Order appointing special master in Capitol v. Thomas-Rasset
As of now, a third trial, which will consider only the issue of damages, is set for October 4. At the second trial, held last summer, the jury awarded the record labels $80,000 per work infringed, but the court later remitted the award down to $2,250 per work. In January of this year, the labels offered to settle the case for $25,000, to be donated to a music charity, but Thomas-Rasset declined the offer; her attorney said, "Jammie will not accept anything offer that requires her to pay money to or on behalf of the Plaintiffs."
Update: I've learned that the court appointed the special master on its own, not at the request of the parties. Also, Thomas-Rasset appears to have backed down from her position that she "would...rule out any settlement asking her to pay damages." Thomas-Rasset attorney Joe Sibley told Wired that his client "might agree to settle for the statutory minimum $750 a track," which would work out to a total of $18,000 for the 24 songs at issue. But he was considerably less confident of a settlement when he spoke with CNET:
"I'm not optimistic," Sibley told CNET. "I think that the case has been analyzed enough by the record industry and they know what they will accept. If they didn't want to accept the judgment on [the reduced damages award], I don't think there is anything we would have to offer them that they would accept now."Lebedoff certainly has his work cut out for him.
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Damages should be 99 cents multiplied by the number of times plaintiff can prove the works were downloaded by real users, not RIAA hackers. In other words, zero.
ReplyDeleteNext trial is on Oct 4? I feel like part of history! People are saying that file sharing now is like Betamax in 1984 (Whoa. Orwell.). In the future, information will be communicated telepathically, and then they'll say, "You know, during our grandparents' time, file sharing was evil?"
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