Today a jury ruled that Jammie Thomas-Rassat, a Minnesota mother of four, willfully violated copyrights on 24 songs she illegally shared. She is to pay $1.92 million, or $80,000 per song.
This is actually the second trial against Thomas-Rassat, and the verdict was worse the second time: the first time she was also found guilty, but had to pay just $222,000. That verdict was thrown out when the judge said he gave the jury bad instructions.
Thomas-Rassat's case is the only one in thousands of similar suits that actually made it to trial. All the others sued settled with the RIAA for about $3,500 each. I'm curious why Thomas-Rassat didn't settle. However, this story includes a comment from the head of the RIAA that says they're still willing to settle, which I found interesting. So really this case isn't about the money, but about making an example out of Thomas-Rassat.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/us_tec_music_downloading
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5 comments:
That is amazing that after being sue the first time that she didn't stop down loading. The are so many people doing this, that it is ashame that they would continue to pursue the same person. And yes why didn't she settle with the rest. Who knows?
I saw this story on the news the other day as well. My question, too, was why wouldn't she settle. That's a lot of money to pay for downloading. Hope that she was making a profit from it so that she can pay this settlement.
Lisa M said...
I agree with you two--I can't believe she didn't settle. I wrote a post on this blog about this case a little while back, and I remember when I first read about it how shocked I was that they were trying to collect $222,000 from her. But upon seeing this update, my jaw dropped. The new total of $1.92 mil is unbelievable! Like Lauren said, it seems all about making an example of her...and making a much bigger example of her after she chose to take it further.
I beleive, the Mom did not beleive this could happen to her twice.
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