First US trial over illegal music downloads opens

[Caine Walker]

http://www.breitbart.com/article.php...show_article=1

In the first US trial to challenge fines levied by music companies for sharing copyrighted music online, a single mother from Minnesota has gone to court to prove she did nothing wrong.

Jammie Thomas is the first among more than 26,000 people sued by the world's most powerful recording companies to refuse a settlement after being slapped with a lawsuit by the Recording Industry of America and seven major music labels.

Unlike some who insist on the right to share files over the Internet, Thomas says she was wrongfully targeted by SafeNet, a contractor employed by the recording industry to patrol the Internet for copyrighted material.

"I did not download or upload any music, period," Thomas, 30, said outside the federal courthouse in Duluth, where a 12-member jury was empanelled Tuesday.

Instead of paying a few thousand dollars to settle the suit, Thomas will spend upwards of 60,000 dollars in attorney's fees because she refuses to be bullied, her lawyer said.

"No one can prove which computer actually did this," defense attorney Brian Toder said in his opening statement.

He argued that someone else could have easily hijacked her Internet address in order to upload songs on the Kazaa file sharing network.

But industry lawyers said there is clear evidence that Thomas, an employee of the Mille Lacs Band of Ojibwe, a native American Indian tribe, shared more than 1,700 songs with potentially millions of computer users.

"Piracy is a tremendous problem affecting the music industry," said the first witness, Jennifer Pariser, head of litigation and anti-piracy for Sony BMG Music Entertainment, the second-largest record company in the world.

"It has caused billions of dollars in harm in the past four or five years."

Rather than pursue Thomas for all 1,072 songs in the public folder found on Kazaa, she is being sued for sharing just 25 songs by Virgin Records, Capitol Records, Sony BMG Music Entertainment, Arista Records, Interscope Records, Warner Brothers Records and UMG Recordings Inc.

But her liability for allegedly sharing Godsmack's "Spiral," Destiny's Child's "Bills, Bills, Bills," Sara McLachlan's "Building a Mystery" and others could be as high as 150,000 dollars a song if the jury finds "willful" copyright infringement.


funny stuff!

[DeviousJ]

Do you pay mah innernet bills?

[Rockin' Cherub]

it's pretty obvious that downloading is harmless and uploading is too, as long as it isn't major label material

[waltermcphilp]

this is why you should just leech.

and kazaa? c'mon, at least use limewire if you are gunna P2P inept.

[Andy /]

http://media.startribune.com/smedia/...ffiliate.2.JPG
Jammie Thomas and her lawyer Brian Toder talk outside the federal courthouse in Duluth on Tuesday. Thomas is accused by the recording industry of sharing music online in violation of copyrights.

DULUTH -- In the first trial of its kind, a group of record industry lawyers asked a federal jury empaneled in Duluth this morning to hold Jammie Thomas of Brainerd responsible for illegally distributing or "pirating" more than 1,700 songs she downloaded from the internet.

But Thomas's attorney countered in his own opening statement that while the record companies might have evidence that songs were shared from the Internet service provider address assigned to her computer, they can't prove that she was the one using it.

"No one can prove which computer actually did this," attorney Brian Toder of Minneapolis said as Thomas watched from her chair. "She didn't do this...you could see how someone could hijack an IP address."

Thomas is the first of more than 26,000 individual alleged file sharers sued by the record industry to take her case to trial. Most settle by paying a few thousand dollars, according to industry spokespeople.

Virgin Records American Inc., Sony BMG Music Entertainment and four other record companies accused Thomas of sharing Godsmack's "Spiral," Janet Jackson's "Back," Destiny's Child's "Bills, Bills, Bills," and almost 1,700 other songs with "millions of other people" through the KaZaA file sharing network from her home computer.

However, the record companies' suit focuses on a sample of 26 songs, with potentially liability for each of up to $150,000 if the jury finds "willful" copyright infringement.

"Piracy is a tremendous problem affecting the music industry," testified the first witness, Jennifer Pariser, head of litigation and anti-piracy for Sony BMG, the second-largest record company in the world. "It has caused billions of dollars in harm in the past four or five years."

Using a small compact disc player from the witness chair, she played both pirated and "authorized" samples of Journey's "Don't Stop Believin'" for the jury to show that the quality is identical or nearly so.

