File sharing
The landmark file-sharing case is likely to go to appeal

Woman gets $1.9m fine for file sharing

RIAA receives award of $80,000 per song

Shaun Nichols in San Francisco

The Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) has been awarded a $1.92m (£1.16m) decision against a woman accused of sharing music online.

A jury ruled that Jammie Thomas-Rasset violated record label copyrights by downloading 24 songs from file-sharing service Kazaa. The jury awarded the labels statutory damages of $80,000 (£48,000) per song.

Advertisement

The case first made news in 2007 when a jury ordered Thomas-Rasset to pay a fine of $224,000 (£136,000). The decision was later thrown out due to the judge's mis-direction of the jury and a retrial was ordered.

The case has been held up as a landmark battle between the RIAA and those accused of downloading music. Most of the accused have settled out of court and few cases have actually gone to trial.

However, the case is far from being officially decided, according to experts. Fred von Lohmann, senior attorney at the Electronic Frontier Foundation, said in a blog post that the case is likely to go to appeal.

"Given the size of the statutory damages award, Ms. Thomas-Rasset's legal team will likely be seriously considering a constitutional challenge to the verdict," he wrote.

Von Lohmann cited previous cases in which similarly large damages were overturned by higher courts as "grossly excessive", along with Supreme Court rulings which question the authority of juries to award damages.

  • Have your say
  • Send to a friend
  • Print
  • Digg
  • Reddit
  • Share

Do you agree?

Related whitepapers

Related jobs

Most watched

standard plug

UK folding plug system in action

Inventor develops innovative answer to bulky UK plugs

V3.co.uk weekly debrief, 19 March 2010

We cover Facebook's panic button saga

Analysis and Reports

Continuous Availability for Microsoft SharePoint

This paper examines how to create continuous availability for Microsoft SharePoint by implementing high availability and disaster recovery solutions.

Database security: Preventing enterprise data leaks at the source

This report looks at the challenge of information protection and control (IPC) and how enterprises must adopt database security best practices

Poll

International Women’s Day poll

International Women’s Day poll

Have measures to encourage women into the IT profession been successful?

View poll results

Advertisement

White paper library

Keep up to date with the latest products, services and technologies from the world's leading IT companies; IThound.com brings you over 6,000 white papers, case studies and analyst reports.

Advertisement

Newsletter signup

Sign up for our range of FREE newsletters:

Existing User

Newsletter user login:

Enter email address to edit your newsletter preferences

Job of the week

Search thousands of IT jobs :

Search thousands of IT jobs:

Advanced search

Hiring now on ComputingCareers:

Related IT jobs

Search thousands of IT jobs :

Search thousands of IT jobs:

Advanced search

Advertisement

Spotlight

Internet Explorer

MIX10: Microsoft shows browser and mobile future

Microsoft's MIX10 event showed where the firm is heading with...

V3.co.uk weekly debrief, 19 March 2010

We cover Facebook's panic button saga

Ideal homes to have 200Mbit/s Virgin Media broadband

Virgin Media has announced that it will premiere a 200Mbit/s...

Google Streetview car

Top 10 articles: Google Street View and Microsoft IE9

V3.co.uk readers' most popular stories from 13 - 19 March

Primary Navigation