Jammie Thomas-Rasset Loses to the RIAA
June 18, 2009 by Stephen Kersey
Filed under Business
Jammie Thomas-Rasset, the only person in the United States to take a music file-sharing lawsuit to a jury trial, once again lost. This time, Thomas-Rasset’s loss was much more financially devastating.
Accused of sharing two dozen songs via the Kazaa file-sharing software, the jury concluded that she is to pay more than $1.9 million in damages. The judgment came out to approximately $80,000 per song.
Jammie Thomas-Rasset can't be happy (Image: Zuma Press)
The Recording Industry Association of America, or RIAA, were the ones once again fighting against Thomas-Rasset.
Said Cara Duckworth of the RIAA: “We appreciate the jury’s service and that they take this as seriously as we do. We are pleased that the jury agreed with the evidence and found the defendant liable.”
Thomas-Rasset was originally ordered to pay a judgment of $222,000 in 2007. This retrial was ordered after a technicality voided the first judgment.
Despite the huge amount of money awarded, the RIAA says that it is still open to a reasonable outcome.
“Since day one,” said Duckworth, “we have been willing to settle this case and we remain willing to do so.”
f*** the riaa
This is another ridiculous and frivolous lawsuit by the RIAA, (Repressive, Idiotic, Antiquated Asswipes) upon a Joesaphene average. They can’t get Kazza so they sue a single mum? The only message that is sending to the market is one which holds its clients, the record buying public in contempt. This will actually have the opposite effect as it has been proven that a non confrontational, co-operative incentive based model will work.
The way we consume and purchase music, for better or worse is changing as people are moving their music collections to a server type app like Itunes on a dedicated PC synced to an Ipod. Sony is a sinking ship; remember when they owned the personal portable music market with the Walkman? Apple stole the market from them by being open source and giving Itunes away for free linked to a store and eventually flooding the market with Ipods at multiple price points. This is while the Sony dickheads were figuring out ways to charge you for the music application, a proprietary compression algorithm, the hardware plus the music with a licensing fee. Then lets not forget there DRM debacle and putting spybot phone home malware in their CD’s only to be caught red handed by a high level Microsoft development contractor testing software who happened to put a recently purchased CD in his drive and noticed something strange.
If Sony BMG and the RIAA spent all the money they have wasted in litigation in the last 10 years on delivering better ways of distributing music and got on board with Apple, the industry would be stronger and better for it. The Kazza’s and alike would exist but the percentage split would be the opposite (90% legit and 10% illegal). If a song was 10 cents they would have made billions by now with a very small percentage of lost revenue. People like myself look at this and say to these fucking dinosaurs, well if you actually invested in new talent, artist development, created a realistic pricing structure and stopped fucking with artists and movie makers artistic license , I would sympathize with your cause. What is wrong with this picture? Desperate corporate entity with streams of litigation lawyers on 1000 clams an hour picking the life from the dying rotting corpse of extinct irrelevant toothless beast. “I know” says the clueless opportunistic succubus lawyer hanging like a parasite off the purse strings of the record companies shareholders,”we cant get Kazza, ISP’s or anyone of note so we will sue that penniless mother in Michegan that will show em”.
I urge people to have a look at the Trent Reznor interview (http://revision3.com/diggdialogg/trentreznor) posted on Revision3 to see how intelligent, forward thinking people adapt their business model to a changing market and not hang on to an outdated model of the tyranny of the past. Bring on the new guard, line each pony tailed, stone washed wearing major executive dinosaur up against the wall for audio execution. Bring on the Modular’s and Twisted’s of this world small boutique companies that are relevant and in touch with their clients..
I did have this conversation with a swinging dick for a major some three years ago and warned him that this course of action was fought with danger and would inevitably alienate them from their audience and have the opposite effect. His only interest at the time was playing hardball with Apple over 3 bucks a song. I told him at the time Apple don’t need you and every week you are not on I tunes its costing you millions in revenue lost to other companies and file sharing. He said its very complicated, I disagreed and maintained that it is very simple adapt or die. The landscape is changing “your business model better change” as I know how the net works and where the future lies. Sooner or later your artists will revolt as they have a good case to terminate their contracts and look for another deal. “You are a technology company rite”? “Yeah”, Well I put it to you that there is no greater impending train wreck heralding the death and destruction of your company than not rapidly adapting to the new digital economy on consumers terms. Guess what? I’m not Nostradamus but I was rite.
The record companies are trying to be the sheriffs in a largely lawless town which is stupidity. It all stems from losing control of the game and not accepting that people are getting sick of being ripped off and being controlled. Its now a case of the consumer telling the record company what is cool, when and how they want it and not the other way round. They have to take less money for the back catalog that is just pure economics. You buy a ten year old anything it is worth 1/3 for its value from new, so the new version of old is devalued simple economics. Sure there are exceptions. classics, circumstantial variables to the marketing model but that only applies to at most 10%. I am an artist I want my royalties and want to maintain control of my catalog but I have to be realistic as a futurist in the post digital age.
As far as I am concerned, they can all die a slow horrible death trying to ring the last dying cent out of Phil Collins greatest hits volume 47, they deserve it.
Good luck trying to collect the money off this woman. It would seem like some modern day martyr she is being crucified for the sins of a consumer oppression rebellion caused by the record companies own actions.
Her only crime in my opinion judging by the list is having extremely bad taste in music.
Well gee, I really feel sorry for the music industry now.
Yeah, what she did was wrong, illegal blah blah. It really doesn’t matter at all, does it? To young people, the RIAA is the “bad guy” thats willing to go after a young single mother with 4 children.
I agree, f*** the RIAA. Two dozen songs? And at 80 grand a piece? That’s retarded.
Suing a single mother for a couple dozen songs is.. shit, I can’t even think of a good analogy.
The more you tighten your grip on us, the more we will slip through your fingers.
I like the Pirate Bay’s solution to the ridiculous lawsuit they were hit with: have thousands of people make small deposits into whatever account, so that it ends up costing the “bad guys” more than they receive. That’s stickin’ it to the man. :D
All the RIAA does is bring more supporters to our cause. Ever since they sued that one random teenage girl, and Pepsi picked up her tab (you may recall the promotion a few years back, buy Pepsi get free music), I vowed to never purchase a CD again, ever. I haven’t since. GET SOME!
Let’s see, this poor girl allegedly “made available,” 24 songs. No proof that these songs were then downloaded to half of the civilized world. . in fact, no proof that ANY were downloaded.
For this, the RIAA gets a judgment of 1 million, 9 hundred thousand dollars! Or, some EIGHT THOUSAND DOLLARS a song. She looks like she is in her mid twenties, and how is liable for more money than she would probably make in her lifetime.
This crap is out of hand. I am sure the Obama administration and those socialist loving democrats will make sure she pays every cent or spends her life in a gulag.
But what really makes the RIAA look like a bunch of As*es, is the fact that sites like mp3panda go on selling pirated copies of everything for a whopping 10 cents a track. . . RIAA’s response to sites like this? Not a dam* thing. .
It’s that whole “lets pick on those unable to defend themselves,” mentality. Probably one of the main reasons I don’t buy nearly as much music as I used to. (Not to mention there is very little worth my hard earned money)
Why is the JURY allowed to determine the amount of liability?