Single mum of 4 Fined $1.92 Million for downloading 24 Songs

M5

http://tech.yahoo.com/news/afp/20090619/tc_afp/entertainmentmusiccrimecopyrightinternetriaa

A little OTT? This was a retrial because the judge had thrown out the last case because the damages were too high @ $220,000. Whatever the rights and wrongs of filesharing but you have to agree that this is excessive to the extreme:eek:

MINNEAPOLIS, Minnesota (AFP) -

A US jury has ordered a 32-year-old woman to pay nearly two million dollars in damages for illegally downloading 24 songs over the Internet in a high-profile digital piracy case.

Jammie Thomas-Rasset, a single mother of four from the Minnesota town of Brainerd, was found liable of violating music copyrights for using the Kazaa peer-to-peer file-sharing network to download the songs.

The jury took just under five hours on Thursday to reach its verdict.

It ordered Thomas-Rasset to pay 1.92 million dollars -- or 80,000 dollars per song -- to six record companies: Capitol Records, Sony BMG Music, Arista Records, Interscope Records, Warner Bros. Records and UMG Recordings.

In his closing arguments on Thursday, attorney Timothy Reynolds said Thomas-Rasset had made copyrighted music available to "millions on the Internet" through Kazaa.

"She infringed my clients' copyrights and then she tried to cover it up," Reynolds said.

Thomas-Rasset said that her former husband or her children may have downloaded the music but her arguments apparently did not sway the jury.

Thomas-Rasset had been convicted previously, in October 2007, and ordered to pay 220,000 dollars in damages but the judge who presided over that trial threw out the verdict calling it "wholly disproportionate" and "oppressive."

The case was filed by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), which has brought suit against thousands of people for illegally downloading and sharing music, with most agreeing to settlements of between 3,000 and 5,000 dollars.

Thomas-Rasset was the first among those being sued to refuse a settlement, however, and instead took the case to court. Her case is the only one among the thousands filed to have actually gone to trial.

In December, the RIAA said it will stop suing people who download music illegally and focus instead on getting Internet Service Providers (ISPs) to take action.

The move away from litigation represented a major shift in strategy for the music industry group, which had filed lawsuits against some 35,000 people for online music piracy since 2003.

More than six months later, however, no ISPs have publicly signed on to the program.

spoofilyj

What a disgrace! Thats bang out of order! the fines should be proportional, maybe double the retail price of the songs downloaded! So possibly 100 dollars! Madness!

Rented Mule

<sarcasm> Bitch had it comin' !! <sarcasm>

biko

F*ck RIAA

Joey the lips

I know heard it this morning. Americans are so stupid.

Gone Drinking

Single mum of 4..

She should have downloaded some condoms.

Wagon

It ordered Thomas-Rasset to pay 1.92 million dollars -- or 80,000 dollars per song -- to six record companies: Capitol Records, Sony BMG Music, Arista Records, Interscope Records, Warner Bros. Records and UMG Recordings

$80,000 per song is a joke. All those companies are ridiculously rich from robbing the public for years. How the hell can she ever afford to pay that kind of money??

Run_to_da_hills

She might be able to pay it off on the drip, ie 1c a week.

bernardo mac

Quite OTT.considering in Ireland bankers can download millions and be awarded further millions in lump sums and pensions!

gaz wac

meh dont do the crime...and all that !! iv never done it, not going to start !!! whore *


*its 9.07...let ruffle some feathers!!

cnocbui

Gone Drinking wrote: »

Single mum of 4..

She should have downloaded some condoms.

The article mentions a former husband being the father of the four children.

James Forde

I wonder how much I would get fined under them there rules?

M5

bryanjf wrote: »

I wonder how much I would get fined under them there rules?

(number of illegally downloaded mp3s) X $80,000 i would imagine......






:-p

stovelid

Brainerd?

Class.

Her kids did it and she took the rap?

partyguinness

I dont see what being a single mother of four has anything to do with it. Why should that be a mitigating factor.

