Supreme Court Won't Hear Jammie Thomas Appeal

from the but-of-course dept

Tue, Mar 19th 2013 12:08pm — Mike Masnick

We didn't think that the Supreme Court would grant cert to hear the appeal in Jammie Thomas' case and now it's been confirmed. As we've said for a while, neither Jammie Thomas's case nor Joel Tenenbaum's case,were ideal cases to take to trial, and both people mounted questionable defenses, which massively harmed their credibility. There are serious issues that could have and should have been covered in these kinds of cases, including the Constitutionality of certain levels of statutory damages. However, the way they went about this case made sure that it was doomed from the start. And, unfortunately, now it's just more bad precedent out there.

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Filed Under: copyright, jammie thomas, jammie thomas-rasset, statutory damages, supreme court

26 Comments

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Anonymous Coward, 19 Mar 2013 @ 12:14pm

they should be ashamed of what they are doing. catering for the entertainment industries whilst doing what the government says is not following the law and in this and all other 'file sharing cases', the punishment is way over the top in relation to the so-called crime!! there isn't a single song produced that is worth what she and others have been fined. and remember, it's all so the governments friends can be encouraged to keep on supporting political campaigns!!
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out_of_the_blue, 19 Mar 2013 @ 12:18pm

Pirtae mike once again supporting the pirates, she should face up to her crimesa.

Take a loopy tour of Techdirt.com! You always end up at same place!
http://techdirt.com/
What are you stoopid pirates doing here? Mike supports copyright!
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Atkray (profile), 19 Mar 2013 @ 12:22pm

Now
Rikuo, now you will see all the maximalists jumping up and down with glee.
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Rikuo (profile), 19 Mar 2013 @ 12:26pm

Re:
In a pretty short article, you somehow managed to find lines where he supports piracy. Funny, I saw phrases like "questionable defenses" "neither...ideal cases" and "doomed from the start".

Fuck off.
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Rikuo (profile), 19 Mar 2013 @ 12:27pm

Re: Now
Too late, the Richter scale I've got next to my desk is going nuts.
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ChurchHatesTucker (profile), 19 Mar 2013 @ 12:36pm

It's a push
On the one side, their playlists (the files they got charged with) are pretty popular. Or so I hear.

On the other side, they're kind of meh. There's much more interesting stuff out there.
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out_of_the_blue, 19 Mar 2013 @ 12:39pm

Re: Badly done imitation. At least spell right!
Pirate Mike once again supporting pirates. She should face up to her crimes.

Take a loopy tour of Techdirt.com! You always end up at same place!
http://techdirt.com/
What are you stoopid pirates doing here? Mike supports copyright!
---------------
There, fixed that for ya.

Don't you kids wish YOU were influential enough here to have imitators? Heh, heh.

Anyhoo, ACTUALLY, as I've said, I think the punishment MUCH too severe: should be quite limited -- to, say, the $3500 bucks they originally wanted to extort. Lower fines but more certain to be caught would be better.

I'd mostly blame EFF or whoever backed her legal challenges in the first place.
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Anonymous Coward, 19 Mar 2013 @ 12:44pm

Re:
"Pirtae mike once again supporting the pirates, she should face up to her crimesa."

I think the boy's been hitting the bottle while keyboarding.
Perhaps he finally realizes what a lonely, wasted life he has...
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Anonymous Coward, 19 Mar 2013 @ 12:47pm

Re: Re: Badly done imitation. At least spell right!
"Don't you kids wish YOU were influential enough here to have imitators? Heh, heh."

If you consider yourself to be an "imitator" of yourself, you have deeper psychological problems thant we already thought, boy.
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out_of_the_blue, 19 Mar 2013 @ 12:47pm

Re: Re: Badly done imitation. At least spell right!
@Me: imitation is the sincerest form of flattery. I have to say I'm fairly proud of the Techdirt modus operandi. They do make it look unique

MY OPINION: Jammie Thomas knew that what she was doing was wrong. Who cares if the law system if flawed, it's better to ignore the faults it produces and focus on the results...which have been apparently zilch to none.

Take a loopy tour of Techdirt.com! You always end up at same place!
http://techdirt.com/
Where fanboys assert that working industries are doing it all wrong!
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Anonymous Coward, 19 Mar 2013 @ 12:59pm

Re:
Come on out_of_the_blew_a_donkey you can do better than that.

I think you're slipping.
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Anonymous Coward, 19 Mar 2013 @ 1:13pm

Re: Re: Re: Badly done imitation. At least spell right!
Jammie Thomas knew that what she was doing was illegal.

Fixed that for you.
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bob, 19 Mar 2013 @ 1:37pm

Re: Now
Not just the maximalists, but those who support artists everywhere. The only ones who are sobbing are the copyright deniers and the creator haters.

