Jammie Thomas Moves To Strike RIAA $1.92M Verdict 392
NewYorkCountryLawyer writes "Jammie Thomas-Rasset has made a motion for a new trial, seeking to vacate the $1.92 million judgment entered against her for infringement of 24 MP3 files, in Capitol Records v. Thomas-Rasset. Her attorneys' brief (PDF) argues, among other things, that the 'monstrous' sized verdict violates the Due Process Clause, consistent with 100 years of SCOTUS jurisprudence, since it is grossly disproportionate to any actual damages sustained. It further argues that, since the RIAA elected to offer no evidence of actual damages, either as an alternative to statutory damages, or to buttress the fairness of a statutory damages award, the verdict, if it is to be reduced, must be reduced to zero."
Can't pay the fine? (Score:-1, Insightful)
Don't do the crime.
Re:Can't pay the fine? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Statutory Damages (Score:5, Insightful)
Maybe she should pay the price of one record per shared mp3? That'd be something like $240.
Or ten record, which would come to $2400.
However, I just don't figure how the imaginary damages could rack up $18k, let alone $192M.
Whoever awarded those damages had no sense of proportion, or was bribed.
Regardless - if someone destroyed my life over some songs, I'd probably do the same to them.
What's few hundred k more for battery and assault, if you already owe $190M more than you
can reasonably ever earn. For that matter, no monetary fine would ever feel like anything -
and jail time is expensive to the society. So.. maybe it's just not worth it?
Re:Statutory Damages (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Statutory Damages (Score:5, Insightful)
Luckily, it is people like this who are the reason why laws change.
The RIAA have their low-risk win adding to their warchest of successfully run litigation if she settles. Now they -have- to engage the courts as much as they can to win. They -have- to publicly lobby, they -have- to look the bad guy to ${PUBLIC}. They may win - and it'd be a big win - but they may lose, and losing at such a high level is quite a setback.
At the end of the day, she could've settled, but she's chosen to stand and fight. Would you do the same, given the circumstances?
Re:Can't pay the fine? (Score:5, Insightful)
It's ironic as I mentioned this very case in the thread about "Don't Copy that Floppy" as the RIAA get $84,000 per song or whatever it works out too, and Air France is giving families of the victims of the Airbus crash $24,000.
Three dead travelers worth less than one song apparently.
Re:Statutory Damages (Score:5, Insightful)
You miss the point--the law is wrong, that is what is being argued. Those statutory damages are designed for corporate infringement--say, by a radio station broadcasting to 100,000 people. Not by 1 person who uploading a song to...oh, the RIAA couldn't demonstrate how many (and yes, in the radio case it would have been easy to demonstrate how many listened, on an approximate level, because the radio station uses that information every day to sell advertising time).
Re:Can't pay the fine? (Score:5, Insightful)
Maybe we can employ the same logic for speeding tickets. $1.9 million because I may be able to go 105 in a 35 despite the fact that I was going 40. Downloading 24 songs is not worth destroying someone's life over. Look at the penalties for vehicular homicide and tell me the fine fits the crime.
Ok...I did look at a recent high profile case, a case as media newsworthy as the $1.92 million RIAA case, about vehicular manslaughter, where an NFL player killed someone while he was driving drunk. Do you think this penalty fits the crime? Or is our justice system truly fucked at all ends?
NFL receiver Donte' Stallworth, a former University of Tennessee star, began serving a jail sentence Tuesday for hitting and killing Miami resident Mario Reyes on March 14th while driving drunk. He had apparently spent the night celebrating a $4.5 million dollar roster bonus he received the day before at a luxury hotel bar.
His blood alcohol level at the time of the incident was a reported .126, well above Florida's legal limit of .08.
Mr. Stallworth not only chose to not check into a room to sleep it off, he proceeded to drive his vehicle while seriously impaired, at an estimated 50 mph in a 40 mph zone when he struck the 59-year-old father of one as he rushed to catch a bus after his shift for a construction company ended that fateful day.
Was he sentenced to multiple years in prison? Were there throngs of protesters lining the streets and sidewalks at his trial? Will he be vilified and his livelihood taken away?
