Girl sued by the recording industry.

I "borrowed" this from the other place. I think it is a very interesting read.

QUOTE

A single mother of two children takes on the Recording Industry Association of America in a Duluth courtroom today in the nation’s first copyright infringement case to reach a jury.

The RIAA — representing Virgin Records, Capitol Records, Sony BMG, Arista Records, Interscope Records, Warner Bros. Records and UMG Recordings — claims that Jammie Thomas of Brainerd, Minn., distributed 1,702 digital audio files — many of them the plaintiffs’ copyrighted sound recordings — from the KaZaA shared folder on her computer to “potentially millions of other KaZaA users’’ for free.

According to the plaintiffs’ proposed verdict form, the industry is seeking as much as $3.9 million in damages — up to $150,000 for each of 26 copyrighted sound recordings that were allegedly pirated. The trial is in Duluth because it is the federal court nearest to Brainerd.

Minneapolis attorney Brian Toder is representing the defendant. Toder said Thomas, 30, is the single mother of two children, ages 11 and 13. She’s employed by the Mille Lacs Band of Ojibwe in the administration of its natural resources department, he said.

Toder was asked why the case is going to trial. “Because we wouldn’t allow ourselves to be bullied,” he said. “Most people settle when they get these kind of lawsuits … They’re very good at getting people to settle.”

Toder said federal court rules precluded him from commenting on details of his case.

In a court-filed document, Thomas’ attorney said she “did not download anything from KaZaA or any other peer-to-peer network’’ and questions whether the plaintiffs own the copyrights they allege are theirs.

As the result of a Feb. 21, 2005, investigation, the plaintiffs claim Thomas, under the username tereastarr@KaZaA, distributed pirated audio files over the Internet. The plaintiffs filed a “Doe’’ lawsuit and subpoenaed Charter Communications to identify Thomas as the subscriber responsible for the pirating, according to the plaintiffs’ “statement of case.”

Denver lawyer Richard Gabriel is the lead attorney representing the plaintiffs. He couldn’t be reached for comment Monday.

“Without commenting specifically on the merits of this case, I will say that with all our cases we try to be fair and reasonable in resolving them quickly and out of court,” Cara Duckworth, director of communications for the Recording Industry Association of America, said in an e-mail Monday. “I might add that we settle for amounts far less than what the law allows.’’

The RIAA claims that the music industry is losing billions of dollars from the illegal copying of its music. The industry’s zero-

tolerance copyright campaign started in 2003. It has brought more than 26,000 lawsuits against individuals who allegedly have illegally downloaded and/or distributed copyrighted music files, Duckworth said.

In separate cases, three University of Minnesota Duluth students are accused of allegedly downloading music illegally. UMD and 57 other U.S. college campuses were included in a wave of 503 pre-litigation settlement letters sent by RIAA last month.

Jury selection begins this morning in Duluth federal court. U.S. District Judge Michael J. Davis will preside over the trial, which is expected to conclude Thursday.

MARK STODGHILL covers public safety and courts. He can be reached weekdays at (218) 723-5333 or by e-mail at mstodghill@duluth

read that in the paper this morning, it will be very interesting to see who wins.

elroy

I remember recording hundreds of tapes for me or for my friends....ah, the good old days...

now it's ilegal to record almost anything to cd...even to have in our car... user posted image

I wonder if the record companies sell cds much cheaper - and they could do it, but they won't, and that's one of the reasons of cd's triumph over vinyl, i mean the profit margins in a cd is much bigger compared to a vinyl record - if this ever happen...

An interesting article...

The reality is that it could have been the kids downloading, just doing what all of their friends are doing (I guess it is really no excuse). Or even worse, someone parked in their car two houses down, accessing the web via the families unsecure (as probably 90% are) wireless access point. I really wish that home gateway vendors would do more to protect people from their own ignorance (I don't mean ignorance in a demeaning way, simply a lack of knowledge). I would like to see wizards that force users, to pick non-default SSIDs and admin passwords BEFORE the device will function. There should also be more options for blocking various undesired traffic. All of this is easily done by the vendors, but it is not for one simple reason... it would raise support costs. Every option is another potential support call to be answered. Limit functionality (even if it exposes users to threats) and support costs are minimized. The sad thing is that most consumers don't even know they should be complaining.

