Andre Yoskowitz
15 Aug 2009 15:24
Last September, Minnesota woman Jammie Thomas was convicted of sharing 24 unauthorized tracks via P2P and was told to pay the RIAA $220,000 in damages. Thomas was granted a retrial however, and the case went to verdict again in June.
Thomas was found to have "committed willful violation" of the copyrights on all 24 songs and the jury awarded the RIAA and the media companies $1.92 million USD, equivalent to $80,000 for each song.
Today, the U.S. Department of Justice has called the gigantic fine constitutional, and acceptable.
The legal brief, via Cnet, says: "Congress took into account the need to deter the millions of users of new media from infringing copyrights in an environment where many violators believe that they will go unnoticed."
Prosecutors, during the case, made sure to note that current intellectual property laws allow copyright holders to sue for up to $150,000 USD per work "stolen."