http://www.cnn.com/2009/CRIME/06/18/minnesota.music.download.fine/index.html?eref=rss_topstories (CNN) -- A federal jury Thursday found a 32-year-old Minnesota woman guilty of illegally downloading music from the Internet and fined her $80,000 each -- a total of $1.9 million -- for 24 songs Jammie Thomas-Rasset's case was the first such copyright infringement case to go to trial in the United States, her attorney said. Attorney Joe Sibley said that his client was shocked at fine, noting that the price tag on the songs she downloaded was 99 cents. She plans to appeal, he said. Cara Duckworth, a spokeswoman for the Recording Industry Association of America, said the RIIA was "pleased that the jury agreed with the evidence and found the defendant liable." "We appreciate the jury's service and that they take this as seriously as we do," she said. Thomas-Rasset downloaded work by artists such as No Doubt, Linkin Park, Gloria Estefan and Sheryl Crow. This was the second trial for Thomas-Rasset. The judge ordered a retrial in 2007 after there was an error in the wording of jury instructions. The fines jumped considerably from the first trial, which granted just $220,000 to the recording companies. Thomas-Rasset is married with four children and works for an Indian tribe in Minnesota.
This is completely and totally ridiculous. Slashdot has more links and insight on this bat**** insane decision.
Can't remember who said it but the jury is made up of 12 people not smart enough to get out of jury duty. No offense to those who love to do their civic duty.
These kind of verdict pisses me off to no end. Seriously the US justice system is a joke. And the music industry is the biggest bully to ever grace our planet. But as always the universe tend to unfold as it should. One of these days the RIAA will get theirs.
deny deny deny deny, how they even catch these idiots..... this girl must be using kazaa version 0.0015 beta
The ironic thng is if she had the 1.92 million to pay the recording industry, she probably would've bought the CD's instead of downloading them.
If she smart enough. She should claim this is a racist case against her. Since there are millions people are downloading illegally.
ROFL; Wtf are they thinking? And where the **** where she downloading those 24 songs from? LimeWire? Hahaha xD
Bear in mind, the songs they accused her of downloading are compressed and most likely at a very low rate. This is equivalent to taping a song of an FM radio. This is just astounding, who was her lawyer? Dewey Cheatem and Howe?
Better Question: Is $1.9 million enough of a punishment to get her to stop listening to such awful music? Perhaps the jury overreacted because they were forced to listen to these artists in deliberations.
Sounds like there is going to be a 3rd trial because of the many EPIC FAILS on the part of the defense.
