October 5, 2007

RIAA Wins First Jury Trial

Capitol Records v. Jammie Thomas is the first lawsuit by the RIAA against an individual file sharer that has gone to a jury trial. While some of the comments made by the plaintiff's witnesses are questionable irrespective of the trial itself, in the end Jammie Thomas' defense was pretty weak because of what she said on the stand, and so I'm not at all surprised that the jury found her guilty on all 24 counts of infringement, for a total of $220,000 in damages.

Still, this is a landmark case for the RIAA, because a jury trial becomes very public. And I'm sure that's why the RIAA decided that they would be willing to go to trial this time. They knew the circumstantial evidence was very compelling and the defendant would not be able to convince many people, even if the jury acquitted, that she was not guilty. Previous cases where the evidence is not at all strong will result in the RIAA refusing to let it get to a jury trial.

Posted by josuah at October 5, 2007 5:10 AM UTC+00:00