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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.'"
They have been bought off by the RIAA
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.
Good luck to her - no courts-assisted enforcement without reasonable punishment, and hundreds of thousands of dollars is certainly not reasonable.
The summary does err a bit, though. Jammie wasn't targeted for downloading, but for sharing (i.e. uploading / distributing).
But while I do believe that distribution should be enforced (as opposed to downloading), the height of these awards is ridiculous and acts as no deterring factor; there's little chance you get caught and if you do get caught and try to put up a fight, you're so screwed that you might as well do it anyway. The '6 strikes' scheme would be vastly more efficient - albeit scary in what it will be warped into once put in place.
additionally, the conflict between application of case law between the various Federal Circuits needs to be resolved; someone living in Illinois might get an entirely different set of Federal case law applied than someone in Arizona, and at this stage it's unreasonable to allow that to continue.
According to Wiki Answers one percent are heard. According to Wikipedia 5% of certiorari cases are heard. Note that granting certiorari would allow the **AA's to lobby the courts as "friends of the court" and that the **AA's can afford much better lawyers than you can.
If video games influenced behavior the Pac Man generation would be eating pills and running away from their problems.
Scotus is only supposed to hear a small number of cases that will have major political and constitutional impacts
They are not a trial court. You get 10 minutes to speak your summary most of which you get interrupted by questions from the justices
I didn't read the case, but if the summary is correct, they're making the wrong argument. SCOUTS will say that Congress established the law and that if the law is being followed then Due Process is served.
They should be making a case that the statutory damages constitute 'unusual punishment' and are far outside all other punitive damage amounts ever considered by copyright law in precedent (because Congress has been bought off).
My God, it's Full of Source!
OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
If it was stealing, let's say a CD from a store, then the crime is measured by the value of the item stolen.
This is about copyright -- the right to publish. The defendant was charged with illegal publication -- distribution.
I hate to degrade the discussion by inserting "you're using the wrong words" but in this case it's particularly important. Downloading something you don't have any right to is a problem but the value should only be measured by the value of the materials. But that's not the "problem" as the RIAA sees it. It is the illegal distribution that the RIAA is concerned about. Now we are not talking about stealing as much as illegal reproduction and distribution and THAT is why the punishment is so heavy.
So please. If you want to tout the crime, at least identify the correct crime. It would actually help your argument.
Was she really convicted of "illegal downloading?" It has been my understanding of copyright law that downloading isn't illegal, only the uploading (making available). Hence the bittorrent crack downs. I can buy a bootleg CD abroad or in the US and it's not illegal to possess it. Is this incorrect? During the hay days of allofmp3.com, many Americans bought and downloaded music, but the RIAA could only shut it down by attacking the payment processors; I never heard of them going after allofmp3.com customers for illegal downloading (which they claimed all along that allofmp3.com was about).
Any comments?
Note the RIAA has never published music, and is not a music publisher so should have no right to fine uploaders/distributors /publishers
They represent some of the Music Publishers in the USA, but not all of them, and not all music publishers across the world
But they will and have tried to prosecute people for uploading material where the copyright is not owned by the people they represent, even outside the USA
Puteulanus fenestra mortis
What on earth does her (professed) ethnicity or culture have to do with the issues at hand?
Is this some sort of extreme affirmative action argument where she doesn't have to follow - or possibly isn't able to comprehend - the White Man's law?
No. Stop this. Stop it right now.
If you were blocking sigs, you wouldn't have to read this.
This case is Capitol vs Thomas, not RIAA vs Thomas. Capitol is a music publisher, and this case was about their works.
They have been bought off by the RIAA
The geek blames his every failure in law and politics on bribery.
His only satisfaction the instant mod up to "+5, Insightful" on Slashdot.
The impeachment of Samuel Chase in 1804 is the only impeachment of a Supreme Court justice to have ended in trial in the Senate. The issues were framed by the conflict between Jefferson and a Federalist judiciary --- and in the end, by very wide margins, even a Jeffersonian controlled Senate refused to convict,
In the entire history of the United States, there have been about sixty more or less serious attempts to impeach a federal judge or to shame him into resignation. Perhaps ten were built around credible or proven allegations of bribery. Impeachment investigations of United States federal judges
Was she really convicted of "illegal downloading?"
1. She wasn't "convicted" of anything; this wasn't a criminal case. She was found liable for copyright infringement by making copies through downloading, thus violating the record companies' exclusive reproduction rights.
2. She was also sued for "distributing" and "making available for distributing", but the judge threw out the "making available for distributing" claim, and there was no evidence offered of the "distributing" claim.
So yes, the only thing she was found liable for was downloading.
Ray Beckerman +5 Insightful
They offered to settle for what worked out to around $2 or so per song shared (note: she was sharing around a couple thousand songs--the trial only concerned 24 for technical and practical reasons). That's a lot less than someone would normally pay for a license to redistribute songs to an arbitrary number of untracked people for a flat rate. Note also that even though they only sued over a small fraction of the songs she was sharing, the minimum possible statutory damages would be quite a bit larger than the settlement offer. She knew she was guilty, and should have known they could prove it, so should have jumped at such a reasonable offer.
Then, after she stupidly decided to fight, and lost, and got caught tampering with evidence and perjuring herself (things that do not endear one to a jury--the same jury that will be deciding the damages), and got hit with damages much larger than the settlement offer, the RIAA again offered to settle, again for a reasonable amount. Again she refused, got another trial, lost again, and that jury went for an even bigger amount of damages.
I believe there was a third settlement offer after that.
I question the ethics of her lawyer. I think he's putting satisfying his legal fantasy of winning a stunning case at the Supreme Court ahead of his client's best interests.