Supreme Court Refuses To Hear File-Sharing Case

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It looks like Jammie Thomas' luck has finally run out. It's astounding how this went from a $3,500 shakedown to $222,000 in damages, then $1.9M, then down to $54,000 and finally back up to $222,000. :(

The music industry filed thousands of lawsuits in the early to mid-2000s against people it accused of downloading music without permission and without paying for it. Almost all the cases settled for about $3,500 apiece. Thomas-Rasset is one of only two defendants who refused to pay and went to trial. The other was former Boston University student Joel Tenenbaum, who also lost and was ordered to pay $675,000.
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Because damages that range between $3,500 to $1.9M at the flip of a coin isn't unreasonable; especially for something as silly as a few songs.
 
If they make it hundreds of thousands of dollars for a student, they are basically just forcing you to declare bankrupcy.
 
Ducman69 said:
If they make it hundreds of thousands of dollars for a student, they are basically just forcing you to declare bankrupcy.
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Civil judgments usually are not discharged in bankruptcy proceedings. Judgments and student loans are two things that will follow you until the grave.
 
Maplehamwich said:
It's too bad there are so many people in law who are shills for big money.
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There are people that knowingly defend child rapists in court, so of course there are going to be people that will defend the interests of the music industry. I don't blame the lawyers, but the system itself for allowing such rediculous damages to be granted.
 
I should have qualified that with judgements unrelated to creditors suing you.
 
I guess the message of the day is don't share files over the Internet.
Just load them up on a Terabyte drive and trade them with Friends.
Problem solved....
 
She is a working mother with a Deadbeat husband and she is allready getting assistance fromn the government, They will collect squat from here! How much money did they spend trying to win their case, oh ya they will never see a dime of that either LMAO.
 
devman said:
Civil judgments usually are not discharged in bankruptcy proceedings. Judgments and student loans are two things that will follow you until the grave.
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The penalty for file sharing does not fall into the categories of non-dischargable debts so most likely you would be able to declare bankruptcy and have it removed.
 
So what's the point of these lawsuits? You'd obviously not have that sort of cash... If it was me I'd just file for bankruptcy lol. Ain't gonna bother me. They still aint' getting shit.
 
Did they not change bankruptcy to where you have to pay now, on a payment plan or something, its just not a get out of jail free card?
 
JL6speed said:
So what's the point of these lawsuits? You'd obviously not have that sort of cash... If it was me I'd just file for bankruptcy lol. Ain't gonna bother me. They still aint' getting shit.
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To ruin a persons life for good and force them to either not pay and face prison time or commit suicide to avoid a life long debt. Either way I hardly think the RIAA/MPAA would care about the results. They are like the mafia, out to send a message even if they have to walk over the bodies of children.
 
soulman901 said:
I guess the message of the day is don't share files over the Internet.
Just load them up on a Terabyte drive and trade them with Friends.
Problem solved....
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Lets call it SnailNet.

Works good with a group of friends. Just copy the files you want to share (music, MP3's, Games) to a large USB drive, and pass it on. Each person copies what they want, then adds some more files and passes it on. When you get the drive back, copy down what you want, delete the files you added and replace them with new ones to share.

Plus you don't have to worry about hitting your internet cap :)
 
Her lawyer:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kiwi_Camara


In his first year at Harvard, Camara was involved in a racial controversy that would gain attention from the national media. Like many students, Camara posted his course outlines to a popular student-run website. Camara's, however, referred to blacks as nigs. For example, to summarize Shelley v. Kraemer, he wrote "Nigs buy land with no nig covenant; Q: Enforceable?"[7] The notes were prefaced with a disclaimer that they may contain racially offensive shorthand.[7]

Upon discovering the outline, classmate Michelle Simpson alerted other students and professors.[7] Camara issued an apology and the outlines were promptly removed, whereupon a third student using the pseudonym "gcrocodile" e-mailed Simpson, expressing disappointment that they were no longer available.[8] The student was later identified as then-1L Mattias Scholl. The section's professor, Charles Nesson, proposed as a didactic solution a classroom mock trial in which he would defend Scholl's right to free speech.[9] The Black Law Student Association at the school took offense and called for a reprimand of the professor, along with another professor, David Rosenberg, who in an unrelated incident allegedly stated that "Feminism, Marxism and the blacks have contributed nothing to the scientific pursuit of legal discourse."[9] Nesson voluntarily withdrew from teaching the torts course, and the law school dean took over for the remainder of the semester.[10]
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While I do think that the amount is outrageous, they did offer her 3500 which she COULD HAVE paid back. She did not take responsibility and now is going to have this on her shoulders forever. I have no sympathy for her, other people yes. She tried replacing the hard drive that was used with a blank one.
 