The answer to all of the above is no. Stallworth pled guilty to DUI manslaughter and was sentenced to 30 days in jail. 30 DAYS! He will serve only 24 because he gets credit for one day served and will get five days credit for each month served, according to Florida law.
http://www.t-g.com/story/1548024.html [t-g.com]
If you drunk dive and kill someone with your car you should get 24 days in jail. But download 24 songs and expect nearly $2 million in fines. We need to start reexamining our courtrooms.
Re:You gotta fight! For your right! (Score:3, Insightful)
You're simply wrong. The law does NOT say you should not download music. It says you should not upload music.
Re:Can't pay the fine? (Score:5, Insightful)
so long as you play in the NFL, you can kill someone in a DUI crash and do 30 days.
this woman stole some songs. by doing so, others may have been able to steal those songs too.
however, nobody died. the songs are undamaged. the artists are still fucking rich.
the fact that lawyers can get away with this allows me to look more softly upon murderers.
when you break justice anywhere, you break it everywhere. this madness must end soon.
Re:Statutory Damages (Score:4, Insightful)
Yes, but remember that statutory damages are supposed to be an approximation to actual damages. It's not supposed to be the way that actual damages is 100$ and statutory damages are 10000$ where 9900$ is a fine. Then of course everyone would opt for the statutory damages, less burden of proof and higher payback. Statutory damages should, in my opinion, be an educated guess of the damage done compared to the zero alternative. So let us assume Jammie Thomas did do everything she was charged with and compare that to her not file sharing at all, how much of an impact would that make? Meaning no offense, but she's a nobody. One little peer in a swarm who'd have as much affect as stomping an ant on the ant hill.
That's what is entirely missing here that makes this case insane. It can't possibly be the intent of the law that they should be able to say "Well, we can't prove any specific instance of infringement so we'll just pick the highest possible number we can". If so, they should just burn all evidence they have on actual infringement. In fact, that's very good grounds why statutory damages should be on the low end of the scale. Let's for example assume that you have a statutory damage estimated to 2000$-5000$. If you, as the plaintiff, know that the actual damage was 2500$ you'd only want to prove it if you'd otherwise get 2000$. If you'll get more in statutory damages then you'd rather suppress that evidence. And if you can't even estimate the statutory damages and get 150,000$ instead, then that too.
I think they're very afraid of just how far the Supreme Court could set them back. Any demand of plausibility for statutory damages is likely to kill their scare tactics. I mean, seriously compared to how many cases there's been and how many people's computers and networks are wide open, do you really think she's the only one that wanted to fight the lawsuit? But I bet far too many have investigated their risk/reward and found that yes, you might win or be a debt slave forever. There's no way the zero tactic will work though, I bet they'll find the damages unconstiutional and send it back to be redone once more with new guidelines. At least that's the way I'm used to, even if the supreme court finds stuff unconstitutional it doesn't have time to deal with fact-finding in actual cases.
Re:Statutory Damages (Score:3, Insightful)
So it could have been zero?
So I am with my cousin Bob, whom I haven't seen in almost a year. He requests a drive to the store, since he's had several beer and I've only had one. I give him one. Seems he's a bit of a low life and he robs the store, killing the clerk. He comes out and we leave. The clerk had time to hit the silent alarm before dieing and we are stopped a few blocks away.
I'm charged with murder and threatened with a death sentence. Yet I didn't know anything was going to happen - and didn't even realize anything until we stopped. Do I take the 40 - 50 year plea just because someone deems it fair? Reasonable chance the jury won't believe that I "knew nothing" and that I may end up prison, or worse. But sometime in life you have to take a stand. You can only applaud someone brave enough too.
Re:Some people should realize that... (Score:3, Insightful)
If the law says the judge can award $80k per violation, while outrageous, there is nothing retarded about a judge doing so. Remember, you don't change laws in court, you change them in Congress.
IMO the judge in question should be shot for total lack of decency, along with those who passed a law awarding a HUNDRED THOUSAND TIMES the retail value of the file, of course, but still, it's not the courts' fault if the laws are bad.
Re:Statutory Damages (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Some people should realize that... (Score:4, Insightful)
I'm fairly sure the judge duked out whatever he could for the sole reason that she deliberately did whatever she could to BS him. Judges are only people, and people who don't like to be BSed.
That doesn't change the fact that the law allowed him to do this. Oh, and
Impartiality is a principle of justice holding that decisions should be based on objective criteria, rather than on the basis of bias, prejudice, or preferring the benefit to one person over another for improper reasons.
