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RIAA To Appeal Thomas-Rasset Ruling
frank_adrian314159 writes "The RIAA will appeal the ruling that reduced Jammie Thomas-Rasset's $1.92 million fine for file sharing to $54,000. '"It is a shame that Ms. Thomas-Rasset continues to deny any responsibility for her actions rather than accept a reasonable settlement offer and put this case behind her," said RIAA spokeswoman Cara Duckworth.' Joe Sibley, an attorney for Thomas-Rasset, said his client would not settle for the $25,000 that the RIAA has asked for. '"Jammie is not going to agree to pay any amount of money to them," Sibley said, adding that it doesn't matter to Thomas-Rasset whether the damages are $25,000 or $1.92 million.' In addition, Thomas-Rasset's attorneys say that, win or lose, they plan to appeal the constitutionality of the fine."
The RIAA will appeal the ruling that reduced Jammie Thomas-Rasset's $1.92 fine for file sharing to $54,000
That wouldn't be a reduction. That would be a dramatic increase.
I am the richest astronaut ever to win the superbowl.
Jammie Thomas-Rasset lost in court. She should have settled in the first place.
But really, she's judgement proof: whether its $50K or $5M or $5B, they can't get blood from that stone, she's Judgement Proof.
So really, its principle on both sides. The RIAA wants a scary number to prevent solvent people from fighting these cases, and she wants the RIAA to get zippo. Neither will give in, and dollars-to-doughnuts says the judgement of at least $50K will withstand appeals and the RIAA will be left to try to collect it before just giving up, with both sides in that case winning: the RIAA gets their huge verdict through and tested, and Jammie Thomas-Rasset gets to tell the RIAA's bill collectors to go F-themselves.
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I don't know why the story says it's an "appeal". It's not an appeal. It's just a new trial of the appropriate statutory damages.
Ray Beckerman +5 Insightful
Interesting idea, but due to Hollywood Accounting it would probably never be feasible in practice. I'd accept a return to reasonable copyright terms as an alternative.
...it doesn't matter to Thomas-Rasset whether the damages are $25,000 or $1.92 million. That's what I've always felt about people suing me... If I'm going to declare bankruptcy to get out of the debt anyway, does it really matter how much they are suing me for? They are going to collect the same amount anyway! (This might not be true in this case, "Intentional Torts" may not be dischargable in bankruptcy, but IANAL so I couldn't tell you whether or not that applies to this case.)
As a side note, I once got out of a $500,000 lawsuit by taking the opposing lawyer outside, pointing to my old ragged motorhome, and telling him "That's my only asset; I'm living in it, and I'm pretty sure I owe more on it than it is worth... you're welcome to try to take it away from me, but you're going to have to find it first! Now, how much effort do you really want to put into this case?" Once you convince them their best case scenario will simply drive you into bankruptcy and they will collect nothing anyway, they're not so keen on taking cases on contingency anymore -- especially meritless ones.
I've abandoned my search for truth; now I'm just looking for some useful delusions.
"To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries."
Unless the RIAA has figured out a way to successfully amend the U.S. Constitution through the courts(hint: they cannot), then there is not a damned thing that is going to change. I believe that corporations should be limited to receiving the real losses for IP theft. If a person is caught stealing one song, then the RIAA would get $0.99 USD, and if someone steals a movie, then the MPAA would get the cost of a movie ticket or DVD/Blu-ray disc, depending on which version is stolen. It is only fair, as these assholes do not deserve to turn a higher profit on each violation because the hire the right lawyer.
Now, any fines the state places on the violator is a different story, but that is up to the people, not the MPAA, or RIAA, etc.
No, but thank you for playing. She was convicted of lying to a federal agent during an investigation even though a) she was not Mirandized, b) she was not under oath and c) what she lied about was not against the law.
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The real question is what the goal of copyright law is. My take would be that one the original artist is dead, further extensions of the copyright on their work do very little to encourage them to produce more. The copyright on Micky Mouse should have died with Walt, not been extended to 75 years.
Interesting side question: J.D. Salinger just died after writing profusely (and profanely) for over 50 years. Much of that will now presumably be published. Does the copyright start on the date he finished writing it, or on the date it is originally published? In this case, copyright law has done absolutely nothing to encourage him to produce more... why should his works still be under copyright 50 years from now?
I've abandoned my search for truth; now I'm just looking for some useful delusions.
a) She didn't have to be Mirandized. She wasn't arrested at that point.
b) Doesn't matter. She wasn't in a court of law.
c) Doesn't matter. It's against the law to obstruct justice and lie to the FBI.
