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Supreme Court Refuses To Hear Appeal in $222,000 File-Sharing Case

For close on six years the dizzying file-sharing case of the RIAA vs Jammie Thomas-Rasset has been winding its way back and forth through the U.S. legal system. The U.S. government itself got involved last month, submitting a brief to the Supreme Court asking it to uphold the $220,000 verdict. Today the Court granted that wish with an announcement that it will not hear Thomas-Rasset’s appeal.

The historic case of the world’s largest recording labels versus the Minnesota mother is well known for its tortuous and extended path through the U.S. legal system.

The case first went to trial in 2007 and resulted in a $222,000 award after Thomas-Rasset was found to have illegally shared songs using the now defunct file-sharing system KaZaA.

The judge later admitted to an error in instructions given to the jury and in 2009 the case went to a second trial, ending with the jury awarding the music industry $90,000 per song shared, a total of $1.92 million.

Thomas-Rasset appealed again, stating that the damages awarded were excessive. The judge responded by dropping the award to $54,000 ($2,250 per song) and offered yet another trial to deal with the issue of damages.

In 2010 that resulted in an award to the recording labels of $1.5 million. It was later reduced to $54,000 again.

Two years later in September 2012 the appeals court reinstated the $222,000 verdict of 2007, deciding that the amount was not unconstitutional. Refusing to admit defeat, December last year Thomas-Rasset said she would take her case to the Supreme Court in an attempt to get the “excessive” damages overturned.

But in a further setback, last month she discovered that her severe punishment would be backed by none other than the United States government.

In a brief submitted by the Obama administration the government backed the RIAA and asked the Supreme Court to keep the $222,000 intact.

“An award of statutory damages under the Copyright Act does not simply redress a private injury, but also serves to vindicate an important public interest,” the brief read.

“That public interest cannot be realized if the inherent difficulty of proving actual damages leaves the copyright holder without an effective remedy for infringement or precludes an effective means of deterring further copyright violations,” it added.

The Supreme Court went away to consider its options and a few minutes ago delivered its decision. In a government and RIAA-pleasing announcement the Court revealed it will not hear Thomas-Rasset’s appeal.

According to Associated Press, the justices gave no comment on letting the previous judgment stand.

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  • Anyone

    so the government is interfering with the justice system
    why am I not surprised

    and the “public interest” is to legalize nonprofit copyright infringements, there is no reason to keep that outlawed, since it has been proved that it causes no harm

    • Capitol

      Being as Hollywood paid for the election campaign and bought the election then it was obvious that the government were going to get involved with telling the court to keep the amount at $220,000 as after all they are employed to do whatever their bosses at Hollywood tells them to do for the next 4 years!

  • ForestSilverwood

    I’m pretty sure it’s suppose to be the job of the copyright owner to prove damages no matter how hard it is to do. If they can’t prove damages, there should be no case.

    • One-Eyed Willie

      Fuck it. Give the greedy bastards a dollar a song and leave it at that. No appeals. Done. There you have your remedy lol

      • TheTundraTerror

        But how is Lars going to be able to buy his gold-plated shark tank with that!?

        • Andrew Lee

          He wont :(

        • SnowFox

          MY DIAMOND STUDDED HUMVEE!!!

        • Curs3d

          My diamond studded swiming pool, thoose don’t just grow on trees, and how else can I afford another solid gold humvee. AWESOME SONG !

        • Milkshake Man

          MY DIAMOND STUDDED DIAMONDS!!

      • Pierat

        NOPE….because they claim that file sharing is piracy and consider piracy as THEFT …… FALSE “accusations”, so its there own dam fault, they drove US to this point and taught US well by there own music.

        http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l8BRbM52gpc

        key lyrics…..IM YOUR EYES “WHEN YOU MUST STEAL”.

        so they get ZERO

    • http://twitter.com/CreightFrazee Creight Frazee

      So waited until everyone forgot about it. I mean really how long ago did Kazaa die? I remember using that shit in my early teen years now im in my 20s. Why do courts take years to decide on things like this…….. http://www.youtube.com.xurl.es/m0uj2/watch?v=QZEpDqP3IrQ

    • Robespierre

      Don’t bother with the law or the constitution. These fucking judges will argue that the sky is purple with green spots if they have too. The entire country political system is rotted to the core. Even Iran and north Korea can owe the US government if they can afford it. Figure this! Unless we send all these fake republicans and fake democrats assholes home at gun point if necessary to reelect a new government (incumbent not to apply) and then hang the executives of few dozen major banks and corporations the all shit is going to collapse world wide. The Obama administration know that. Why do you thing they just bough billions of bullets? To catch butterflies may be?

  • Pingback: The Travelin' Librarian » Blog Archive » End of the line for Jammie Thomas-Rasset

  • http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=534530766 Paul Niziol

    It is no surprise to me that they have done this…considering how much control Big Business has over our governments and courts

    • eddy123

      @ Paul Niziol,

      You beat me to it mate…every western country is run by and for multimillion dollar businesses, democracy is a myth.

      I cant quote the correct figure, but in the last general election in the uk, only around a quarter of people voted. This isn’t unusual, people no longer have anyone to vote for, none of the political parties speak for us any more, so nobody bothers voting, and then they do what they like anyway. Ah well, better than China…..I suppose.?

      • http://twitter.com/Rikeus Riley

        I don’t know about anywhere else, but I don’t think Australia has the same corporate control, since we have strict limits on corporate lobbying. Evidence for this is the fact that our government actually passed a mining tax, despite the largest and wealthiest corporations in our country by far being the ones involved in mining. Our country also refuses to let anyone invade our privacy in order to find out if we downloaded a song illegally – the only people allowed to see what a given IP address has downloaded are police with a valid search warrant, and they don’t just hand those out.

      • NSEO

        Corporations don’t control every western country, but they always get benefits from their governments.

  • asd

    i guess this case became too exposed to the media

    • highboi

      So waited until everyone forgot about it. I mean really how long ago did Kazaa die? I remember using that shit in my early teen years now im in my 20s. Why do courts take years to decide on things like this

      • IHaveNoBalls

        “Why do courts take years to decide on things like this” I know its such a joke, they ruin someones life because they shared a few songs, and kazaa properly shared what she’d downloaded by default so she most likely wasn’t aware.

        I just look at things like this and think this is what justice really is… They court should have just given here 20 hours community service at most if they want to be taken seriously. the whole thing could have been dealt with years ago..

        one other thing that sucks is so many millions of people have done what she did, its as common as people speeding on the motorway, so why such a harsh punishment..

        • Guest321

          Exactly. I mean how ridiculous is it to sue someone and drag a case along for 6 years for such a petty offense?
          It’s like suing someone for jaywalking. I don’t think sharing should even be considered an offense in any civilized country.

          The fact that courts even entertain these cases show how corrupt America has become. The government doesn’t even mind actively showing support for corporations and giving the middle finger to the commoners.

        • bobmail

          ” I mean how ridiculous is it to sue someone and drag a case along for 6 years for such a petty offense? ”

          The case could have been resolved before it even made it to court. Very low dollar settlements were offered repeatedly, and declined.

          The 6 years is what the legal system looks like in reality. The JRT legal team are responsible for almost all of it, sad to say. The court system doesn’t run on internet time.

        • Scary_Devil_Monastery

          Very low insurmountable dollar settlements were offered repeatedly, and declined.

          Fixed.

          See, for a single mother, being “debt-ridden for life” doesn’t get better whether she owes 50k or 220k.

          What you’re saying is that she was offered to get shot in the head once rather than ten times. And now you’re calling her “dumb” for finding either option unacceptable.

          Not up to your usual brand of humor, Baghdad bob, though the detachment from reality seems on par.

        • bobmail

          You fixed nothing. She was offered settlements for a few thousand dollars early on, and declined. We aren’t talking millions here, we are talking something that would have been long gone by now, probably lower than most people’s credit card balances.

          She wasn’t going to owe 50k, more like 5k:

          “What about the letter received from the law firm of Shook, Hardy, and Bacon in August 2005? Thomas-Rasset did read that one, called the number, and was told that it would be $5,000 to settle.”

          from: http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2009/06/thomas-testimony-ends-with-tears-anger-swedish-death-metal/

          Perhaps you need to read up on this subject as well to try to understand what all is going on.

        • MadAsASnake

          So, the sort of money that the porn scam extortionists try on? Still way way way too much. Couple of times RRP max.

  • PelouzeTF

    You should have taken the proposed $25k settlement Rasset.

    • dropin

      What a cold hearted fuck you are.
      Did not do the mafiaa much good,very bad public relations,now a lot more people hate their guts.

      • http://twitter.com/DarkNinja45 WD

        It’s Pelouzey. You should expect retardation.

        • dropin

          Yes you’re right,I let my anger get the better of me.

    • Guest321

      Man you are a real piece of shit. An innocent person’s life has been made a living hell for the last 6 years by the RIAA and the US govt., all for sharing and few mp3 files and all you can do is rejoice isn’t it?

      • PelouzeTF

        A couple of factual errors in your post.

        1) If she were truly innocent, she wouldn’t have been found guilty.

        2) The case dragged on for far longer than it should because Rasset appealed every judgement and refused settlements lower than even the court ordered.