And it's not a bad precedent, it's a good one. Everyone predicted it would happen from the beginning except the tenured law professors who wanted to smoke up and dream wacko thoughts.
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E. Zachary Knight (profile), 19 Mar 2013 @ 2:48pm

Re: Re: Now
How exactly does upholding these insane statutory damage fees actually support artists? Is all that money going to go to the artists who wrote and/or performed the songs she uploaded? No. None of it is.

That is stepping aside from the real issue that these damages will actually erode what respect of copyright the average person holds. When they hear that uploading 24 songs will get you fined hundreds of thousands of dollars, they are just going to laugh and go right on doing what they do everyday with the addition of complaining about how one sided copyright law has become.
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NA Protector, 19 Mar 2013 @ 3:24pm

Results?
Focus on the result and not the process?
So, it would be ok if I gave everyone in your family a deadly disease which killed you all and then rumage through your remains and developed a cure for it?

Because, who cares if you suffer agonizingly long, terrible, deaths. I got the cure now, right?
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Anonymous Coward, 19 Mar 2013 @ 4:05pm

Why is it that bad precedents make for good constitutional law, when the laws that the precedents are predicated upon are not constitutional, falling outside the original intent of the constitution?
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Ezekial, 19 Mar 2013 @ 4:27pm

Re:
I agree, she broke the law and deserves the punishment. She shared those files to 10s of thousands of people and should pay for every copy she gave away.

On a side note, why is this site called Techdirt anyway. I never see any tech stories anymore. It should be renamed copyright and patent dirt since 99% of the stories anymore have to do with those topics
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Internet Zen Master (profile), 19 Mar 2013 @ 4:30pm

Um, hold up a sec
Exactly what precedent has been set here? A refusal to hear a case means just that. The Supreme Court refused to hear Jammie Thomas-Rasset's case, and her case alone.

I have no idea where the hell you people are coming up with the idea that just because the US Supreme Court denied Thomas-Rasset her appeal means that there's some sort of precedent being set. All means is that the decision of whatever lower court ruled on the case last is the final outcome.

In short, we're back to square one. No binding (nationwide) precedent has been set. The RIAA is still able to sue for outrageous amounts of cash if they so desire (however, after all the terrible press they received from the "we're gonna sue you into poverty for rest of your life" angle, they'd have to be really stupid to try something like that again), and the people still have the ability to appeal to the courts over the constitutionality of exorbitantly high damages.

If something like this happens again, perhaps next time we'll have a defendant who has a better case to take to trial.

As the Zen Master says, "We'll see."
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Anonymous Coward, 19 Mar 2013 @ 5:14pm

Re: Um, hold up a sec
Ummm, for starters, it's precedent in whatever circuit it was heard. There are only 11 in the country, so each one covers a lot of real estate (and district courts). And it's not uncommon for one circuit to look at another when crafting an opinion about a case with similar circumstances. Certainly the lawyers will.

As noted elsewhere, this whole matter is the Frankenstein created by the zealots of EFF and tenured law professors who pushed her into the spotlight to further their cause and beliefs rather than act in the best interest of their client.

Now she gets to hold the bag while they tilt at their next windmill.
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mmrtnt (profile), 19 Mar 2013 @ 5:15pm

Feeding
Makes you wonder, if Jesus were alive today, how much would he be fined for sharing copies of loaves and fish?
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Internet Zen Master (profile), 19 Mar 2013 @ 5:33pm

Re: Re: Um, hold up a sec
Correct. In this case this precedent would cover the Eight Circuit. However, there is no nationwide, legally binding precedent being set (I'm not a lawyer, I'm simply basing this on what limited knowledge I have from my education in business law).

As for the argument of one circuit/the lawyers looking at the result here when crafting an opinion about a case, that's pretty much a given. However, it's also equally likely that they could dismiss what happened in the Eighth Circuit and come to their own conclusion on the matter.
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Internet Zen Master (profile), 19 Mar 2013 @ 5:35pm

Re: Feeding
Depends on how much the Roman equivalent of Monsanto was charging for fish and bread.
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Anonymous Coward, 19 Mar 2013 @ 6:41pm

Re: Feeding
Fined? Fined? Did you see what happened to the bugger? Crucified, that's what happened to him! Now if only Thomas-Rasset were crucified, bob would jizz in his little corporate pants.
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Ninja (profile), 20 Mar 2013 @ 3:08am

It's a pity. You have 2 lives destroyed for what's not even akin to shoplifting (and bad lawyers/attitude). I'm sure the MAFIAA is feeling all warm inside ;)
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Grumpy, 20 Mar 2013 @ 7:07am

If a 222K fine for sharing 24 worthless songs is not "cruel and unusual punishment" I wonder what is ?
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Anonymous Coward, 22 Mar 2013 @ 11:19am

Did the crime... pay the fine
Yo Jammie!

You seriously believed those free culture lawyers who
told you that you are entitled to other people's hard
work for free...

Oops! They were wrong.

I am betting they won't pay your fines for you.
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