Is there one rule for single mothers and another for the rest of us?

What about this equality crap we always hear about..

Fine is OTT as they have no hope of getting it.

Gone Drinking

cnocbui wrote: »

The article mentions a former husband being the father of the four children.

Sorry, he should have downloaded the condoms

M5

partyguinness wrote: »

I dont see what being a single mother of four has anything to do with it. Why should that be a mitigating factor.

Is there one rule for single mothers and another for the rest of us?

What about this equality crap we always here about..

Fine is OTT as they have no hope of getting it.

fair point

...but the capacity to pay should also be a factor, no point in asking me for 2 million, never gona happen, that said i would be rightly pissed if i won the lotto after being fined

Wazdakka

Man this kind of crap really twists my biscuit..
When the hell are "they" going to realize that you cant stop information sharing.
It just wont be done.

People will always, swap music, games, books, record from the T.V, record from the radio and download music.

For me, I download music to see if I like the band.
If I do like them, and they are playing a gig anywhere near me I'll go to it.
I'll even pay the massivly overinflated Irish prices for tickets to anything.

The artist makes the money they deserve for writing or playing the music by playing it in front of people..
Where is the problem?

Why the hell are people being Sued by a distrubution company that ships technologically outdated bits of plastic all over the world?

Record companies are good for getting a band publicity, but when they make significantly more cash than the artist something is VERY wrong.

I say free music for all..
Let the artists use it for advertising..
If people like it, they will pay money come and see the artist play..
Everybody's happy and we've cut out the middleman.

hobochris

I highly doubt any ISP would be stupid enough to enforce this in a serious way, It would be business suicide for them.

The ISP that ignores the requests of the RIAA and does not restrict its customers will clean up if they try that stunt.

ibarelycare

Wow. I guess they're trying to make an example of her? But extremely excessive, what a joke.

Dusty87

Would that have been downloading from the likes of limewire and bearshare etc??

M5

Dusty87 wrote: »

Would that have been downloading from the likes of limewire and bearshare etc??

I think i read that it was Kazaa of all things, thought that was dead

ttm

Typical "soft target", big organisations always do the same, but why their executives are so stupid that they want the bad publicity as well as the win I don't know.

M5

ttm wrote: »

Typical "soft target", big organisations always do the same, but why their executives are so stupid that they want the bad publicity as well as the win I don't know.

Yup, while the bankers steal millions and get slapped on the wrist!

generalmiaow

I believe there's some precedent (if not legal, the industry types basically believe they deserve it) in the US that says that the RIAA can basically try to recoup all the losses the internet has caused the music industry by suing people for inordinate amounts. This is why they generally do it through civil cases.

It's complete nonsense. It would be like being sued for ten grand for stealing a chocolate bar because that's how much Tesco lose through stock loss a year divided by how many they catch.

s_carnage

Hope at least it was a decent album cos she probably won't be buying anything new for quite a while.

generalmiaow

s_carnage wrote: »

Hope at least it was a decent album cos she probably won't be buying anything new for quite a while.

This article claims there's signs they won't try to collect. I doubt they will either, to be honest, since this sort of stuff isn't really helping their moral case.

Edit: found her myspace page. I won't link it (you can google her username). It's pretty disgusting.

Dave!

Wazdakka wrote: »

Man this kind of crap really twists my biscuit..

wat

foxy06

Why not download music for free? The artists pay no tax in this country anyway so it's not like they NEED the money!

My name is URL

Scary that it was a jury that decided on this and not just the prosecutors

joey54

I didn't realise they had actually started pursuing who illegally downloaded songs. That's some fine to pay, and on top of that she's probably going to have to pay legal costs. Ouch!!

Cianos

death to the large music corporations! hopefully their time will be up soon, and it looks like it if these are the measures they are now taking.

ibarelycare

generalmiaow wrote: »

This article claims there's signs they won't try to collect. I doubt they will either, to be honest, since this sort of stuff isn't really helping their moral case.

Edit: found her myspace page. I won't link it (you can google her username). It's pretty disgusting.

