RIAA trial verdict is in: jury finds Thomas liable for infringement

[jinjuku]

Here is the beginning paragraph from ArsTechnica

Duluth, Minnesota — After just four hours of deliberation and two days of testimony, a jury found that Jammie Thomas was liable for infringing the record labels' copyrights on all 24 the 24 recordings at issue in the case of Capitol Records v. Jammie Thomas. The jury awarded $9,250 in statutory damages per song, after finding that the infringement was "willful," out of a possible total of $150,000 per song. The grand total? $222,000 in damages.

 

[stratman]

This fits perfectly with the story I posted on piracy. Scary stuff.

 

[jinjuku]

This fits perfectly with the story I posted on piracy. Scary stuff.

Scary in what way? That someone willfully infringed someones else's effort and was found guilty, or that the award was $222K?

 

[stratman]

Scary in what way? That someone willfully infringed someones else's effort and was found guilty, or that the award was $222K?

The $222K is scary. Here's a frightening scenario, you're the parent of a 12 year old, you're not computer savvy, you work hard to support your family, you put a filter on Johnny's computer so there would be no access to porn sites, you don't understand much or anything about P2P file sharing....one day you get a notice in the mail from a law firm....now this is scary. For those that know what they're doing, well you do the crime you pay the fine, but in the scenario painted above circumstances are different and a family can basically be destroyed, over music.

 

[jinjuku]

The $222K is scary. Here's a frightening scenario, you're the parent of a 12 year old, you're not computer savvy, you work hard to support your family, you put a filter on Johnny's computer so there would be no access to porn sites, you don't understand much or anything about P2P file sharing....one day you get a notice in the mail from a law firm....now this is scary. For those that know what they're doing, well you do the crime you pay the fine, but in the scenario painted above circumstances are different and a family can basically be destroyed, over music.

And you don't think that 'reasonable measures' to prevent your 12 year old from doing this wouldn't come out in court and be taken into account by the jury?

But this particular instance isn't that. I guess one could come up with all kinds of scenarios... Whadya' gonna do.

I think it is somewhat irresponsible for parents to let their 12 yr olds have computers in the privacy of their own rooms. Children don't have the mental faculty for thinking long term and of consequences of their actions. You slowly take off the training wheels and then kick em out when they're 18

 

[patnshan]

And you don't think that 'reasonable measures' to prevent your 12 year old from doing this wouldn't come out in court and be taken into account by the jury?

Absolutely not. You give juries waaaaay too much credit.

Pat

 

[rnatalli]

It's likely the RIAA will simply take $10k or $20k and be on their way. They know they'll never collect $220k from an average person. You can only garnish so much of someone's pay under the law and if they have no equity, what's the point. They just want to get a strong message across.

 

[jinjuku]

Absolutely not. You give juries waaaaay too much credit.

Pat

I have been on a jury before, there were mitigating facts that came in to account. We found in favor of the defendant because he took 'reasonable measures'.

 

[Adam]

Perhaps to save me some research, I'd like to ask - what exactly was this lady accused of doing? Surely it wasn't just downloading 24 songs.

 

[jinjuku]

Perhaps to save me some research, I'd like to ask - what exactly was this lady accused of doing? Surely it wasn't just downloading 24 songs.

She made available for distribution... They don't want the drug taker, they want the dealer.

 

[rnatalli]

I don't know the full details of this particular case, but many of the file-sharing programs default to sharing files so an average Joe could unknowingly share legitimate files without even knowing it.

 

[jinjuku]

I don't know the full details of this particular case, but many of the file-sharing programs default to sharing files so an average Joe could unknowingly share legitimate files without even knowing it.

I did some reading of the case, and it goes deeper than that in this case. It took the jury only four hours to come back with a verdict.