Woman fined $1.9 million for downloading songs

[Doc Holliday]

Woman illegally downloads 24 songs, fined to tune of $1.9 million

-Federal jury finds Jammie Thomas-Rasset guilty of illegally downloading 24 songs
-Minnesota wife, mom slapped with fine of $80,000 per song, for total of $1.9 million
-Attorney says client shocked at fine, noting the songs costs 99 cents each
-Spokeswoman for the Recording Industry Association of America lauds jury's finding

(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.

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.

http://www.cnn.com/2009/CRIME/06/18/minnesota.music.download.fine/index.html?iref=mpstoryview

 

[eastender]

Copyrights

Woman illegally downloads 24 songs, fined to tune of $1.9 million

-Federal jury finds Jammie Thomas-Rasset guilty of illegally downloading 24 songs
-Minnesota wife, mom slapped with fine of $80,000 per song, for total of $1.9 million
-Attorney says client shocked at fine, noting the songs costs 99 cents each
-Spokeswoman for the Recording Industry Association of America lauds jury's finding

(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.

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.

http://www.cnn.com/2009/CRIME/06/18/minnesota.music.download.fine/index.html?iref=mpstoryview

As an owner of many copyrights I do not have any sympathy.

She obviously knew the cost $0.99/per and was not even willing to pay that amount for the songs.

 

[Time to Punt]

While the fact that she is guilty is not news, the amount of the fine of $1.9 million is, and it's clearly absurd. Unfortunately it is just another in the long line of silly " Women Wins $1 million from McDonalds For Hot Coffee Spill " legal awards in the US that seem to make a mockery of the civil legal system.

What I have a hard time understanding is why the Recording Industry Association picked this woman to make an example of. Surely there are less potentially sympathetic people to go after than a mother of 4 who sounds as if she is a Native American.

 

[hungry101]

Absurd

This is absurd.

If you want more background information on the recording industry and cases like this please refer to the US documentry called South Park. There are two key, landmark episodes that deal with the recording industry and this sort of thing.

First - The recording industry steals a song that Chef wrote. Throughout the episode, the rich record executive continues to claim "I am is above the law."

second - the 8 year old kids download music from the internet and are caught in a FBI sting. Kyle says "all we did was download a few songs from the internet" and the FBI takes the kids on a tour to show them the damage that they caused to these so-called pop stars in the style of "A Christmas Carol."

 

[leneo]

Wow

if i get caught i will owed them around 10 000 000 $$$

i better check my Peggy back if I'm ok !!!

 

[CLOUD 500]

Absurd

This is ridiculous. These record companies are making billions of dollars at the expense of working class people that do not have much a lot of them just have enough to live with the necessities. However these CEO who are going around buying $15 million dollar homes, $50 000 clothes, etc.. I have no sympathy for these record companies, celebrities, and the like. To sell these songs, movies, etc. at outrageous prices when they are really not worth much. But nothing can be done this capitalistic society was designed to favor and protect the rich businesses. Also it is a free market system and people are stupid enough to pay all this money on all these things .

 

[Doc Holliday]

This is in the US so no worry for us Canadians.
Copying songs is not illegal here...unfortunately.

It isn't??

Unfortunately??

 

[Halloween Mike]

Wow its the first time i see this. I don't get that, how this woman will pay this fine? Most people don't make that in a lifetime.

I mean i always tought that you become a target of the police when you start selling... Why they would go after someone who download for his personal things...?

Of course the story dosen't say it all, they talk about 99 cent things, maybe she hacked a website, wich is different then using peer to peer file sharing, or something like that.

Anyway personally i try to buy when i can, will it be movies or music, but i don't want to pay too much. For exemple i run the specials in video club for movies, i usually always buy them used at 10-12$ for new release. Lately they doing a special, 6 movies cost 20$, wich i think is nice, so i buyed 12 movies...

Unfortunaly when it comes to music, they rarely do such specials, i try to look at used cds store, but price never drop or rarely do under 10$ per cd...

So i buy only what i really like, when i like the full album, if i like just one song, i download it, and i of course its way more sample to just use mini nova instead of giving all credit card information and such on a website for a 99 cent song.

 

[hungry101]

I have bootleg tv and bootleg everything else i can get my hands on the hell with them, the hell with them all. Take my satellite tv for example, all i have is a receiver in my house a satellite on my roof and there darn signal keeps coming right into my living room, there lucky i don't sue. i can't keep it out, so i say it is there fault not mine

You are taking money out of the mouths of Britney Spears Children! You are stealing her art!

 

[Techman]

If someone wants me to pay for the music I download they damn well better give me something encoded in much higher quality than MP3. It's gotten to the point that even CDs have lousy sound quality and everything seems to be released with the end goal of ending up on an iPod being blasted on earphones these days.

If someone puts music online in a lossless format such as FLAC, encoded from the original master tapes, then maybe I might consider giving them my money. But right now, the quality isn't any better than what I can record from an internet radio station or a satellite receiver. And doing it that way is perfectly legal.

Not that there is very much new music these days that is worth paying for in any format.

 

[bond_james_bond]

I mean i always tought that you become a target of the police when you start selling... Why they would go after someone who download for his personal things...?

It was a civil lawsuit.

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601085&sid=a9y16Zokxk90

“From day one, we’ve been willing to settle this case for somewhere between $3,000 and $5,000,” said Cara Duckworth, an RIAA spokeswoman.