Rant over!

I hope someone sues Jorge for "borrowing" things from "other places."
You know, make an example of him, and how.

soundt/lolnuts.gif

^
Jorge, receiving the vaunted "sign punishment"

ON a journalistic note, it shouldn't make a lot of difference
to the legal system whether she's a good wife and mother.

If I were on the jury, or were the judge, I'd axe what
she gained from the alleged action. I bet it was less than
$3.9 million dollars. Or $3.9 dollars.

I believe it was ruled that you can make unlimited copies
for your own use of music you have purchased.
Perhaps someone here can validate or refute that.

dennis

Thank you, Dennis.

Anyway, the single mother of two is in for trouble:

http://blog.wired.com/27bstroke6/

Pirates will be pirates, though.

Jorge

QUOTE (clint e. @ October 03, 2007 05:21 pm)

I remember recording hundreds of tapes for me or for my friends....ah, the good old days...

now it's ilegal to record almost anything to cd...even to have in our car...

Not in the United States. Federal copyright law specifically grants the right to copy musical recordings for personal use, but not for distribution.

I've had my say about the RIAA on the other site. Anyone who read my posts there knows I have no sympathy for them, and neither do my musician friends. They're scumbags who prey on artists, and now they're trying to eat the people who feed them. Eff 'em all, I say.

The best (or worst depending upon your point of view) part is the RIAA cannot prove file sharing hurts sales. Most musicians I know encourage people to share their music on the logical assumption that if more people hear their music more people will pay to see them live, and maybe leave a few dollars in the tip jar. Worked for the Grateful Dead.

i find it odd that a primary defense doesnt include the issue of compression. if you download an .mp3 or other compressed file, you are only getting about 1/4th of the original product at best. this is a common practice in shareware and demo software offers that allow free download and use. is it not reasonable to treat compressed music files in the same way? a counter argument is naturally going to be one of content and not quality but this argument would not stop the pursuit of vast reductions in the penalties levied against those that are found guilty of infringement.

I doubt that quality, or lack of same, would be a defense, Scott.
People love crap. People pay perfectly good money for crap.
My number one exhibit, your honor: Walmart.
An entire store that could hold a bigtime football stadium,
yet strangely holds about 50 percent necessities and 50 percent
unadulterated, made to be ugly or inoperable about the time you take
it out of the bag garbage.
Poison sold something like 25 million albums.
Yup, I said "SOLD."

yes, but when downloaded, said album only contains about 25% of the original product.

The devoted mother of two will be relieved to know they are only going to try to nick her for 975,000 dollars. soundt/pirate.gif

basically the music industry want's it's cake and eat it too.. they want us to pay to be able to download music.. but not share it as I understand it. (forgive me if I'm dense when it comes to MP3 files and the like, I never got into downloading music).

There is no way to stop people from sharing recorded music.. think back a few years... where Sony and other companies were pushing SACD and DVD-Audio and it could not be copied, at least not in the beginning, but then the record companies quickly stopped supporting this new emerging format and NOT promoting it. It flailed like a stinky old fish out of water.

The record companies really are going after the wrong people. Do you think this single mom has $3.9 million dollars to pay them if they win the lawsuit? Of course not. What satisfaction would they get if they jailed a 30 yr old single mom, taking her away from her kids, just so that Sony can say they won. Nice Sony, and others, real nice. Why not go after instead the big boys like Apple (IPod) and other makers of mobile audio MP3 players.. why are products like MP3 players built?

To copy music.. wow, imagine that?

Boycott Sony.

