Minnesota Woman Fined $1.92 Million In Music Downloading Suit
Published 06/21/2009 · By Allen Starbury

Logo - RIAAThe Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) continues his quest against illegal file-sharing, and won a victory last week when it was awarded a $1.92 million judgement against a 32-year-old woman from Minnesota.

According to reports, Jammie Thomas-Rasset was found guilty in an earlier case in which she was ordered to pay $222,000 for the same songs. However, that case was declared a mistrial, and she opted for a new trial instead of settling with the RIAA like 30,000+ others before her to get hit with suits from the organization.

That decision turned out to be the wrong one, when a federal jury on Thursday (June 18) found Thomas-Rasset liable for file-sharing, fining her $1.92 million for allegedly downloading 24 songs.

According to Wired, the Minnesota mother had proclaimed herself innocent all along, claiming her four children might have used her computer to access the file-sharing service Kazaa. However, in her earlier trial, she claimed someone had hacked into her WiFi connection, even though she did not own a WiFi router.

In Thursday's ruling, she was fined $80,000 for each song.

A nearly $2 million judgement is a big steep for a middle-classed woman, but the RIAA said, according to Reuters, that they are willing to reach a settlement with Thomas-Rasset, as it had been all along.

Thomas-Rasset's original suit was brought in 2006. While the Copyright Act allows for a fine of up to $150,000 per infringement, the average payment -- in the thousands of settlement cases that have settled out of court -- is around $3,500. In late 2008, after five years of launching highly unpopular suits against music consumers, the RIAA abandoned the tactic and announced that it would instead work with Internet service providers to curb the practice.

On Friday (June 19), Thomas-Rasset's attorney Kiwi Camara told the Associated Press that they plan to appeal Thursday's verdict. They say the size of the fine will be a part of the appeal, but also said they still need to decide on the specific legal grounds.

 
5 Comments
m0niel0ve - June 21, 2009 at 8:35 pm

0o0wee if im readn this right.. watch 0ut everyb0dy kuz thy gne c0me d0wn 0n u nexxt…!!

ReplyReply
homie - June 22, 2009 at 4:43 am

Uh oh 500 song on da ipod

ReplyReply
Dennis - June 22, 2009 at 7:42 am

WOW, what a jury of tools. In a World where OJ can get off, what possible reason could there be to fine an individual that much money? A jury of your peers, funny eh!

ReplyReply
Vengeance IS MINE!!!!!!!! - June 22, 2009 at 12:14 pm

if they sue the users why don’t they sue the file-sharing service companies??????

it ain’t right to steal music or software but the users don’t do it alone the file-sharing service companies are part of this problem too….

so they oughta think first of solving the problem (the file-sharing service companies) then consider a solution with us (the users)….

ReplyReply
Jonny - June 29, 2009 at 1:00 am

Let’s see only 97% of my iPod…. So that’s around 60 Mil. Let’s set up a payment plan

ReplyReply
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