"B" is for Bully: Jean Valjean at the Music Store
The law, in its majestic equality, forbids the rich as well as the poor to sleep under bridges, to beg in the streets, and to steal bread.
Anatole France, The Red Lily, 1894, chapter 7
AP Minneapolis from the Los Angeles Times
A woman facing a $222,000 music-sharing verdict asked a judge Monday to overturn it.
Jurors in a case that six record companies brought against Jammie Thomas found that she violated the companies' copyrights by offering 24 songs over the Kazaa file-sharing network. They ordered Thomas, a mother of two who makes $36,000 a year, to pay the companies $222,000.
In a motion filed Monday, Thomas' attorney, Brian Toder, did not argue that she hadn't violated the copyrights. Instead, he said that because the songs could have been purchased online for about $24, the $222,000 verdict was disproportionate and amounted to punitive damages.
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Jury Instructions
Copyright law allows damages of $750 to $150,000 per song.
What the Jury Awarded
$9,250.00 per song.
The Music Companies' Actual Damages
The songs could have been purchased online for about $24.00. Without itemizing, defense counsel pegged the record companies' actual damages at "less than $151.20 in all."
Who Else the Major Record Companies are Pursuing
According to the Times, the Recording Industry Association of America has sued 26,000 of its individual consumers for damages. In September, it also sent "a new wave of 403 pre-litigation settlement letters to 22 universities nationwide" on behalf of the "major record companies." See RIAA News Release here.
Why the Jury Likely Made the Thomas Award So High
If you've been following this story, you don't have to do much guess work to believe the jury was likely punishing the defendant for lying to them on the witness stand. Although the defendant denied file-sharing on direct examination, documents produced at trial pretty well demonstrated that she was not telling the truth.
This always pisses the jury off.
What the Jury Didn't Know
- Thomas. a single mother of two, makes $36,000 a year.
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- Chairman and CEO Edgar Bronfman, Jr. -- $1 million salary; $6 million bonus
- Lyor Cohen, CEO U.S. Recorded Music $1.5 million salary: $4.5 million bonus
Michael Fleisher, Exec. VP $ 800,000 salary; $ 1.4 million bonus - Chief Financial Officer David H. Johnson $700,000 salary; $800,000 bonus
- Alex Zubillaga, Exec. VP, Digital Strategy $600,000 salary; $1 million bonus
- The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics estimates the average yearly earnings of salaried composers and music directors in 2006 at $53,320.
Even Primates Won't Tolerate Econimic Inequities on this Scale
Finally, though I've resisted seeing it for more than 25 years, the Les Misérables "power to the people" song . . . .
Little people know
When little people fight
We may look easy pickings
But we've got some bite
So never kick a dog
Because he's just a pup
We'll fight like twenty armies
And we won't give up
So you'd better run for cover
When the pup grows up!
