Juror From RIAA Trial Speaks 918
Damon Tog notes a Wired blog posting featuring quotes from a juror who took part in the recent RIAA trial. Some excerpts: "She should have settled out of court for a few thousand dollars... Spoofing? We're thinking, "Oh my God, you got to be kidding."... She lied. There was no defense. Her defense sucked... I think she thought a jury from Duluth would be naive. We're not that stupid up here. I don't know what the f**k she was thinking, to tell you the truth."
Sounds like a great jury (Score:4, Interesting)
"It would have been a lot harder to make the decision," he said. "Yes, we would have reached the same result."
I'm glad to see that jurors no longer need to hear evidence/proof and have their minds made up in advance.
Insane. (Score:4, Interesting)
1) I can't imagine what a pathetic and aggressive loser you have to be to think that somebody should pay $3.6m as restitution for letting somebody copy 24 songs (even if you think they're guilty.)
2) It really sounds like they don't understand the difference between a defense lawyer saying "they didn't prove that this technically feasible activity didn't happen" and a woman who is actively claiming that this was the case.
I hope that the douchebags who pushed for $150k/song get hit by the RIAA because their kids installed some software without their knowledge, because only then will they realize how completely and totally fucking wrong they are.
Re:Sounds like a great jury (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:I agree but ... (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Jury Instructions... (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:This just goes to show you... (Score:3, Interesting)
Maybe..potentially there was a loss of money.
This seems like a nitpic, but it is at the heart of copyright law. Yes it's wrong, but the assumption that money is lost is the tool the RIAA, and others, use to abuse the copyright law.
Re:So did the jury ... (Score:3, Interesting)
They had a choice in the amount of financial damages she would pay, but any valid amount (the minimum was $750 per infringing song) was well beyond the actual financial damages. So by your logic you could argue that they decided to ruin her life by voting guilty in the first place.
Re:Not the question of guilt, but of quantity (Score:4, Interesting)
She wiped the HD *before* being notified.
Unknowingly making available? (Score:4, Interesting)
Usually when you rip a CD, where does the software put it? In "my music", of course. That's the default for music - and most Joe users put their documents in guess where? "My documents"
And when you install kazaa, doesn't it automatically scan for music in "my music"? In fact, I think it scans "my documents", too!
She could easily have alleged ignorance of how the software worked, i.e. she ignored she was sharing it and was only using it for downloading.
Re:So did the jury ... (Score:1, Interesting)
I dunno what the deal with Slashdot is. It seems like our answer to everything is jury nullification...
Re:So did the jury ... (Score:5, Interesting)
The appeal is going to be a lot more interesting than the trial.
Appeals are where precedents get set. If the appellate court rules that the trial court erred in its instruction that "making available" equals copyright violation, then that will blow up the RIAA's current business model.
Distribution is irrellevant. (Score:3, Interesting)
Not as much as the defense. (Score:3, Interesting)
It was pretty clear she was 'liable', in hindsight, defense might have been better off working on a 'Yeah maybe she shared the files, but hardly nobody downloaded them and come on, who hasn't made a mix tape or copied a friend's CD. Is that worth several grand per song?' defense.
Re:So what? (Score:2, Interesting)
So the maximum *damage* actually applicable to the RIAA is Zero. (What's that? zero? yes - zero. The RIAA is a not-for-profit organization, who's member companies were the ones who missed out on their share of $21.78 which I'm guessing is less than $12.00, of which the Artists might, if lucky receive $0.02).
So actual damages to the RIAA being zero, and at $9250.00 per song, we have an (divide by zero error) infinite multiplication of damages.
Someone should inform the Judge of this and have the verdict thrown out due to the punishment being inconsistent with the crime.
Especially now that we all (and the Judge as well) know that the reference case was overturned before the RIAA handed it to the judge, and that there actually was NO crime committed, at least not the one she was found guilty of.
Re:"But the evidence must be present" (Score:5, Interesting)
Or in other words, if you leave your keys in the car then you must have authorized people to steal it, and if you leave the keys in your friend's car then you must have put somebody up to stealing it since you obviously authorized the theft by leaving the keys in it. Or your Sunday newspaper, hey it's right there on your lawn where anybody could take it so you must be ok with that. Or if you are walking down the street with no underwear on and get 'assaulted' it's not rape because, hey, you made it available that means you authorized it.
Making available != authorizing and this judge is an idiot. That part of the verdict is complete bunk. The part about her violating the copyright sounds right though.
Re:the fine didn't fit the crime (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Sounds like a great jury (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:the fine didn't fit the crime (Score:1, Interesting)
In civilised countries, jury nullification is NOT a right.
Re:the fine didn't fit the crime (Score:3, Interesting)
If I had this judgement against me, I would be a ward of the state. As such, I would have no need of a job. Slave servitude is not my idea of a life. Ward of the state would be the status. Why work if it nets you nothing? It's time to find a friend to move in with so you don't need an income as any income you could possibly get would be taken. It's time for a cardboard sign and a good intersection. Un-reported income is the only income she has for a while.
Re:the fine didn't fit the crime (Score:2, Interesting)
You know how your parents always said that lying and cheating only makes things worth? $5000 punishment for a $50 crime is exactly what they were talking about.