Whatever the outcome (Score:5, Insightful)
This could not happen in Europe because the UN declaration on Human Rights is built into legislation. Not surprisingly, British Conservatives want to get big business (and the US) on their side by derogating from it. This case is evidence of why we in the UK need to worry, not only about our present Government but the probable next one.
Re:Can't pay the fine? (Score:3, Insightful)
Not saying I agree with this, just saying one *could* look at it like that...
Re:Some people should realize that... (Score:4, Insightful)
I think most Americans DO understand this, but there is a partisan fiction that they don't. At a high level, though, judges get to change laws, IF (IFF, in theory) they are unconstitutional, or unjust. The whole "legislating from the bench" thing is generally a silly post-hoc argument we use when a judge doesn't rule in a way we (based on our political ideals) want.
Oddly, some of our favorite rulings are cases of "ruling from the bench", such as the right to privacy being within the "penumbra" of the constitution, but we don't complain because we subjectively like the idea. Wherein Roe v. Wade is often cited as "ruling from the bench" because a certain segment hates the idea of it.
The judicial branch is also part of the checks and balances scheme, they get to say that laws are bad, which invalidates the law.
They exist to keep congress in check. This is fine and dandy by me.
Re:Some people should realize that... (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:Can't pay the fine? (Score:4, Insightful)
In the grand scheme of things, none of us is worth very much. Even at the prime of your life, the odds are against you ever doing anything of any import. Copying a silly song is worth even less, in terms of generations. In geological time, we all are completely expendable.
Re:Your view of "reasonable" is WARPED (Score:3, Insightful)
That's reasonable? 18,000 for sharing 24 files? You think she SHOULD have settled? REALLY??? Sure it's less INSANE than millions of dollars but it's still INSANE.
Originally she was offered a $3,000 settlement.
Yes, I'd say that it was quite reasonable for something that's clearly illegal under the standing law.
Re:Statutory Damages (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Some people should realize that... (Score:3, Insightful)
Judges are only people, and people who don't like to be BSed.
If someone BS me I am likely to tell them to go fuck themselves or similar. But, I sure as hell would not beat them to pulp and burn their house down, which in my opinion would be pretty akin to the judge's verdict. The verdict is way off in relation to the actual offence. So if the obscene verdict was a emotional response to BS - no matter how much - the judge should be disbarred with immediate effect.
Re:Some people should realize that... (Score:3, Insightful)
Well, the fact that she lied to the court seems to fairly objectively show she was trying to obstruct the course of justice and therefore should receive full punishment? I'm of course nothing close to being a lawyer, but if she is caught barefaced lying to the court, I don't see why she should be shown any leniency.
Re:Statutory Damages (Score:3, Insightful)
I get tired of saying this, but the penalty for distributing a CD should have nothing to do with the cost of buying a CD or MP3. This would be appropriate if she was accused of downloading one copy, but she is accused of uploading. The issue is she assuming the right to distribute a CD or MP3, so the penalty should be based upon what the RIAA would charge to gain the rights to distribute the songs.
The penalty should be based on what it would cost me to gain the rights to distribute those 24 songs to anyone I wanted from my web site (and whatever penalty they court feel is warranted above that). So if I called the RIAA (at the time it happened) and said "I'm interested in putting these 24 songs on my web site for anyone who visits to download, what would that cost me?", whatever the answer would be would be a fair basis for the judgment. Obviously, the price they quote for the trial would have to backed up by facts (what have they actually charged for these or similar songs for instance) so they aren't able to just make up ridiculous amounts. Will it be a lot? Yes, it most likely will if they were popular songs (I'm sure 24 covers of Achy Breaky Heart wouldn't cost that much though), but it would be a fair way to estimate what the actual damage was.
Re:Some people should realize that... (Score:2, Insightful)
The courts understand this very well. That is why we are in the state we are in now with the justice system. While we have the "3 ring circus" [emphasis is mine] whom is to regulate the courts? One of the biggest issues is that once something is decided in the court system (mainly the Supreme Court) it is very hard to over turn later down the road and slowly allots more power to the judiciary (depending on the decision) or the federal government.
I'm reading a book now, while it may be slanted towards a certain political view, the view cites some very interesting case law which has shaped much of this country in the last 4-5 decades. Unfortunately this will near impossible to reverse and erodes what power the states may have had in making their own decisions (without the interference from the federal government). One of the biggest problems right now is that you've got people who believe that the federal government should do everything for us. Then others that believe in states' rights and the federal government should go f* off.
