Judge Calls RIAA P2P Lawsuit Fines 'Ludicrous'

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Judge Michael Davis has deemed that an RIAA lawsuit amount is unjust. . Judge Davis ordered a new trial for Capitol vs. Jammie Thomas-a single mother-, in which Capitol Records et al. sued Ms. Thomas for illegally downloading 23 songs from the Kazaa Peer-to-Peer network. The amount? $220,000.000, based on an October 7, 2007 jury that acted on a Court instruction that read

“The act of making copyrighted sound recordings available for electronic distribution on a
peer‐to‐peer network, without license from the copyright owners,
violates the copyright owners’ exclusive right of distribution, regardless of
whether actual distribution has been shown.”

Judge Davis felt that the amount was way more than the value of the songs downloaded. His statement was based on the fact that Thomas is not a business person with the intent to sell them, but a regular consumer. No one could find proof that the songs were distributed or distributed for profit. The entire ruling can be read here.

Thomas allegedly infringed on the copyrights of 24 songs the equivalent of approximately three CDs, costing less than $54, and yet the total damages awarded is $222,000 – more than five hundred times the cost of buying 24 separate CDs and more than four thousand times the cost of three CDs.

Well, I think I need to take a look into my computer and, umm, remove a few files. I think she should pay fines just because her kids downloaded some Destiny's Child songs.