The fear they spread is payment enough for them...
 
Marlfox said:
Because damages that range between $3,500 to $1.9M at the flip of a coin isn't unreasonable; especially for something as silly as a few songs.
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This.

Personally I even think the 3500 is a bit ridiculous now that CDs are all-but dead and tracks are $1 each (arguably back in the CD day when we usually paid $20 per decent song (considering most CDs had 1 good track and the rest was "filler") then as stupid as the cost was this could be argued it wouldn't take long to rack up thousands in lost sales, but not today), I dont see how they can claim this kind of damage. Even if s/he downloaded 1K songs, that's over 300% damages, and $1.9M is completely ludecrus...
While I'm not saying that piracy is right, I agree with most of the comments that the legal system clearly has some major problems when Likely less than $1K in stolen merchandise can "legitimately" demand a fine of nearly $2M (especially when the initial fine was $3500)

I cant really argue against RIAA, I mean Capitalism means "charge whatever they're willing to pay" but the courts should have thrown out nearly $2M in damages as overkill without question...
 
Ashton said:
This.

Personally I even think the 3500 is a bit ridiculous now that CDs are all-but dead and tracks are $1 each (arguably back in the CD day when we usually paid $20 per decent song (considering most CDs had 1 good track and the rest was "filler") then as stupid as the cost was this could be argued it wouldn't take long to rack up thousands in lost sales, but not today), I dont see how they can claim this kind of damage. Even if s/he downloaded 1K songs, that's over 300% damages, and $1.9M is completely ludecrus...
While I'm not saying that piracy is right, I agree with most of the comments that the legal system clearly has some major problems when Likely less than $1K in stolen merchandise can "legitimately" demand a fine of nearly $2M (especially when the initial fine was $3500)

I cant really argue against RIAA, I mean Capitalism means "charge whatever they're willing to pay" but the courts should have thrown out nearly $2M in damages as overkill without question...
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True capitalism means having a free market. Imaginary property is anti-capitalist because it inherently restricts the free market through the use of state-imposed violence and economic rent seeking.
 
damicatz said:
True capitalism means having a free market. Imaginary property is anti-capitalist because it inherently restricts the free market through the use of state-imposed violence and economic rent seeking.
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Meh, that's a very blurry line. Since someone put a lot of time and $$$ into creating the "imaginary property" This is starting to really float into a philosophical argument about value of time/effort and what constitutes a product or not... (Neither agreeing nor disagreeing because there is merit on both sides of that argument)

...Though in either case the Legal system is still broken :D :p lol
 
I went back to Radio after I plugged my iPhone into my MacBookPro, and lost about $200 worth of music, much of it I hadn't even listened to yet. I bought the music before a vacation using an iPhone, and though we could play it on the MBP. Plugged it in, asked if I wanted to "sync", answered yes, and POOF! All gone.

I was never into downloading free music illegally.

So I consider the Music Industries DRM just as criminal as whatever that lady did. They stole $200 from me, and should go to jail for it.

But I'm told I didn't follow all the instructions that weren't included with the purchase. So I'm to blame for buying the shit.

Fuck copy protection. Until they make it so it doesn't act in a criminal fashion, it should be illegal.

Yes, they have a right to sell music. No they don't have a right to take money without delivering product. Theft is theft.
 
People used these P2P networks back in the day with no idea of what they were or how they operated. They just heard from a friend "hey, free music if you download this Kazaa thing! pretty sweet!".

While I completely despise how the RIAA/MPAA go after copyright infridgement and think the fines are ridiculous, this is all her doing. She took the chance. I dont care if it was her kids. Again, her responsibility to know what her kids are doing. Especially online.

This reminds me of all the inept parents out there these days that get their kids GTA IV and other games without even a thought when their kids just hit 5th grade. It's really sad how broke some kids are these days. I dont care for over protective parenting, but you gotta have guidlines and know what your kids are doing.

I agree with all others though. The system is broke for sure. It needs to be rewritten for todays technical world.


I just dont see how they can "prove" that the songs were distributed and to what extent. The songs were available. But how many people were able to get the songs she offered? How do they make the decision between 10 or 10 million. They dont know how many times each song was taken, they just know she had them available being shared.
 
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