Back in December 2007, we reported on the case of Jammie Thomas, a Minnesota woman who was found liable for copyright infringement in the first (and still only) music piracy case to go to trial in the United States. Thomas had been found guilty of downloading and distributing 24 songs on the now-defunct file sharing network Kazaa and was ordered to pay $220,000 to the recording industry for her transgression.
Evidently, the story did not end there, however. After determining that he had given incorrect instructions to the jury in the original case, the judge ordered a new trial. This second trial did not go so well for Thomas (now Thomas-Rasset) and on Thursday, the new jury hit her with a $1.92 million fine, or $80,000 per song. While the judgment was less than the $150,000 per song maximum allowed by law, it was significantly more than the average $3,500 settlement reached in the more than 30,000 similar lawsuits that never went to trial (and obviously more than the 99 cents per song it would have cost to acquire the tracks legally).
In repsonse to the verdict, Thomas-Rasset told reporters that she had no intention of paying the fine. “There’s no way they’re ever going to get that,” she said. “I’m a mom, limited means, so I’m not going to worry about it now.”
Although the case seems like an obvious win for the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) in its fight against music piracy, some analysts, such as New York attorney Ray Beckerman, believe the verdict may do the RIAA more harm than good.
“Oddly, this gigantic verdict may do more to hurt than help the RIAA, because it offers a vivid demonstration of how out of synch the RIAA’s damages theory is with decades of case law about the reasonableness requirement for copyright statutory damages,” Beckerman said.
The size of the award also goes against a century of case law “deeming punitive awards unconstitutional if they are unreasonably disproportionate to the actual damages sustained.”
Regardless of whether the verdict is ultimately overturned, however, the RIAA has said it remains willing to settle.