        Obviously, if a person is going to engage in criminal activities, they run the risk of getting caught and having to pay the piper. She was given several options to settle and even though they would have stung, the case would have been settled for 10% of the above amount and finished years ago.

        So quit blaming everyone else apart from the person that knew what they were doing was illegal.

        • MadAsASnake

          1 – no contest
          2 – no sensible amount has ever been on the table

        • Andrew Lee

          I agree they should have gave in because the fight was one they were not going to win.

          Sadly the possible fines for these crimes are completely fucking insane.
          These laws were not made to deal with normal home internet users. They should be replaced with new laws to match the fucking times we live in.

          The people that get busted are the ones without a clue and most likely were nothing more than a seed or a p2p user.

          I can go find anything that exist as a torrent in so many other places or even get it from that torrent as someone else. The difference is I would not be the one getting busted. It does not make me smarter than your average user it just means I like to read more. “Sue me”

          The question is am I? I could be but then again I could be lying or I could be saying that to throw you off. One thing is for sure if I were you’d never know, you can bet your ass on that.

          The lack of self protection on the internet really amazes me I mean even back in the day when P2P was the shit I still protected myself with a VPN. Everyone should be doing this as well as encrypting their computers.

          They should do it for one simple reason because they can. If the police came to my house asking to come in you can bet I’d say hell fucking no unless they have a warrant. Why not do the same with on the internet?

          I mean really with the laws fucked up as they are it’s almost a must to protect yourself. It’s not like they care about justice when they will take a IP as a persons id in court.

        • bobmail

          They aren’t fines. They are judgement in a civil case. Fines only apply to criminal cases.

          The real issue here isn’t the money, it’s the time. She could have settled for a few thousand bucks 6 years ago and been done. Now she has pretty much f–ked her own life up, and has this big judgement hanging over her head which means she will likely never get any further ahead in life than just that.

          I won’t comment on her personally, but it seems like stupid people do stupid things that hurt themselves in the long run.

        • Scary_Devil_Monastery

          She could have settled for a few thousand bucks 6 years ago and been done. Now she has pretty much f–ked her own life up

          She could have chosen to let you and yours wreck her life years ago – because there’s never been any amount on the table she could reasonably afford at all.

          And once again, bobmail, the people who fucked her life up is the RIAA. With people like you cheering because a person and her children have had their lives ruined for making a few copies of a few songs.

          That simply makes you a sick amoral psychopath along with the lawyers pushing the suit in the court.

          But that comes as no surprise to anyone who’s read more than one of your comments around here.

        • Guest

          1) She’s innocent in the sense that she did nothing wrong by filesharing.

          2) She appealed bullshit damages that had no basis in reality and were grossly unjustice. Well, shit, why would anybody even do that? Doesn’t she know a good citizen is supposed to roll over and let themselves get fucked by the shit-eating villians who run the government?

          “criminal activities”

          Copyright infringement is a civil offense not a crime, you glue-sniffing retard. How many times do you have to be told this before it sinks through to your brain or whatever you have that passes for one?

        • Pelham123

          “She’s innocent in the sense that she did nothing wrong by filesharing”

          She distributed without the copyright holder’s consent, which in the real world gets you no fines and a cease and desist letter.

          People make the online mistake she made every day, all the time. They stop when asked 99 percent of the time. She would have too.

          This case was the worst thing to ever happen to the RIAA.

        • bobmail

          1) the law, the courts… they all say otherwise. She’s guilty, plain and simple.

          2) The damages aren’t bullshit, they are what is prescribed by law. She missed tons of chances to get out cheap, to walk away, and instead (on the basis of a combination of bad legal advice and stubborn attitude) has found herself years later with the same problems as always. Money is nothing compared to the time she has wasted over something that should have been trivial.

          “Copyright infringement is a civil offense not a crime”

          It depends. It can be both. It’s still a violation of the law, making it a criminal activity, even if it’s not in this case on the penal side.

          “retard” indeed.

        • Steakandchipsyouknobslut

          It’s not a criminal activity, because it is not covered by criminal law. It is a tort, because it is covered by civil law. It’s not a violation of ‘the law’, it’s just a violation of a right.

        • http://twitter.com/DarkNinja45 WD

          The law of the kangaroo courts of the United States of America, whose judicial system is the LAUGHING STOCK OF THE DEVELOPED WORLD, says so.

          For the millionth time it’s not the fact that the damages are prescribed by a judiciary that’s the problem, it’s that they’re VASTLY OUT OF PROPORTION TO ANY REAL DAMAGES THAT COULD HAVE BEEN CAUSED BY THE FILE SHARING.$220,000, no matter which way you paint it, is way out of line with any real damage the special snowflake multi-billion dollar corporation could have taken from Rasset’s sharing on the file with even 10,000 peers over Kazaa. How many people have to tell you this before it gets drilled into your thick, moneyed skull, bobmail? May I point you to Voltace Films v TekSavvy as an example of how copyright law should be handled in the US; that is, the plaintiff kindly being told to fuck off until they have actual evidence as opposed to IP addresses and that damages should reflect the severity of the crime UNDER THE LAW rather than the ungodly sums that these corporations extort from your average Joe Schmoe peer/seeder on BitTorrent or Kazaa.

        • bobmail

          “it’s that they’re VASTLY OUT OF PROPORTION TO ANY REAL DAMAGES THAT COULD HAVE BEEN CAUSED BY THE FILE ”

          Here, I give you a chance: Prove it. Show me that her shares are not in some way part of every other share of those 24 songs since that date. Prove to me that there are not millions of “retail value $1″ copies out there are a result of her sharing.

          You can’t.

          That’s the nature of statutory damage systems. The congress, in it’s wisdom (and in their position as the elected representatives of the people) set a minimum and maximum amount for the courts and juries to consider, in lieu of each party having to prove (or disprove) something that cannot easily be done without perhaps asking each and every citizen of the US or summoning every computer in existence).

          As for ” Voltace Films v TekSavvy”, just remember that Canadian copyright law is being modified to bring it more in line with the US, and the “fuck off” answer will likely be less and less acceptable to the courts.

        • Scary_Devil_Monastery

          Here, I give you a chance: Prove it. Show me that her shares are not in some way part of every other share of those 24 songs since that date. Prove to me that there are not millions of “retail value $1″ copies out there are a result of her sharing.

          You can’t.

          Ah, the religious offense. In other words, unless we can proven there are no invisible fairies in the garden, you maintain we must take the statement at face value.

          What a load of garbage you pull, Baghdad Bob.

          See, in the real world, no study ever performed has been able to make a case for the “lost sale” and that means it doesn’t make sense to place ANY damages at all.

          But since you decided to drag “proof” into it, anyone can certainly prove, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that not one single electron sent by Jammie Thomas is part of any of the copies of those songs floating around.

          And that leaves you claiming that we must prove the absence of something wholly imaginary.

          You’re in the same position as the church official who demanded Galileo must prove there is NOT an invisible substance evening out the moon’s visible craters.

          It’s a rather anachronistic way of making a clown out of yourself.

        • bobmail

          You are so full of self-righteous shit that your eyes are brown. This is another post full of crap, insults, and stupidity.

          bold tect doesn’t make you right, it just makes you like an idiot trying to shout something. Making it louder doesn’t make it more right, just louder.

          For the rest of it, I am only giving the defense back the same stupid “prove it” that they are asking the plaintiff to give – and thus explaining why we have statutory damages instead of a long drawn out “prove it” war.

          You know that, but you are too riled up (or drunk, I guess) to notice.

        • icec0ld

          Bold text doesn’t make you wrong either.

        • Scary_Devil_Monastery

          2) The damages aren’t bullshit, they are what is prescribed by law. She
          missed tons of chances to get out cheap, to walk away with personal and irretrievable bankruptcy, and instead (on the basis of a combination of bad legal advice and stubborn attitude because she didn’t want her children to grow up in poverty) has found herself years later with the same problems as always. Money is nothing compared to the time she has wasted over something that should have been trivial which should have ended with a cease and desist.

          Fixed.

          Which means the law is the same bullshit as the one mandating blacks to sit at the back of the bus. Or the one prohibiting carrying ice cream cones in back pockets.

          It depends. It can be both. It’s still a violation of the law, making it a criminal activity

          An outright lie. A violation of civil law is an unlawful act, not a criminal one.

          In other words, you aren’t content merely to see Jammie and her children ruined, you must have the self-satisfaction of calling her bad names as well.

          There are no winners here. But the biggest loser is your side. Jammie thomas has been made a victim of your staggering greed. You and yours, on the other hand, lost even the ability to call yourselves human. Even if all the contribution you personally did is to marginalize this obscenity on a forum.

        • bobmail

          You failed again. She was offered a settlement at $5000 6 plus years ago. She declined. It would have been a trivial amount, considering all of the time she has spent with lawyers, in court, and so on.

          You need to work on getting your facts straight. Big posts full of wrong information seem to be your forte.

        • http://twitter.com/DarkNinja45 WD

          $5000 for a mother with children is not trivial by any means. Clearly you’re well-off (obvious considering that the industry seems to pay you to spout shit on TF), otherwise you’d realise that $5000 *is the budget most families have for necessities every month*. Even then, it’s the top-end. Most have to get by on far less than that. But, you know, the US economy hasn’t tanked and everything’s hunky-dorey and we can all afford at least a month’s worth of pay /minimum/, or, in this case, the cost of an entry-level family home in most states as well as provinces in Canada, to pay these retards without any proportional wealth sense in their tiny brains.

