A Giant Step in the Wrong Direction
This is pretty amazing, and galling. A jury in Minnesota (Motto: “We’re the New Montana”) decided that a woman they claimed pirated music must the RIAA $9,250 per song, for a total of $222,000.
Among the amazing aspects of this case:
- The RIAA did not have to prove that the defendant illegally downloaded any music
- The RIAA did not have to prove that the defendant was the person who pirated the music
- The RIAA did not have to prove that anyone downloaded the music, only that it was available for download
The RIAA in the past has said that each downloaded song should be penalized with $750, although they graciously accept $3000 quickie settlements from people they send semi-random threats to. Where the jury came up with $9,250 is a mystery. The jury refused to talk to the press as they left.
Either the defense lawyer was incompetent, or the judge was, or the jury was stupid. Or maybe a mix of all three. This is pretty astonishing. Needless to say, it was an easy case for the RIAA to win considering all of its aspects (especially the jury instructions), and the RIAA will doubtlessly try to apply the victory prejudicially over all of its future litigation actions, no matter what the differences.
To give you a picture of what the jury apparently bought into, Sony BMG lawyer Jennifer Pariser claimed that even ripping a music CD to your computer or making a backup copy was stealing, despite the fact that the law says the exact opposite. The RIAA also laid out all of their usual “we’re losing billions of dollars” fiction which has been repudiated by any research not paid for by the RIAA.
The RIAA also played dirty by claiming that the defendant had her hard drive replaced to destroy evidence, despite the fact that the replacement took place before the RIAA first contacted her.
I don’t know. Maybe the defendant was just completely unbelievable in her testimony. Maybe the plaintiffs put their massive legal resources to work and razzle-dazzled the courtroom.
The end result is, thanks to this jury, the RIAA is now completely emboldened, and now has a court-established precedent that works in its favor. The only hope is that this whole case can be appealed and won on appeal, based upon the questionable jury instructions–the judge told the jury that it was not necessary to find that the defendant had actually committed the infringement that she was being sued for.
One could call that a wee bit contentious.
I’m really putting this on her defense. She had no expert witnesses, just herself, so I am imaging her testimony did not come off as very credible.
I’m completely flabbergasted. The jury was told they didn’t have to determine that she was guilty of stealing the music … in order to decide that she was guilty??!?!!
Brad: Yep. The suit was about “making available” the songs to others, even if nobody downloaded them. She was fined $222,000 for having 24 tracks in her KaZaA shared folder, where, for a short time, they were available for others to download, even if nobody did. That, as far as I understand it, is it.
And as for her being the actual person they found, yes, the account used the same name that she used elsewhere online, and apparently (I’m not sure of this though) the IP address for her ISP matched the reported observation of the account. However, it is possible for anyone to use an account name, and the IP address could be spoofed. It is asking a bit much–a hacker would have to deliberately be trying to frame this person instead of using random names and numbers–or someone on the same ISP could have known her handle and used it.
The point is, it was possible for this to happen. But all the RIAA had to depend upon was the probability that it was her–that well-known “beyond a reasonable doubt.” It could have gone either way on that one, I suppose, but the RIAA was apparently convincing enough for the jury.