The plaintiff's lead attorney, Richard Gabriel of Denver, Colo., told the jury that the companies will present evidence that Thomas tried to conceal her piracy by switching hard-drives on her computer, then presenting it to the record companies' experts for forensic examination.

Toder told the jury that she's not guilty of deception but only a mistake -- she mistakenly thought she'd replaced a defective hard-drive in 2004, rather than after she came under scrutiny in 2005.

Through her attorney, Thomas has declined to comment.

U.S. District Judge Michael Davis told the jury that testimony could conclude by Thursday.

Don't Stop Believin'!

[Andy /]

Looks like she isn't doing a great job explaining herself:

DULUTH -- A Brainerd woman accused of illegally downloading and sharing music denied the allegations in court testimony today, but had a hard time explaining evidence to the contrary.

Jammie Thomas admitted liking and listening to more than 60 artists found in a Kazaa Network file bearing her screen name, terestarr. But she denied that the shared file found there in 2005 was hers.

In the second day of her civil trial in a suit brought by the music recording industry, Thomas also denied ever hearing about Kazaa before she was sued, though the internet-savvy single mother owns 100s of music CDs and wrote a college paper about Napster, a file-sharing network she admitted using before it was shut down.

Thomas' attorney Brian Toder told the jury as the trial opened that the recording industry can't prove his client shared copywrited files.

He said that computer hacking could explain the discovery of a shared file on Kazaa bearing her screen name and her internet protocol address which appeared with more than 1,700 copywrited files.

In court testimony this morning in Duluth, a computer security expert cast doubt on a Brainerd woman's contention that an unidentified hacker must have hijacked her computer and internet identity to illegally download and share copyrighted music.

"To be able to pretend to be somebody else at the same time they're on the Internet is virtually impossible to carry out," Doug Jacobson, an Iowa State University computer engineering professor, testified in the second day of Jammie Thomas' civil court trial.

The music Recording Industry of America sued Thomas in federal court, alleging that she illegally shared more than 1,700 music files on the Kazaa file sharing network. Of 26,000 individuals sued by the industry since 2003, she is believed to be the first to take her case to trial.

But Jacobson, who teaches computer security and founded a data loss prevention company, said that he found no evidence of hacking when he examined Thomas' software data as a paid expert for the plaintiffs in the case.

Thomas' attorney, Brian Toder, asked specifically whether she could be the victim of "spoofing," in which an imposter hijacks the Internet protocol address of a certain computer, a "zombie," in which a hacker plants a program designed to carry out a specific mission such as sending junk email or spam, or "pollution" on the Kazaa network, in which data is planted that might confuse investigators or point them in the wrong direction.

Jacobson responded that while it is theoretically possible for a hacker to figure out a user's password and "spoof" the identifying information assigned to their computer during a session on the Internet, it would be difficult to do without leaving evidence, none of which he found in his forensic examination of data captured by a security company during the alleged file sharing.

Attorneys for the recording industry told U.S. District Judge Michael Davis that they might conclude their case today, after which the defense expected to call Thomas as its chief witnesses. The case is being heard by a jury of six men and six women.

[BumbleBeeMouth]

her name is jammie?! What the fuck are people calling their kids these days, this reminds me of my uncle marmalade.

[Caine Walker]

hahahaha that lawyer knew exactly what he was doing when he took this case.

[Andy /]

RIAA anti-P2P campaign a real money pit, according to testimony

By Eric Bangeman | Published: October 02, 2007 - 11:40PM CT

Duluth, Minnesota — During an occasionally testy cross examination, a Sony executive said what many observers have suspected for a long time. The RIAA's four-year-old lawsuit campaign is costing the music industry millions of dollars and is a big money-loser for the record labels. The revelation came during the first day of Capitol Records v. Jammie Thomas, the first file-sharing case to go to trial (it was formerly known as Virgin v. Thomas, but the sole Virgin Records track was stricken from the complaint, making Capitol Records the lead plaintiff).

After a relatively calm morning session, proceedings resumed after lunch. After RIAA lead counsel Richard Gabriel finished his direct examination, Thomas' attorney David Toder began his attempts to undermine the labels' case. He focused on apparent inconsistencies from the testimony of Jennifer Pariser, Sony BMG's the head of litigation. Toder also got Pariser to admit that IP addresses and screenshots "don't identify human beings."