        • PelouzeTF

          Well, sadly for you, her and your little delusional fantasy world, she was found guilty of doing something “wrong” even her appeals still ended up with her receiving a judgement.

          So that kinda pisses all over your cornflakes numbnuts.

        • Scary_Devil_Monastery

          Then that means the law is simply inhuman and unacceptable.

          And, taking a leaf from MLK Jr’s book, means that law must be fought.

          So that kinda pisses all over your cornflakes numbnuts.

          It will certainly make every pirate angry. For the cause of Piracy in general however, every case like this is one more solid loss for your side. It exposes you lot as the inhuman sociopaths that you are.

          Not just because you find it “proper” to ruin a mother and her children over a few copies of songs. Apparently you also have the lack of sense to gloat over it.

        • PelouzeTF

          You’re side stepping a persons role in their decision making and passing the buck.

          Naturally I have no problem with people freely sharing things that they perosnally create or have rights to, share away, sharing is good.

          However, when a person feels entitled to stomp over another entities rights, where laws already exist and that the sharing of such items is never necessary for your being, then no, I don’t see that law as being inhumane or unacceptable.

          If your very existence were dependent on the sharing of anothers copy-written media and you’d die if you didn’t share, yeah, my view point would be more sympathetic but, it’s not and never will be.

          So describing a law as inhumane and unacceptable when it doesn’t even have to register in your existence is simply over the top rhetoric.

          I don’t see why MLK would agree with your position at all.

        • Violated0

          Let us count the real damages.

          24 songs at $0.99 each totals in at $23.76. Now had they asked that sum plus the cost of the letter than 6 years of Court cases could have been avoided.

        • bobmail

          Problem: How many people got a copy as a result of her actions? If each song was broken into 100 blocks, and each of those blocks went to different people, she was part of 2400 direct violations. Each of those violations likely lead to a similar spread… in the end, her involvement in the piracy of those songs is such that you cannot separate her out from any illegal copy obtained after her share date. The harm created very likely continues to this day.

          So 99 cents doesn’t cover it, sorry.

        • http://twitter.com/DarkNinja45 WD

          bobmail you’re retarded, like usual. You seem to be treating each piece of a torrented file as a seperate file, which was not, is not and will never be the case. Pushing you back to reality, since all these pieces are still in the same file when it’s handled by most clients (Kazaa included), that would make it 24 violations, not 2400. 24 violations of a civil “law”. 24 * $0.99 = $23.76, moron.

        • bobmail

          “You seem to be treating each piece of a torrented file as a seperate file, ”

          No, I am treating each piece as part of a conspiracy to distribute, where others provided other pieces with the intent to distribute pirated music. I am not blaming her for each entire share, but each part distributed to a different person is part of another collective effort to pirate, and thus she has some liability in it.

          So the real moron here is you, not understanding that being part of a conspiracy gains you responsibility for the result. Open sharing of the files means that she didn’t create one copy, she helped to create an unknown (and potentially unlimited number) of illegal copies. Go ask your idol Mike Masnick about infinite distribution. That’s the hurdle guys on your side of the argument set, it’s pretty hard to argue that it magically doesn’t apply here, because there isn’t some sort of wide distribution of the pirated material because, because.. because… you say so?

        • Scary_Devil_Monastery

          “No, I am treating each piece as part of a conspiracy to distribute…”

          Ah, so by the same token I could toss a dictionary into the air, scream out the name of ten blockbusters, and get a 220k fine levied on me using your exact argument.

          Makes as much sense as your wordwall which falls on two criteria.

          1) Your demonstration of “causation” is an outright lie – not being empirically observable in any form. In short, we’re looking at a “conspiracy” which neither in theory nor practice had any observable effect.

          2) All you really have is one person distributing information with science being very clear that no result or effect in the form of harm can be observed.

          3) Proportion.

          Last time I read someone expounding in a similar manner it was a pulpit thumping brimstone evangelist claiming that two men having sex would taint the souls of everyone in the state.

        • bobmal

          “so by the same token I could toss a dictionary into the air, scream out the name of ten blockbusters, and get a 220k fine levied on me using your exact argument.”

          you shouldn’t post when you are drunk or on drugs (I am allowing you the excuses). Your post is clearly stupid.

        • Scary_Devil_Monastery

          you shouldn’t post when you are drunk or on drugs (I am allowing you the excuses). Your post is clearly stupid.

          Hmm. nope. Given your original harebrained statement assuming a single packet of “1″ and “0″ somehow mafgically amounts to a piece of music is indeed within the same border as tossing a dictionary in the air and claiming copyright infringement made by anyone who managed to glimpse a word on the way down.

          Because, you dyslexic troll, what you originally stated amounted to the claim that passing scrabble pieces one another would amount to copyright infringement and conspiracy to commit made by any handler and recipient.

          Then again this is not the first time you grasped for ad hominem in hostis when you found yourself exposed as an idiot.

          We keep telling you – stop commenting on how IT works. you are as fit for such analysis as medieval clergy.

        • https://kat.ph/user/SCSA420 StoneCold420

          I’ll bet money being a computer tech that I can find ILLEGAL stuff on Bobmail’s and PeLOSER’s computers so just STFU you morons.

        • Scary_Devil_Monastery

          If each song was broken into 100 blocks, and each of those blocks went
          to different people, she was part of 2400 direct violations. Each of
          those violations likely lead to a similar spread… in the end, her
          involvement in the piracy of those songs is such that you cannot
          separate her out from any illegal copy obtained after her share date.
          The harm created very likely continues to this day.

          And this is why your estimate of the “lost sale” is 46 times what the entire globe has as GNP?

          And you actually defend this. Unbelievable.

          Whereas real market studies suggest the impact is null and nothing.

          Well done, Baghdad Bob. Once again pulling the religious dogma card, calling for imaginary damages where none can be empirically observed.

        • bobmail

          “And this is why your estimate of the “lost sale” is 46 times what the entire globe has as GNP?”

          Please show me where I have made such a claim. I have not.

          You are a liar and you are full of shit. Stop making yourself look bad!

        • Scary_Devil_Monastery

          As in when you defended the estimates made by the same organization whose numbers do include that 46 times the global GNP?

          Every other copyright troll preceding you, but arguing the same side, was similarly adamant it was correct in TF’s coverage of the TPB trial.

          So, bobmail, are you saying you only wanted one particular falsehood carried of the package you defended? Then be more specific.

        • bobmail

          bold doesn’t make you right, it just seems to make you look like a jacakass…

          Seriously, there are statutory damages for a reason. It’s because to empirically prove the losses would basically require that every computer in the world be seized, examined, and every user with a copy tested for their state of mind and financial ability to pay for said product. The costs to produce such a study for each copyright case would be insane.

          What part don’t you get?

          My example was only to show that the original poster choose the least possibly level of infringement (a single copy) and assigned it lowest possible price, and attempted to make it look as if paying the retail price when caught was somehow “punishment”. it’s not logical at all, and you know it.

          Why do you insist on being such an idiot? You are apparently a grown man. Why do you post like such a child? You seem to have you hands over your eyes so you don’t read anything you don’t like!

        • MadAsASnake

          Quantum of damages is a concept that youv’e never heard of, I guess?

        • PelouzeTF

          Of course, in bizzaro world the judgment should only equal the actual cost should it have been legally purchased in the first place.

          If that was the case, we’d all be running around shoplifting the things we want, knowing that if we get caught, we’d only have to pay the sticker price.

          You guys sure know how to provide the lols

        • bobmail

          Yup, their lulz are pretty much a big time thing. They don’t realize that you can pay a big fine (or even go to jail) for shoplifting a DVD or CD… not just “oops, I’ll pay for it”.

          More real world disconnections from the online children!

        • dropin

          HaHaHa this is so funny.
          Two trolls occupied in a conversation.
          I nearly pissed myself laughing.

        • http://twitter.com/DarkNinja45 WD

          For the trillionth time, shoplifting takes an actual, physical product that is right there in front of the perp. It is a criminal offense, as you are actually imposing a loss of revenue on the distributor, as well as stealing. Piracy has absolute shit to do with shoplifting as it’s impossible to steal something which doesn’t technically exist.

          You should seriously take the time to read Wiktionary or Wikipedia before talking crap. Oh wait, those two take revenue away from the big reference literature corporations! They’re committing copyright infringement and stealing at the same time! Sue! Sue! Sue! Leave no man standing!

        • MadAsASnake

          Nope, shoplifting is actually a crime in most places.

        • Guest

          “criminal”

          Read the article, nitwit.

          “factual errors”

          haha

          “If she were truly innocent, she wouldn’t have been found guilty.”

          Innocent people plead or are found guilty all the time.

          “knew what they were doing”

          She didn’t. Many petty lawbreakers don’t.

          Too easy.

        • PelouzeTF

          Sorry bud, I can’t take anyone seriously who spends time to comment on articles involving Honey Boo Boo and clearly displays large quantities of naivety (she didn’t know LOL – she shared almost 1800 songs on a torrent site).

