Re: RIAA wins its first piracy trial

[David Farber <dfarber () cs cmu edu>]

Begin forwarded message:

From: "Tom Fairlie" <tfairlie () frontiernet net>
Date: October 5, 2007 7:34:17 PM EDT
To: <dave () farber net>
Cc: <rforno () infowarrior org>
Subject: Re: [IP] RIAA wins its first piracy trial

Wow! The mind boggles.

- The recording industry grows fat after 50 solid years
    of exploiting both fans and artists
    (e.g., as sales volumes have skyrocketed and the
    price of manufacturing a CD has fallen from several
    dollars to several cents, the retail price has still risen;
    ask an artist what their cut of that retail price is)
    [Note: and yes, I know that many artists owe their
    success to the industry's marketing apparatus]
- A grassroots community forms (i.e., *had* to form) in
    order to innovate a better solution
- The recording industry punishes Napster instead of
    innovating (even after the fact) a comparable solution
    based on what the most obvious research shows that
    customers want
- Additional methods evolve for fans to get what they want,
    including both free/illegal music and pay/legal services
- Artists also start offering free/cheap downloads directly
    to fans ('They Might Be Giants' may have pioneered this
    with their 'Dial-A-Song' line back in 1983)
- The recording industry reacts to all of these innovations
    by getting mad: at Apple (for being successful with a
    fixed price); at artists (for daring to skirt their system);
    and at fans (by taking thousands to court)
    ...again, no innovation planned
- This week, a downloader of songs (perhaps not even intentional)
    was ordered to pay $9,250 for each of 24 songs
- Cary Sherman, president of the RIAA, says "Win or lose, people
    will understand that we are out there trying to protect our  
rights."

Well, she won, and we certainly understand what they're trying
to do. I guess all we can hope for now is for the next paradigm
to appear and finally put them out of business completely. I know
many people are working on this right now and I wish them all the
luck in the world.

Tom Fairlie

PS. Did the AP fire their editors? The article contained this choice
quote: "That was an effort to counter an industry witness's assertion
that the songs on the old drive got __their__ too fast to have come
from CDs she owned - and therefore must have been downloaded illegally."



----- Original Message -----
From: "David Farber" <dfarber () cs cmu edu>
To: <ip () v2 listbox com>
Sent: Friday, October 05, 2007 9:19 AM
Subject: [IP] RIAA wins its first piracy trial




Begin forwarded message:

From: Richard Forno <rforno () infowarrior org>
Date: October 4, 2007 9:39:47 PM EDT
To: Infowarrior List <infowarrior () attrition org>
Cc: Dave Farber <dave () farber net>
Subject: RIAA wins its first piracy trial

Woman Faces The Music, Loses Download Case
Jury Finds Minn. Woman Violated Copyright Law, Orders Her To Pay Record
Companies $220K

Comments Comments60

DULUTH, Minn., Oct. 4, 2007

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2007/10/04/national/main3330186.shtml

(AP) The recording industry won a key fight Thursday against illegal
music
downloading when a federal jury found a Minnesota woman shared
copyrighted
music online and levied $222,000 in damages against her.

Jurors ordered Jammie Thomas, 30, to pay the six record companies
that sued
her $9,250 for each of 24 songs they focused on in the case. They had
alleged she shared 1,702 songs online in violation of their copyrights.

Thomas and her attorney, Brian Toder, declined comment as they left the
courthouse. Jurors also left without commenting.

"This does send a message, I hope, that downloading and distributing our
recordings is not OK," said Richard Gabriel, the lead attorney for
the music
companies.

In the first such lawsuit to go to trial, six record companies accused
Thomas of downloading the songs without permission and offering them
online
through a Kazaa file-sharing account. Thomas denied wrongdoing and
testified
that she didn't have a Kazaa account.

Record companies have filed some 26,000 lawsuits since 2003 over
file-sharing, which has hurt sales because it allows people to get
music for
free instead of paying for recordings in stores. Many other
defendants have
settled by paying the companies a few thousand dollars.

We think we're in for a long haul in terms of establishing that music
has
value, that music is property, and that property has to be respected.
Cathy Sherman, RIAA President
The RIAA says the lawsuits have mitigated illegal sharing, even
though music
file-sharing is rising overall. The group says the number of
households that
have used file-sharing programs to download music has risen from 6.9
million
monthly in April 2003, before the lawsuits began, to 7.8 million in
March
2007.

During the three-day trial, record companies presented evidence they
said
showed the copyrighted songs were offered by a Kazaa user under the name
"tereastarr." Their witnesses, including officials from an Internet
provider
and a security firm, testified that the Internet address used by
"tereastarr" belonged to Thomas.

Toder had argued at closing that record companies never proved that
"Jammie
Thomas, a human being, got on her keyboard and sent out these things."

"We don't know what happened," Toder told jurors. "All we know is that
Jammie Thomas didn't do this."

Gabriel called that defense "misdirection, red herrings, smoke and
mirrors."

He told jurors a verdict against Thomas would send a message to other
illegal downloaders.

"I only ask that you consider that the need for deterrence here is
great,"
he said.

Copyright law sets a damage range of $750 to $30,000 per
infringement, or up
to $150,000 if the violation was "willful." Jurors ruled that Thomas'
infringement was willful, but awarded damages in a middle range.

Before the verdict, an official with an industry trade group said he was
surprised it had taken so long for one of the industry's lawsuits
against
individual downloaders to come to trial.

Illegal downloads have "become business as usual, nobody really
thinks about
it," said Cary Sherman, president of the Recording Industry
Association of
America, which coordinates the lawsuits. "This case has put it back
in the
news. Win or lose, people will understand that we are out there
trying to
protect our rights."

Thomas' testimony was complicated by the fact that she had replaced her
computer's hard drive after the sharing was alleged to have taken
place -
and later than she said in a deposition before trial.

The hard drive in question was not presented at trial by either party,
though Thomas used her new one to show the jury how fast it copies songs
from CDs. That was an effort to counter an industry witness's
assertion that
the songs on the old drive got their too fast to have come from CDs she
owned - and therefore must have been downloaded illegally.

Record companies said Thomas was sent an instant message in February
2005,
warning her that she was violating copyright law. Her hard drive was
replaced the following month, not in 2004, as she said in the
deposition.

The record companies involved in the lawsuit are Sony BMG, Arista
Records
LLC, Interscope Records, UMG Recordings Inc., Capitol Records Inc. and
Warner Bros. Records Inc.

© MMVII The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved. This material may
not be
published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.




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