that they would rather waste money and blame the intellectual property "thieves," instead of addressing fact that the entertainment industry as a whole has been blanded down to appeal to the widest denominator so badly that we, as a society, feel absolutely no remorse exploiting it. I.E. we download albums because on a disc of eighteen songs, there MIGHT be five good ones.
To reiterate, this is another lazy industry that would rather waste money trying to force IT'S standards onto it's market, instead of adhering to the basics of economics and, well, give the people what they want.

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QuasiMondo

Makes me wonder if the RIAA wins their appeal how much of that $222k would find its way to the artists. If I was a singer/songwriter, I'd keep my eye on this case too. Should the RIAA win, I'd pounce on them like a tiger demanding my cut of the settlement money.

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-From the Collector's Edition DVD of The Terminator

highdro69

Excellent point i never even thought of.

__________________
"It is no measure of health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society."