Private Lock Network

Lawyers Challenge Lowered Amount of ‘Shocking’ File Sharing Award: Via Threat Level.

Lawyers for a music file sharer said Monday they would challenge a judge’s order reducing from $1.92 million to $54,000 the amount their client, Jammie Thomas-Rasset, must pay the recording industry for copyright infringement of 24 songs.

The appeal concerns Friday’s head-spinning order by U.S. District Judge Michael Davis. The Minnesota federal judge dramatically lowered the amount a jury in June ordered Thomas-Rasset to pay — after being found liable in what at the time was the nation’s first Recording Industry Association of America file sharing case to reach trial. Most of the RIAA’s 30,000 lawsuits were settled out of court for a few thousand dollars during the record companies’ six-year litigation campaign, which is winding down.

Joe Sibley, Thomas-Rasset’s attorney, said in a telephone interview that even the reduced amount of damages is unconstitutionally excessive. It’s a penalty of 2,250 times an assumed $1 cost of a music download.

Advertisement: [ Read more ... ]