What's next for Jammie Thomas-Rasset?; Ars Technica, 6/21/09

Nate Anderson via Ars Technica; What's next for Jammie Thomas-Rasset?:

"Jammie Thomas-Rasset has at least six options for moving forward after the massive $80,000 per song judgment handed down against her. We take a look at the possibility of paying the award, settling, declaring bankruptcy, reducing the award, appealing the case, and changing the law...

Judge [ Michael] Davis feels the same way and has already "implored" Congress to "amend the Copyright Act to address liability and damages in peer‐to-peer network cases such as the one currently before this Court."

University of California law professor Pam Samuelson, an expert on statutory damages and copyright law, also called for reform in a fascinating paper released in April 2009.

In reference to the first Thomas-Rasset judgment, Samuelson concluded, "Some jurors in the Thomas case wanted to award $750 per infringed song, while others argued for $150,000 per song; why they compromised on $9250 per song is a mystery. In today’s world where the average person in her day-to-day life interacts with many copyrighted works in a way that may implicate copyright law, the dangers posed by the lack of meaningful constraints on statutory damage awards are particularly acute."

One key suggestion for reform: allowing judges to revise damage awards to below the current $750 minimum threshold in such cases.

Had the amount been a "mere" $750 a song, for an $18,000 total fine, the Thomas-Rasset case would have offered little incentive to reform the law. But when the first of the RIAA's 30,000+ actions goes to trial and the plaintiffs emerge with a $1.92 million award... legislators may take notice."

http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2009/06/whats-next-for-jammie-thomas-rasset.ars

Music-Pirate Mom Shown No Love By Jury To Tune Of $1.9 M; NPR's Two Way Blog, 6/19/09

Frank James via NPR's Two Way Blog; Music-Pirate Mom Shown No Love By Jury To Tune Of $1.9 M:

""The only thing worse than losing a copyright-infringement lawsuit that ends with a $122,000 [sic; $222,000] judgment against you is getting a retrial only to end up with a eye-popping $1.9 million judgment against you...

The Associated Press gives us this paragraph explaining why we should care:

This case was the only one of more than 30,000 similar lawsuits to make it all the way to trial. The vast majority of people targeted by the music industry had settled for about $3,500 each. The recording industry has said it stopped filing such lawsuits last August and is instead now working with Internet service providers to fight the worst offenders."

http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way/2009/06/musicpirate_mom_shown_no_love.html

Music Labels Win $2 Million in Web Case; New York Times, 6/18/09

Bloomberg News via New York Times: Music Labels Win $2 Million in Web Case:

"The Universal Music Group, owned by Vivendi, and other record labels were awarded $1.92 million on Thursday in the retrial of a Minnesota woman accused of swapping music over the Kazaa Internet service.

The federal jury in Minneapolis said the woman, Jammie Thomas-Rasset, 32, of Brainerd, should pay $80,000 for each of the 24 songs that were posted on the site so others could download them.

The first time the case went to trial, in 2007, a jury awarded $9,250 a song, or $222,000."

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/19/business/media/19music.html?_r=1&scp=1&sq=jammie%20thomas&st=cse