        • Scary_Devil_Monastery

          1) If she were truly innocent, she wouldn’t have been found guilty.

          Innocent of anything other than making copies of media, for personal use. Last time I checked that does not merit having your life wrecked more thoroughly than a 15-year prison sentence could.

          2) The case dragged on for far longer than it should because Rasset appealed every judgement and refused settlements lower than even the
          court ordered.

          You mean the settlements all high enough to wreck the life for a mother with children not on high income?

          …even though they would have stung, the case would have been settled for 10% of the above amount and finished years ago.

          Yes, she was offered the choice between accepting personal bankruptcy…or personal bankruptcy with a fighting chance.

          Big surprise she chose the option where she could fight.

          So quit blaming everyone else apart from the person that knew what they were doing was illegal.

          No, I think we’ll go right on blaming you and your kind, for helping make the law inhuman and unacceptable.

          When Rosa Parks had her seat at the front of a bus, I have no doubt people just like you were calling for the dumb black b**ch to be shot for “breaking the law”. Without even having to be bigots for it.

        • bobmail

          All of your points are wrong.

          Settlement offer: $5000. She declined.

          The rest of your post, well, *sigh*. This is no Rosa Parks moment. It’s at best a “stupid person” moment, which is my thoughts of anyone who declines a low settlement and then follows bad legal advice to the hilt.

        • icec0ld

          There was no settlement offered. Stop lying like a sack of crap to defend your retarded position. All it takes for anyone know you’re full of crap is to enter it into Google.

        • Scary_Devil_Monastery

          All of your points are wrong.

          Settlement offer: $5000. She declined.

          The latest offer on record is 25000.

          And yes, it is indeed a Rosa Parks moment. It doesn’t really matter, you see, whether we’re talking about a “stupid person” or just an “uppity n****r” as your spiritual contemporaries tended to describe that person.

          All that matters is that the public sees someone prosecuted beyond all reasonable limits for something completely trivial and the law allowing such prosecution starts to crumble.

        • dropin

          Bob you say USD 5,000 settlement.

          Pelouse says USD 25,000.
          one of you has to be confused.

        • MadAsASnake

          It’s reasonable in relation to 1/4 million. 1/4 million is insane. Any reasonable person would expect ANY court to see that.

        • PelouzeTF

          “No, I think we’ll go right on blaming you and your kind, for helping make the law inhuman and unacceptable.”

          The current law is what it is, it’s well known enough that if you decide to share and you get caught doing so, the only reason you have to bitch about it is not that it’s inhuman and unacceptable, It’s that you have poor judgement and a cavalier attitude to the materials that other people create.

          The fact is, you don’t care about those creators and rights holders, you think it’s ok to infringe and are entitled to consume their creations without paying to do so.

          And then you have the gall to get pissy when they bite back to protect their rights even though the choice to share was the yours entirely.

        • dropin

          None of the shit that you spouted,alters
          the fact,that you are a cold hearted fuck,
          with no redeeming features.

        • PelouzeTF

          Sadly for you, that “shit I spouted” happens to be reality.

          Your opinions, they don’t matter to me one way or another.

        • dropin

          “Your opinions, they don’t matter to me one way or another.”

          HaHaHa, then why did you bother to reply.

    • https://kat.ph/user/SCSA420 StoneCold420

      FUCK YOU ASSCLOWN. You’re a F’N moron who kisses the FEDS and the RIAA’s asses. Oh and you’re a gutless P.O.S. like the guy below me states.

      • PelouzeTF

        Ahhh, here comes Stonecold420 LOL

        The genius who was sent to prison for copyright related crimes but still continues down the exact same path. Spending money he doesn’t have on wrestling releases, so he can upload to TPB and KA Torrents.

        Then begging for donations to cover the uploads and slightly more embarrassing, begging for comments or he’ll refuse to upload.

        Begging for comments and donations Stone !!!! Holy fuck lol

        You Sir are a meathead, tragically sad and a massive joke.

        • Guest

          You’re scared shitless of him, aren’t you?

          A guy who can’t be stopped from pirating no matter what he’s threatened or punished with.

          Well, here’s a little secret, Peloser: he’s just one of millions like him. Sleep tight.

        • PelouzeTF

          Why on earth would I be concerned with how someone else wants to play with their life ?

        • Guest

          This is like pro wrestling, except you’re 76 pounds and holding a ping pong paddle, and here you are in the ring, mewing and squeaking.

          You don’t upload to TPB and KA Torrents.

          Stone Cold will crush you, Peloser.

        • https://kat.ph/user/SCSA420 StoneCold420

          You have room to talk PeLOSER as you sir are a pathetic joke and a moron and that’s the bottomline cause StoneCold420 said so. At least I support Freedom of Speech and file sharing and not rich Hollywood fags like you and unlike you I don’t kiss ass, I kick it each and every week on Monday – Friday nights. I don’t give a fuck what you think and If you don’t like it then as someone else once said Just Bring It or If you want some come get some!!! See ya loser……………..

        • PelouzeTF

          Yeah, morally have much more room to talk than you.

          You have proven to be a bottom feeding douchbag that begs for recognition and donations for infringing on the rights of others.

          Enjoy your life of low achievement Stone.

        • https://kat.ph/user/SCSA420 StoneCold420

          It takes a bottom feeding douchebag to know one you loser. I don’t give a fuck what you think anyways who the fuck are you? All you are is some punk ass bitch who loves taking it up the ass from them rich Hollywood fags and the government like your pathetic gay punk ass does and loves it. Oh and I got some Italian friends in NYC who would treat you special just like they treat snitching bitches in real life. Now go away and STFU before you start something you can’t finish or beat me at you fucking assclown……………………………

    • Scary_Devil_Monastery

      You should have taken the proposed $25k settlement settled for getting shot just once instead of ten times, when it was offered, Rasset.

      Fixed.

      For the average person on median income in the US, please tell me the difference between a 25k debt and a 220k?

      Oh, both ruins your life irretrievably.

      I’m somehow not surprised to see a church of copyright cultist gloating smugly over a persons life being wrecked over making a dozen copies of songs.

      • bobmail

        Umm, idiot, settlement was offered at 5K. Stop making shit up.

        • Scary_Devil_Monastery

          Settlement was offered, then quickly amended to 25k. And that was in 2005.

          Go read up.

      • PelouzeTF

        Unbeknownst to me at the time of commenting, she could have settled for $5K. And yes, $5k for a single mother with kids is still a large amount of money and I’m sure she turned it down in the hopes that her day in court would see that figure dropped even lower, maybe to $0.

        But those are the choices a person makes, just as deciding to share copy-written materials are in the first place.

        You roll your dice, take your chances and sometimes it backfires but, lets be clear here SDM – those choices were all hers to begin with and she made a bad one from the outset.

        As a creator, I don’t have much sympathy for those that want to share copy-written works to anons for pats on the back at the expense of others.

        It was a foolish decision to start with and didn’t get any better.

        • dropin

          “As a creator, I don’t have much sympathy for those that want to share copy-written works”

          You a creator, Proof ?
          Or are you full of hot air.

        • PelouzeTF

          LOL, because it makes any difference to my points whether I prove it to you or not.

          Can you see any reason a person would lie about it ?

        • Ardvaark

          Gee I would really like to take a look at these creations of yours.

          You pro-copyright people are always very eager to use piracy as a scapegoat for your shortcomings on your “creations”.

    • bobmail

      “You should have taken the proposed $25k settlement Rasset.”

      That’s nuts. She should have taken the 5K settlement long before that. Bad legal advice got her in a world of trouble (that and her own poor judgement).

      • PelouzeTF

        I didn’t know a $5k offer was on the table lol. Just shows how poor some peoples judgement is and where advised, how poor that advice was.

  • jim

    the government of the USA is controlled by special interest groups. How do you explain getting up to five years in jail for copying a movie?
    Our forefathers left england because of the opression. Were the hell do we go?

    • Austin Williamson

      Canada’s out of the question. $5000 for copying a file? God-

    • Danny

      Its better back here in England!

      You’re welcome back if you can find work.

    • bringdowntheMPAA

      We go load up on ammo. then we form our own political party. Then we do what needs to be done.

  • anonymous

    good ol’ yanks! nothing more important than Hollywood and the entertainment industries in general! just as important as well to do what the government wants than what the law wants. fucking wankers!! freedom of any sort isn’t worth a toss in the USA now. democratic country? you gotta be kiddin’ me!!

    • juchmis

      “yanks”, “wankers” . . . You can only be from a few countries with that talk. Either the United Kingdom, an equally heinous country where one can go to jail for “trolling” and free speech never existed to begin with. Either that or Australia, a country with some of the most oppressive censorship of any developed nation.

      Unless you’re an expat, like myself, in which case you are justified in your comments. Otherwise you’re in a country on par with the United States.

  • bubanee

    Imagine if everybody went to court for uploading a few MP3s, look how much money they got for 1 song alone… 1 SONG!… what a crook of repeating shit….

  • Internet_Zen_Master

    Oh for the love of- *unleashes an obscenity-riddled tirade at the Supreme Court for refusing to hear the case*

    On the other hand, I guess at least Thomas-Rasset isn’t being forced to pay that $1.5 or $1.92 million amount. We also must consider the fact that the US Supreme Court refusing to hear a case doesn’t (AFAIK) set any legal precedent.

