$1.92 Million. Really?
- Posted by: JP Smith | August 18, 2009
- Filed Under: Government and Politics, Law and Order
There is no doubt that Jammie Thomas-Rasset illegally downloaded and shared 24 songs. However, was the judgment against her really necessary? In an world where you can download a file legally for $1 to 1.29 per song, do you think it's realistic to believe that punishing a person to the tune of $80,000 per song make sense?
This is what happened to Thomas-Rasset. We don't know who in her house really downloaded and shared the music. It could have been her, her kids or her boyfriend at time. However, what is know is that it the music was downloaded and shared over Kazaa, a popular peer-to-peer network at the time. As I understand, Kazaa would assign a unique identifier to the machine accessing it and this was, in part, how the RIAA was able to track her down.
However, regardless of who did the sharing, it was acknowledged that 24 songs were in her shared folder on her computer and they were accessible on Kazaa. But, even with that being said, I seriously doubt that a then-single mother posed such a big threat to the music industry that it was necessary to hit her with a nearly-$2 millon judgment. It's not just me. Richard Marx, one of the artists whose music she is accused of downloading and sharing, has expressed embarassment that his name is even associated with this case, calling the judgment against her "... at best, misguided and at worst, farcical”.
But, what makes this newsworthy today is that the Justice Department, is supporting this judgment, citing it as appropriate. What is interesting about all this is that one of the lawyers for the RIAA at the time was Donald Verrilli. This past February, Verrilli was appointed as associate deputy attorney general in the Justice Department. Could this have help to influence the Department's position on this case?
I am not saying to let her off the hook but, come on...$1.92 millon? This was a bad judgement and I'm afraid just a foreshadowing of things to come.
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