p2pnet news view P2P | RIAA:- Helped along by RIAA lawyers, an American jury of 12 ordinary people wants an ordinary American mother to come up with an extraordinary $1.92 million for Vivendi Universal (France), Sony (Japan), EMI (Britain), and Warner Music (US, but run by a Canadian).

The money is being demanded in recompense for 24 songs Jammie Thomas-Rasset is said to have shared online.

That works out to $80,000 per song.

Or was it 1,700 copyrighted tunes.

Jammie’s lawyers are, meanwhile, appealing the decision and, says Recording Industry vs The People, have filed her reply brief to, “set aside the jury’s $1.92 million verdict”.

Here’s the document for anyone wanting the details »»»

There  is  little  in  the  response  brief  submitted  by  the  plaintiffs  or  in  the amicus  brief  submitted  by  the United  States  that Mrs.  Thomas  has  not already addressed in her opening brief in support of this motion.
As explained in Mrs. Thomas’s opening brief, the plaintiffs’ contention that the Due Process Clause’s  limits on punitive damages  awards do not  apply when those  awards  are  imposed  by  statute  rather  than  by  common  law  is  nowhere supported in the case law.  The Due Process jurisprudence that is today embodied in BMW v. Gore has its roots in Williams, a case involving statutory damages.  See St.  Louis  I.M. &  S. Ry. Co.  v. Williams,  251 U.S.  63,  66  (1919).   And modern courts understand that statutory damages that are punitive in purpose or effect are subject to due process review.  See, e.g., Murray v. Cingular Wireless II, LLC, 242 F.R.D.  415,  421  (N.D.  Ill.  2005)  (“it  is  true  that  a  grossly  excessive  statutory  damages award creates a due process problem”).  The concerns that trigger the due process  inquiry — arbitrariness, variability, and unpredictability  in awards — are here  in  spades;  of  this,  the  nearly  order-of-magnitude  difference  between  the verdicts in the first and second trials of Mrs. Thomas is unquestionable evidence.

An arbitrary award imposed pursuant to a statute is still arbitrary.

The  notion  that Congress  decided  that  the  award  of  statutory  damages in this case was somehow appropriate or tailored to ensure deterrence is a fiction that the  plaintiffs  would  have  this  Court  adopt.    The  Congress  that  enacted  the statutory-damages provision of the Copyright Act could not have had the kinds of illegal but noncommercial music downloading here at issue in mind.  And because the range of conduct that triggers statutory damages under the Copyright Act is so wide,  it cannot be  that Congress  tailored  the damages available  to any particular subset of that conduct.  Rather, Congress left this tailoring to the ordinary process for assessment of punitive damages: a joint inquiry by jury and judge into what is just.   See  Honda  Motor  Co.  v.  Oberg,  512  U.S.  415,  421–21,  434–35  (1994) (holding  that  judicial  review  is  constitutionally  required);  Cooper  Industries  v. Leatherman  Tool  Group  Inc.,  532  U.S.  424,  437  (2001)  (holding  that  judicial review  of  punitive  damages  does  not  violate  the  Seventh  Amendment —  from which it follows that such review does not violate the Seventh Amendment right to jury trial on statutory damages guaranteed by Feltner).

The  plaintiffs were  not  able  to  offer  testimony  about  any  actual  damage done to them by Mrs. Thomas’s conduct beyond perhaps $1.29 per song or $15 per album  in  lost  sales.    In  fact, under  cross  examination, Mr. Leak  testified  that he could not identify the particular harm, if any, caused by Mrs. Thomas’s conduct in particular.   The  testimony  that  the  plaintiffs  describe  in  their  response  relates  to harm  to  the music  industry  from  illegal music downloading  in general, not  from Mrs. Thomas’s conduct in particular.   It would be unconstitutional to punish Mrs. Thomas for the generalized and widespread conduct of others, whatever the effect of that conduct might be on the plaintiffs.

