[Corp. Watch] Corporate-driven copyright law fines woman $1.9 million for sharing $24 worth of music

[Corporation Watch]

Big Fine Could Be Big Trouble in Downloading Case

By Chris Williams

(Associated Press, June 19) -- A $1.92 million verdict against a  
Minnesota woman accused of sharing 24 songs over the Internet could  
ratchet up the pressure on other defendants to settle with the  
recording industry -- if the big fine can withstand an appeal.
	"Normally in our American legal system, we say the punishment should  
fit the crime," said Ken Port, director of the Intellectual Property  
Institute at William Mitchell College of Law in St. Paul. "Now she's  
being ordered to pay, in some ways, an incomprehensible amount of  
damages."

	Port has closely watched the recording industry's case against Jammie  
Thomas-Rasset, 32, and wrote a brief that helped persuade the judge in  
her first trial in 2007 to grant her the retrial that ended Thursday.

	In the latest trial, a federal jury in Minneapolis ruled that she  
must pay $1.92 million for willful infringement of the recording  
industry's copyrights by posting the music on the file-sharing site  
Kazaa.

	Under federal law, music companies are entitled to $750 to $30,000  
per infringement, but the law allows the jury to raise that to as much  
as $150,000 per track if it finds the infringements were willful.

	The jury decided on $80,000 per song. "They now have a verdict they  
can use in other cases around America," Port said of the recording  
industry. "The prices that they will charge for settling is going to  
go up."

	Thomas-Rasset was the first -- and so far only -- music file-sharing  
defendant to go to trial. The music industry has threatened about  
35,000 people with charges of copyright infringement over the past  
five years, typically offering to settle the cases for $3,000 to $5,000.

	The recording industry estimates that a few hundred of those cases  
remain unresolved, with fewer than 10 defendants actively fighting  
them. In December, the industry said it dropped its strategy of going  
after individuals to instead focus on Internet service providers.

	Cara Duckworth, a spokeswoman for the Recording Industry Association  
of America, said Friday the verdict should remind those who share  
music illegally about the penalties in copyright law. "For the few  
existing cases, this verdict is a reminder of the clarity of the law,"  
she said.

	She noted that the $1.92 million was not a figure requested by the  
industry. "That was not our number, that was what 12 regular folks  
rendered," she said of the jury, adding that the industry remains open  
to settling the case with Thomas-Rasset.

	Kiwi Camara, one of Thomas-Rasset's attorneys, said his client  
planned to appeal the ruling, but the legal team would take a few days  
to settle on its legal arguments. The damage award will probably be  
part of it.

	"There really is a problem with the statute, because she's been fined  
$1.9 million for stealing 24 songs that went for about $.99 on  
iTunes," he said. "There's no way that can be the correct result."

	Even the presiding judge in the case might find the $1.9 million  
excessive. When Judge Michael Davis ordered the retrial, he also  
implored Congress to change copyright laws, after Thomas-Rasset was  
ordered to pay a mere $222,000 in the first trial, an amount he called  
"wholly disproportionate."

	The new fine is more than eight times the first amount.

	Camara and co-counsel Joe Sibley represent two other people being  
sued by the recording industry -- Brittany English, a student at Case  
Western Reserve University in Ohio, and Joel Tenenbaum, a student at  
Boston University.

	He said the Thomas-Rasset verdict wouldn't change how he approaches  
those cases. "Every jury is different," he said. "So the conclusions  
of this jury really has no precedent on the conclusions of the next  
jury."

	Fred von Lohmann, a senior staff attorney with the Electronic  
Frontier Foundation, said the nearly $2 million verdict may even hurt  
the recording industry, by making it more vulnerable on appeal and  
bolstering the argument that the copyright system is broken if it can  
impose such huge penalties for non-commercial activity.

	"A $2 million verdict for sharing 24 songs?" he said.

	Unlike Port, von Lohmann didn't believe the verdict would raise  
settlement costs for file-sharing defendants, because the industry  
doesn't want more trials like Thomas-Rasset's. "It's not about getting  
a big number," he said. "It's about getting a number that people will  
pay without a fight."

	And the verdict will do nothing at all, he said, for the millions of  
people who share music, but haven't been targeted by the recording  
industry. "The word on the street is that they are no longer going  
after people to sue," he said.

	However, the Progress & Freedom Foundation, a free-market think tank,  
defended the verdict and said $1.92 million was reasonable.

	"Legally acquiring a license to give copies of a song to potentially  
millions of Kazaa users might well have cost $80,000 per song," said  
Tom Sydnor, director of the foundation's Center for the Study of  
Digital Property. "Moreover, if the jury concluded that the defendant  
falsified her testimony, it could fairly seek to punish and deter such  
flagrant wrongdoing."

	The companies that sued Thomas-Rasset are subsidiaries of all four  
major recording companies -- Warner Music Group Corp., Vivendi SA's  
Universal Music Group, EMI Group PLC and Sony Corp.'s Sony Music  
Entertainment.

	The recording industry has blamed online piracy for declines in music  
sales, although other factors include the rise of legal music sales  
online, which emphasize buying individual tracks rather than full  
albums.