OMG: RIAA wins, woman has to pay $220k
A Minnesota woman must pay $220,000 to six of the top music labels after a federal jury found on Thursday that she violated their copyright. Accused of encouraging the illegal sharing of more than 1,700 songs, Jammie Thomas, 30, elected to fight it out with the recording industry instead of settling out of court for far less money. The ensuing legal battle marked the first time the recording industry has argued a file-sharing case before a jury. Since 2003, many of the 26,000 persons sued by the Recording Industry Assoc. of America (RIAA) have avoided litigation by agreeing to pay a few thousand dollars. Thomas, who could not be reached for comment, has always maintained her innocence. Accused of sharing music through the use of peer-to-peer service, Kazaa, she told the jury that she didn’t even own a Kazaa account.
The jury didn’t buy her argument. Thomas was ordered to pay $9,250 for each of the 24 songs that the RIAA concentrated on. She was initially accused of sharing 1,702 songs. The decision is important in that it sends a message to file sharers that Internet anonymity won’t protect them from lawsuits, said Chris Castle, a copyright attorney and longtime music industry executive. This is likely not the end of the case, according to Fred von Lohmann, a staff attorney with the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a group that advocates for Internet users. Late Thursday evening, von Lohmann said that he had heard from several copyright attorneys who had expressed interest in representing Thomas should she want to appeal the decision. “There are a lot of copyright lawyers who would be interested in helping her if she wants to continue this,” von Lohmann said. “I’d imagine that she doesn’t want to pay $200,000. We’ll see what she wants to do.”
The recording industry has claimed that Internet piracy has cost the industry billions of dollars. Ever since the original Napster emerged in the late 1990s, the RIAA has been playing–and some say losing–a game of cat and mouse with file sharers. The RIAA has always said that suing individuals is a last resort. The group battles file sharing through a combination of tactics, including educational programs and taking legal action against sites that help file sharers locate unauthorized music files. When the RIAA does sue individuals, any money it receives from settlements and judgments are generally reinvested into the group’s antipiracy program, said Jonathan Lamy, an RIAA spokesman. “This is not a money-making venture,” he said. Yeah, sure, we all believe in this. Anyway, this sucks, I can imagine many more companies will decide to start filling lawsuits against filesharing people…
Source: CNN, Zdnet
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