RIAA Files Expected Appeal Over Judge's Decision To Decrease Jury Award In Jammie Thomas Trial
from the how-dare-the-judge-be-reasonable! dept
The RIAA's war against reasonableness continues. As totally and completely expected after Judge Michael David reduced the jury award against Jammie Thomas-Rasset from $80,000 per song shared to a still ridiculous $2,250 per song shared, the RIAA has now appealed the case to the Eighth Circuit appeals court. Now is when the case finally starts to get more interesting. The RIAA is actually challenging three parts from the three prior trials (as you may recall, the first two were tossed out). Specifically, the RIAA is asking:Whether the District Court erred by concluding that making a copyrighted work available for download on an online file-sharing network is insufficient to constitute a 'distribution' under 106(3) of the Copyright Act, and therefore refusing to enjoin Defendant from making Plaintiffs' copyrighted sound recordings available to the public.All three are interesting legal questions. The last one may be the biggest, but the hardest to succeed on. The reasoning used so far by two different judges in dropping jury awards is that the jury awards were so out of line with reality that they violated due process. The RIAA is scared to death that any sort of reasonable awards be associated with copyright law, because they're still under the ridiculously misguided belief that absolutely insane judgments for millions of dollars will scare people into no longer sharing files. The thing is, it's likely they have this misjudged in a big, bad way. The awards in the millions of dollars for just a few songs seem so incredible and so unfathomable, that most people simply think it's impossible. I honestly believe that they'd have a lot more luck if the fines were seen as much lower and much more within the grasp of the average file sharer. But the RIAA is not known for thinking logically.
Whether the District Court erred by concluding that it had committed an error in instructing the jury that making a copyrighted work available for download on a online file-sharing network constitutes a "distribution' under 106(3) of the copyright Act and therefor vacating the jury's verdict and ordering a new trial.
Whether the District Court erred by holding that the jury's award of statutory damages for defendant's willful copyright infringement violated the due process clause even though it was well within the range of damages awards authorized by 504(c) of the Copyright Act.
The first two issues are actually important as well, though they'll get less attention. It's a key fighting point by the RIAA: which is whether or not a copyright holder needs to prove actual distribution to show an infringement of the distribution right under copyright law... or if merely "making available" constitutes distribution. This has been a major point of contention. The RIAA relies on a case about library books to say that merely "making available" is a violation of the distribution right, but other rulings and basic common sense on what constitutes distribution, suggest that merely making available is not, in fact, distribution by itself.
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Filed Under: appeal, constitution, copyright, distribution, jammie thomas, making available, statutory damages
Companies: riaa
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The damages appeal should be interesting, and I would not be surprised to see the Supreme Court get that question eventually.
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The entire concept of using the Thomas-Rasset trials as a deterrent is silly because it only shows that the RIAA will get tripped up in what few cases it actually takes to a jury even if it manages to acquire a "win." Sure, it's hell for Thomas-Rasset, but at this point she has nothing to lose by fighting because the RIAA has shown that they want to bankrupt her for life to set an example.
They further show that it's unethical to patronize their businesses because that money is clearly going to the unethical practice of ruining people's lives.
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Excessive fine?
Rather than the due process clause, how about the 8th amendment prohibition against excessive fines? I think it should apply even though it's not a criminal case, since the damages are statutory.
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The second follows the first. For me it is similar to solicitation for prostitution, you don't have to actually perform the act to have made the case. Offering up of the "goods" should be enough, especially on a civil level.
The final one is also likely to go the MPAA's way, because the law is very clear and has limitations built in. The laws are not open ended, the jury didn't randomly come up with a stupidly large number that is beyond the scope of the law, but rather came up with a number that is within the scope of the law as written. Unless the law can someone be invalidated (first amendment challenge, perhaps), there is little to say that the law is wrong.
In front of SCOTUS (if they ever get there), the actions of a judge who appears to be trying to bend the law will not go over well. There is little justification for setting aside a jury award that is within the scope of the law.
The 8th amendment won't be an issue here, for two reasons. First, this isn't really a "fine" in the sense of a criminal action, and secondly that the jury award is within the boundries of the law as written, passed, and signed into law. It's pretty hard to get around that.
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Cherry Picking
There's also stuff about "limited times".
Some of this stuff was so old that it should have been in the public domain anyways.
Judges being people manage to actually have a problem presiding over a travesty of justice.
Statutory Damages for individuals should be disallowed. The harmed party should be forced to show damages and any standards applied to insurance companies should also apply to citizens.
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Re: Cherry Picking
Actually, you do. A part of a law can be declared unconstitutional, without throwing out the whole law.
Since the prior commenter said the entire law was unconstitutional, I simply pointed out the fact that the constitution specifically grants Congress the power to enact such laws.
Maybe they have gone beyond other constitutional constraints in some parts, but that doesn't make the entire law unconstitutional.
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Re: Re: Cherry Picking
Laws change.
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Re: Cherry Picking
Amen brother! Those frauds get out of paying so much money.
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So let's get this straight...
Allowing JD Salinger to have a monopoly on his book before he died is really promoting the progress of the Arts and Sciences...
And it makes logical sense to make authors higher class citizens than the people who might be good fans of theirs...
