In the first case of its kind to make it to a jury trial, a Minnesota woman has been ordered to pay $222,000 in damages for violating music copyrights by making songs on her computer available for others to download for free. The recording industry hopes the verdict in the federal case sends a strong message to those who use file-sharing programs to download "free" music on the Internet.
The Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) has sued more than 26,000 people for downloading and offering music free on file-sharing networks. Most of those lawsuits have been settled with the defendants paying a few thousand dollars.
Jammie Thomas, a 30-year-old single mom from Brainerd, Minnesota, was the first to fight the charges all the way to court. Thomas claims she never shared music online and did not even have the Kazaa software installed on her computer that would allow her to share.
'Making Available' Is a Violation
During the trial, evidence was presented that Thomas replaced the harddrive on her computer after she was sued by the record companies. Neither Thomas nor the plaintiffs produced the harddrive she had on her computer at the time during the trial.
The trial brought another victory for the recording industry, other than the large financial award. The judgment sets a legal precedent that merely offering to share music online is a violation of copyright without the industry having to prove actual transfers were made.
Originally, U.S. District Court Judge Michael Davis planned to instruct the jury that the record companies had to prove someone actually copied the songs before they could find that a violation occurred. After record company attorneys pointed to cases in which making songs available was found to be an infringement, Judge Davis gave the jury the opposite instruction.
Thomas was accused of making 1,702 songs available on the Kazaa network, but during the trial they focused on only 24 of those songs. The judgment against her comes out to about $9,250 per song.
Thomas called the judgment ridiculous on her MySpace.com blog.
"It says in the Constitution that there should be no undue fines," Thomas told reporters. "I was just fined (9,000 percent more) than the value of these songs."
See Also:
Woman to Pay Downloading Award Herself
Minnesota Woman Who Owes RIAA $220,000 Calls Sum 'Ridiculous'
The Cost of Free File-Sharing
Analyzing a Music Pirate's Playlist
RIAA Victory Sends Message But Won't Stop File-Sharing
Whoa -- $9,250 for an Enya Song!
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