    But as the Zen Master says, “We’ll see.”

    • http://profiles.google.com/zerianis10 Christopher Kidwell

      True. If anything, it makes the waters MURKIER by having a bunch of District Court rulings that can conflict with each other.

    • bobmail

      Actually, the Supreme Court has much better things to do than deal with this case, this is a pretty low level thing without too much meat for them to deal with. You are correct, no precedent is set by them declining to hear the case, they will be much more interested to hear a similar case if there is much more valid and functional conflict.

      The biggest argument was generally against the damages set under law, and particularly that they were intended for organized crime and not an individual. I don’t personally think it’s a very strong starting point for an argument, and certainly not one that would get all that much legal traction in from of SCOTUS.

      They really want to deal with cases that have some meat on them. Neither this nor the Tenebaum case are particularly interesting in legal terms, the ground has already been covered in cases like Williams. The provisions of the law dealing the the statutory damages in these cases is carefully crafted to follow that and other judgements, giving the courts a wide latitude.

      Until some case comes along with a decent legal twist, I doubt SCOTUS will even glance to hard at any of it.

      • Rekrul

        SCOTUS probably turned it down because it didn’t present any opportunity to further screw the US public in the name of corporate interests.

      • IDIOCARCY

        So you advocate class justice here bobby. Back to the middle ages…. yeah and take another pill….hehe keep your bed dry tonight bobby…

        • Zebra52

          When you can’t argue the facts, make childish statements.. Brilliant.

        • bobmail

          Still not seeing it, sorry. No class justice here that I see, except perhaps in your mind.

      • anonymous

        it wouldn’t be ‘low level’ if it were you that had to pay so ridiculous an amount in fines for doing something so trivial, regardless of what the accusations are. everyone deserves to be tried properly, according to the law, not convicted just to please an industry that cant prove anything itself!

        • highboi

          ofcourse not, thats why he follows the law like the little brain washed monkey he is

        • bobmail

          Well, except that the act isn’t trivial, it’s specific and it’s illegal. Like it or not, the JRT case was a bad one from the word go because she clearly did it. It’s only a question of dollars, and the law is very clear on the subject, even if you don’t like it.

          It’s not low level for her, but in legal terms, it’s very low level with absolutely nothing good for the courts to work on.

          The law is written to make sure that the courts don’t have to spend countless hours and days on the process of proving actual harm in each case. It’s not beneficial to anyone to have to do so, except perhaps for those who pirate and want to skate. In terms of interests of the public at large, setting statutory damages is both a clear way to resolve the issue (with a very wide guideline for the courts / juries to work with), and at the same time saving “we the people” a ton of money by not having to litigate the same things over and over again.

          I have little sympathy for JRT or Tenenbaum, because they are both victims of what I consider poor legal advice and stubborn attitudes. JRT was offered many settlements for a few thousand dollars (the lowest if I remember was about $5000) and she declined at each step along the way. Her legal team was unable to find any real traction, she was guilty from the word go and everything else has been a fight about “how much”. That isn’t something that SCOTUS generally wants to get involved in.

          @highboi: I think you are the one being a little brainwashed here. Read the whole story, and perhaps you might not want to just keep coughing up the same legal hairballs that have failed over and over now.

        • IAAL

          The case was trivial and no it’s not illegal, it’s unlawful. Infringing copyrights is not a crime, it’s a tort. If it was illegal and dealt with under criminal law the most she’d have been fined would a couple of thousand dollars, if even that much! That is why the MAFIAA don’t want it to be criminalised, because they’d lose out in cases like this where the monies from the fines would go to the courts, not to the plaintiffs.

        • bobmail

          Even if you make it criminal, there will always be a civil angle to it. Being found guilty of criminal copyright infringement (it’s on the books) would not in any manner eliminate the case for civil action. In fact, being found guilty would make the civil action into a near slam dunk. You don’t get to trade one for the other, just ask OJ Simpson.

          The only reason JTR wasn’t charged criminally is because there is no SPECIFIC commercial angle here. Otherwise, she would likely have been charged there too.

      • Internet_Zen_Master

        It is unfortunate, but bobmail does have a point. The USSC has (in their view) more important cases on its docket than the constitutionality of damages over a copyright infringement case (the DOMA case immediately comes to mind here).

        And yeah, now that I think about it, while T-R’s core argument that the damages were meant for crime syndicates and not individual people is in fact a valid argument to make, unless it’s combined with arguments that are of equal or greater weight, the case doesn’t have much ‘meat’ to it, to borrow from what you said. The legal case had the “bones”, but without muscles bones are nothing more then a lifeless skeleton.

        Of course, now we’re back to square one when it comes to damages for cases like this, since there’s no national precedent being set, and circuit courts are free to do as they choose with cases like this (though this case will no doubt be offered up as reasons why damages should be that high in future cases).

        All that being said, the truth of the matter is that file-sharers and pirates don’t give a fuck. The Thomas-Rasset case was (one of) the RIAA’s attempts to make an example out of some poor schmuck and thought that the rest of the web would be too terrified by the thought of ending up like Thomas-Rasset or Tenenbaum (sp?) and sued into financial oblivion.

        That was in 2007.

        Six years later, file-sharing and internet piracy are both still going strong. I’d say that the RIAA’s attempt at intimidation failed big time.

        • n_mailer

          “the truth of the matter is that file-sharers and pirates don’t give a fuck”

          File-sharers aren’t bootleggers, so they don’t care about cash flow. You can’t harass them out of business because they’re not in business. All they care about is their harmless virtual lending library, and one file between two is as good as a thousand between thousands.

          The good news is that this blind alley kept the MAFIAA from pursuing taxes on Internet use, which is how they “survived” cassette dubs and burned CDs.

        • bobmail

          “File-sharers aren’t bootleggers, so they don’t care about cash flow.”

          You are right only for a certain subset of the situation, not everyone. Many file sharers who are not thinking commercially are still ending up as the tools of commercial businesses who profit from their illegal actions, which is a real problem.

          Do you honestly think that sites like TPB or Torrentz would be so popular if they had nothing but legal stuff and the latest indie musician / movie stuff? Nope. These sites profit from the underlying bad acts.

          Let’s not forget the the whole Mega style “pay per download” fiasco. There were tons of guys working out of places like India taking pirated copies of movies, putting them on these file lockers as affiliates, and profiting by spamming those movie links onto hundreds if not thousands of phpBB boards, driving people to their downloads and making money off of it.

          Let’s not forget that the phpBB sites, just like the torrent index sites, are all making a living off of the underlying piracy.

          There is almost always a profit motivation in the way things work here, even if the individual file sharer doesn’t expect financial return, the reality is that without some sort of cash lubrication system, the whole thing tend to fall apart over time. Go look at many of the release groups – you don’t think that they have a profit motivation? Most of them do, charging to join their exclusive websites or otherwise profiting from their piracy, economically or socially.

      • Guest

        So bob, you’re saying that the Supreme Court doesn’t want to deal with injustices perpetuated by the lower courts, so they’ll refuse to hear them.

        That’s not actually how it’s supposed to work.

        • bobmail

          “So bob, you’re saying that the Supreme Court doesn’t want to deal with injustices perpetuated by the lower courts, so they’ll refuse to hear them.”

          No, I didn’t say that, did I? I said only that SCOTUS has plenty of cases for consideration, and they deal with the ones that have actual meat on the bones, things that are truly in conflict, things that have no been resolved lower down.

          The only real argument being made was that the amounts were intended for commercial infringement, and not individual infringement. Since the law doesn’t make a difference, there isn’t much here to deal with. What exactly would you expect SCOTUS to rule on? The appeal has to be based on something, not air. Their only arguments appeared to be air, so SCOTUS takes a pass on this one.

          Can you think of any real legal argument (that hasn’t been tried and killed repeatedly) that would make SCOTUS want to hear this case over all of the other ones in their consideration pile?

        • Milkshake Man

          Poor Bob.
          What a tired little sock you must be.

      • icec0ld

        Consider that literally every appeal about the sentence has been a yoyo describable with every other judge ruling over the other one till they arrived at the still monstrous sum of over 200 grand.

        The fact there is such disparity between all the different appeals rulings as to the amount should show there is desperate need for a clarification. By letting this stand they’ve effectively told someone, who has no chance of ever making that much in their life time thanks to the criminal record they’ve given this person, to go bone themselves.

        No one deserves this. Not even child molesters get set with a debt to follow them for the rest of their lives. We’ve essentially set a death penalty for jay walking and the supreme court has said “that’s fine with us”. What a joke.

  • http://profiles.google.com/zerianis10 Christopher Kidwell

    The Supreme Court just abrogated it’s duties, the fuckers. I swear, if there was ANY case where the monetary punishment exceeds the damages done by multiples, this is it.

  • MadAsASnake

    I know justice is supposed to be blind, but it’s not supposed to be stupid and vindictive as well. This case should have been thrown out with a slap in the wrist years ago. It’s not like the RIAA will EVER see any of it, and it’s not like the RIAA will ever distribute to anybody remotely associated with the poor old “artist”.

  • aFriendlyTroll

    They should have just asked for,wait for it…a BILLION dollars. Mwuahahahahahaha!!!