 

[Techman]

And in the EU, the Pirate Party actually wins a seat in the government.

http://torrentfreak.com/pirate-party-wins-and-enters-the-european-parliament-090607/

http://torrentfreak.com/how-pirates-shook-european-politics-090608/

 

[NathanJ]

Hey ! are we talking about this country which is the leader of the civilized free world ? You know the one who elected twice a moron who lied and f*ked up so bad the economy that we are now in a world recession...

You would have to be a f*ing moron to make her pay 1.9M for 24 songs.
No matter what 'the law says'.

As for copyrights and patents... just one word : 'Monsanto' !
Alleluhia ! God Bless America !

 

[metoo4]

If someone wants me to pay for the music I download they damn well better give me something encoded in much higher quality than MP3. It's gotten to the point that even CDs have lousy sound quality and everything seems to be released with the end goal of ending up on an iPod being blasted on earphones these days.

If someone puts music online in a lossless format such as FLAC, encoded from the original master tapes, then maybe I might consider giving them my money. But right now, the quality isn't any better than what I can record from an internet radio station or a satellite receiver. And doing it that way is perfectly legal.
...

You mean, honestly, I'm not the only one on earth who think the ultra compression is ruining everything? You don't say that only to make me happy? Finding I'm not alone, that almost got me sobbing, most peoples don't even see a difference...

 

[Techman]

You mean, honestly, I'm not the only one on earth who think the ultra compression is ruining everything? You don't say that only to make me happy? Finding I'm not alone, that almost got me sobbing, most peoples don't even see a difference...

No, you most certainly aren't the only one. I guess part of the problem is that there is a generation that has never listened to anything other than MP3s and badly encoded CDs and they just don't know any better. Lately I've been kicking myself for giving away my vinyl collection to a friend when I last moved because you can now purchase a USB turntable to connect to a PC to rip all the old albums and save them in whatever lossless format you desire. And this for around a hundred bucks.

Sadly, I think audiophiles are a dying breed.

 

[Agrippa]

Copyleft

I don't have the time to clearly lay-out my position, but I will recommend this Canadian made documentary: RiP: A remix manifesto.

Copyright as we know it is an outdated concept. Instead of lengthening the term of a copyright, gouvernments should should have shortened it. Look up public domain, open source, copyleft... get with the times.

 

[Agrippa]

Loudness wars

[...] It's gotten to the point that even CDs have lousy sound quality and everything seems to be released with the end goal of ending up on an iPod being blasted on earphones these days.

A short and informative video that elaborates on Techman's point: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Gmex_4hreQ

 

[Below500k]

Read beyond the headline

If you read a little further about this case, the fines are not because she downloaded the music.

She is being fined for hosting those songs for others to download (be it peer 2 peer or other).

The compensation is based upon an arbitrary amount x the number of reported downloads of those songs + a penalty.

--

As for the other leg of this discussion about compression ruining music...
get over it and stop pretending that you can hear the difference. A ripped digital file even at 256 is all but indiscernible, and I would be glad to host a double blind test. I have done it many times to my audiophile/analogue friends. Unless you are running a +100k system in a very controlled room, you will not be able to identify which is which on a consistent basis. If you get 4 out of 10 I would be very surprised.

Finally the third leg<grin>...

Music executives are the ones to blame for any lack of funds reaching the writers of the music. They are leeches and scumbags. It would be very easy for them to switch to a proper shared compensation model, and proper file protection but they refuse to do it... for their sake, not the artists. These greedy fucks will rightfully become extinct within 10yrs because of the internet model, and it cannot come soon enough if you ask me.

<500k

 

[Techman]

I'm not just talking about the quality of ripped files, I'm talking about the general quality of recorded music today. If you start with a lousy recording to begin with, it's obvious that the ripped result will also be crap. Using a lossy format to convert it compounds the quality issue. And no matter what you say, I can tell the difference when listening to music on a decent sound system. I'm not talking about a car system powered by a 14 inch subwoofer that makes every home vibrate when it drives by or a set of 100 buck speakers on a PC. Or an iPod.

I agree with what you say about the record companies though. They failed to adapt and now they're paying the price. They, along with the MPAA, continue to complain about lost profits but refuse to look at what they are actually marketing to see if it is actually worth people spending their money on it. The Wolverine movie is a great example. It was available on the Web for over a month before it was released in theaters and was downloaded millions of times. But it still had a huge opening weekend of 89 million dollars! The downloads didn't hurt it at all and may have even boosted it's earnings.

The RIAA and MPAA should be looking at the quality of the product they are selling instead of blaming downloaders for any losses they suffer.

 

[YouVantOption]

No, you most certainly aren't the only one. I guess part of the problem is that there is a generation that has never listened to anything other than MP3s and badly encoded CDs and they just don't know any better. Lately I've been kicking myself for giving away my vinyl collection to a friend when I last moved because you can now purchase a USB turntable to connect to a PC to rip all the old albums and save them in whatever lossless format you desire. And this for around a hundred bucks.

Sadly, I think audiophiles are a dying breed.

Indeed. For example, the cost of the cartridge on my turntable is five times that of the POS USB noted above.

I intend to buy a very high-end turntable pre-amp to add to my existing system, and a reasonably high-end A-to-D converter to make the change. The electronics on most computers aren't up to the job.

As to badly-encoded CDs, sure there are/were a lot of them. 20 years ago, when there was a rush for product. Now, original master tapes have been found, and lovingly encoded, and my system (tube amp and CD player, electrostatic loudspeakers) says to me many recordings are far better than record pressings available in this country run from copies of copies of master tapes, made from over-run pressing stampers.

As to MP3s, yeah well, you get what you pay for.