Pariser also said she had no idea why Virgin Records dropped its part of the case. "The RIAA and the plaintiffs have the same lawyer and coordinate the lawsuits," Toder noted. "You don't know why they bailed on the case?" Pariser said she had enough trouble keeping track of Sony's litigation, let alone what the other companies are doing. Perhaps—and this is just a guess—it's the money.
Lawsuits are punitive, not business

One of the biggest bombshells from the cross-examination was Pariser's admission that the RIAA's legal campaign isn't making the labels any money, and that, furthermore, the industry has no idea of the actual damages it suffers due to file-sharing.

The admission came during questioning over the amount of damages the RIAA is seeking in the case. Toder asked Pariser how much Sony was suing the defendant for, and she replied that the amount was for the jury to decide and that the labels weren't suing for actual damages. As is the case with the other file-sharing lawsuits, the record industry is only seeking the punitive damages available via the Copyright Act, which can range from $750 to $150,000 per song. "What are your actual damages?" asked Toder.

"We haven't stopped to calculate the amount of damages we've suffered due to downloading, but that's not what's at issue here," replied Pariser, who was reminded by Judge Michael Davis to answer the questions actually asked by Toder, not hypotheticals.

Toder then pressed the Sony executive on the question of how many people actually downloaded music from the defendant. "We don't know," she replied. "I can't identify any other entities aside from what SafeNet reported, but I know that many others did... that's the way the system works."

Toder then raised the question of the RIAA targeting the wrong people in its lawsuits. "How many dead people have you sued?" he asked, a question that was blocked after Gabriel objected. Toder then took a different tack, asking Pariser if she recognized the names of Gertrude Walton, Sarah Ward, Cindy Chan, and Paul Wilke—all innocent victims of the RIAA's driftnet tactics.

The next line of questioning was how many suits the RIAA has filed so far. Pariser estimated the number at a "few thousand." "More like 20,000," suggested Toder. "That's probably an overstatement," Pariser replied. She then made perhaps the most startling comment of the day. Saying that the record labels have spent "millions" on the lawsuits, she then said that "we've lost money on this program."

The RIAA's settlement amounts are typically in the neighborhood of $3,000-$4,000 for those who settle once they receive a letter from the music industry. On the other side of the balance sheet is the amount of money paid to SafeNet (formerly MediaSentry) to conduct its investigations, and the cash spent on the RIAA's legal team and on local counsel to help with the various cases. As Pariser admitted under oath today, the entire campaign is a money pit.

[Pretzel Logic]

this woman is LYING

[aurel]

Originally Posted by AndySlash

That is a great piece A/.

[Sonic Johnny]

i love the internet. people invent a new way to do something that was previously illegal.

Record Company: 'stop that!'
People: 'why? it's not illegal'
Record Company: 'it only just started to exist! we'll make it illegal!'
People: 'you cant do that! it wasnt illegal before!'

[Rockin' Cherub]

since when do record companies make things illegal

jczeroman to thread

[tcm]

follow the money, rockin bub.

[Andy /]

DULUTH, Minn. — Regardless of how the first trial of a person accused of illegally sharing music online turns out, the record industry plans to keep suing listeners for a while.

"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," said Cary Sherman, President of the Recording Industry Association of America, which coordinates the lawsuits.

Some 26,000 lawsuits have been filed starting in 2003, but the case against Jammie Thomas, a mother of two from Brainerd, is the first to go to trial. Many other defendants settled by paying the record companies a few thousand dollars.

Sherman said Wednesday night that he's surprised it took this long for one of them to go to trial.

After four years, he said, "it's become business as usual, nobody really thinks about it. 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."

The case against Thomas was expected to go to jurors Thursday.

Six major record companies accuse Thomas, 30, of sharing 1,702 songs online in violation of the companies' copyrights. The record companies claim they found the songs on a Kazaa file-sharing account they later linked to her.

After two days of testimony from 11 witnesses, the defense rested without calling anyone to the stand.

Just before the case proceeded to closing arguments Thursday, U.S. District Judge Michael Davis ruled that the record companies did not have to prove that songs were actually transferred to other users for Thomas to be found liable. The act of making the files available would constitute copyright infringement, he said.

Thomas testified Wednesday that she didn't do it, though she acknowledged giving conflicting dates for the replacement of her computer hard drive. Record company attorney Richard Gabriel has suggested she replaced the hard drive to cover her tracks.

On Wednesday, she testified under questioning from Gabriel that while pursuing a college degree in marketing, she did a case study on the original Napster file-sharing program and concluded that it was not illegal. A judge ruled in 2001 that it was.