  • MadAsASnake

    The highest courts in the land tend to be there as a final check on new and untested legal theory, and to prevent unexpectedly absurd results that weren’t caught earlier. Given the nature of file sharing cases, you’d expect the first few to be going there pretty much by default. It’s interesting that these courts are dodging the bullet.

    • bobmail

      No, they get to SCOTUS where there is enough difference of opinion, or varied enough results to merit the courts looking into it. There is no big issues here for the court to address that haven’t been touched already:

      – Copyright: Well set in law, unavoidable. already been in front of the court any number of times.
      – statutory damages: Well set in law, unavoidable, and in the Williams case, already “asked and answered”.

      Remember too, that pretty much all of the standard arguments have been handled already. 1st amendment v copyright is settled (even in Europe!), and the only point being raised by the JTR legal team was the “suppose to be for commercial users only” deal, which doesn’t hold up because that is not the wording of the law on the books.

      The courts didn’t dodge anything. They have addressed the issues in the past, in different situations, and this one just doesn’t rise up and present any new ground for them to cover.

      • HugoBumplucket

        What is this European ’1st amendment’ you speak of?

        • bobmail

          The European version of said US constitutional item.

      • MadAsASnake

        The result is patently absurd. The courts need to deal with that.

  • JordanKratz

    Our USA Government is already bought and sold to Corporations.Ever look at how much money these asshole Politicians spend to get into Government.Do that and you will want to throw up.
    I have a feeling this Century those rich pricks will get just what is coming to them.
    Make sure you keep up your Boycott of MAFIAA as well.Do your best to Censor them from your Wallet !

  • jacksmind

    I think the lessons from stories like this, is one cannot depend on the legal system to support the under-arching moral permissibly of sharing of information which would not affect creators economically (but, of course, support your artists kids!).

    The solution to this form of aggressive corporate rent seeking:

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rent-seeking

    Is technological, not legal. Unreasonable inflation of copyright (Ah remember the days when copyright used to be 14+14?

    http://goo.gl/p3GHX

    those were the days.) and such aggressive defense
    runs counter to the most fundamental reason of copyright

    http://goo.gl/gfg5f

    . Else, let’s just make sure everyone can keep patents for eternity, let’s get rid of all fair-use provisions, let’s make it illegal to sell books–you have to buy a new one. Yes, these ideas are crazy. And you know what else is? The idea that if I download a book–that I never would have bought, that is infinitely reproducible–deprives anyone of anything what—-so—-ever (though if you would have, support your creators). And you know what’s crazier? That corporations can have so much influence that they can prosecute someone for these vicitimless crimes.

    We need efficient anonymous p2p and we need it yesterday. If this ever happens, our problems here will be over.

  • BuddhaFacePalmed

    “That public interest cannot be realized if the inherent difficulty of proving actual damages leaves the copyright holder without an effective remedy for infringement or precludes an effective means of deterring further copyright violations”

    Translation = Our billionaire slavemasters from L.A. ordered us to uphold the ruling to make examples of a working class mom. Who cares if we can’t prove criminal damages as long as we get dem monies for our masters

    • MadAsASnake

      I cannot imagine what public interest lesson there is in here – except not to give the RIAA the time of day…

  • Pingback: Supreme Court Refuses To Hear Appeal in $222,000 File-Sharing Case | Best Seedbox

  • nobody

    just dont pay

  • America

    Greedy Fuckers.

  • tao54nyc

    She’ll never pay them a dime the rest of her life, and they won’t care if she does. It’s the precedent set that matters. They hope it will place a chilling effect on filesharing. Of course, filesharers will simply take the lesson and redouble their efforts to anonymize their activities or otherwise minimize their potential exposure. I don’t expect filesharing to drop a single iota.

    • MadAsASnake

      And if you follow the news, have these obscene one-offs detered “piracy”? Nope, not for a moment. There woluld need to be a sustained effort to get any deterrent – RIAA have clearly done their sums, and quite clearly throwing a fortune in lawyer cash at private individuals is never going to work out.

      • bobmail

        “And if you follow the news, have these obscene one-offs detered “piracy”? Nope, not for a moment.”

        Umm, this is the first one to go the distance and run it’s course. It hard to tell the deterrent factor of the case, because it’s not something that is repeating yet.

        The RIAA has no interest in doing this over and over, but at the same time, most people aren’t stupid enough to toss their life away over pirating “eye of the tiger”. Most of them, caught red handed, are more than happy to settle quietly for a small amount and learn a lesson. They don’t make headlines, but they don’t pirate anymore either.

        • Zumzum

          Guilt would have to be proven first. Thomas-Rassett admitted sharing the tracks, otherwise the case would never have got this far. An IP address does not equal a person. So no, you’re not going to catch anyone red-handed unless you break into their homes and they’re actually sat at a computer while in the process of initiating a share. Most people, it would seem, just say “sorry you have the wrong person, it’s nothing to do with me” and never pay anything. They don’t make headlines and no further action is taken, because the burden of proof lies with the accuser.

        • joexxx

          Where do you get this from? Out of your rear orifice, as usual?

        • bobmail

          No, out of yours.

          If you don’t have anything useful to add, why bother?

        • Scary_Devil_Monastery

          That’s what we keep asking you.

          Meanwhile go back and ponder the assumptions you were using in your statement – namely that it assumes a law far more draconian and apt for abuse than even Iran can muster.

        • Scary_Devil_Monastery

          Umm, this is the first one to go the distance and run it’s course. It
          hard to tell the deterrent factor of the case, because it’s not
          something that is repeating yet.

          There are any number of examples of anti-pirate actions making headlines. Every result, everywhere, has been an increase in piracy.

          So the “deterrence” is already pretty much disproven.

          The RIAA has no interest in doing this over and over…

          Really? Judging from the pompous glee with which the RIAA celebrates the misfortune of the odd filesharer they catch, they seem to be treating the burning-at-the-stake of heretics…err, filesharers, as an article of faith.

          …but at the same time, most people aren’t stupid enough to toss their life away over pirating “eye of the tiger”.

          Because people are willing to change their habits over a risk which is less than that of being struck spontaneously by lightning or by a small meteorite. Naturally.

          Meanwhile of course, maiming the law until it offers a bigger hazard than that will make people notice, which the RIAA knows full well.

          All in all? This is not a deterrent, bobmail. What it is is yet more bad PR for the RIAA – to the point of making filesharing an act of justifiable civil disobedience in many people’s minds.

    • joexxx

      The precedent here is useless since the circumstances are very specific and any decent lawyer will be able to show that this doesn’t apply to the vast majority of hypothetical future cases.

      • tao54nyc

        Brilliant. And here I was worried. I’ll turn off my VPN now.

    • Scary_Devil_Monastery

      That.

      And to top it off, every time some obscenity of law comes through like this, filesharing gradually turns into civil disobedience.

      This is, as far as the RIAA is concerned, the worst which could happen. No one who reads on either the case or the verdict will come to any other conclusion than that the RIAA is run by psychopathic self-righteous sadists.

      • bobmail

        “filesharing gradually turns into civil disobedience.”

        Yup, and then you grow up, get a job, and realize that like other student protesters of other eras, you are generally tilting at windmills.

        I picture you as being one of the Occupy idiots. Am I right? Probably a 4chan regular too.

        • Scary_Devil_Monastery

          Yup, and then you grow up, get a job, and realize that like other
          student protesters of other eras, you are generally tilting at
          windmills.

          Or you learn about filesharing as a student, then learn about the RIAA, grow up, get a job, and start getting active in politics.

          Better yet, you were a student in the 80′s when home taping was apparently killing music, boston strangler-wise, according to the RIAA, and are STILL part of the same struggle.

          When are you dyslexic idiots going to realize that by now you’re up against three full generations of activists all spreading the message?

          I picture you as being one of the Occupy idiots. Am I right? Probably a 4chan regular too.

          If by that you mean gainfully employed as an expert in my field, in my 40′s, and politically active, then yes.
          Otherwise, no. The Occupy movement, though it has it’s points, is a bit too leftist for my taste.
          And I tend to stay away from 4chan.

        • bobmail

          So you are admitting that at 40 you still haven’t grown up? Wow. Oh, and “able to sort garbage” doesn’t make you an expert in the field. I am still trying to figure out how an expert like yourself can’t even seem to read.

        • BuddhaFacePalmed

          From what everything Scary_Devil_Monastery said, all you took from that was, “He’s 40 yrs old and still haven’t grown up?” LOLZ…

          So, I think that makes bobmail, who purportedly have 20 years of business experience, someone who is still playing monopoly in his momma’s basement. ;)

        • http://twitter.com/DarkNinja45 WD

          lol, bobmail. I hope you’re aware that municipal trash workers are unionised and actually make more than most entry-level retail workers. Retard.

  • Ophelia Millais

    The courts’ hands are tied, really; the letter of the law doesn’t make exceptions for noncommercial, small-time file-sharers, and case law doesn’t allow statutory damage awards to be reduced by a judge in the way that punitive damage awards can be.

    The solution at this point is to try to convince Congress that immense damage awards are not a deterrent, and making them even higher is not going to accomplish anything but foment distrust and animosity between the public, the copyright owners, and the government. Congress must be further informed that the public generally doesn’t believe—and will not be convinced—that the range of statutory damages that Congress set for civil copyright infringement is appropriate for individual instances of noncommercial file-sharing…even if it’s true that such file-sharing, in aggregate, affects the “fair market value” of the works.