I just looked at her myspace page....what's disgusting about it???

Local-womanizer

joey54 wrote: »

I didn't realise they had actually started pursuing who illegally downloaded songs. That's some fine to pay, and on top of that she's probably going to have to pay legal costs. Ouch!!

If she hasent got the money she cant pay.As they say you cant take the knickers off a bare arse.

Max Power1

what gets me is how do they decide on precisely $1.92 million? Why would they even bother pursueing it if, as is being intimated, they arent even going to attempt to collect the money anyway? (not as if we all have a spare $1.92 million lying around)

And also, I dont see anything wrong with her myspace page either.....

Starman07

"$1.92m for 24 songs!? These better be the best damn songs i've ever heard"..../has a listen....."You got lucky!"

joey54

She should probably get rid of the computer now too!

Would these songs qualify as some of the most expensive ever bought?

The Walsho

I hate this kind of ridiculous outcome. Why is that at no point did at least one person think "wait a second, this is utterly, utterly stupid"? Having to go to court over 24 songs is silly. $1.92 million fine is laughable.

If I was given a €1000 fine, I'd think "shít, gonna have to get a grand from somewhere".
If I was given a €1.92 million fine, I'd think "lolz, never gonna happen mate. This'll make for an original facebook status at least".

Kipperhell

The media often report these stories incorrectly so more readers can understand it. I don't know on this case but I know that many stories reported as people downloading tracks are actually people who uploaded tracks. There is a big difference to your average user. I know you are distributing when downloading but you aren't initial person who made them available.

Jay P

Grrr, this annoys me.... It makes me wanna download some more but I don't wanna get fined a bazillion euro....

That said, I don't download at all. CDs are much better.

Dlite

Jeez that would turn me right off music, I'd never want to dance again, sure guilty feet have got no rythm.

MagicMarker

I'd happily pay that back, in installments of €0.01 per month.

smellslikeshoes

One thing that jumps out at me is that she refused a settlement and instead went to court over it. As far as I remember the average sort of settlements were around the 1000 dollar mark, bet you she is regretting that now :P

I still imagine this won't stick though, it hardly helps the record industry's already downright poor image by trying to get nearly 2 million off a mother of 4.

ScumLord

That's a disgusting abuse of the courts by big business. For that kind of money you'd expect to get to assault the entire board of directors.

partyguinness wrote: »

I dont see what being a single mother of four has anything to do with it. Why should that be a mitigating factor.

Well it has to be, single mothers are practically slaves to their children. They depend on her and don't deserve to have their mother taken away over something stupid like this.

My name is URL wrote: »

Scary that it was a jury that decided on this and not just the prosecutors

They must have gotten the Jury exclusively from the management of record labels or something.

IvySlayer

If I was brought to court I'd owe like 90 Billion euro.

/formats hard drive

Quazzie

It says on her Myspace that she is married and she even wrote a love letter to her husband in her blog.


Lock 'er up and sell the kids to Madonna!

Turd Ferguson

What were the songs she downloaded, does anyone know? If it was crap like the Jonas Brothers then she should be fucking shot!

Quazzie

They were all Miley Cyrus.

but get this, they weren't even the videos,:eek: sick bitch!

steof1984

She should make an Album out of the downloaded songs and start selling then at car boot sales etc. Then she can pay back the Record Labels

pyramuid man

partyguinness wrote: »

I dont see what being a single mother of four has anything to do with it. Why should that be a mitigating factor.

Is there one rule for single mothers and another for the rest of us?

What about this equality crap we always hear about..

Fine is OTT as they have no hope of getting it.

What also may have been a mitigating factor in this is the fact that alot of people who were downloading these were not aware that it was illegal.

A person cannot commit a crime willingly if they do not know its a crime.

fullstop

M5 wrote: »

fair point

...but the capacity to pay should also be a factor, no point in asking me for 2 million, never gona happen, that said i would be rightly pissed if i won the lotto after being fined

Then don't do the lotto :rolleyes: