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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.
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 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.
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.
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.
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?
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When you realise that the minimum statutory penalty for copying a CD is higher than the maximum penalty for stealing the CD, you see quite how messed up copyright law has become.
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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.
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.
$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.
I get tired of saying this, but the penalty for distributing a CD should have nothing to do with the cost of buying a CD or MP3. This would be appropriate if she was accused of downloading one copy, but she is accused of uploading. The issue is she assuming the right to distribute a CD or MP3, so the penalty should be based upon what the RIAA would charge to gain the rights to distribute the songs. I have no idea what songs were distributed, so I can't say whether the award is excessive (my gut feeling is yes, but if it was 24 of the most popular songs at the time, maybe not).
The penalty should be based on what it would cost me to gain the rights to distribute those 24 songs to anyone I wanted from my web site. So if I called the RIAA (at the time it happened) and said "I'm interested in putting these 24 songs on my web site for anyone who visits to download, what would that cost me?", whatever the answer would be would be a fair basis for the judgment. Obviously, the price they quote for the trial would have to backed up by facts (what have they actually charged for these or similar songs for instance) so they aren't able to just make up ridiculous amounts. Will it be a lot? Yes, it most likely will if they were popular songs (I;m sure 24 covers of Achy Breaky Heart wouldn't cost that much though), but it would be a fair way to estimate what the actual damage was.
"Information wants to be expensive" - Stewart Brand, the same guy who said "Information wants to be free"