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As usual, you are unable to follow along.
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BTW, look into statutory rights and natural rights while you're doing so.
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If it is not promoting the progress and people can show that those laws become unconstitutional no?
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Kind of funny really. I had a discussion the other day with an AC (perhaps even you) where they thought that YouTube lived in the "margins of the law", but now talking about the MPAA it's all good if they are within "the scope of the law as written". Seems like double standards to me.
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The "margins of the law" issue comes when a law is intended to do something, but because of the way it is written, it creates a grey area where companies can profit. While many people think DMCA is very strong "pro copyright", it is actually incredibly weak, because it creates all the needed legal defenses to allow widescale abuse of copyright, giving everyone an exit ramp to escape liablity. The law wasn't intended to do that, it didn't intent to create a delay between notification and action, but it has in effect done that.
There is no double standard, as it is two entirely different things.
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Let me see if I understand this correctly. The first is completely black & white and crystal clear because it follows exactly what the law says and the second is fuzzy shades of grey because it follows exactly what the law says.
Still looks like double standards to me.
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Except that the Copyright Act is not the only law we're dealing with. We are also dealing with the Supreme Court's interpretation of the due process clause. It has held in some cases that damages awards that are many multiples of any actual harm violate this provision.
Saying a the jury award is within the bounds of the statute doesn't answer the ultimate question of "substantive" due process.
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The US Supreme Court does this all the time.
Just because the Jury Award is "within the boundries of the law as written" does not mean that the US Supreme Court will not follow the Thomas judge and invalidate the jury award because it violates our constitutional rights to be protected from excessive fines and punishments.
I think bankrupting someone for sharing 25 songs counts as excessive.
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What if she turns to a life of terrorism and child pornography to pay the judgment! What if!!!!!
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Yup that's the point - the entire basis of the jury award is "what if".
She made a small number of songs available. The huge damages are all based on "what if thousands of people downloaded them.
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http://www.net-security.org/secworld.php?id=8841
http://www.bloggernews.net/11421
You think all those people put very sensitive data on P2P on purpose? they intended to share their bank accounts, passports, resumes, very personal photos with everybody on the internet?
http://www.foundphotos.net/
There is even rumours that Wikileaks used P2P to gather info.
http://seewhatyoushare.com/
And you truly believe that just making available is a sign of intent?
You can't be serious.
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You can ask for it all you want....
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Re: You can ask for it all you want....
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Why not? After all, if you get busted with a certain amount of drugs they charge you with possesion with the intent to distribute. Don't you know, they are mind readers, just having intentions is against the law.
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common sense
To play devil's advocate:
My common sense (or lack thereof) is troubled by the idea that whether I've done something wrong is not based on my actions, but on the actions of others (i.e. whether others have downloaded something I posted). Or that the seriousness of my crime depends on not what I do, but on how much others do.
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How about a new, lesser charge...
Perhaps someone will make a new crime with "attempted distribution" or "intent to distribute" which would be a lesser penalty than actually distributing.
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Well, after all the "reality" talk on the "New Fox Delay" thread...
The penalties for "piracy" can be made arbitrarily high.
Stop your knee-jerk reactions for just a second... They (the content Mafia plus gov't) don't /actually/ care that you (or even many people) "pirate" songs or TV shows. You're WAY short-sighted if you think that stopping "illegal" downloads is the goal: in fact, they want MORE people to do so! It's the CONTROL of you all being /criminals/ that's important, of being able at any time to slap you with outrageous fines (or the coming jail terms) just for sharing files. The gov't needs "criminals" in order to rule.
So the IRONY is that while you think you're "free" and "liberating data" and so on, by doing so you've actually made yourself /subject/ to corporatism! -- Tyranny doesn't get you for big meaningful acts of rebellion, but tiny ones.
My advice is that NOW is the time to avoid it, lest you become an example case. The system IS cracking down. -- Just ask that Swartz fellow how looking at decades in prison has changed his mind.
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Re: Well, after all the "reality" talk on the "New Fox Delay" thread...
That's the ticket.
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Re: Well, after all the "reality" talk on the "New Fox Delay" thread...
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Re: Well, after all the "reality" talk on the "New Fox Delay" thread...
I saw this coming more than a decade ago when I started arguing that we were slowly being pushed back towards feudalism, except instead of landholders, it would be corporate overlords. The idea seemed so "fringe" to most back then, but with each passing year the reality of it seems to grow closer and closer.
And I agree the best way to control a population is to criminalize it. Their War on Drugs (especially pot) was one effective tool to do so. But given they are losing the battle against outlawing pot, they need to replace it with something equally mass criminalizing.
Where I stopped agreeing was the last paragraph. Like Benjamin Franklin, I am not going to simply except "this is the way it is" and work diligently to counter tyranny as I am able.
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Now get out there and aim for Prince and Bono!
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If you get strung by one that is just a waste, if you are going to get in trouble do it in style, rip everything you can.
Why bother being careful if you are already in the mud?
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You misspelled "everything."
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The RIAA is wrong and the law is wrong
This case proves that no company should ever be allowed to hold a copyright on anything, because they will abuse that right to the detriment of every human being on the planet.
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Might this stance backfire?
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