24 illegal song downloads cost US woman 220,000 dollars

ppl still use Kazaa?

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2007/...n3330186.shtml

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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.

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so keep using it guys.. Makes me feel better torrenting... and safer

shes an idiot:
-she used kazaa
-she thought she could win and didnt settle but chose to go to trial

If you looked at the case, you would know that the share folder with those 24 songs was from sometime back in 2005.

And with better representation she probably would have won. They had no proof of her having any filesharing program, and the songs in question weren't produced as evidence either as her harddrive had been replaced.

I would like to see how the appeal goes.

http://www.news.com/8301-10784_3-979...tag=nefd.pulse

Yes saw that...the story continues hopefully

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Originally Posted by von Lohman

"There are a lot of copyright lawyers who would be interested in helping her if she wants to continue this," von Lohmann said. "I'd imagine that she doesn't want to pay $200,000. We'll see what she wants to do." ..

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Originally Posted by Blue_Skies

If you looked at the case, you would know that the share folder with those 24 songs was from sometime back in 2005.

And with better representation she probably would have won. They had no proof of her having any filesharing program, and the songs in question weren't produced as evidence either as her harddrive had been replaced.

I would like to see how the appeal goes.

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There *is* evidence that her PC was used to share files over the Internet. And let's be honest, it's highly unlikely that she didn't knew about it.
Girl's just stupid, she should've settle.

wow shes realy not smart lol

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Originally Posted by IGetMoney

wow shes realy not smart lol

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Ah their both dumb , 24 illegal songs = 224,000 not 220,000 . :)

no may be she doesn't know abt it about ya she should've settle

Sharing 24 songs means you're single-handedly killing the music industry.
With this case the RIAA was saying, "You see? We're suing her for 24 songs. Imagine what we will do to you when we find your 2,000 songs."

Also... the username she used on Kazaa was the same one she used on other sites.
whaaaat

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Originally Posted by AmpeD

shes an idiot:
-she used kazaa

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She's a noob! ^^

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Originally Posted by AmpeD

-she thought she could win and didnt settle but chose to go to trial

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To be honest, it wasn't that clear that she would have to pay this amount of money...
Maybe she had no good settlement with them, so she preferred to go to trial, no one imagined she gonna pay that kind of money

This is brutal!!! Maybe they forgive her :)))) hehehe

record companies are full of douchebags but she deserved to get screwed for using kazaa, is this 1999 still?

although shes stupid for taking it to trial i have some pity for her

if she's here in sillypore, she'll be jailed even b4 trial...

bull

ouch! very harsh ..

am currently conducting an online questionnaire about file sharers and how bad this could turn against them. ironically i use it and cant stop myself downloading and sharing stuff, we're used to get music or any other materials this way.. but we need to be careful guys ;)

check out my questionnaire and fill it in please.. its for uni use only dont worry...
http://www.zapsurvey.com/Survey.aspx...5-a433aeebad61

cheers

Wowww! Thats a lot of money...

f*** the record companies... and WTF??? people still uses kazaa? :O

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Originally Posted by invadercat

people still uses kazaa?

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she used it in 2005, when RIAA found her

220,000 dollars ? Jezus LOOOL
She gonna sell house, car etc to pay that haha :P

Kazaa...still alive that thing ? :o
I guess they sued her for using that...

damn, i feel sorry for her, that could be nayoen of us

may God protect us from these kind of tragedies

Amen

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Originally Posted by uploader23

Kazaa...still alive that thing ? :o
I guess they sued her for using that...

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loled hard!!

lölz, stupid chick

220,00 dollars for 24 songs? Shit,I would have got 119 166 666 dollars ;)

Just FYI. She is getting a new trial. Figures the case didn't hold up under appeal. It was really only a publicity stunt by the RIAA anyway.

Things like this make me paranoid... I wont dare use Frostwire, Ares, etc for a while now. Not that I use them a great deal anyway.

I do have to agree with some other poster though, she pretty much asks for it when she's using programs like that. Feel kinda sorry for her aswell, knowing there are several others who are hundred times worse.

I wonder what would happen if they will check my PC.. lol

same is I thinking, Joy008. Man, I have thousands of movies, series,mp3's, applications and so much more. I would be in deep shit if I lived in America. Luckily I'm a norwegian:)

That's sad... :/. Why don't the police just get some thiefs instead of caught some filesharers :/

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Originally Posted by Popov

That's sad... :/. Why don't the police just get some thiefs instead of caught some filesharers :/

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Catching thief is dangerous, filesharers is easy & not dangerous.

Poor girl

lol

ya why not catch the coke dealers...

That is just pick EPiCFAiL :( Sorry to hear lady!

Incredible... lol use torrenting

can this proceed in the world of the torrents sites?

220,000 got increased to 1,920,000


for 24 songs wow