Jammie Thomas is down, but not out
Jammie Thomas, the Minnesota woman found liable for $222,000
worth of damages to the RIAA, announced
on her Myspace blog that she is going to continue to fight her case in the appellate
court.
When Capitol Records
v. Jammie Thomas wrapped up last Thursday, Thomas was found
guilty of copyright infringement, and a jury awarded Capitol Records $9,250
for each of the 24 songs named that she made available through the “Shared
Folders” feature of Kazaa. Thomas, who left the courthouse without comment,
later wrote that she was “devastated” when her verdict was read.
“I wonder if there is a person out there who wouldn't be
upset after a jury says you're responsible to pay $222,000 for something you
didn't do. I was inconsolable,” later
adding that she is “going to take the RIAA's theory of making available and
appeal it,” and if successful, “stop the RIAA dead in [its] tracks.”
According to Thomas, nearly every case brought on by the
RIAA relies on the act of making a song available for sharing (usually through
the P2P app’s Shared Folder feature) as
opposed to proving the music was actually shared—a precedent that sets the burden
of proof very low for organizations like the RIAA. While Capitol Records v. Jammie Thomas—which is significant as it is the
first case of its kind to reach a jury trial—has been described as precedent-setting,
the fact is courts have historically gone both ways on the “availability”
argument: in December 2006, a federal judge in Elektra v. Perez ruled that making files available for download counts as
distribution; around the same time another federal judge ruled in UMG v. Lindor that the “plaintiff will
have the burden of proving … that [the] defendant actually shared sound files
belonging to [the] plaintiffs.”
Meanwhile, the RIAA continues its legal battle against file
sharers. Figures
vary wildly on the total number of legal complaints that the RIAA has filed
to date, with the upper end of that number somewhere around 36,000 suits, not
including the numerous threat letters and pre-trial settlements that it has reached.
Most suits settle out-of-court for sums of a couple thousand dollars.
Thomas remains positive, and has been rallying support for
her cause at FreeJammie.com. “Stay
tuned,” she writes her blog, “cause I’m taking you all along for the ride.”
"Young lady, in this house we obey the laws of thermodynamics!" -- Homer Simpson
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