Woman to play $80,000 per illegal download = nearly 2 mil

Link

A replay of the nation's only file-sharing case to go to trial has ended with the same result — a Minnesota woman was found to have violated music copyrights and must pay huge damages to the recording industry.

A federal jury ruled Thursday that Jammie Thomas-Rasset willfully violated the copyrights on 24 songs, and awarded recording companies $1.92 million, or $80,000 per song.

Thomas-Rasset's second trial actually turned out worse for her. When a different federal jury heard her case in 2007, it hit Thomas-Rasset with a $222,000 judgment.

The new trial was ordered after the judge in the case decided he had erred in giving jury instructions.

Thomas-Rasset sat glumly with her chin in hand as she heard the jury's finding of willful infringement, which increased the potential penalty. She raised her eyebrows in surprise when the jury's penalty of $80,000 per song was read.

Outside the courtroom, she called the $1.92 million figure "kind of ridiculous" but expressed resignation over the decision.

"There's no way they're ever going to get that," said Thomas-Rasset, a 32-year-old mother of four from the central Minnesota city of Brainerd. "I'm a mom, limited means, so I'm not going to worry about it now."

Her attorney, Kiwi Camara, said he was surprised by the size of the judgment. He said it suggested that jurors didn't believe Thomas-Rasset's denials of illegal file-sharing, and that they were angry with her.

... Just wow. I still can't see why it is in anyway fair to charge that much for this.

And what the hell are jurors angry for? They didn't make the music.

It says she's a Mom. If I were her, I'd just pass down that $29.99/month payment for the next 16 generations.

The jury sounds like children.
They wouldn't be acting like this if it were them on trial.

$80,000 for each song is so ludicrous. An entire CD is much less than that.

So, the musician had to wait a month longer to buy their next vehicle or whatever new toy they were looking forward to frivolously spending their money on. Not hard earned money either.

Will this happen to people who download comics, books, and so on?
Or, is this just for whiny musicians?

My memory's a bit fuzzy on this one, but didn't Metallica file some kind of lawsuit like this a few years back?

Im a musician, and I like to be protected when doing anything where money is inloved, but this judgemant is clearly taking th piss.

I reckon they knew there was no way to pay it, and were probably fine with that, but this was more valuable to them as a bit of fearmongering PR in a time where big losses are being made right now.

Originally posted by The Scribe

$80,000 for each song is so ludicrous. An entire CD is much less than that.

So, the musician had to wait a month longer to buy their next vehicle or whatever new toy they were looking forward to frivolously spending their money on. Not hard earned money either.

You say that as if the musicians get all the money, hell or even a tenth of the money from album sales/downloads. It's not about them.

$80000 a song? That's about 80,000 times what the music was apparently worth anyway.

Originally posted by chithappens
You say that as if the musicians get all the money, hell or even a tenth of the money from album sales/downloads. It's not about them.

Haven't you seen the South Park episode about downloading music? 😄

Just watch Cribs and you will see what I mean.

Lil' Bow Wow had a car before he could drive. 🙄

Cribs is a rental show

so, I know stuff works differently in America than it does in Canada, but how did they possibly come up with the figure of 80 000 a song?

Like, I'm a pretty big file sharer, and I don't think there are any individual songs that I have distributed enough to consider it a loss of more than $100 (and thats being generous) to any record company.

Like, obviously the laws are outdated, but do the courts really just get to invent punishment like that?

Originally posted by chithappens
Cribs is a rental show

lol, like the people rent all their stuff?

I'd just refuse to pay it, what they going to do about that give another fine? Or put the mum in jail 🙂

Or pay it off 1 dollar per month

Originally posted by The Scribe
Will this happen to people who download comics, books, and so on?
Or, is this just for whiny musicians?

this topic has come up in the comic books forum a bunch of times.

My thoughts are no, they wont.

Most people are idiots when it comes to music. They pick a radio station and just buy whatever it tells them is good. In this way, there is a huge market for music, and people who aren't passionate or don't care about the music are still going to buy it.

So, you can go after these people, and they wont get personally insulted that the music industry is coming after them, and more importantly, the larger music listening community wont boycott the music, because the vast majority of people just don't care (which is befuddling and annoying to say the least).

When it comes to comics, groups like DCP and Minutemen are obviously comprised of people who love comics. The people who download and seed are all also huge comic fans. Just because of the medium, it is highly unlikely that anyone pirating and sharing comics is not passionate about them (they likely also buy comics).

If Marvel or DC (another reason, only 2 major companies, one can't do something that makes the other look good) were to attack comic piracy, they are attacking one of their most loyal fan bases, and literally risk huge internet reaction and loss of sales, as lifelong fans will now feel like the company they supported for 20 years is trying to attack them.

Originally posted by inimalist

lol, like the people rent all their stuff?

Most of the time this is the case. Hardly anyone is making that sort of money making music anymore and it was hardly true decades ago, hence all these former music greats doing reality TV and the such.

There are a list of exceptions but a lot of people just blow money.

Tupac, for example, was broke because Suge Knight was taking all the money but he never was the type to look it over so he died with less than $10,000 in the bank (but he never was that sort of spender so Knight was just pocketing it all). NWA broke up because Easy E was taking all the money (even are Dr. Dre made diss records about Easy E, Easy was making money from the royalities = super irony). TLC made less than a buck for every album sold and had to split it between the three of them.

what i dont understand if its ilegal to do file sharing or download free songs videos then how the hell do those sites still stay open. they should get on the asses 1st of the people who keep those sites running. not the downloaders. if theres no site to download them then theres no downloaders.

Originally posted by chomperx9
what i dont understand if its ilegal to do file sharing or download free songs videos then how the hell do those sites still stay open. they should get on the asses 1st of the people who keep those sites running. not the downloaders. if theres no site to download them then theres no downloaders.

Originally posted by Bicnarok
I'd just refuse to pay it, what they going to do about that give another fine? Or put the mum in jail 🙂

A)Deduct your wages

B)Jail time

C)Liquidate your assests

D)All of the above

Answer: D, all of the above

Originally posted by Bardock42
Torrents are a very good and useful tool, which, admittedly gets used for illegal means, but they shouldn't persecute search engines for looking for them.

Originally posted by chomperx9
they persecuted torrentspy. before they blocked only usa searchers from using the site now its closed for good. read what it says on there site cause they are getting more and more serious every day about the downloading free crap. www.torrentspy.com

Yes, but what I said.

Originally posted by inimalist

If Marvel or DC (another reason, only 2 major companies, one can't do something that makes the other look good) were to attack comic piracy, they are attacking one of their most loyal fan bases, and literally risk huge internet reaction and loss of sales, as lifelong fans will now feel like the company they supported for 20 years is trying to attack them.

Except the flaw in that argument is that if you're downloading them illegally then you're neither loyal nor supporting the company regardless of how much you like the comics. Quite the opposite in fact.

this reminds me to clean my hard drive and delete things that just waste space.. *cough..... how did they even fight her and know she was downloading songs? music

band