Woman illegally downloads 24 songs, fined to tune of $1.9 million
(CNN) -- A federal jury Thursday found a 32-year-old Minnesota woman guilty of illegally downloading music from the Internet and fined her $80,000 each -- a total of $1.9 million -- for 24 songs.
Jammie Thomas-Rasset's case was the first such copyright infringement case to go to trial in the United States, her attorney said.
Attorney Joe Sibley said that his client was shocked at fine, noting that the price tag on the songs she downloaded was 99 cents.
She plans to appeal, he said.
Cara Duckworth, a spokeswoman for the Recording Industry Association of America, said the RIIA was "pleased that the jury agreed with the evidence and found the defendant liable."
"We appreciate the jury's service and that they take this as seriously as we do," she said.
Thomas-Rasset downloaded work by artists such as No Doubt, Linkin Park, Gloria Estefan and Sheryl Crow.
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This was the second trial for Thomas-Rasset. The judge ordered a retrial in 2007 after there was an error in the wording of jury instructions.
The fines jumped considerably from the first trial, which granted just $220,000 to the recording companies.
Thomas-Rasset is married with four children and works for an Indian tribe in Minnesota.
* Guns N Roses "Welcome to the Jungle"; "November Rain"
* Vanessa Williams "Save the Best for Last"
* Janet Jackson "Letגs What Awhile"
* Gloria Estefan "Here We Are"; "Coming Out of the Heart"; "Rhythm is Gonna Get You"
* Goo Goo Dolls "Iris"
* Journey "Faithfully"; "Donגt Stop Believing"
* Sara McLachlan "Possession"; "Building a Mystery"
* Aerosmith "Cryinג"
* Linkin Park "One Step Closer"
* Def Leppard "Pour Some Sugar on Me"
* Reba McEntire "One Honest Heart"
* Bryan Adams "Somebody"
* No Doubt "Bathwater"; "Hella Good"; "Different People"
* Sheryl Crow "Run Baby Run"
* Richard Marx "Now and Forever"
* Destinyגs Child "Bills, Bills, Bills"
* Green Day "Basket Case"
* Guns N Roses "Welcome to the Jungle"; "November Rain"
* Vanessa Williams "Save the Best for Last"
* Janet Jackson "Letגs What Awhile"
* Gloria Estefan "Here We Are"; "Coming Out of the Heart"; "Rhythm is Gonna Get You"
* Goo Goo Dolls "Iris"
* Journey "Faithfully"; "Donגt Stop Believing"
* Sara McLachlan "Possession"; "Building a Mystery"
* Aerosmith "Cryinג"
* Linkin Park "One Step Closer"
* Def Leppard "Pour Some Sugar on Me"
* Reba McEntire "One Honest Heart"
* Bryan Adams "Somebody"
* No Doubt "Bathwater"; "Hella Good"; "Different People"
* Sheryl Crow "Run Baby Run"
* Richard Marx "Now and Forever" * Destinyגs Child "Bills, Bills, Bills"
* Green Day "Basket Case"
Irony being that this wouldn't have cost her over $60.00 had she gone to her nearest Cheapo location.
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Where do you download to get caught? If your download from sendspace, rapidshare, ect... can they catch you? Stupid question but I down want to get caught downloadin dirty nah mean..
Where could she be downloading from? Almost every blog offers downloads. Is she on some site like Kazza or whatever it's called. This shit blows my mind.
The fines are stupid. I wouldn't even respond to the letter. Fuck outta here. 2 million dollars for some songs? The most you should be charged is the cost of the CDs they are on. Not 80k for each track. the fuck?
Philaflava wrote:Where could she be downloading from? Almost every blog offers downloads. Is she on some site like Kazza or whatever it's called. This shit blows my mind.
There are still morons who use that site. And LimeWire.
People are stupid but the RIAA are greedy scumbags. If they were smart enough to adapt their business models to the current cultural and economic climate, they could survive.
Unfortunately, they have to pinch every penny til the eagle screams.
* "Rhythm is Gonna Get You" (Replace Rhythm with RIAA)
* Aerosmith "Cryinג"
* Bryan Adams "Somebody" (Somebody call a lawyer)
* Sheryl Crow "Run Baby Run"
* Richard Marx "Now and Forever" (Cuz' thats how long she'll be paying)
* Destinyגs Child "Bills, Bills, Bills"
* Guns N Roses "Welcome to the Jungle"; "November Rain"
* Vanessa Williams "Save the Best for Last"
* Janet Jackson "Letגs What Awhile"
* Gloria Estefan "Here We Are"; "Coming Out of the Heart"; "Rhythm is Gonna Get You"
* Goo Goo Dolls "Iris"
* Journey "Faithfully"; "Donגt Stop Believing"
* Sara McLachlan "Possession"; "Building a Mystery"
* Aerosmith "Cryinג"
* Linkin Park "One Step Closer"
* Def Leppard "Pour Some Sugar on Me"
* Reba McEntire "One Honest Heart"
* Bryan Adams "Somebody"
* No Doubt "Bathwater"; "Hella Good"; "Different People"
* Sheryl Crow "Run Baby Run"
* Richard Marx "Now and Forever"
* Destinyגs Child "Bills, Bills, Bills"
* Green Day "Basket Case"
Should've tacked on an extra $2M in punitive damages for having such awful taste.
