Slashdot Mirror
RIAA Confusion In Tenenbaum & Thomas Cases?
NewYorkCountryLawyer writes "There seems to be a bit of confusion in RIAA-land these days, caused by the only 2 cases that ever went to trial, Capitol Records v. Thomas-Rasset in Minnesota, and SONY BMG Music Entertainment v. Tenenbaum, in Boston. In both cases, the RIAA has recently asked for extensions of time. In Thomas-Rasset, they've asked for more time to make up their mind as to whether to accept the reduced verdict of $54,000 the judge has offered them, and in Tenenbaum they've twice asked for more time to prepare their papers opposing Tenenbaum's motion for remittitur. What is more, it has been reported that after the reduction of the verdict, the RIAA offered to settle with Ms. Thomas-Rasset for $25,000, but she turned them down."
ad-block-plus...
welcome to the internets.
This isn't about what her lawyer asserted, it's about what the judge ruled.
She's actually very clever to not take the settlement. Aside from the fact that there may well be someone behind her bankrolling that 25 grand difference anyway, she's more likely than not to end up paying nothing other than court costs.
The RIAA really doesn't want that 54k verdict to become official. It would set a legal precedent, one which would more likely than not be referred to, even in other jurisdictions. It's probably relatively close to a fair number(I can't recall the details of the case at the moment), but that's really not the point. I wouldn't be at all surprised if the RIAA ends up dropping the Thomas case. It'll cost them to do so, but it will severly limit their ability to extort and intimidate future defendents.
True, she makes the RIAA guys look like the good folks.. and that's hard.
Now, “Here’s what I’m telling them,” says Jammie.
“You guys can settle this on my terms or take it to trial and try to prove the damages.
“You’re going to be lucky to prove more than $24 ”
I do not understand why Slashdot continues to support this woman.
Some background from the Wiki and http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2009/06/jammie-thomas-takes-the-stand-admits-to-major-misstep.ars
The RIAA first warned Thomas with a cease-and-desist letter and settlement offer.[when?] Thomas refused to settle, and was then sued on April 19, 2006, by several major record labels for copyright infringement.
In the trial, the plaintiffs alleged that on February 21, 2005, Jammie Thomas shared a total of 1,702 tracks online. The plaintiffs, however, sought relief for only 24 of these.
Two weeks after MediaSentry noted the infringement of "tereastarr@KaZaA" (and notified the user via KaZaA instant message that he or she had been caught sharing files) back in February 2005, Thomas-Rasset hauled her Compaq Presario down to the local Best Buy. There was a problem with the hard drive, so Best Buy replaced it under warranty.
That might sound like no big deal until you realize that Thomas-Rasset later provided this new hard drive—and not the one in the machine during the alleged February infringement—to investigators and to her own expert witness. It becomes an even bigger deal when you realize that she swore under oath—twice—that she had replaced the hard drive in 2004 (a full year earlier) and that it had not been changed again since.
Next up was Eric Stanley, who had been hired by Thomas-Rasset before her first trial to examine the same hard drive that was turned over to recording industry investigators. Thomas-Rasset at first told Stanley that the drive had been replaced in 2004, well before the alleged infringement, so this evidence looked like it would be great for Thomas-Rasset... until recording industry lawyers deposed Stanley and Thomas-Rasset on the same day. At some point during that day, Stanley heard something that led him to examine the physical drive once more during a break. It was then he found the sticker with a manufacturing date—of early 2005.
Stanley realized he was looking at a drive that had likely not even been in the machine when the alleged infringement took place.
So she refused a settlement offer at the very beginning even before being represented by a lawyer, then repeatedly lied under oath to judge and jury(no wonder the damages were soooooo high, juries hate being blatantly lied to and want to teach such people a lesson) and now is still being...well... a dick. Imagine if the only punishment if you get caught stealing(stealing real goods, pedants please note) was to just pay up later, everyone would just steal then and pay up later if got caught. On top of that, the $1/song is for downloading the songs, not uploading which has a bigger punishment under law since the plaintiffs potentially lost revenue. I am sure this distinction will be lost on most of the posters here again who will repeatedly say the actual damages are just $24.
Anyway this was one of the worst cases that should have gone to court against the RIAA. They sued wrongly lots of times but this one case should've been settled long ago by Thomas, she knew she was in the wrong and tried to weasel her way out of it by lying.
More, if you want to read:
Why was Thomas-Rasset's password-protected computer running KaZaA in February 2005, and with the "tereastarr" name, if she had not set up the software? And since no one else ha
Estimated actual damages
24 songs with a $.99 retail value. Assume the $.99 is the damage per song that a sale was lost on. (That's not the case actually as the wholesale price is the damage amount.) Assume every song downloaded is an actual lost sale. (Again not true, but simple for this calculation.) Assume a seed ration of 5, so for every song 5 copies were made. (Again not true, 5 is an insanely high ratio on P2P networks as 1:1 is common.) 24*.99.*5 = $118.80 actual losses incurred. 10 times that is the constitutionally recognized limit.
$1188.0
That's why RIAA doesn't want the constitutionality of the damages award adjudicated.
aha, so because speeding is criminal, and occasionally deadly, it should have lower costs than a civil offense with no chance of causing physical harm to anyone?
The attacks on Ray Beckerman are more than a little unfair, given his solid record over the years here on Slashdot. He's given a lot of free legal advice here over the years, and personally, I appreciate him. For the record, Blogspot.com is owned by Google, and I wouldn't be surprised to find that the ads are crammed in there by Google to help pay for the service. The insinuation here (and in other replies immediately following) that he simply posts here to drive people to an "ad-laden" site is more than unfair.
I, for one, appreciate his updates on these very important cases. If you disagree with Ray's take on requests for extension, that's certainly your right (and I disagree with you, by the way; I think it's very significant in this case, given the circumstances).
You joke, but I wouldn't be surprised if you could sell a couple of thousand NewYorkCountryLawyer action figures. Especially if you gave him huge action figure muscles like they did for Luke Skywalker.
I must have accidentally clicked "post anonymously" when I posted the above defense of Mr. Beckerman. I wrote it and I'm not ashamed of it. :)
Cogito, igitur comedam pizza.
I'm going to step in and correct one thing. I wouldn't say that he's given "legal advice" here at all. That's a special creature that includes all sorts of ethical duties. What he has done, though, is provide a great deal of legal information, clarification, and insight. I would hate for a good deed to turn into a regret by people confusing legal information for advice. At the very least, he can be appreciated for being a contributing member of the community where most people in his position would not bother.