11/27/2010
Jammie Thomas-Rasset, the first person to go to trial for illegally sharing music online was ordered to pay $1.5M to a recording industry trade group as damages. Her counsels continue to argue that the amount is highly unconstitutional.
It was on Wednesday, November 3, that the federal jury in the said trial decided to have Rasset pay $62,500 for copyright violations for each song. There were 24 songs in all, which garnered the total amount of $1.5M.
For the third time, Rasset was tried on the case, and each jury found that she had to pay the recording industry trade group. On different trials however, the amounts varied.
During her first trial in 2007, jurors found her to have violated copyrights and she was ordered to pay $9,250 for every song, totaling to $222,000. At that time, U.S. District Judge Michael Davis ordered for another trial saying that he made an error in giving instructions to the jury. In 2009, as the case went back to court, another jury decided to have Rasset pay $80,000 per song, totaling to $1.92M. Davis referred to the figure given by the jury as “monstrous and shocking” and he reduced the penalty to $54,000. The RIAA however, rejected the amount for legal reasons. And for the third time, in the most recent trial, Rasset was still found by the jury to have violated copyrights.
