Update on RIAA Ruling

Apparently, $222,000 in fines is "constitutionally excessive." According to the lawyer representing the woman fined for illegally sharing copyrighted songs, the sum of money is just too much to ask for. Check out the article here.

Some of the highlights are found below:

"The Minnesota woman a federal jury dinged $220,000 for pirating 24 copyrighted songs asked the trial judge on Monday to set aside the verdict on the grounds the judgment is unconstitutionally excessive.

It's a novel theory that, if successful, could undermine the Recording Industry Association of America's litigation machine that has sued thousands of alleged pirates.

The petition (.pdf) to U.S. District Judge Michael Davis, among other things, challenges the constitutionality of the 1976 Copyright Act, the law under which the RIAA sued Jammie Thomas of Minnesota, as well as over 20,000 other defendants. The $750 to $150,000 fines the act authorizes for each download is unconstitutionally excessive and against U.S. Supreme Court precedent, wrote Brian Toder, Thomas' attorney.

The RIAA said the argument is "baseless." In pretrial court documents in a New York federal copyright case against a Brooklyn woman, the RIAA acknowledged that such an argument might kill its zero-tolerance suing machine by making "it economically unsound for any copyright owner to seek to protect its copyright interests.'"

Clarence Thomas on Race

Much has been made of Justice Thomas' recent release of his autobiography "My Grandfather's Son." Critics and liberals alike of the Justice criticize him for selling out to the Republican Party and also being a hypocrite--striking down many of the policies which helped him get to the very seat that he sits in. He responds to these criticisms in this short segment from 60 Minutes after the release of his autobiography.

File Sharing Ruling Shows Sharing Isn't Always Caring

An NY Times article reports that a federal district court in Minnesota has fined a woman over $200,000 for sharing files on a music downloading program called Kazaa.

The article reads:

"In a crucial legal victory for record labels and other copyright owners, a federal jury yesterday found a Minnesota woman liable for copyright infringement for sharing music online and imposed a penalty of $222,000 in damages. The verdict against Jammie Thomas of Brainerd, Minn., brought an end to the first jury trial in the music industry’s protracted effort to rein in piracy with lawsuits against individual computer users. Since 2003, record labels have brought legal action against about 30,000 people, accusing them of trafficking in copyrighted songs.

Many of the people sued in such cases settle out of court for, on average, about $4,000, according to the industry’s trade association. Ms. Thomas chose to face trial instead, saying that she did not share files on the Kazaa network as the labels contended. She and her lawyer declined to comment after leaving the courthouse.

The jury verdict, which called for $9,250 in damages for each of the 24 songs involved in the trial, came after brief deliberations."

The ruling by the federal district court appears to reaffirm jurisprudence laid out in the USSC decision in Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer v. Glotsker, Ltd. (2005). There the Court reasoned that:

"When a widely shared service or product is used to commit infringement, it may be impossible to enforce rights in the protected work effectively against all direct infringers, the only practical alternative being to go against the distributor of the copying device for secondary liability on a theory of contributory or vicarious infringement."

New Surveillance Bill Still Presents Privacy Issues

The fight to strike a balance between security and liberty continues this week as the Democratic Congress introduces a new surveillance bill that will give a secret court the power to issue general warrants for the purpose of investigating foreign targets. The bill is in response to the Protect America Act, which permitted investigations without a warrant. Unfortunately, the bill still draws question as to whether the security measures are a direct violation of the 4th amendment, specifically the prohibition of general warrants. However, Congress simply views the at as an improvement upon the current status of foreign surveillance measures.

Read more about the issue in the Washington Post article "Democrats to Offer New Surveillance Rules."

Congress Investigates CIA Toruture Policy by Seizure of Justice Department Documents

Congress seized Justice Department documents in order to discover whether the President has authorized torture techniques banned by the Detainee Treatment Act of 2005. Since memorandums exposed by the New York Times first alerted Congress to this issue, the Democratically-controlled legislature has pressured the Justice Department to more readily disclose documents. The situation begs the question as to whether the executive branch has taken the opportunity to disrupt the balance of power with the unique situation the War on Terror has presented to the government.

For more information about the issue, the New York Times article can be found here.