Slashdot wants nullification of the jury's finding, not jury nullification. As much as the chant goes on, it remains dependent on a limited and narrow set of circumstances, not to upend the court system because the tiny fraction of men here disagrees with it. Wasn't the point to find the RIAA as evil and despicable? When you look as bad as the bad guys, it doesn't help much.
Re:the fine didn't fit the crime (Score:3, Interesting)
The jury is - almost by definition - middle aged, middle class, small-C conservative.
They haven't evaded service. They are there by choice, respect for the law, respect for the property of others, is the norm among them.
Jury Nullification in its historical - American - context has been profoundly corrupting. It sets the Klansman free on the proven charge of murder and sends the black man to the gallows on a fraudulent charge of rape.
Case of stupidy (Score:4, Interesting)
RIAA should also be sued for tampering with the evidence by demanding that people hand over there hard drives for them to "inspect" them. By there own specials investigators, but RIAA doesn't have the right to do so. Since they are not a police force of any type.
Re:the fine didn't fit the crime (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:the fine didn't fit the crime (Score:3, Interesting)
Maybe that was her motivation... to set a precedent in favor of the RIAA.
And having a large damage award only makes the precedent worse.
Re:Hegg was certainly no genius: (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:the fine didn't fit the crime (Score:3, Interesting)
Contempt charges for exercising a legal right? I'd hate to think that's true, so in the name of diligence I ask: any evidence to support this, as particular to jury nullification? If the claim is simply an extrapolation of the idea that someone willfully misrepresented their position (aka "lied"), and that lying in court amounts to perjury, I could almost see it... but if so, how about stating it as, "I may not have believed in jury nullification when I was being questioned in the jury selection process, but by the end of the trial -- having heard all the facts -- I believed in it plenty."
Re:We're not stupid up here (Score:4, Interesting)
Her lawyers are clearly morons though.
She should have gone for a guilty plea, but then majored on mitigation.
The jury should have been asked to consider this:
What matters here isn't the facts, which are clearly against the defendant, but the law, which is clearly against the people.
Re:the fine didn't fit the crime (Score:2, Interesting)
Look, some people here like to think that the only thing the RIAA should go for in court is the cost of stamping a CD. If we assume a cost of 1 cent per disk, that is not a lot of money, even if the fine covered the cost of stamping 10,000 CDs. However, this argument is just stupid. The cost to the music industry is much greater than that. How much money was paid to Britney (or whoever) to spend time in the studio recording an album? How much money was paid to Britney as the "artist?" How much was paid to the studio engineers; the writers of the songs; musicians; the post-production staff; the caterers; the electricity provider? How much was paid for rent; the building, or use, of the stamping plant; the album advertisement? How much was paid to lawyers? All these costs and more are factored into the price of every CD you buy in the store, period. That's how it works and it's a hell of a lot more than what she was fined!
If you don't like it, don't buy the CD. Boycott the music industry. I boycott Microsoft because I don't like their business practices -- and I don't run Windows on any of my home PCs. You don't have the right to download the music created by the industry you despise and then enjoy it without payment. This is illegal and this is how you "steal" from them. You don't steal CDs, you steal money! Every business on the planet makes things for money. The goal is not to have the nicest stuff to sell, but use the things you sell to make money. If GM could make a business of selling virtual cars in a video game the company would close all of its physical plants and fire all the line workers and just sell to game players. GM has no desire to make cars for the hell of it -- cars are the product GM sells to make money. The same goes for music! The music industry doesn't care if Britney is an "artist," or if her music has deeper meaning, or any other gibberish fans like to whine about. She is simply a means of making money.
Saying that a music downloader is not a customer is not correct, either. The only person who is not a customer is one who does not have possession of the product in question. In this case, you are not a customer if you don't have Britney's music and you do not/cannot listen to it except by hearing it on the radio or watching it on TV. If you downloaded the song and are enjoying it for free, you are indeed a customer -- you just found a better deal than the one offered legally. If you were forced to get your song legally to be able to enjoy it, you would indeed be paying. And this is the message you are sending to everyone, including the music industry -- that you are a thief who likes take other people's labor without paying for it.
Absolutely nothing (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:the fine didn't fit the crime (Score:3, Interesting)
That isn't really Jury Nullification... eg, the Jury isn't saying that the law against murder is invalid. That's just inability to select a fair jury in an environment where overt racism is systemic in a given population. But if the racism is that systemic, the issue of Jury Nullification is moot, since the sheriff, DA, judge, etc. are probably just as racist, and chances are the case would never go to trial in the first place.
Re:Absolutely nothing (Score:3, Interesting)
Sometimes economic harm is just hard to quantify. For example, if GM copies a Ford advertisement. What's the economic harm to Ford? How do you know?
There is another possible type of harm -- the harm to the right to be able to control how an author's work is used. While US law protects such rights less than many other countries, the concept is still in the background of things like Section 106A, the derivative work right and statutory damages.
There is a good argument that copyright damages should be limited solely to actual economic damages. But, that would dramatically cut back on the protection provided by US copyright law.
Dangers of Jury trials (Score:3, Interesting)
Sounds like they got at least one this time.
Unfortunately (Score:3, Interesting)