Thomas verdict: willful infringement, $1.92 million penalty [Ars Technica]
Yikes! I just caught this on Morning Joe on MSNBC this morning and looked it up on the web. Talk about a disincentive to use peer-to-peer applications to pirate music. Word comes today from Minnesota about the retrial of the music industry's copyright infringement claims against a woman accused of sharing 24 songs via P2P. Jammie Thomas-Rasset was sued by music industry representatives in 2007. In a previous trial, in which the verdict was later thrown out, Thomas-Rasset was found liable for infringement and ordered to pay $222,000. The verdict in Thomas-Rasset's new trial: $1.92 million, or $80,000 per song shared on P2P.
The music industry presented evidence that linked Thomas-Rasset's cable modem and Ethernet card MAC address to the shared music. But even with convincing evidence that the songs were on her computer, Thomas-Rasset took the stand in her defense to claim that someone else downloaded the songs onto her computer. Though the suit only involved 24 songs, a total of over 1,700 stolen works were found on her computer.
It looks likely from the stories I've read about this verdict that the music industry will work to come up with a reasonable settlement with Thomas-Rasset rather than attempting to enforce the nearly $2 million judgment. The industry has been negotiating with Thomas-Rasset throughout the process in an attempt to come up with a settlement, but she opted to have the suit go to trial. The entire situation is a prime example of why it's not a good idea to trade copyright material via P2P networks. At the end of the day, it may just turn out to be a lot less expensive simply to purchase the music legitimately.
Comments