RIAA Verdict to be Appealed

By Michael Santo
Executive Editor, RealTechNews

You may recall that late last week a jury ruled that Jammie Thomas, a Minnesota woman, was guilty of copyright infringement and liable for a sum of $222,000. Monday on both CNN and her Myspace blog Thomas announced that she and her attorney have decided to appeal.

The grounds for the appeal will be based upon the jury instruction from the judge that simply making the songs available, whether or not they were downloaded, is a copyright violation.

This morning the EFF weighed in on this issue, indicating that the instructions have some holes in them.

First, the “distribution right” set out in Section 106(3) of the Copyright Act simply does not extend to Internet transmissions. It may sound odd, but “distribution” as defined in the Copyright Act requires that a physical object change hands (remember, this is a law that was written in 1976).

Second, even if the “distribution right” reached Internet transmissions, a copyright owner must prove that a distribution actually took place (i.e., that someone actually downloaded from Ms. Thomas’ computer). As a result, Jury Instruction #15 is wrong when it asserts that the record companies can prevail “regardless of whether actual distribution has been shown.”

We Say: Many feel the RIAA has gone overboard with their lawsuits, and it’s interesting to see the RIAA join on Thomas’ side.

Also, I’m not sure if you are aware of this, but there is a Free Jammie site taking donations at http://www.freejammie.com/. At the time of this writing donations have reached $3,853.19.