Contrary  to  the  plaintiffs’  suggestion,  Phillip  Morris  does  indeed  forbid considering  the  injury  to others  in assessing  the proportionality of punishment  to actual harm;  the page cited by plaintiffs  states  this  rule,  then goes on  to  say  that potential  injury  to  others  can  be  used  in  assessing  the  reprehensibility  of  the defendant’s  conduct.   Compare  Philip Morris  USA  v. Williams,  549  U.S.  346, 353–54  (2007)  with  id.  at  355.    But  what Mrs.  Thomas  did,  whether  or  not  a violation,  is  certainly  not  a  reprehensible  one.    See M.  at  6-7  (citing  cases  and observing that Mrs. Thomas did no physical harm and did not target a particularly vulnerable individual).  The reprehensibility inquiry being exhausted, the plaintiffs cannot use potential harm to third parties to cause a court to deem proportional an award  of  statutory  damages  that  bears  no  relation  at  all  to  the  actual  damages suffered by the plaintiffs.

Finally,  the  plaintiffs’ waiver  argument  is  unpersuasive  and  disingenuous.  Mrs.  Thomas  challenges  the  constitutionality  of  the  Copyright  Act’s  statutory damages  provision  as  applied  by  this  jury  to  her  particular  case.    There  was nothing for Mrs. Thomas to challenge until the jury rendered its verdict awarding the  plaintiffs  $80,000  per  song.    Promptly  after  this Court  entered  judgment  on that  verdict, Mrs.  Thomas  filed  the  present  motion,  arguing  that  the  judgment should  be  altered  or  amended  because  the  amount  of  the  verdict  rendered  the Copyright  Act’s  statutory-damages  provision,  as  applied  in  her  case, unconstitutional.

Had  Mrs.  Thomas  raised  her  as-applied  constitutional  challenge  earlier, plaintiffs would have argued that the challenge was not ripe: whether the statutory damages  provision  is  constitutional  as  applied  in  a  particular  case  might  well depend on  the particular verdict handed up  in  that case.   Indeed, one of  the  three Gore guideposts is the proportionality of the punitive award to the actual damages suffered by  the plaintiff, a  ratio  that cannot be calculated until  the amount of  the verdict is known.   And the broader concern underlying Gore, of the arbitrary and unpredictable nature of civil punishments, was best shown by showing the nearly order-of-magnitude difference between the verdicts in Mrs. Thomas’s two trials.

Challenges  to  the  constitutionality  of  damage  awards  that  are  punitive  in nature are customarily made  through post-verdict motions, either  for new  trial or to alter or amend the judgment, for precisely these reasons.   In Hardeman v. City of  Albuquerque,  377  F.3d  1106  (10th  Cir.  2004),  the  Tenth  Circuit  analyzed whether a constitutional challenge to damages had been waived and explained that the question was whether  the challenge was  raised  in a post-verdict motion.   See id. at 1122 (collecting cases).  The court nowhere suggested that such a challenge should have been raised even before the amount of the damages award could have been known.   See also Harris  v. City of Virginia Beach, 923 F. Supp. 869, 872 (E.D.  Va.  1996)  (explaining  that  court  reached  constitutional  challenges  to particular  damages  awards  because  these  challenges  could  not  have  been  raised until the damages were known).  Because Mrs. Thomas raised the constitutionality of  the particular damages award  in her case at  the  first available opportunity,  the argument  that  she  has  somehow  waived  consideration  of  this  issue  should  be rejected.

“For reference purposes, here is a link to my brief on the subject, and here is a link to the recent law review article by Prof. Pamela Samuelson and Research Fellow Tara Wheatland,” says RIvTP’s Ray Beckerman.

Stay tuned.

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First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win ~ Mahatma Gandhi

ordinary American mother – Jammie Thomas-Rasset: file sharing thief, June 10, 2009
1,700 – Did Jammie share 1,700 songs?, July 14, 2009

Recording Industry vs The People – Jammie Thomas-Rasset files reply papers in support of motion to set aside verdict, August 30, 2009

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This entry was posted on Monday, August 31st, 2009 at 11:52 am and is filed under P2P, RIAA News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.

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