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Jammie Thomas-Rasset, a single mother, had been the target of a long drawn-out RIAA lawsuit, which today concluded by finding Ms. Thomas-Rasset guilty, for a fine of $1.92 million. Let’s repeat that, because it’s sort of nuts. This single mother has to pay the record companies one million, nine hundred twenty thousand dollars for downloading 24 songs. That is $1.7 million more than the fine from her previous verdict. Under US law, the penalty for downloading a song illegally is $750 to $150,000, an amount which both legal minds and just any sort of rational person understand to be way too big.
It’s not that a guilty verdict is necessarily incorrect, it’s that the penalty is insane. Piracy does not cost the record company anything. It actually makes the record companies more money. I can understand that they’re not too happy about this, but destroying the lives of the people who are their best customers hardly seems to be an appropriate route.
Update: It looks like the jurors were not properly briefed about what they were doing. Trial number three is almost certainly on its way.
