Jammie Thomas Takes Constitutional Argument To SCOTUS

NewYorkCountryLawyer writes "Jammie Thomas-Rasset, the Native American Minnesotan found by a jury to have downloaded 24 mp3 files of RIAA singles, has filed a petition for certioriari to the United States Supreme Court, arguing that the award of $220,000 in statutory damages is excessive, in violation of the Due Process Clause. Her petition (PDF) argued that the RIAA's litigation campaign was 'extortion, not law,' and pointed out that '[a]rbitrary statutory damages made the RIAA's litigation campaign possible; in turn,that campaign has inspired copycats like the so-called Copyright Enforcement Group; the U.S. Copyright Group, which has already sued more than 20,000 individual movie downloaders; and Righthaven, which sued bloggers. This Court should grant certiorari to review this use of the federal courts as a scourge.'"

Comments

Re:How likely are they to hear the case?

[Stolpskott]

The one thing I can see in favor of the case being heard is the argument that the current method for establishing statutory damages leads to a pattern of overly broad legislation on the part of RIAA/MPAA-inspired copyright entities, leading to an excessive drain on time and resources of the lower courts.