Music pirate ordered to pay US$1.92 million

Jake Widman
Saturday, 20 June 2009 01:42

Business IT - Technology

A Minnesota woman found guilty of violating music copyrights on 24 songs was assessed damages of $80,000 per song, for a grand total of $1,920,000.

This was the second trial for Jammie Thomas-Rasset, who was charged with using the Kazaa peer-to-peer file-sharing network to download the songs.

In the first trial, she was also found guilty and fined $220,000. But the judge in that trial admitted error in his jury instructions -- and called the verdict "wholly disproportionate."

That opinion didn't seem to sway the second jury, however. Thomas-Rasset's attorney suggested that the jury didn't believe her suggestions that her husband or children might have done the downloading.

The Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) has sued around 35,000 other alleged pirates in the past, but most have settled out of court. Thomas-Rasset was the first to refuse a settlement and take the case to court.

After the verdict, she said, "There's no way they're ever going to get that. I'm a mom, limited means, so I'm not going to worry about it now."

RIAA spokesperson Cara Duckworth said the organization was still willing to settle and said Thomas-Rasset had been given the chance to settle for $3,000 to $5,000 earlier in the case.

Last December, the RIAA announced an end to its policy of suing downloaders and that it would try to work with ISPs to prevent piracy. So far, though, no ISPs have publicly announced their participation.