A reprint of the AP newswire can be found at CNN Money: “Guilty verdict in music file-sharing case”. The bottom line is exactly what you thought it would be when you first heard about the case: guilty. The case focused on 24 songs, for which Thomas will now have to pay damages of $9,250 each for a total of $222,000. This is of course much better than it could have been, the plaintiffs had alleged she shared 1,702 songs online and the $9,250 is far below the statutory limit of $30,000 per infringment (see 17 U.S.C. 504(c)(1)). As the jurors found the infringment was willful, the actual statutory limit was $150,000 per infringment. Throughout Thomas denied sharing files or having a Kazaa account, a statement had to believe givent he account was setup using the same online handle, ”tereastarr,” that Thomas had used for many years. The IP addresses matched. She replaced her hard drive after the infringment had taken place. In short, all evidence pointed to her (or her kids) and she may have destroyed evidence. I don’t see how, in a civil case, they had a chance to win this one on the arguments made.
Filed under: 2007 Copyright Cases, Copyright, Infringment Cases
