The US record industry won a key victory in court this week after a Minnesota
woman was found guilty of copyright infringement and ordered to pay $220,000 to
six music labels.
The courtroom battle between single mother Jammie Thomas, 30, and the
recording industry is an important test case because it is the first time that a
consumer has elected to forgo settlement and argue the case before a jury.
Thomas was accused of the illegal sharing of more than 1,700 songs on
peer-to-peer network
Kazaa. The
charge was later cut to 24 songs.
The woman claimed in her defence that she has never used Kazaa and does not
have a Kazaa account.
The case could set a dangerous precedent, in that the owner of an internet
account could be held responsible for any file sharing taking place from that
connection, such as children using a family computer.
Around 26,000 people are thought to have been sued by the
Recording
Industry Association of America (RIAA) since 2003, almost all of whom have
settled out of court for a few thousand dollars.
However, many industry watchers expect that the case is far from over and
that an appeal is likely.
The case also highlighted some curious thinking by the record companies. For
example, an executive for
Sony BMG
stated that the act of copying a music track from a CD to a media player is an
act of theft.
"When an individual makes a copy of a song for himself, I suppose we can say
he stole a song," said Jennifer Pariser, head of litigation and anti-piracy at
Sony BMG.
Making a "copy" of a purchased song, she said, is just "a nice way of saying
'steals just one copy'".
Pariser also acknowledged that the money spent on lawsuits such as this is
not being recovered from the pirates, and that the RIAA is making a loss.
When questioned on the stand Pariser admitted that the recording industry had
no idea how much money it had lost to file sharing.
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