I suppose with my viewpoints of the Constitution and the our judiciary I'd be labeled as an "originalist." One of the problems that I've seen is that people go about their business non the wiser on what is going on in the government and in the courts. Thus both have been gaining power that was never theirs in the first place. This garbage of "reading between the lines" is utter crap. This is where the legalese comes into play and someone whips out Webster's dictionary and tries re-define what specific words in the Constitution or in the Bill of Rights mean. People seem to forget that, as stated above, judges at the end of the day are just other normal people with baggage and/or side agendas. This leads to the crap we've seen getting past the court systems which boggles the mind since if they were following the letter of the law (both federal and local) most of these crap RIAA/MPAA law suits would be dealt with pretty quickly. However, IANAL so I don't know law in every 50 states; let alone every code in my state although I have read several sections when needed. Most law is not extremely hard to understand, but the interpretations seem to take on a life of their own once a lawyer or judge starts to review it. Personally I think they start seeing things that aren't there...this is usually done to get to whatever ends that person is looking for in the law.
Hell, look at the first Supreme Court judges appointed...several of them were quiet crazy and rambled, but a few still managed to vote and make decisions on several issues that affected our country.
note: I tried to separate the paragraphs...apparently the paragraph markup isn't working.
Re:Some people should realize that... (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm fairly sure it was the Jury that decided on damages, not the judge.
Yes but it was the Judge who incorrectly gave them the latitude to do so. Under well settled principles of copyright law, he ought not to have allowed more than $750 per infringed "work".
Re:Some people should realize that... (Score:3, Insightful)
That doesn't change the fact that the law allowed him to do this...
Sometimes laws come into conflict with other laws. You need to move up a level to determine which one wins.
Re:Turned Around (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Some people should realize that... (Score:3, Insightful)
I agree. I'd rather see her damages reduced to $10K and make her spend a year in jail for perjury. People who present false testimony are traitors to our society.
Re:Can't pay the fine? (Score:3, Insightful)
The reason why there is a court process is exactly to establish FACTS that are not obvious and try to find some truth among all the various points of view of disputing parties. Apparently the only wrongdoing of that NFL guy was driving drunk, but that was not the cause of the accident.
Reading a bit more, the 59 years old dad was just another stupid candidate for the Darwin Awards. Trying to cross a 6 lane highway is simply suicide. Not worth putting someone else in jail for life because of your own stupid actions, is it? That is my point of view, and it has nothing to do with million of dollars for 24 worthless songs from so-called "artists" of the 21 century. And that's all I know about this case so I just can't judge.
Re:Some people should realize that... (Score:3, Insightful)
Now, a civil suit that argues damages for copyright infringement is a different playing field, but the consequences are the same. Somebody has to challenge the law in order to get it changed.
Nope, this is different - it isn't the government failing to recognize a right, but rather a law that has outrageous penalty clauses. This means you can't just sue the feds, but must lose a trial and then argue on appeal.
Re:Some people should realize that... (Score:3, Insightful)
And oddly enough, it's mainly an argument that conservatives make when they don't get what they want. I don't recall a whole lot of judicial activism complaints coming as a result of SCOTUS overturning the DC hand gun ban...
That's because the judges weren't being activists. They were correct in ruling that the DC handgun ban was a violation of the constitution. They didn't pass a new law, they struck down an unconstitutional one. Activist judges tend to force their views into place through legal precedent rather than allowing legislatures to write the laws. Directing a legislative body from the bench to write or rewrite a law is dictatorship. That is not the judicial branches' job. Their job is to evaluate the law and strike it down if necessary. Not to tell anyone what law(s) to pass. IANAL - These are my personal views.
Re:Some people should realize that... (Score:3, Insightful)
I would assume "Eighth Amendment to the Constitution" trumps "Copyright statutory damages". But then again, what do I know, I assumed it would never get to this point in the first place since the RIAA never had evidence that ANY actual damages occurred.
Just for the record, it's the Fifth Amendment upon which they based the constitution-based part of their motion. By the way, there are good common law and copyright law reasons, short of the constitutional reasons, for knocking down this shocking verdict.
Re:Some people should realize that... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Some people should realize that... (Score:2, Insightful)