Commentary > Justice: Was Jammie Thomas-Rasset's Copyright Fine Just?
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Justice: Was Jammie Thomas-Rasset's Copyright Fine Just?

By Robyn Broyles, June 19, 2009 14:09



Jammie Thomas-Rasset was convicted in federal civil court of willful copyright violation for illegally sharing 24 songs from her computer.  The retail price of the songs on sites such as iTunes is 99 cents apiece.  The jury's verdict?  A fine of $1.92 million.

Is this really justice?  Gut instinct says "no way."  How can sharing a handful of songs from a private computer be worth almost $2 million?  But a rational accounting of just compensation is not as obvious as a gut reaction.  Let's analyze the jury's decision.

Facts of the Thomas-Rasset Case

First, the facts:  Thomas-Rasset was originally accused of sharing up to 1,700 songs by allowing other Internet users to download them directly from her computer, with the file-sharing website Kazaa acting as an intermediary.  The plaintiff, the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), proved that Thomas-Rasset's IP address and modem were used.  They only attempted to prove that she shared 24 songs, presumably because proving 1,700 songs would have been a monumental task.  Though the defense argued that it could not be proven that Thomas-Rasset herself was responsible and not another user of her computer, the Kazaa screen name used was the same one she used on other websites.

Thomas-Rasset was convicted of the same crime in 2007 and fined $220,000, but that verdict was thrown out on a jury-instruction technicality.  In the retrial, the jury fined her $80,000 per song, adding up to the $1.92 million total.  The RIAA claims to have offered her a settlement of a few thousand dollars, but Thomas-Rasset took the case all the way to trial.

Here are the facts that are not known:  The RIAA may have made a 1,700-song accusation, but it did not prove that Thomas-Rasset shared any songs but those 24.  It also could not prove that anybody downloaded the songs from her computer except their own investigating consultant.

Just Restitution for Copyright Violations

I am no expert on the ins and outs of U.S. copyright law.  I assume that its high potential fines—up to $150,000 per song, in this case—exist for the purpose of deterring others.  I can, however, examine the fines in the light of Catholic moral reasoning.

According to the Catholic Encyclopedia, when property is stolen or damaged in bad faith, the guilty party is morally obligated to make restitution, that is, to restore to the property owner the exact value of the loss.  If you steal a CD worth $19.99 from a record store, you are morally obligated to return either the CD (in the original condition) or the sum of $19.99. 

Thomas Aquinas, the originator of this line of reasoning, did not address intellectual property rights; the Catholic Encyclopedia is silent about the subject of copyright violation.  What was the exact loss by the RIAA incurred when Thomas-Rasset shared their songs?  Nobody knows how many people downloaded the songs, and the exact number of songs she shared is not known, either (how the RIAA arrived at the 1,700-song figure is not explained by the news sources).

Can Opportunistic Copying Be Justified?

If they had not received them for free from Thomas-Rasset, would the people who illegally downloaded songs have purchased all of those songs instead?  Or were the downloads purely opportunistic?  I have heard people argue that it is all right to copy material illegally if the receiver of the copies would not have purchased them outright, because the copyright owner would not have received any payment anyway.  But I believe that line of reasoning is not compatible with the theory of restitution.

While the Catholic Encyclopedia entry does not distinguish between restitution and compensation, our system of law is clear:  compensation is a return made for a loss suffered, while restitution is the return of any gains made as a result of theft.  Restitution requires the guilty party to make satisfaction not only for actual losses caused, but also for unjust enrichment.  Whether one would have paid money for a copyrighted work such as a song is therefore irrelevant; what is relevant is that the copier gained the value of the copy.

Therefore, in this case, it does not matter whether the downloaders would have paid for the songs they got for free from Thomas-Rasset.

Is Thomas-Rasset Guilty of the Acts of Others?

Still, Thomas-Rasset did not download the songs; she only made them available.  The people who downloaded them, if any, are the ones directly guilty of theft.  Does Thomas-Rasset share their guilt?

