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$1.9 Million Award In Thomas Case Raises Constitutional Questions
Techdirt points out that the EFF is examining the constitutionality of the recent $1.9 million verdict awarded in favor of the RIAA against Jammie Thomas. While on the surface it may seem that this excessive award should be easy to overturn since grossly excessive punitive damage awards are considered to violate the Due Process clause of the US Constitution, the Supreme Court seems to have been ignoring precedent and upholding copyright's importance at any cost. "Given the size of the statutory damages award, Ms. Thomas-Rasset's legal team will likely be seriously considering a constitutional challenge to the verdict. A large and disproportionate damage award like this raises at least two potential constitutional concerns. First, the Supreme Court has made it clear that 'grossly excessive' punitive damage awards (e.g., $2 million award against BMW for selling a repainted BMW as 'new') violate the Due Process clause of the US Constitution. In evaluating whether an award 'grossly excessive,' courts evaluate three criteria: 1) the degree of reprehensibility of the defendant's actions, 2) the disparity between the harm to the plaintiff and the punitive award, and 3) the similarity or difference between the punitive award and civil penalties authorized or imposed in comparable situations. Does a $1.92 million award for sharing 24 songs cross the line into 'grossly excessive?' And do these Due Process limitations apply differently to statutory damages than to punitive damages? These are questions that the court will have to decide if the issue is raised by Ms. Thomas-Rasset's attorneys."
Depressing as hell, but the system is bought, paid for, and bent beyond repair.
But this definitely should be examined. These asinine penalties for a non-commercial copyright infringement is just insane. Hell, even for commercial copyright infringement... $1.9 million for someone selling essentially two copied CD's? Does that sound right to anyone other than someone who works for the RIAA directly or indirectly?
My blog. Good stuff (when I remember to update it). Read it.
The RIAA has been making very telling statements after the verdict. They realize that with a judgment like this public reaction is more than just turning on them. The fact that it is also hurting their brands (Sony, EMI, Universal, Warner Bros) is also worrying them. Eventually they will cave or lose.
The exxon valdez jury awarded 5 billion dollars in punitive damages. That oil spill has left a ring around that bay that is clearly visible to this day. The courts reduced this by a factor of 10. Because it would be unfair to make one of the worlds richest and most profitable companies pay for their own f--kups that continue to afflict Alaska. Will this kid get a reduction? No. Becouse the court is a conservative court of 7 justices apointed by republican presidents. What does it mean that the court is conservative? The Court sides with the prosecution over the defendant, the state over the condemned, the executive branch over the legislative, and the corporate defendant over the individual plaintiff.â Thatâ(TM)s conservative jurisprudence in a nutshell.
I dont do meaning of life questions.
The RIAA always talks about how they are just protecting the interests of the artists. It stands to reason that this is a reflexive property.
If that is valid (and I certainly believe the first part of the supposition above is highly questionable), then here are the people you should hold accountable for this travesty of justice; the artists on her list:
I have a Green Day album and a couple Aerosmith albums. I figure to send it back with a suitably sardonic letter referencing the fact that I no longer want their music, and if they are in such financial hardship, they can re-sell it to help them put food on the table.
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Yup. The Roberts court's infinite pity for poor beleaguered corporations such as Exxon and BMW will be replaced by complete concern for the victims of crimes committed by individuals.
Objectively, one would think that corporations would need more and clearer punishment, not leniency. The only thing preventing corporations from behaving amorally is the risk of financial punishment -- CEOs have almost no personal liability. Individual citizens risk criminal punishment, and have to answer to society's moral standards.
The RIAA purpose is to protect the artists.
For some strange reason it is run by the record companies which are the biggest offenders for ripping off the artists. I have not seen one case of the RIAA trying to protect the artists from the record companies. There is also ample proof of them ripping off the consumers, suing on behalf of someone who released their songs for free download, blatant lies and slander. Oddly enough most of the proof of the lies and slander you can find by reading the press releases then going to the studies that they provide on the RIAA site that does not support their press releases.
So my question is with them being so blatantly illegal, why aren't these guys all in jail?
Microsoft, Apple, Google, Amazon what's the difference? All steal money from devs and control with walled gardens.
Perhaps all those artists could do a benefit concert for Ms. Thomas and raise enough money to pay off the RIAA.
Beer is proof that God loves us and wants us to be happy.
Who the hell gave a jury of dumb-asses the authority to set the amount of the fine? What a bunch of ignorant incompetent couch potatoes!
Seems like a pretty huge gamble to not only saddle your client with a huge unpayable debt but also set precedence for future cases just on the hope that it would stir public opinion enough to overcome the powerful RIAA lobby and get favorable legislative action on the issue, meanwhile hoping you can somehow get the ruling reversed on appeal (maybe due to ineffective counsel?) If my lawyer tried a tactic like that, they would be fired well before the trial.
I'd say the defense should get shit for legal malpractice.
What happened to infringement needing to have some sort of commercial or otherwise monetary gain? P2P sharing is (generally) not for monetary gain. Regardless of whether it's right or wrong to do so, the intent of large damages is to discourage commercial copyright infringement, not to pick on the little people.
What a sad joke the judicial system is.
Is that supposed to be "justice"? I think by anyone's definition that is just plain stupid.
Not to mention pointless. The fine might as well be for a Gajillion dollars, 'cause she ain't got that either.
Doing so by waiving viable defenses is borderline legal malpractice.
From the sounds of it, the client was unable to pay their initial settlement offer of a few thousand.
If thats the case then is there much different between being bankrupt and unable to pay say $50,000 or $5,000,000?