    • joexxx

      That would be false. The intent of the law being applied is for commercial infringement. Courts have been grossly misapplying the law to non-commercial infringement.
      The issue here is that a bad law passed and the judiciary is asleep at the wheel allowing this wild west to develop.

    • Violated0

      The idea behind statutory damages is that the fine should be so high as to wipe out any commercial profit they made. Obviously a single mom who never even made one cent out of it falls into a vastly different class.

      The problem is the law was wrote for the former and not the latter because Congress never expected any butt hole to make such a case.

  • salvagesalvage

    Well the RIAA sure bought themselves some quality democracy.

  • bambiwhyyyyyy

    In other words……aaron swartz all over again, backed by the obama administration, this time…….they dont give a shit, but their own positions, pockets and image

  • Anon

    Why can’t she leave the country for good?

  • Guest

    I am not american but this seriously worries me.
    If such an influential force as the US GOV is doing something this crazy, supporting bankrupting a poor lady and kicking its own justice system to “send a message” to fight against something that has been proven good for the world thn that’s crazy and dangerous for everyone in the world.

    (check that article about file shring and streaming boosting music sales)
    File sharing is good and it’s an innovation and an advancement for mankind, america used to mean progress innovation and moving forward.
    Fighting file sharing is ridiculous, th only ones making this war on file sharing are the missguided shareholders of a few big labels and studios that don’t care bout the facts or justice or progress, they just hate the future.
    And the US gov is doing what they want.
    This is sad for the world.

  • joexxx

    Well, 53% of voting sheeple in US voted for this idiot THE SECOND time around. Enjoy.

    • bobmail

      Mostly because the other idiot was a bigger, even more bigoted idiot.

      • MadAsASnake

        Strange. Have to agree with you on that…

        • dropin

          Strange indeed
          But even a broken clock is right twice a day,shit! bob must be broken.

  • Violated0

    A regretful Supreme Court choice seeing that the US Copyright Office is about to recommend many changes to Copyright law including a review of statutory damages, This Thomas-Rasset case highlights an extreme unconstitutional misplaced punishment that would be better for everyone to be a quick fined system with a ban from doing it again.

    So if these proposed changes do become law then such non-commercial sharing would never again see such a punishment,

    Anyway in rare words from me then “fuck the Supreme Court” when this Thomas-Rasset case has been a hugely popular and flawed case concerning the very nature of commercial monopoly exerting extreme punishments over those that defy them…. for simple non-greedy personal entertainment.

    I would not be surprised if some people seed the songs mentioned in this case until the end of time itself. The Thomas-Rasset music pack.

    • In the Right

      When it comes to the test – you always lose, and time you got used to it otherwise you be saying “f… the Supreme Court” and similar, for the rest of your crazed so-called life.

  • Guest

    Meanwhile, on the Pirate Bay…

    69.133.597 peers (49.937.743 seeders + 19.195.854 leechers) in 4.931.315 torrents.

    Yeah, upholding the $222,000 fine sure is a big win for those government and hollywood fuckholes, isn’t it? It’s not futile pissing in the wind at all.

  • Sorry

    I would NEVER pay them a cent.

  • Forensics Man

    US law states that the prosecution has the burden of proof. In this case, the damages caused would be a part of the burden. How did sharing music cause this much damage? Is there some vetted method to prove this?

  • Anon

    This is a good thing. The Supreme Court will hear one and only one case on the issue of file sharing. When it hears that case we want the victim in question to be the best exemplar of what we talk about here. Thomas-Rasset’s case has many holes and is not the optimal case for our side.

    What we don’t want is for the supreme court to take a case to decide the issue where the victim in question is nothing but a straw man for the RIAA’s argument.

    • joexxx

      Ah… a thinking person.

  • Guest

    Not much of a surprise – the first person to be caught and convicted for filesharing. No wonder the courts don’t want to loosen their teeth on Thomas-Rasset.

    I’m not so worried, though. Thanks to other enforcement efforts we now know that copyright enforcers have to break the law just so they can even bring a few people to court for it. IP addresses are being frowned upon as the sole evidence in these cases. Have fun criminalising trading disk drives, assholes. I’d recommend campaigning for Evan Stone’s amnesty.

  • Guest

    She broke the law and that’s all there is to it. Many commentators on here might not like this particular law, but the law is not a menu where one can choose to obey those one likes and disregard those one doesn’t like.
    When you’re found guilty (something she did not seem to be contesting) then it’s best to settle on the best possible terms and negotiate with the prosecution & plaintiffs etc. But by over-eagerly pursuing a minimising of the damages, the courts and prosecution came to the conclusion that she was trying to undermine the law, by rendering the punishments so lenient that it would no longer have a deterrent effect.
    Few courts or public prosecutors will stand for a situation where laws that they are bound to uphold to being made a mockery. The Supreme Court was hardly likely to be impressed – given the seriousness with which it seeks to uphold the constitution and laws of the USA.
    In making this point, I’m not offering any opinions as to where this is a good law or a bad law. But if you don’t like a law then take it up with the lawmakers in Congress or national parliaments around the world.

    • icec0ld

      They just tried to deal with law by appealing that a punishment is not line with the crime. They refused to have a bar of it and are letting an inhumane sum of money for such a minor and limited infringement continue to stand over this person.

      It’s like death penalty for jay walking. The proportions just do not fit. It isn’t justice. The saying justice is blind as been taken to stupid levels of literal.

    • Violated0

      This US law on statutory damages for copyright infringement goes beyond compatible laws for all other countries on this planet. One indication that this US law is extreme and invalid.

      We the millions of people of planet Earth reject this law. We wilfully admit violating this law, frequently. We will not honour or respect this law until such a time the punishment fits the offence.

      Keep in mind that the law is only the mess it is today because the MAFIAA has long lobbied for such with no voice to oppose them, In this modern world many normal citizens are now very educated as to the nature of copyright law and they are just not happy with what they see.

      So it is rather premature of you to call this as the end all conclusion of copyright law. This is an ongoing War on the very nature of copyright against the freedom of the people. Yes this battle was lost regretfully because the copyright cartel gatekeepers wrote the rules. Jammie Thomas-Rasset is a hero of people for fighting as long as she did. She may have lost the case but how so many now question the law that punished her.

      Those laws are due change as it is the very current call of the US Copyright Office. Even if that effort fails to make ground there will always be more and more and more even if it takes our lives, the lives of our children and the lives of our grandchildren to see the real change.

      • Guesting

        The laws are written by lawmakers in congress a two thirds majority of which passed the US Constitution and subsequent amendments to it. The same lawmakers passed the copyright acts. The laws are not made by those you describe as “copyright cartel gatekeepers”. The job of the courts is to interpret (accurately) and enforce the laws, the courts do not create them. It’s the same in every other democratic country.

        If “we the millions of people on planet Earth” reject the law, then why is there not even the slightest glimpse of a campaign to change the laws? The obvious answer is that your statement is inaccurate, the people who reject the law are just the handful of likeminded people who grumble to each other Torrent Freak.

        • Scary_Devil_Monastery

          The obvious answer is that your statement is inaccurate, the people who
          reject the law are just the handful of likeminded people who grumble to
          each other Torrent Freak.

          That’s the first time I’ve heard 20% of the online community was all grumbling around on TorrentFreak. Would they all happen to be called “Mary” as bobmail appears to think they do?

          No, the reason, as we can see quite clearly, is that we pirates have sympathizer’s in every political camp, but that very few are ready to abandon their chosen stance on wealth distribution, foreign policy, health care and education for a cause which, although it is an absolute obscenity, is in their eyes one with rather minor effects.

          Bit by bit, however, that is changing, as the pirate cause – and numbers – tends to surge with every time a new copyright case hits the media.

          With the pirate agenda adopted wholly and completely by the Green bloc in the EU, we so far have 7% of the parliamentary vote for all of europe.

          I assume they are also grumbling around on TorrentFreak? And called “Mary”?

        • bobmail

          Yup, you can try to convince yourselff it’s just like the Occupy movement (the one you were clearly part of). All flash and no durability, because they act like the represent everyone when they only really front for a few anarchists and anti-establishment types.

          Oh, do you go to G8 and G20 meetings and throw rocks at McDonalds too?

        • Guess What?

          The Green bloc are about to abandon their adoption of the pirate agenda. They realised that the had been infiltrated by criminals.

        • Violated0

          You seem to overlook that Congress did not even want the DMCA and told the MAFIAA “no”, So the MAFIAA then turned this into an Internal Trade Agreement which once passed the Administration bound Congress to pass the DMCA.

          They have recently done the same with ACTA which can stop Congress making the changes to copyright law it wants. It also allows the copyright monopoly to bypass the WTO to implement harsher schemes without suitable checks. Sure enough TPPA will follow and more,

          All the rest was passed through intense lobbying and a once sided voice without any major challenger, So Democracy it is not but sure lets now give them some real Democracy in action and the will of the people.

        • MadAsASnake

          Uh uh. MPAA and RIAA actually pen much of the text. It is subject to reveiw, but you know, most of this stuff is being slipped in under the radar, being passed through back doors and only being discussed away from anyone that would oppose it, if they knew about it. Aside from the obvious validity problem, this noxious setup tends to undermine trust in the entire legal system. The people that find it easy to fight the injustices of today are the ones leading the revolution tomorrow.

