File Sharing Trail...

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20071004/ap_en_mu/downloading_music

Record companies win music sharing trial
By JOSHUA FREED, Associated Press Writer


DULUTH, Minn. - The recording industry won a key fight Thursday against illegal music downloading when a federal jury found a Minnesota woman shared copyrighted music online and levied $220,000 in damages against her.

The jury ordered Jammie Thomas, 30, to pay the six record companies that sued her $9,250 for each of 24 songs they focused on in the case. They had alleged she shared 1,702 songs in all.
Thomas and her attorney, Brian Toder, declined comment as they left the courthouse.
In the first such lawsuit to go to trial, the record companies accused Thomas of downloading the songs without permission and offering them online through a Kazaa file-sharing account. Thomas denied wrongdoing and testified that she didn't have a Kazaa account.
Record companies have filed some 26,000 lawsuits since 2003 over file-sharing, which has hurt sales because it allows people to get music for free instead of paying for recordings in stores. Many other defendants have settled by paying the companies a few thousand dollars.
During the three-day trial, the record companies presented evidence they said showed the copyrighted songs were offered by a Kazaa user under the name "tereastarr." Their witnesses, including officials from an Internet provider and a security firm, testified that the Internet address used by "tereastarr" belonged to Thomas.
Toder said in his closing that the companies never proved "Jammie Thomas, a human being, got on her keyboard and sent out these things."
"We don't know what happened," Toder told jurors. "All we know is that Jammie Thomas didn't do this."
Richard Gabriel, the companies' lead attorney, called that defense "misdirection, red herrings, smoke and mirrors."
He told jurors a verdict against Thomas would send a message to other illegal downloaders.
"I only ask that you consider that the need for deterrence here is great," he said.
Copyright law sets a damage range of $750 to $30,000 per infringement, or up to $150,000 if the violation was "willful." Jurors ruled that Thomas' infringement was willful but awarded damages in a middle range.
Before the verdict, an official with an industry trade group said he was surprised it had taken so long for one of the industry's lawsuits against individual downloaders to come to trial.
Illegal downloads have "become business as usual, nobody really thinks about it," said Cary Sherman, president of the Recording Industry Association of America, which coordinates the lawsuits. "This case has put it back in the news. Win or lose, people will understand that we are out there trying to protect our rights."
Thomas's her testimony was complicated by the fact that she had replaced her computer's hard drive after the sharing was alleged to have taken place — and later than she said in a deposition before trial.
The hard drive in question was not presented at trial by either party, though Thomas used her new one to show the jury how fast it copies songs from CDs. That was an effort to counter an industry witness's assertion that the songs on the old drive got there too fast to have come from CDs she owned — and therefore must have been downloaded illegally.
Record companies said Thomas was sent an instant message in February 2005, warning her that she was violating copyright law. Her hard drive was replaced the following month, not in 2004, as she said in the deposition.
The record companies involved in the lawsuit are Sony BMG, Arista Records LLC, Interscope Records, UMG Recordings Inc., Capitol Records Inc. and Warner Bros. Records Inc.

That's a scary verdict, but I think she was hit hard because she was trying to lie her way through being caught red-handed. What was her argument? She did it, but felt she could fight it and make history. She was wrong.

Personally, I like this verdict. Hopefully it sends a message. I mean, we all download, but I don't know if many of us are sharing thousands and thousands of songs online, you know? It won't stop, though.

Quote :

It won't stop, though.

Nope.

Shawn Of Fire wrote:

Quote :

It won't stop, though.

Nope.

Neither will the meaningless murder of millions of innocent chickens EVERYDAY!

spectrefate wrote:

Shawn Of Fire wrote:

Quote :

It won't stop, though.

Nope.

Neither will the meaningless murder of millions of innocent chickens EVERYDAY!

That's what keeps me in Chicken Sandwiches!!!

spectrefate wrote:

Shawn Of Fire wrote:

Quote :

It won't stop, though.

Nope.

Neither will the meaningless murder of millions of innocent chickens EVERYDAY!

You say meaningless, I say "deliciousness".

Saw this question on another board:

Quote :

So if I buy (or borrow) a book and leave it on top of a photocopier that anyone can use, am I in deep smurf poo for copyright infringement?

I guess she got hit so hard because she didn't settle this case.... If she had done so it would have saved her about 216K

That's a lot of cds

Seed of Pain wrote:

I guess she got hit so hard because she didn't settle this case.... If she had done so it would have saved her about 216K

That's a lot of cds

Agreed. But some chumps just want everything for free.

I also think it is more likely to get sued if you share major-label stuff....

Ah! News from my hometown, this has been a huge deal around here. That sucks, but she will be ok, her tribe will probably help her out. I bet she wishes that she would have just bought the cds.

At first I was wondering what a "file sharing trail" was and where it went, but then I read the actual post

Eyesore wrote:

It won't stop, though.

it sure won't.

I still think they were never able to prove it was her doing the downloading. It was her IP but it was never proven she was behind the computer. I think this case suffers from the problems that the red light cameras have - you cant assign points to someones license because you dont know it was them driving the car. You can assess the fine though. THe jury was wrong to conclude it was her simply on strength of IP. It could have been someone else in her family/friends etc. I think the damages will drastically reduced on appeal.

Alex