Jammie Thomas
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Jammie Thomas (born 1977), a single mother of two, from Brainerd, Minnesota who was successfully sued by the RIAA for making copyright songs available on a peer-to-peer system.
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[edit] Background
Thomas was sued by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), for copyright infringement by illegal sharing of songs, in Duluth, Minnesota. She was represented by Minneapolis attorney Brian Toder.[1]
On October 4, 2007, the final day of her trial, presided over by U.S. District Court Judge Michael J. Davis, the jury returned a verdict against her in the amount of $222,000, which came to $9,250 per song file, deciding that Thomas willfully violated the copyright of 24 music files consisting of such bands as Aerosmith, Green Day, and Guns N' Roses on Kazaa, under the user name of tereastarr@KaZaA.[2][3]
According to Billboard Magazine, Jammie Thomas shared a total of 1,702 tracks online. The RIAA however focused on only 24 of these. In addition, the RIAA first warned Jammie Thomas with a cease-and-desist letter. Jammie refused and the RIAA then asked for a (comparatively small) settlement. Jammie again refused and the case went to court.
Jammie Thomas' legal defense was to claim that she had not shared the files. According to wired.com, Michael Hegg, one of the jurors in the case said "She's a liar".[citation needed]
A hard drive containing the copyrighted songs was never presented at the trial. Jammie Thomas turned over a hard drive that contained neither Kazaa nor the infringing files to the RIAA attorneys.[4] There was no evidence showing that the Kazaa account had allowed others to effectively download the files,[1] but jury instruction number 15 instructed the jurors that merely "making available" sufficed to constitute an infringement of the plaintiffs' distribution rights, even without proof of any actual distribution.[5][6]
In terms of jurisdiction Thomas is a member of and works for the Mille Lacs Band of Ojibwe. She has questioned the ability of the RIAA to enforce the verdict in these circumstances. [7]
On October 18, 2007, Thomas was a phone guest on the internet radio show Social Crime Radio ( [1] ).
[edit] See also
[edit] References
- ^ a b Freed, Joshua (2007-10-04). Brainerd woman loses music download case. Minnesota Public Radio. Retrieved on 2007-10-07.
- ^ Krauskopf, Lewis; Gavin Haycock (October 5, 2007). "Music industry wins song-download case". Reuters.
- ^ Freed, Joshua (October 5, 2007). "Woman to pay downloading award herself".
- ^ Kravets, David (October 3, 2007). Defense Planting Seeds of Doubt with RIAA Jurors. Wired News. Retrieved on 2007-10-13.
- ^ Jury Instructions in Virgin v. Thomas Available Online Recording Industry vs. The People, October 5, 2007
- ^ Bangamen, Eric (October 4, 2007). Debate over "making available" jury instruction as Capitol v. Thomas wraps up (updated). Arstechnica. Retrieved on 2007-10-13.
- ^ Yahoo report on verdict.