She acknowledged she listened to — or owned CDs released by — more than 60 of the artists whose music was in the Kazaa file-sharing folder at the heart of the case. Thomas denied the folder was hers.

"Did you ever have Kazaa on your computer?" Thomas' attorney, Brian Toder, asked her.

"No," she said.

Toder has tried to raise doubts that the companies can prove it was Thomas who downloaded and shared the music.

Earlier in the day, Thomas set up her computer in court to show the jury how quickly CDs could be copied onto it. The demonstration was aimed at countering testimony by an expert who testified that the songs on one of Thomas' computer drives were created just 15 seconds apart, suggesting piracy. But each song Thomas copied in court over Gabriel's objection took less than 10 seconds to land on the computer.

Jacobson said the comparison might not be valid because the version of Windows Media Player that Thomas used to copy, or "rip," the CDs in court was different from what was available in February 2005, when the files in contention landed on her hard drive.

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.

The record companies have not specified how much they are seeking in damages. But on Wednesday, RIAA spokeswoman Cara Duckworth said they would be asking for damages on the 24 songs that the trial is focused on, not the 1,702 that were described in the lawsuit. Copyright law allows damages of $750 to $30,000 per infringement, or up to $150,000 if the violation was "willful." That means Thomas, who works for the Department of Natural Resources of the Mille Lacs Band of Ojibwe, could face a judgment of anywhere from $18,000 to $3.6 million for the 24 songs

[Andy /]

Case is at jury. Some more specifics of the trial:

DULUTH, Minn. -- Deliberations began late this morning in the civil trial of a Brainerd woman who is accused of illegally downloading and sharing music on the Internet.

In his final argument, the plaintiff's attorney Richard Gabriel submitted that the industry had proven that Jammie Thomas, 30, downloaded and shared more than 1,700 songs on the Kazaa network in 2005. He reminded the jury that the industry is suing for compensation in just 24 of the songs.

"She refused to accept responsibility for it, and in fact she tried to hide her actions," Gabriel said in a 40-minute summation of the industry's case." ...The point is not to get the biggest number we can get. The point is to hold this defendant responsible...The need for deterrence here is great."

Thomas is the first of more than 26,000 individuals sued by the Recording Industry Association of America since 2003 to take her case to trial. Most defendants settle for relatively small amounts.

In his instructions to the jury this morning, Judge Michael Davis said that if the jurors find non-willful infringement, they can award damages of $750 to $30,000 per violation. If they find willful infringement, they can award damages of up to $150,000 per violation.

Thomas's attorney Ryan Toder maintained in his 20-minute closing argument that the plaintiffs can't prove that Thomas was actually sitting at her computer when the alleged infringement occurred, the night of Feb. 21, 2005.

Throughout the trial he suggested that a "hacker" could have "spoofed" Thomas's computer identifiers online in order to make it appear that she was sharing songs when she wasn't. The computer was in her bedroom in her apartment in Brainerd and was password protected.

"We can't prove spoofing," Toder argued, "But, we don't have to because they have the burden of proof and plaintiffs have not met their burden.'

During her trial, Thomas freely acknowledged that for years her user name all over the Internet was "Tereastarr."

Today, the main question facing the jury as it begins deliberations is whether Thomas was the Tereastarr a recording industry sleuth caught in the act of digital piracy.

Deciding that she was that she was Tereastarr would require the jury to reject Thomas' statements under oath Wednesday that she never illegally downloaded copyrighted music, had never heard of Kazaa before the recording industry sued her and that she didn't destroy evidence by having her hard drive replaced after she came under scrutiny.

Such a rejection by the jury would hand an industry, lately shredded by the song-sharing efficiency of the Internet, at least a symbolic victory in the only one of 26,000 copyright lawsuits against individuals that has gone to trial to date. The industry is attempting to hold Thomas liable in connection with 24 of the songs allegedly shared.

Gabriel contended today that "the greater weight of the evidence" showed Thomas was at her computer on the night of Feb. 21, 2005, when SafeNet, a contractor employed by the industry to patrol the Internet, captured "screen shots" on Kazaa of a user named Tereastarr offering copyrighted songs from her Internet Protocol address.

Testimony showed that on that night, that address was assigned to Thomas' computer, and that Tereastarr was warned via instant message that he or she was sharing copyrighted material.