QUOTE (doctorbongo @ October 04, 2007 11:25 am)

If I were on the jury, or were the judge, I'd axe what
she gained from the alleged action. I bet it was less than
$3.9 million dollars. Or $3.9 dollars.

and exactly why the judgment is ridiculous. as far as i can tell there is no evidence suggesting the record companies are out anything approaching $975,000, much less the original $3.9 million.

this just in...

DULUTH, Minn. (AP) - The recording industry hopes $222,000 will be enough to dissuade music lovers from downloading songs from the Internet without paying for them. That's the amount a federal jury ordered a Minnesota woman to pay for sharing copyrighted music online.

"This does send a message, I hope, that downloading and distributing our recordings is not OK," Richard Gabriel, the lead attorney for the music companies that sued the woman, said Thursday after the three-day civil trial in this city on the shore of Lake Superior.

In closing arguments he had told the jury, "I only ask that you consider that the need for deterrence here is great."

Jammie Thomas, 30, a single mother from Brainerd, was ordered to pay the six record companies that sued her $9,250 for each of 24 songs they focused on in the case. They had alleged she shared 1,702 songs in all.

It was the first time one of the industry's lawsuits against individual downloaders had gone to trial. Many other defendants have settled by paying the companies a few thousand dollars, but Thomas decided she would take them on and maintained she had done nothing wrong.

"She was in tears. She's devastated," Thomas' attorney, Brian Toder, told The Associated Press. "This is a girl that lives from paycheck to paycheck, and now all of a sudden she could get a quarter of her paycheck garnished for the rest of her life."

Toder said the plaintiff's attorney fees are automatically awarded in such judgments under copyright law, meaning Thomas could actually owe as much as a half-million dollars. However, he said he suspects the record companies "will probably be people we can deal with."

Gabriel said no decision had yet been made about what the record companies would do, if anything, to pursue collecting the money from Thomas.

The record companies accused Thomas of downloading the songs without permission and offering them online through a Kazaa file-sharing account. Thomas denied wrongdoing and testified that she didn't have a Kazaa account.

Since 2003, record companies have filed some 26,000 lawsuits over file-sharing, which has hurt sales because it allows people to get music for free instead of paying for recordings in stores.

During the trial, the record companies presented evidence they said showed the copyrighted songs were offered by a Kazaa user under the name "tereastarr." Their witnesses, including officials from an Internet provider and a security firm, testified that the Internet address used by "tereastarr" belonged to Thomas.

Toder said in his closing argument that the companies never proved "Jammie Thomas, a human being, got on her keyboard and sent out these things."

"We don't know what happened," Toder told jurors. "All we know is that Jammie Thomas didn't do this."

Copyright law sets a damage range of $750 to $30,000 per infringement, or up to $150,000 if the violation was "willful." Jurors ruled that Thomas' infringement was willful but awarded damages in a middle range; Gabriel said they did not explain the amount to attorneys afterward. Jurors left the courthouse without commenting.

Before the verdict, an official with an industry trade group said he was surprised it had taken so long for one of the industry's lawsuits against individual downloaders to come to trial.

Illegal downloads have "become business as usual. Nobody really thinks about it," said Cary Sherman, president of the Recording Industry Association of America, which coordinates the lawsuits. "This case has put it back in the news. Win or lose, people will understand that we are out there trying to protect our rights."

Thomas' testimony was complicated by the fact that she had replaced her computer's hard drive after the sharing was alleged to have taken place - and later than she said in a deposition before trial.

The hard drive in question was not presented at trial by either party.

The record companies said Thomas was sent an instant message in February 2005 warning her that she was violating copyright law. Her hard drive was replaced the following month, not in 2004 as she said in the deposition.

"I don't think the jury believed my client regarding the events concerning the replacement of the hard drive," Toder said.

The record companies involved in the lawsuit are Sony BMG, Arista Records LLC, Interscope Records, UMG Recordings Inc., Capitol Records Inc. and Warner Bros. Records Inc.