

Thomas verdict: willful infringement, $1.92 million penalty - clint
http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2009/06/jammie-thomas-retrial-verdict.ars

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ramidarigaz
$80,000 per song... That is fucked up (pardon my language), but that is fucked
up.

Edit: Isn't the law supposed to protect against ridiculous punishments like
these?

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latortuga
I believe it was a civil suit (that's really the only possible way that 80
grand per song couldn't be considered cruel and unusual).

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dflock
I can't really see how this is even remotely proportionate, by any stretch of
the imagination. What were these 24 tracks? A bunch of obscure Swedish Death
Metal by all accounts. Is it likely that collecting these damages would make
more profit than the sales of the tracks ever would? Maybe. But, as she
pointed out, she hasn't got $2m anyway, so they can't collect - it seems
likely that the RIAA will just use the damages as a sledgehammer to bludgeon
her into settling 'out of court' and out of the glare of publicity. It makes
me wonder what the jurors were thinking - awarding life destroying damages
against a fellow citizen who is, presumably, an ordinary person, just like
them. I don't think that I could do that, personally.

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fatdog789
Punitive damages are not meant to be proportionate. They are meant to be
penal, and to "send a message" to other potential tortfeasors. (Civil trial
for damages = tort).

However, SCOTUS has ruled very recently that punitive damages must be
proportional to the income and assets of the defendant, for example, $1M is
nothing to Bill Gates but is beyond devastating to the average man.

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greendestiny
I'm not sure I've seen the justice in using people as examples. The compliance
of others isn't their problem. Awards being relative to income make sense for
fines, and I guess thats what these punitive damages are.

This behavior of record companies makes it hard for geeks like me who don't
support the abolishment of copyright. I think the worst that should happen in
cases of copyright infringement of music is a several hundred dollar fine
total, not per song.

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pg
Something is broken in this country.

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tptacek
You mean the fact that we fund public schools with local property taxes,
right?

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rw
I have to agree with you, Thomas. While IP law in the United States is clearly
full of problems, we cannot ignore the simple numbers: millions of childrens'
lives are worsened every year, through no fault of their own, just because of
where, or to whom, they were born.

Healthcare? Quality education? Who gives a fuck- I want my free mp3s!

There's a reason the American _dream_ isn't called the American _reality_ :
widespread socioeconomic injustice is alive and well in the United States of
America.

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quoderat
From the tone of many in this thread, it seems that people don't understand
that non-commercial copyright is not a crime, but instead is a civil
infraction -- hence why Thomas was not arrested, and not tried in a criminal
court.

But the copyright industry certainly wants everyone to believe it is a crime.
Looks like it is working.

Sad.

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jonknee
Sometimes I wish hell were real so that the lawyers working double time to
make sure a woman goes bankrupt over 24 songs could go there. It just doesn't
make sense to have "damages" like that.

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timwiseman
While I fully agree that this result is unjust, I would not blame the lawyers.
Remember the lawyers have a professional duty to faithfully represent their
client. If their client insists on pressing for the maximum possible damages
then the lawyers have a professional duty to take every action within the
bounds of ethics and law to get them.

This result was definitely unjust, but the lawyers are the wrong ones to
blame.

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ambition
What? No. The lawyers have a ethical and moral duty as lawyers and human
beings to do the right thing. I'm not a lawyer, so I'll make an analogy
relevant to my profession. If some guy hires me to make a picture site and
then insists on a section for sex pics of children I have an ethical duty to
back out of the contract.

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emmett
I understand your sentiment, but you're wrong. We need lawyers who will work
even for despicable clients. The reason for this rule is that everyone is
entitled to legal representation they can trust.

The clients really are at fault here.

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greendestiny
I'd say the law (not lawyers) was at fault as well, or even mostly. A legal
system can't rely on the honesty or ethics of claimants and defendants to
function correctly almost by definition.

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skwaddor
How do you think it stacks uo to what happened back in 2002 :

Tennessee Attorney General Paul G. Summers announced today that five of the
largest U.S. distributors of pre-recorded music CDs and three large retailers
agreed to pay millions of dollars in cash and free CDs as part of an agreement
on price-fixing allegations. The companies will pay $67,375,000 in cash,
provide $75,500,000 worth of music CDs, and not engage in sales practices that
allegedly led to artificially high retail prices for music CDs and reduced
retail competition as part of the agreement. Tennessee's share is an estimated
$993,948 in cash and $1,507,852 in CDs.

[http://www.attorneygeneral.state.tn.us/press/2002/story/PR13...](http://www.attorneygeneral.state.tn.us/press/2002/story/PR13.pdf)

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blasdel
I got a check for ~$10.

Public libraries all over the country got shipping containers full of Mariah
Carey deadstock.

The lawyers leading the class action got tens of millions of dollars.

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quizbiz
What % of people that have downloaded a song without paying would have paid
for that song?

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boryas
Would you steal a purse? If getting caught cost me $80,000 then probably
not... So much for reasonable punishments.

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dflock
Imagine the outcry if all punishments were meted out on this kind of scale.
Jaywalking: 10 years hard labour!

And no, I wouldn't steal a purse, because a purse is a physical object, owned
by an ordinary individual human being, who would be materially and emotionally
harmed by the theft. This case of Copyright infringement involves imaginary
property of enormously rich corporations who would not be materially affected
by it in any measurable way. It's more akin to stealing an invisible mote of
dust from the bottom of someones purse, without them being aware of it at any
point.

All the evidence actually suggests that music sharing increases income for
commercial music as a whole, yet sharing these 24 tracks has resulted in a $2m
fine. Ironically, you would be punished enormously less for actually mugging
someone and stealing their purse.

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boryas
I wasn't trying to say that we should have equally barbaric punishments for
purse-snatching but rather that we should have equally fair and reasonable
punishments for file-sharing.

I can see how my point was made unclear by the unsuccessful joke, though.