I am a free slashdotter. I will not be modded, blogged, DRM'd, patented, podcasted or RFID'd. My life is my own.
Don't you USians have that little clause that prohibits "cruel and unusual punishment"? 1.9M for an average person is their whole life earnings. She could have stole a CD from a store with 24 songs on it and got a slap on the wrist. What makes it so different that it is done on a computer? This cruel punishment should also apply to the people down there who take a pee in the bushes on their way home from the bar and are branded "sex-offenders" for the rest of their life. The US is hysterical and real people are being burnt as witches.
Shh.
Trillions in bailouts to banks that wasted the untold fortunes of the average person's retirement funds in vain attempts they knew should have failed to make the rich beyond need bankers even more fucking rich, and the courts have a audacity to award the perveyors of packaged pop poop almost $100k per song shared? You people are totally fucked in the head. If it gets like this in Canada I am leaving - but where can I go that's not that inasane? Jeebus jumpin jehosiphat!
Going on means going far
Going far means returning
Fine. Make it comparable to a shoplifting first offense.
That said. The RIAA should not be able to use the threat of megabuck jury
awards in order to extort easy settlements.
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
I believe I read somewhere that they claimed it was a "per-upload" infraction. So it's something like she uploaded 24 songs something like 27,000 at $70 per violation.
There were 24 songs available -- no proof of any of them ever being uploaded.
I am the richest astronaut ever to win the superbowl.
Jabari, a 300-pound gorilla, escaped from his enclosure and went on an angry rampage through the zoo. Police shot and killed him on the zoo grounds, but not before he seriously injured Reichert, Heard and 3-year-old Rivers Heard.
The Dallas City Council, which oversees the zoo, is scheduled to approve a $500,000 financial settlement with Heard and Reichert during a special meeting Friday at City Hall. The money is meant to compensate the women and their children for their physical injuries and emotional trauma.
State law caps civil damage awards against a city government at $500,000.
So the RIAA gets nearly $2 Million, while these people with real physical and emotional injuries get 25% of that.
You don't. You either: file for bankruptcy and wreck your credit history, or they pursue withholding out of your paycheck (say $200 a month), or you plead with the public for donations.
Camping on quad since 1996.
RIAA != music. Spend your music money on your local artists, they NEED it. Does Snoop Dawg really need a new yacht that badly? Chances are, the drummer in your local band has more talent in his little finger than Lars Ulrich has in his whole body.
Free Martian Whores!
Rosa Parks intentionally broke the law because she was tired and didn't want to walk to the back of the bus.
I don't mean to play down the significance of what she did, I'm just saying that court was the farthest thing from her mind at the time.
I am Jack's complete lack of surprise.
$1.00 a month seems reasonable to me. At that rate she might even finish paying before the copyrights expire.
The case is not a criminal case. The award is not a punishment. The case does not a class action suit with hundreds of injured participants. The award is recovery. The highest price of the 24 items on sites offering them for download should be considered as the "loss". Court and legal costs should be added. The total should then be the amount of the reward.
I find it interesting how folks in the government complain how class action lawsuits have unjust awards that are destroying corporations but seem fine with individuals getting raped by a corporation.
Having to work for a living is the root of all evil.
No, that's propaganda spread by the lady's law firm to convince the jury (and it worked, not only on them but on a lot of people on the Internet).
Bunn is the largest manufacturer of commercial coffee makers in the U.S. They supplied the coffee makers when I helped manage a restaurant. They probably supply the coffee makers for McDonalds. They are the industry standard. If you go to their web store and scroll down, you will clearly see:
Ideal coffee holding temperature: 175F to 185F (80C to 85C)
Most all the volatile aromatics in coffee have boiling points well below that of water and continue to evaporate from the surface until pressure in the serving container reaches equilibrium. A closed container can slow the process of evaporation.
Ideal coffee serving temperature: 155F to 175F (70C to 80C)
Many of the volatile aromatics in coffee have boiling points above 150F (65C). They simply are not perceived when coffee is served at lower temperatures.
I don't have any dealings with RIAA type issues, as I am not a musician. However, I deal with publishers, who are fundamentally similar to record companies. I produce copyrighted work that I have to 'assign' the copyright to the publishers, in order to get my stuff into print (and this is only after going through the blind refereeing process). Moreover, I seldom get paid for my work. As a result, most professors like me hate publishers, but see them as a necessary evil.
That being said, I also have plenty of friends who are successful musicians -- real record contracts and a smattering of Grammies. Funnily enough, their attitude to their record companies is about the same as mine to publishers -- they stink, but are a necessary evil.
This parallel though suggest that their may be an alternative strategy available in the current context. Musicians and professors only deal with record companies/publishers, because there is no alternative. The question is why not? The answer is simple, these corporations are really diverse monopolies. "Ah ha!", someone will claim, "this is not so, as there are multiple record companies/publishers, thus there is 'choice', so it is not really a monopoly." However, when the record companies/publishers start to work together (e.g. in the RIAA), then they ARE working like a monopoly. Not only that, their business model is predicated on a form of extortion -- 'Give us the copyright, or your record does not get released/your paper does not get published'. Couldn't the RIAA and their like be put out of business on these kinds of grounds? Isn't this just the kind of thing that even the most foaming and rabid right winger would support? More to the point, why isn't somebody actually doing this?
Rosa Parks was a case of theatre. It was carefully staged civil disobedience. When she got on the bus she was hoping she would be asked to move for the purpose of creating a case, if not in court, then in the court of public opinion.
She wasn't the first to try. One or two others tried but either the bus driver wouldn't bite and let them keep their seat or the case never got the traction it needed to change the world.
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.