Second Monday Blog Entry

again same problem just got to a working computer so here is my blog for this week...

Second Blog Entry- Monday October 8, 2007

Labels Win Suit against Song Sharer
October 5, 2007

A Federal jury yesterday (October 4, 2007) found a Minnesota woman, Jammie Thomas, liable for copyright infringement for sharing music online and fined her a total of $222,000 in damages. This verdict brought the end to the first jury trial in the music industry’s effort to stop piracy with lawsuits against individual offenders.

This crucial victory for record labels and copyright owners has been apart of about 30,000 people since 2003, accused of trafficking copyrighted songs. These people accused and had legal action taken against them usually settle out of court for, on average about $4,000, according to the music industry’s trade association. Ms. Thomas decided instead to proceed with a trial instead, stating that she did not share files on the Kazaa network, as she was charged by the record labels. The jury reached a verdict after a short deliberation, which called for $9,250 in damages for each of the 24 songs involved in her case. This case brought not only attention to the industry’s fight against Internet piracy, but also reinforces the notion that computer users who become the target of lawsuits, a very small percentage of people using file-swapping networks, are better off simply settling out of court rather than proceeding with a trial.

The judge in the case, Michael J. Davis of the Federal District Court, ruled in the record labels favor when he stated that in order for Thomas to be charged with infringement, the record labels did not have to prove that the songs on her computer had actually been transmitted to others online, but rather the act of making them merely available to be viewed by others could constitute infringement. This ruling gave an answer to this hotly debated question of whether or not infringement simply meant making files accessible to others or if there needed to be proof of the transmitting of the files to other computers.

This court case represents at least a symbolic victory for the Recording Industry Association of America, the trade corporation that has been apart of the music labels’ expensive legal campaign against Internet piracy. The lead plaintiff in the case was capital Records, a label owned by the EMI Group. The three other major record companies associated with the case were: the Universal Music Group, Sony BMG Music Entertainment, and the Warner Music Group.

This court case is a difficult one to understand in terms of what is exactly right and what is wrong. Ms. Thomas was in fact in the wrong for violating copyright laws by sharing music online, but was the $222,000 really a fair penalty for the fact that she simply had music on her computer that could have been accessible to other computers. Yes, downloading music is a violation of copyright laws and illegal, but is it really that “bad” of a crime that it is worth $222,000? I don’t think so in this case.

I think that Ms. Thomas’ actions where pretty sketching in that she denied she had a Kazaa account and also replaced her hard drive, which the labels contended was in order to wipe out evidence of her file-sharing activities. I think if she would have honestly confessed that she in fact had been sharing music online, instead of trying to be sneaky about the whole thing, she would have gotten a lighter sentence. Why would you if presented with an offer to settle out of court would you instead chose to go through with a controversial court case that you were pretty sure that you would only lose?

The judge’s decision about the actual definition of infringement is one that I don’t agree with because, if you are being accused of file-sharing you should have actually have SHARED files. The decision instead states that if you have illegal music on your computer, which could be accessed by other computer users, that implies that you are infringing on copyright laws. So that would then mean if I borrowed my friend’s CD and placed the music on my computer that I would be infringing on copyright laws, which is like photocopying pages in a book that you got from the library. So would the person who photocopied pages from a borrowed book be charged with infringement and face the same penalty as Ms. Thomas?

This situation would never be brought to trial in the real world, and this decision about the definition of infringement of copyrighted materials simply showcase the need for reform of the copyright laws to accommodate the new way we share information over the Internet in the 21st century. Will this ridiculous ruling about infringement of copyright laws actually spark the reform of copyright laws by our government officials? Probably not, but we are getting slowly closer to the new way of copyrighting individuals information on the Internet.

Link to Article
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/05/business/media/05music.html?_r=1&oref=slogin

Anna :)