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RIAA Loses $222K Verdict
jriding writes "The $222,000 verdict against Jammy Thomas for copyright infringement by P2P is no more. US District Court Judge Michael Davis dismissed the verdict, saying it was based on the faulty 'making available' theory of distribution."
About time the RIAA loses a big case like this, and have the public know about it. Bunch of crooks...
Veni, Vidi, Velcro!
and get them for attorney's fees and mental anguish.
She was like chocolate when she drank... semi-sweet at first and then increasingly bitter.
And Judge Davis went further, "implor[ing] Congress to amend the Copyright Act to address liability and damages in peer-to-peer network cases..."
How many people want to guess that "Copyright reform" turns draconian?
I regret that I only have one mod point to give per post.
One point brought up in the articles is that it's possible the MediaSentry downloads are unauthorized copies, which seems to be necessary since if the RIAA authorizes the copy, then technically they're not infringing copyright and hence have to basis for a lawsuit.
However, if the copies by MediaSentry are not authorized, then by not prosecuting MediaSentry for illicit downloads, aren't they undermining their own case by not going after every case of infringement?
Just idle thoughts...
AFAIK (IANAL) a mistrial means that the same evidence and INTENT is used in the prosecution of the defendant. such as:
"Thomas will face a new trial, in which the RIAA will have to prove actual distribution." (Direct from TFA)
But it is interesting to note that:
"The decision means the RIAA now has zero wins at trial, Wired notes." (from TFA)
So far, it seems that the RIAA is nothing more than a paper tiger, and there is much ado about the nothing that is the reporting of all this hoopla.
I do seem to remember (can't cite the examples at the moment) some headlines concerning individuals being brought to trial that had unbeliveable judgements levied at them for "copyright infringement", but no ACTUAL culpability against the plaintiff.
In the old days, warez exchangers would require a newbie to send something to them first before sharing anything - something about entrapment if the investigator would do something illegal to gain the marks' trust. The last paragraph of the article mentions that distribution to MediaSentry would constitute infringement - I wonder if P2P networks will be adopting the old "send me one first" mechanism in light of this?
Actually, that's not entirely true.
The leading case on the constitutionality of damages is BMW v. Gore. You can read it here if you're interested.
Out of that case came three guideposts that the Supreme Court uses to assess whether or not damages are constitutional.
1. The degree of reprehensibility of the defendant's conduct
2. The portion of the damages that are compensatory
3. Statutory punitive damages/penalties that could be imposed
So, that the statute allows such damages only satisfies one of the three guideposts. However, punitive damages in this case vastly outstripped the compensatory damages. I remember reading it in an article when the verdict was announced, but the punitive:compensatory damages were, what, on the order of 9000:1? The court has said, in Phillip Morris USA v. Williams, that damages that were only 100:1 punitive:compensatory were "grossly excessive."
The only issue to be resolved, at this point, is how reprehensible the court finds the defendant's conduct.
It seems to me that, if this question of damages managed to get before the US Supreme Court, it'd be thrown out as unconstitutional in a hurry.
But I'm just a law student offering my armchair lawyer analysis. Take the above with a grain of salt.
"Thomas will face a new trial, in which the RIAA will have to prove actual distribution"
Even if they do prove distribution, the claims of damages per track should be fought. It's as if the people involved don't understand how file availability works with torrent p2p sharing.
If someone downloads 5 tracks and seeds each to 1:1 ratio, what they've sent out on the net has only replaced copies (in pieces and blocks) that they got instead of someone else. In that case the net increase in copies going to others is ZERO making the damages only the lost-sale revenue for the downloader. At 1:1 seeding ratio, no additional copies go to others as compared with what existing seeding on the net would have provided had the downloader not transfered the files in and out. The lost revenue is certainly no higher than the cost of the same tracks on iTMS or another commercial source. It could be argued that the track value is even lower since a portion of the iTMS price covers bandwidth cost so that amount in not lost profits.
It is only when seeding above 1:1 ratio that a downloader/uploader has actually done something to result in an increased number of copies going to others online over what would have occurred had they not participated. For the entire group of peers, each contributes to distribution by their seeding ratio minus one to allow for availability being reduced by what went to them instead of others.
It is not reasonable to hold a particular peer responsible for the seeding action of others.
This discussion also illustrates why torrents die off if people fail to seed adequately.
Cases of higher damages should be reserved for cases where material not otherwise available is leaked onto the net in violation of a license or NDA that applies, or material an uploader bought under license violates the license and then distributes a measurable number of copies on the net.
