Late last week, the poster child for P2P piracy, Jammie Thomas (who now goes by Jammie Thomas-Rasset) was found liable for copyright infringement … again. 

The first time, which occurred in a U.S. District Court in Minnesota back in 2007, a jury found her liable to a tune of $220,000.  She and her attorneys thought this was an injustice of the highest magnitude so they appealed. 

Their wish was granted and they got a new jury (in the same court) to consider whether Thomas would be liable and if so, for how much.  This new jury thought the first jury got it wrong.  They thought $220,000 was much too small an amount for Ms. Thomas to pay for her illicit actions and they came back with a verdict for $1.92 million.  Yes, that’s right, almost $2 million for infringing 24 songs.  I bet that $220,000 verdict is looking pretty good to Ms. Thomas and her attorneys right about now.

So what does all this mean?  Well, first off to fully understand what this means you need to know a little something about the copyright law.  Under the copyright law, plaintiffs may be awarded statutory damages ranging from $750 to $150,000 for each work infringed.  Ms. Thomas infringed 24 works so the damages could have been as low as $18,000 or as high as $3.6 million.  In reaching a verdict of $220,000, the first jury decided on an award of just over $9,000 per work.  The second jury’s award was $80,000 per work infringed – which is just about the mid-point in the possible range of statutory damages. More...