    • Guest

      “But if you don’t like a law then take it up with the lawmakers in Congress or national parliaments around the world.”

      Appeals are legal.

      “Few courts or public prosecutors will stand for a situation where laws that they are bound to uphold to being made a mockery.”

      Appeals do not make a mockery of the previous judgment, and courts and prosecutors do in fact stand for them.

      “by over-eagerly pursuing a minimising of the damages”

      The courts actually encouraged her. Read the articles.

      • guest

        Appeals are of course legal, I never said they weren’t. Their purpose is to ensure that a case has been tried fairly and correctly, that all evidence has been heard, and that the correct judgement is reached.

        Appeals are not about changing the law. In this case the defendant’s guilt was long established and uncontested.

    • ScrewEwe2

      “the law is not a menu where one can choose to obey those one likes and disregard those one doesn’t like.”
      Ya see, that’s where you’re wrong.

      • guest

        If you decide that you only want to obey certain laws and disregard others then you have to live with the consequences of your actions, just like Ms. Thomas-Rasset. There’s no point in grumbling and complaining if you’re caught and punished.

    • Scary_Devil_Monastery

      but the law is not a menu where one can choose to obey those one likes and disregard those one doesn’t like.

      Actually it is. That’s why the law keeps changing and why “civil disobedience” is a valid aspect of practical democracy.

      Or are you saying that the people who supported MLK Jr, Mahatma Gandhi, Nelson Mandela – or for that matter, Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jeffersson and George Washington – are still to be considered to be in the wrong?

      Because all of those were similarly lawbreakers.

      And for reasons as silly as a minor british surcharge tax on tea, a similarly minor surcharge tax on common salt, and for having a seat on the front of a bus instead of at the back.

      But if you don’t like a law then take it up with the lawmakers in Congress or national parliaments around the world.

      We are. Meanwhile though, demonstrating the futility and insane lack of proportion of the law is also important. No one bothered to change the apartheid laws in the south until those laws were being broken.

      • bobmail

        It so hard to answer a truly stupid post like this, because you are attempting to make a music freeloader (1800 plus songs shared online) with someone fighting for their civil rights, their right to be treated equally with others (and not to be treated as special and somehow above the law).

        That you are pushing this crap tells me that you are perhaps the biggest idiot on this site bold or not

      • Anon

        Fuck her hard. She was offered a review of the evidence and a chance to settle early and she cost the court system millions with her self aggrandizing greed. She lied under oath, tried to destroy her hardrive (evidence) and even under oath tried to blame this on her own children. And when the jury caught on to that, she tried to blame it on her (then) boyfriend. Remember that this is not an RIAA imposed sanction, nor is it the judge. This is a jury of her peers, after three full trials. The Supreme court is not hearing this again because they see the evidence and realize the lower courts all have this right.

        Now and then a truly satisfying punishment is handed down on a real jerk who richly has earned it. Meet Jammie Thomas, who will struggle under this the rest of her life. You think pirates will come to her aid? LMAO. Could not have happened to a more deserving person.

        • dropin

          WOW! that was some temper tantrum.
          Anon, listen to some advice you MUST
          learn to control that temper.
          Otherwise you will never be a successful
          mafiaa troll.
          Also a little empathy would not go astray.

          PS: I believe they have some great medications to treat manic behaviour
          like yours.

      • Guest2

        There is no equivalence between Mahatma Ghandi, Nelson Mandela and Ms. Thomas Rassett. Theirs was a cause that attracted widespread world support. You’ve living in a fantasy if you think you are their equivalent.

        There is no sign whatsoever that beyond a small number of people who inhabit Torrent Freak that your argument is any way persuasive. I know many people myself who’ve taken advantage of Pirate sites, simply because they can and the risks are negligible, but nobody every says to me that its right.

        It’s rather like crossing the road without waiting for a green light, almost all of us have done it but none of us would campaign to get rid of traffic lights.

        Senators, and Parliamentarians around the world received constant calls for action from concerned public and campaign groups for Mandela etc. which was constantly in the news. That is just not the case with opposition to the copyright laws. They rarely receive any.

        • MadAsASnake

          And none oof us would expect a $1/4 million fine for crossing a road against a red light.

    • Fr

      You might be found guilty and have to suffer some consequences but we have something called a constitution where it is suppose to protect all americans with the right to a fair trial and no absurd fines..

      Seems like a violation to me, it is suppose to be the law of the land.

    • MadAsASnake

      Actually it is, you not only have a right, but a duty to fight unjust laws. This is exactly such a case. Statutory damages are wide open to abuse – and have been abused here.

  • sharingiscaring

    222000 for a few songs is completely retarded. 22 would be the correct amount at most!

    We as the people can’t allow governments to act like that!

  • joexxx

    I see the supreme court is very afraid of the issue indeed.

  • Pelham123

    If it weren’t for this decision and the Tanenbaum case, we would not have BitTorrent or this website. Or Game of Thrones.

  • Randy_Lahey

    “In a brief submitted by the Obama administration the government backed the RIAA and asked the Supreme Court to keep the $222,000 intact.”

    There’s the “hope” and “change” you people voted for. A second time.

    • joexxx

      The second it was “forward”… in reverse.

  • ScrewEwe2

    “The two enemies of the people are criminals and government, so let us tie the second down with the chains of the Constitution, so the second will not become the legalized version of the first.” — Thomas Jefferson
    “I guess they didn’t have corporations or lobyists back then, because both of them are criminal organizations. “ — ScrewEwe2

  • Inazuma

    I can’t possibly boycott the RIAA anymore than I’ve been doing for years, but reading shit like this reminds me to never give them any money. Just because someone is sharing songs, doesn’t mean the RIAA is losing money. Even if it did, they should only have to pay about $1 a song, not these insane amounts. Completely ruining someone’s life over something that either did very little damage or no damage at all, is absurd and evil.

  • Freedom

    Sadness. This serves as motivation to vote with your mind AND wallet!

    Please help spread the word and support this movement: http://members.internetdefenseleague.org/

    Peace to all!

  • Filino Rupro

    Well we see the true: “For the people, by the people…”
    It’s for laugh, right?

  • vivo

    more criminals will be born.

  • Alpha Legion

    America. Freest country in the world, and a truly just society.

  • hilarious

    Why have the appeals process if your going to ignore appeal requests?
    another wonderful fail for the government and it’s lies.

    • legal advice

      Appeals have never been automatically granted in the legal system. There has always had to be sufficient grounds (i.e. new evidence, or new arguments not made first time round) and appeals are refused if the court feels there are none.

  • Mike

    Wow that’s nice. Deny this person due process under the law. Way to go Supreme Court.

    • grandpamike1

      She had her due process. That is the way it works.

  • http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100003042475960 Greling Jackson

    If I owe $2,000 to my bank, I have a problem. If I owe $222,000 to the RIAA, well, that’s the RIAA’s problem. It’s one thing to get a huge judgement. It’s a whole other thing to collect one. This lady should just file bankrupt and have the last laugh.

    • MadAsASnake

      Will undoubtedly happen. THe RIAA thinking on how this pans out is mind boggling.

  • methamp

    I hope this isn’t a racism issue.

  • Anon11

    A government interfering in a court case over copyright? What next, writing to tell the judge to direct them to make a decision on a trademark dispute?

    A private company suing an individual should not have government interference. This simply shows how much the media companies have infiltrated and bedded the US government. Undeniable truth of a corrupt US government.

    • joexxx

      It’s Obama… if you can’t do the job you were elected for, try something else.

      • grandpamike1

        Moron.

  • http://www.facebook.com/people/Frank-White/100002970542124 Frank White

    Yep, even the Supreme Court is in the pockets of the labels. ’nuff said.

  • http://twitter.com/stanchaz stan chaz

    Who needs drones????

  • robthom

    I wonder why none of these filthy rich hollywood libs are peeling off a measly 200,000 from their undeserved millions,

    say madonna for instance,

    to get a native murikan single mother out of completely disproportionate hot water?

    They probably dont want to upset the industry bosses who enable them to make such undeserved profits in the first place.

    hollywood libs are only libs in music videos and talk shows.

    • Anon

      Good point Rob. I also wonder why pirates claim to be such a huge part of internet use and yet can’t actually find the numbers to peel off a penny apiece and do the same thing. With a webpage and viral distro the world would know about this in 2 news cycles.

      Lack of quality leadership, helium breathers like Falkvinge and a me-first me-only I don’t give a fuck about anybody else mentality is why piracy is fundamentally wrong in the human rights sense. The “humanity” only extends to taking (copying) but never taking care of their own. If pirates cared about changing the world, Jammie would have been showered in legal defense funding. Instead, when she begged for help online, pirates abandoned her and she—classy as ever—tried to sell thongs. lol

      all true.

  • Red Platypus

    The US Supreme Court has over 10,000 cases petitioned to it each year. They allow around 80 to be heard in their courtroom yearly. That is less than 1% of all cases brought to them. They simply deemed this not worthy enough to be brought into their courtroom. This case was not going to be about piracy but whether the $220,000 damage award was excessive.

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