I was recently considered for jury duty in a cocaine selling/possession case. One of the screening questions the potential jurors were asked was "Do you have any problems with the Indiana drug laws?" I said yes, that they should be repealed. The judge asked if I was capable of making a distinction between what the law said and what I believed. I said yes, of course, and brought up jury nullification. He said that we don't do that anymore, and I was dismissed from jury duty.
I caught that too. Since that was in the commentary and not part of the actual ruling, I don't think that's binding at all for the next trial. It certainly isn't binding on any other case.
Several other courts have addressed the issue and IIRC the vast majority ruled that Media Sentry downloads don't count since they were authorized by the copyright holder.
As far as the next trial goes, I imagine this will get settled. The jury members' post-trial comments were very much in favor of the RIAA, and Jammie's Lawyer wasn't very effective as a trial attorney from what I read in the coverage.
A new trial would mean that she has to pay her attorney for more work, and she had to cancel her expert witness because of financial difficulty the last go round.
For the RIAA, they have the statement in favor of using MediaSentry downloads as evidence. They have a big jury verdict in their favor in the minds of most (assuming this doesn't get the same kind of media coverage as the big award). They aren't going to get much money out of Jammie (blood from a turnip). It seems like it's in their interests to settle this one as well. The potential for losing the next trial should be enough to scare them into being reasonable.
I bet this turns into a settlement, and that Jammie has a non-disclosure clause for the amount. I'm kind of surprised that didn't happen before this ruling anyhow.
mpeaching him now would cause a close examination of all of his unconstitutional policies, and get a lot of them thrown out, or at least dragged out into the light so future presidents won't be able to use them.
Careful. You might just find that a lot of people would like what was found and that your side would be invariably painted as anti-American. What would happen is, the Nixon effect. Nixon was never really popular until after he was booted from Office. But, once all the stuff that he and Kissinger did became public, a lot of people who are big into national security and winning suddenly found that Nixon was their man after all. He was rehabilated into a "great statesmen", and now he's looked at as a good Cold Warrior. I mean, by the time a lot of the Nixon revelations came out, to some extent, many Democrats would take a look at Carter and say, Nixon would have done something, a perception that helped propel Reagan into the White House. Remember that in early Reagan years they used to actually talk about how he would chat with Nixon and Henry the K in matters of cold war brinkmanship.
To move that to today, let's say it came out that Bush had the CIA crawling all over New Orleans immediate post Katrina and was assasinating looters, but there was some operational weather problem that wrecked the plan, or that, he had secretly invaded Pakistan and Iran and had actually sabotaged the industrial capacity of any number of nations that were believed to be hiding Bin Laden, he would lock down the center-right base for sure. I mean, if Cheney's secret conversation revealed that Bush saw the coming peak oil, went through a phase of trying to secretly re-open talks with Saddam, but was rebuffed, and -then-, he invaded because Saddam did some covert anti-American thing... then, a lot of people would see the war in an entirely more positive light.
Similarly, if there did emerge some conspiracy that the struggles of the US financial system were part of a set of financial moves of the US against China or the world, then, Bush comes out ahead, again. Even if he's just paranoid and writing all this stuff down, along with Cheney, Bush comes out ahead.
I mean, the biggest asset Democrats have on Bush right now is that, they've painted him as stupid. But, if Bush is actually documented to be intelligent but evil, then, a lot more people are going to like him and you'll make a saint out of him.
This is my sig.
How dare the RIAA go after individual infringers, even though it's what Slashdotters said they should do back in 2000 during the Napster lawsuit.
It's all about how you go after them. Jaywalking is illegal. So to stop it, would you mind if we shove a camera up your ass to record where you walk and a set of electrodes on your balls to we can zap you if you look like you might be heading away from the crosswalk?
I deserve to have people's work for free because I can. Artists are my personal slaves.
Actually, it's the RIAA that feels that way. Here, read this bit from Steve Albini. Scroll down to the math part.
Once you're done, read this.
You're an industry shill so I know you won't get the point, but there is a point to be made. It's the RIAA that are fucking over the artists you claim to care so desperately about - not the pirates. For every penny lost to piracy the record execs walk away with truckloads of cash. All in the name of "protecting the artist".
Total bullshit, and you know it.
Weaselmancer
rediculous.
The existence of piracy does not magically give me an extra $200 a year that I could have spent on music or movies. I have the same amount of money I did last year (or less, with the wild inflation), so the MAFIAA would get roughly the same amount of money from me whether or not I could pirate things.
Via piracy I can never view every single movie ever made, or every song ever produced, which means that if I happen to see a few movies this year that I couldn't have afforded otherwise, it will *not* cut into the amount of money I'll spend next year on music and movies.