First US trial over illegal music downloads opens

[Marnie]

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.

BREITBART

[KeilanS]

I wonder if she really is innocent. Music piracy is such a difficult issue, because like they say in the article, it's almost impossible to actually be sure the crime has been committed.

[Fraught]

I wonder if she really is innocent. Music piracy is such a difficult issue, because like they say in the article, it's almost impossible to actually be sure the crime has been committed.

I wonder the same thing. for the reasons you state, i would think there is much confidence in their case against her for it to actually go to court.

[KeilanS]

I wonder the same thing. for the reasons you state, i would think there is much confidence in their case against her for it to actually go to court.

Yep, well if she did do it, I have to say I hope she loses a fortune on this. Music piracy is such a black and white issue, yet so many people manage to convince themselves it's gray (Myself being one of them until about a year ago).

[boblandis]

I wonder the same thing. for the reasons you state, i would think there is much confidence in their case against her for it to actually go to court.

If they can can get a precedence down in the lawbooks then they can hack into every computer and charge every one who has a music file on their computer.

[Guest]

This is disturbing because a dangerous precedent could be set if the RIAA wins the suit.

I find it interesting they are going after individuals who normally would have difficulty fighting something like this. Seems like they may be trying to make up for their losses in court rather than the market place. DRM treats everyone as if they are a criminal.

[Marnie]

This is disturbing because a dangerous precedent could be set if the RIAA wins the suit.

I find it interesting they are going after individuals who normally would have difficulty fighting something like this. Seems like they may be trying to make up for their losses in court rather than the market place. DRM treats everyone as if they are a criminal.

Agreed. The problem is that the law hasn't kept up with technology. What's the difference between file swapping and loaning a friend your CD? Or making him a cassette of it? How many of us back in the day made tape copies of our LP's to play in our cars or Walkmans?? No difference here. I think the whole issue is just dopey. The "intellectual property" laws, if you actually read them, are ridiculous. And I say this one who makes living off her intellectual property.

Now, what they needed to do, but didn't, was re-write the laws to prevent this sort of thing from happening in the future. But to retroactively go after small fish is, well, just dopey.

[Shad]

I find it extremely disturbing and disheartening that we as a christian society are more concerned with how people are getting music to praise the lord than catching child predators uploading and downloading movies and pictures of our children on the internet or the fact that the cases of Teacher / Student relationships are alarmingly high.

But yeah after all making sure we aren't losing money is far more important.

God forbid one of these musical artists have to actually go out and do work instead of sitting back in their mansions doing their drugs and drinking their booze waiting on proceeds from their latests cd to come in. I don't remember the Lord ever telling people they had to pay him money to sing songs and I'm pretty sure he didn't charge the disciples money to write down his words and then print the bible or charge people who received a copy. This whole copyright thing is nothing more than a way for man to gain even more profit off of something they already make money off of through concerts and merchandise,ect....

[KeilanS]

I find it extremely disturbing and disheartening that we as a christian society are more concerned with how people are getting music to praise the lord than catching child predators uploading and downloading movies and pictures of our children on the internet or the fact that the cases of Teacher / Student relationships are alarmingly high.

But yeah after all making sure we aren't losing money is far more important.

God forbid one of these musical artists have to actually go out and do work instead of sitting back in their mansions doing their drugs and drinking their booze waiting on proceeds from their latests cd to come in. I don't remember the Lord ever telling people they had to pay him money to sing songs and I'm pretty sure he didn't charge the disciples money to write down his words and then print the bible or charge people who received a copy. This whole copyright thing is nothing more than a way for man to gain even more profit off of something they already make money off of through concerts and merchandise,ect....

There is a flip-side to this argument. First of all, people can get easier access to satanic music through downloads (this music is less likely to be widely available in stores). Also, I think that Christian bands should be happy when people download their music, it is a great way to reach the lost. But those of us who are already saved should be paying for our music. If everybody pirates music from Christian bands, they wouldn't be able to produce it and then nobody would be reached.

As Christians, we should support Christian bands (if we want to listen to the music anyway, if not, just listen to the radio and give your money to other causes), it's no different than supporting any other ministry. And most Christian bands are not sitting in their mansions as you said. That is the case with the huge secular bands, but only a select few Christian bands get big enough that they can afford a standard of living much higher than the average joe.

[Eliyahuw]

This whole copyright thing is nothing more than a way for man to gain even more profit off of something they already make money off of through concerts and merchandise,ect....

So? its their property, not anyone elses. you don't own those cd's or software. You are allowed to use them via eula agreement. Its not your property at all.