Read item 23 and item 26-27
its distortion of justice, abuse of law, and exploitation of democracy.
private interests are suppressing individual citizens to protect their near monopoly gained profits through legal system. in addition to that, they buy lawmakers and manufacture laws that will protect ill gained profits in expense of freedoms of citizens, as in the acta case.
yet still, a lot of you just label this with a simple, insufficient word, 'greed'. this is not greed. its beyond greed. it has started to become a precise replication of feudal society back in middle ages, albeit, the feudalism has democracy as a storefront. we are supposedly free, yet, as citizens, our relative wealth and liberties compared to those small minority percentage on top of the pyramid didnt change by comparison. neither did the percentages of the wealthy and the ordinary had changed. just, the average standard of living globally has changed. back in middle ages wealthy could afford stone mansions adorned with gold while eating exquisite food whereas the ordinary person would live in thatched roof wooden huts eating gritty bread and cheese, now the wealthy can afford to take private jets halfway over the world on a whim while having hundred thousand dollar champagnes whereas the ordinary person has to work his/her butt off for your average meal. everything is the same in regard to justice in the society.
now, just like everything else that has happened before and had an effect to equalize the situation, empowering the ordinary people and making them less dependent on rich overlords, internet is being suppressed on numerous excuses and grounds, one of which being 'intellectual property rights'. if you put this in a different context with different wording, like into middle ages, you would find that it has no difference from the concept of 'lord's hunting rights in the forest'. and internet is very very detrimental to those 'rights'. it empowers individuals, ordinary people can rise up to noticeable wealth without having to be subservient to any overlord on top with shareholdership or conglomerate ties, and become a threat to existing aristocracy.
no, this is not a matter of simple 'greed'. this is a matter of freedom, and unfortunately, its being fought in the same basic ideals on which it was fought back in middle ages - inequality created due to skewed ownership rights and resulting control scheme. which is unfortunate, because it shows that nothing changed in principle compared to the middle ages, despite the stage and the costumes have changed.
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Disney has balance sheets and accounting books and X number of employees to show what IT'S doing with the IP. What do you have? Other than "but but but feudal system!?"
feudal lords had balance sheets, accounting books, X number of employees, chancellors, stewards, inspectors, taskmasters, sergeant at arms and innumerable other types of offices under them, working for them. even the smaller nobles, 'landholders', or with the term in early middle ages, 'freeholders'.
yea, i say 'but but but but feudal'. because it IS feudal. however, you are quite ignorant on that matter, seeing as how you can show having accounting books and balance sheets as being something differentiating the modern feudal estates from middle age ones.
actually it is worse today. back in feudal times, the lord, estate owner, had an obligation to feed the peasants, who were tied as serfs to his/her estate. it was a double sided oath, a social responsibility. today, the estate owner is even free from that obligation, while retaining all the privileges of being an aristocrat.
and there are people like you too, justifying the system of inequality through various excuses so that you can accept the reality you are living in, and cope up with it.
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No, that's not true. They are supposed to read you your rights when you have been "detained" as a suspect. That is to say, at any time you are no longer free to leave.
> Why? She illegally shared a huge number of songs. When caught, she tried to frame her kids for it. She tried to destroy evidence. She lied repeatedly under oath.
Do you have reliable sources for that, or are you merely engaging in defamation? Because I'm pretty sure she wasn't found guilty of destruction of evidence (and I do know about the hard drive--it broke down and she forgot the date she took it in to get it repaired according to what I read). The other stuff is less clear. The main evidence it was her is a username, but in my family, many of us have shared the same usernames in the past, so I'm not willing to say that she lied because I don't know.
And if she just wanted to settle, she could have gotten out of it for maybe ~$5k before fighting it out legally, based on what I've heard about other settlement offers. $25k still doesn't fit my idea of "reasonable" though. If she sole 2 CDs from a record store (with the 24 songs she was actually convicted of copying), she'd be looking at something like a $500 fine and probation. Even if you make that 4 or 8 or 10 CDs, it wouldn't change much, and Bittorrent shows that multiplying that by anything more than 10 (to give us 20 CDs) is ridiculous. No one has share ratios that high and they have no business collecting for the same losses over and over (which they are, giving that they've filed 30,000 lawsuits or so).
> no one has ever been arrested, charged, or sued for downloading a song.
The whole reason for the second trial in this case was because in the first trial the judge instructed the jury that "making available" was a form of "distribution". In the second trial, he was careful to sidestep that legal question by instructing the jury merely that "downloading or distributing without permission of the rightsholder is in violation of copyright law" (not an exact quotation). Considering that RIAA didn't attempt to prove distribution, only "making available", one must assume that the jury awarded the second trial's damages for the downloading, no?