Philaflava wrote:Where could she be downloading from? Almost every blog offers downloads. Is she on some site like Kazza or whatever it's called. This shit blows my mind.
Yeah she was on Kazaa.
She said she's not too upset because she doesn't make much money so they'll never get most of the money from that judgement.
I believe i read that they offered her an initial settlement of $3-5000 that she refused.
Stupid.
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i thought the RIAA was done with this shit? didn't they make a recent announcement that they were going to stop suing people and work with the isp's instead and just start suspending peoples accounts and shit?
The RIAA today delivered a partial change in stance on Friday by revealing that it will drop its longstanding campaign of suing individual users it alleges have pirate music. The representative group for major music labels says the decision comes after recognizing that its previous approach made people aware of file sharing as a problem but that it was ultimately not very effective in halting the problem outright. Although the number of users has remained constant, the amount of files traded has gone up, the RIAA claims.
Instead, the organization plans to adopt a strategy primarily used by the MPAA and UK music labels that will rely on agreements with "major" Internet providers to screen file sharing. Users will be told when they have been allegedly found illegally trading music and will be given one or two more warnings that may include throttling to discourage sharing. Providers may optionally disconnect users outright, according to the RIAA.
How soon this approach would start is unknown, though the RIAA's members plan to continue any ongoing lawsuits.
The strategy won't entirely replace lawsuits against the most frequent traders but would eliminate some of the problems raised by critics of the previous strategy, including pressure to breach customers' privacy by requiring identification for the sake of a lawsuit. It would also soften the initial response by the RIAA to discoveries by avoiding lawsuits as first responses.
While positioned as cautious, the new approach is already believed to be a reaction to an increasingly negative public perception of its lawsuit tactics, which have often targeted incorrect subjects and have often been leveled at those suspected of relatively mild file trading. Well-known lawsuit target Jammie Thomas successfully had an RIAA win overturned after the judge in her case determined that the fine levied against Thomas was well in excess of the actual cost of the two dozen songs allegedly shared.
Others have accused the RIAA of racketeering-like behavior with the lawsuits by pushing many towards uncontested settlements worth thousands of dollars rather than facing frequently unaffordable disputes in court.
Both the lawsuits and now notifications are widely believed to be attempts to shore up declining music sales, with a large drop in CD purchases over recent years yet to be fully matched by a similar increase in Internet sales through iTunes and other stores.
Jammie Thomas-Rasset's case was the first such copyright infringement case to go to trial in the United States, her attorney said.
Attorney Joe Sibley said that his client was shocked at fine, noting that the price tag on the songs she downloaded was 99 cents.
Cara Duckworth, a spokeswoman for the Recording Industry Association of America, said the RIIA was "pleased that the jury agreed with the evidence and found the defendant liable and we hope that us bankrupting this woman with four children who works for fucking corn eating Redskin casino monkeys really proves our point to all those god damn college kids. We will ruin your life, you fucking cocksuckers. Have you ever seen hell? I was created from 100 percent Satan ejaculate and I'm just doing my daddy's bidding. I wish I could just choke the life out of her with my bare hands or shoot one of her kids point blank in the face in front of her but I wouldn't want to mess up my nails. What? They were like 50 dollars a nail, motherfucker!"
Thomas-Rasset is married with four children and works for an Indian tribe in Minnesota.
Anybody who can actually afford to pay this wouldn't be illegally downloading in the first place. They're just trying to make an example out of her, which is basically ruining her life.
I didn't read every post, but was there any note of how much jail time she would have to do to make up for her fines?
"I just lick my lips on some LL shit, then I make 'em laugh on some David Chappelle shit. And they be on some, "let's go to the hotel" shit. I give 'em hard dick on some just got out of jail shit. The innocent man, been in the can, but I never made a statement, never been in the stand. And I'm independent now, but that been in the plans, cuz it's all about the Benjamins, man."- Cassidy
ultimately, bitch is stupid. fine is absurdity and i dont expect it to stand when the dust settles, but i bet she already has legal fees larger than the settlement the RIAA offered her back in 2005. she chose to get on the high horse, but her case was a disaster and she lied under oath a few times and can maybe count herself lucky to not be facin perjury charges.