I would argue that her involvement constitutes formal cooperation, since she clearly made the files available with the full intent of allowing others to download them illegally.  Formal cooperation in an evil act (yes, illegally downloading a song is technically evil, though it's a minor evil, all things considered) is always morally illicit.

Even if one argued that her involvement only constitutes immediate material cooperation, she is still guilty.  Immediate material cooperation, or knowingly making an evil act possible without directly participating in it, is still morally illicit.

How Much Should She Pay?

So my conclusion is that (based on the facts made available to me by the Associated Press) Thomas-Rasset owes the RIAA restitution for each instance of a copyrighted song being downloaded from her computer.  And how much is that?

Unfortunately, finding the exact dollar amount is impossible.  Nobody knows how many times songs were downloaded illegally.  But perhaps the RIAA's number of 1,700 is reasonable.  In fact, to err on the harsh side, let's triple that amount, and speculate that perhaps there were 5,000 illegal downloads.

At a retail price of 99 cents a song, that works out to $4,950.  Morally, that is a reasonable high-end estimation of what she owes the RIAA in restitution.  That's $1,915,050 less than the jury's verdict, or about one fourth of one percent.

So, there is injustice in this case.  There is the injustice of Thomas-Rasset committing theft of intellectual property valued at up to several thousand dollars.  But there is the much greater injustice committed by the jury, who are obligated to disregard human law where it violates objective moral law.  A $1.92 million fine is a grave injustice to the defendant.  "Making a statement" and "deterring future acts" are not sufficient moral grounds for imposing such a devastating financial burden on this single mother.

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Tags: moral reasoning, copyright, legal cases

 

Comments on “Justice: Was Jammie Thomas-Rasset's Copyright Fine Just?”

Comment #1 Permalink
I covered this topic on my tech blog, and got plenty of comments regarding this.

I think that she shouldn't of been sharing the songs illegally from the get go. I do think she should pay a small fee, maybe double the amount of each song that is being sold on iTunes? But the fee they are charging is to high for anyone.

I think the real goal of the RIAA is to prevent people from sharing, so no one can download. Since the downloaders don't leave a trace, they get the file sharers who they can track them down via the ISP address.

Though, if she shared them through a bit torrent, they might be able to track down the ones who downloaded the songs via the "seeding" of them.

I should do some more research on this.

Great post!

Posted on June 29, 2009 16:55 by Sarah | Sarah's home page |

Comment #2 Permalink
For a fuller evaluation of the case, you should also ask whether Thomas-Rasset should be held responsible for RIAA's lawyers' fees, since her immoral actions led to RIAA needing to pay their lawyers in order to receive justice.

But ouch! $1.92 million? Ruining someone's life that way in an attempt to stop *other* people from committing the same crime smacks of the ends justifying the means.

Posted on July 09, 2009 00:01 by Anna | Anna's home page |

Robyn Broyles's avatar
Comment #3 Permalink
Anna, that's a good thought. Adding legal fees to the fine may have been within the limits of justice. That would probably increase my conclusion by an order of magnitude or two. And that would still be a tenth or less of the fine that was issued!

Posted on July 09, 2009 11:32 by Robyn Broyles | RobynBroyles.net | Robyn Broyles's profile

Comment #4 Permalink
I hear a lot about exorbitant lawyer's fees, but I don't know enough about them in practice to have any idea if they could possibly approach $1.92 million, total, for the full completion of a trial.

Posted on July 10, 2009 16:33 by Anna | Anna's home page |

Comment #5 Permalink
In my opinion she is only guilty of what the possible loss to the record company was. In other words if million people downloaded the song but only 100 would have bought it then she would only be responsibe for about $100 worth of damage. Problem is there is no way to determine how many people would actually buy the song had it not been available for free. In my opinion opportunistic copying is not morally wrong, because there is no loss of sales and therefore no restitution is necessary.

Posted on February 18, 2010 17:08 by John |

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