JasonSJackson
Jah Sun Ma'at Ra
The Minnesota woman at the center of the first major file-sharing copyright case to go to trial must pay $9,250 for each of the songs she allegedly downloaded and shared, a federal appeals court ruled on Tuesday.
The protection of copyrights is a vindication of the public interest, wrote the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit, in approving a total of $220,000 in damages for 24 tracks shared on the now-defunct Kazaa service. (Mostly 80s and 90s, including Def Leppards Pour Some Sugar on Me, Journeys Dont Stop Believin and Green Days Basket Case.)
Jammie Thomas-Rassett, a cause celebre for a generation of file-sharers, was found liable for copyright infringement in 2007, and again in 2009, after the first verdict was wiped out. As one of the first to go to court to fight peer-to-peer copyright allegations, Ms. Thomas-Rassett became known as the Download Martyr.
Damages in the case have swung from a high of $1.5 million to a low of $54,000, before settling in the middle. Ms. Thomas-Rassett argued unsuccessfully that the damages were excessive. They could have been much higher. Investigators found about 1,700 music files in a shared Kazaa folder, but the labels whittled the list to 24 files for the lawsuit, according to court documents.
The labels Ms. Thomas-Rassett has fought for the better part of a decade include Capitol Records, Inc., Sony BMG Music Entertainment, Arista Records LLC, InterscopeRecords, Warner Bros. Records, and UMG Recordings Inc.
It wasnt a complete victory for the labels. They had sought a ruling from the Eighth Circuit that making sound recordings available for distribution on a peer-to-peer network violates the Copyright Act, regardless of whether there is proof of actual distribution. But the panel declined to make a statement on the law.
A lawyer for Ms. Thomas-Rassett, Joe Sibley, didnt immediately respond to a call for comment. Ms. Thomas-Rassett has said she intends to take her case to the Supreme Court.
We are pleased with the appellate courts decision and look forward to putting this case behind us, said a spokeswoman for the Recording Industry Association of America in an email.
The protection of copyrights is a vindication of the public interest, wrote the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit, in approving a total of $220,000 in damages for 24 tracks shared on the now-defunct Kazaa service. (Mostly 80s and 90s, including Def Leppards Pour Some Sugar on Me, Journeys Dont Stop Believin and Green Days Basket Case.)
Jammie Thomas-Rassett, a cause celebre for a generation of file-sharers, was found liable for copyright infringement in 2007, and again in 2009, after the first verdict was wiped out. As one of the first to go to court to fight peer-to-peer copyright allegations, Ms. Thomas-Rassett became known as the Download Martyr.
Damages in the case have swung from a high of $1.5 million to a low of $54,000, before settling in the middle. Ms. Thomas-Rassett argued unsuccessfully that the damages were excessive. They could have been much higher. Investigators found about 1,700 music files in a shared Kazaa folder, but the labels whittled the list to 24 files for the lawsuit, according to court documents.
The labels Ms. Thomas-Rassett has fought for the better part of a decade include Capitol Records, Inc., Sony BMG Music Entertainment, Arista Records LLC, InterscopeRecords, Warner Bros. Records, and UMG Recordings Inc.
It wasnt a complete victory for the labels. They had sought a ruling from the Eighth Circuit that making sound recordings available for distribution on a peer-to-peer network violates the Copyright Act, regardless of whether there is proof of actual distribution. But the panel declined to make a statement on the law.
A lawyer for Ms. Thomas-Rassett, Joe Sibley, didnt immediately respond to a call for comment. Ms. Thomas-Rassett has said she intends to take her case to the Supreme Court.
We are pleased with the appellate courts decision and look forward to putting this case behind us, said a spokeswoman for the Recording Industry Association of America in an email.
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