Thomas, 30, who works for the Mille Lacs Band of Ojibwe, acknowledged Wednesday that the performers who recorded the songs held in an open file by Tereastarr that night *******d a mix of more than 60 artists that she listens to, including Lacona Coi, Cold, Howard Shore and Drowning Pool.

Still, Thomas maintained as the screen shots of the file were projected onto a screen for the jury: "That share folder is not mine."

Toder argued today that regardless of what else it may have proven, the recording industry never placed Thomas at her computer that night, leaving open the possibility that someone hijacked her IP address, modem identification and user name to make it appear she was sharing files.

Plaintiff's expert witness computer engineering Prof. Doug Jacobson of Iowa State University, testified that while "spoofing" someone's computer information to that degree is theoretically possible, he saw no evidence of it when examining data captured by SafeNet.

In other testimony potentially damaging to her case, Thomas acknowledged that she burned copyrighted music onto CDs to give as gifts and wrote a college paper defending the original version of the file-sharing network Napster, which she admitted using before it was shut down in 2001.

When Gabriel pressed her on how she could know so much about file sharing and never hear of the well-known Kazaa network, she maintained that was indeed the case.

She also admitted that after the industry informed her by letter in August 2005 that it intended to sue, she offered her hard drive for inspection to show she was innocent and then testified that it had been installed in January 2004.

But a Geek Squad supervisor testified that Best Buy put a new hard drive in her computer in March 2005, two months after she came under scrutiny.

Asked to explain for the jury, Thomas testified that she'd made a calendar error.

U.S. District Judge Michael Davis told jurors Wednesday that once they have the case, he'll allow deliberations until late this afternoon and bring the jury to continue deliberations on Friday.

Ugh. I was really hoping this was a case of someone mistakenly being singled out (a la people that are dead), but the more I read, the more it seems she's busted.

[DeviousJ]

Originally Posted by AndySlash

Earlier in the day, Thomas set up her computer in court to show the jury how quickly CDs could be copied onto it. The demonstration was aimed at countering testimony by an expert who testified that the songs on one of Thomas' computer drives were created just 15 seconds apart, suggesting piracy.

Them's some fast-ass downloads.
And if she replaced her hard drive before they sent a letter of intent, it's hard to say that she did it to destroy evidence, unless they warned her by IM way in advance. Still, she's basically blown it

[Gossamer]

anybody who listens to drowning pool deserves this

[Andy /]

Great trial coverage here.

Verdict is in and she lost. She is ordered to pay $9,250 per song for the 24 songs contested for a total of $222,000.



The RIAA were handed this victory by the defense's "prove it" approach while offering no other defense.

The one's that needed to go to trial are the ones who are dead, old, or don't own a computer. A shame this was the first.

[theFoulLasagna]

thats a pretty steep fine if you ask me. the problem is more that she shared the files.....as i understand the law.

[jczeroman]

Originally Posted by Rockin' Cherub

since when do record companies make things illegal

jczeroman to thread

I am really torn on this one and the whole intellectual property rights debate in general. I am about 65% in the "no intellectual property rights" camp because it's hard to prove them in nature - a government seems to be required to "create" the right. If that is the case, then the record companies (and anyone who wants to use this kind of legislation) is getting the government to use illegitimate force on their behalf.

If intellectual property rights do exist, then people downloading music are abridging the principle in general, regardless of whether there is some specific law.

The 35% that is still hesitant is mostly my own sense of guilt about downloading music/applications when, on rare occasion, I do. It "feels" wrong in my gut - but this may be because of a life-time of conditioning in a positive intellectual property rights world.

[teh b0lly!!1]

poor lady
that actually made me sad that she's going to have to pay 60,000 dollars on fucking lawyers just for doing, or not doing - depends what you believe- what literally everyone on earth does.

[Andrew_Pakula]

Its not like they will ever collect even a fraction of that money from her.

[Rockin' Cherub]

Originally Posted by teh b0lly!!1

poor lady
that actually made me sad that she's going to have to pay 60,000 dollars on fucking lawyers just for doing, or not doing - depends what you believe- what literally everyone on earth does.

except for the ones without electricity you mean

[teh b0lly!!1]

Originally Posted by Rockin' Cherub

except for the ones without electricity you mean

no, them too. they just go over to their rich neighbour's house and download from there.
this applies to kids in third world countries as well. http://forums.netphoria.org/wwwboard/icons/icon14.gif

[monkeyfritters]

holy shit.