[Infowarrior] - Jammie Thomas rejects RIAA's $25, 000 settlement offer

[Richard Forno]

Yes, the RIAA is getting desperate -- it's not the money, but rather  
due to the precedent it would create they do NOT want the judge's  
decision to stand!!!!  -rf


Jammie Thomas rejects RIAA's $25,000 settlement offer
by Greg Sandoval
http://news.cnet.com/8301-31001_3-10442482-261.html?part=rss&subj=news&tag=2547-1_3-0-20

Update 3 p.m. PT: To include quotes from Joe Sibley, one of Jammie  
Thomas-Rasset's attorneys

The four top recording companies on Wednesday made a settlement offer  
to Jammie Thomas-Rasset, the Minnesota woman who was found liable last  
summer of willful copyright infringement and ordered by a jury to pay  
$1.92 million in damages.

And attorneys working for Thomas-Rasset wasted little time in  
rejecting the offer.

Days after a federal court judge reduced the damage amount to $54,000,  
the Recording Industry Association of America forwarded settlement  
terms to her attorneys, according to a copy of the letter obtained by  
CNET. The RIAA, the trade group representing the four largest record  
labels, informed Thomas-Rasset that it would accept $25,000--less than  
half of the court-reduced award--if she agreed to ask the judge to  
"vacate" his decision of last week, which means removing his decision  
from the record.

The RIAA said in the letter to Kiwi Camara and Joe Sibley, attorneys  
for Thomas-Rasset, that the $25,000 she would paid would go to a  
musician's charity. The RIAA said that if Thomas-Rasset declined the  
offer, the group would challenge the judge's ruling to lower her  
damages.

That's what the music industry will have to do, Joe Sibley, one of  
Thomas-Rasset's attorneys, told CNET. This means the Jammie Thomas  
case will go on.

Sibley and Camara had already said that they planned to challenge even  
the lowered amount set by the court. Sibley told CNET last week they  
have always sought a $0 award.

"My clients have pursued this case to establish that the defendant was  
in fact responsible for the infringements alleged and that there were  
serious damages to them and to their artists as a result," wrote  
Timothy Reynolds, one of the RIAA's outside counsel. "Two juries  
resoundingly agreed. We do not believe embarking on a third trial is  
in anyone's interest."

Over the past four years, since Thomas-Rasset was first accused of  
illegally sharing more than a 1,000 songs, she has become deeply  
embedded into the debate over copyright and illegal file sharing. To  
some, Thomas-Rasset is the Joan of Arc of peer-to-peer. To others, she  
is a crook who denied sharing music but was contradicted by  
overwhelming evidence and eventually ordered to pay whopping damages  
by two separate juries.

My sources in the music sector predicted last week that the RIAA would  
try to settle. After Michael Davis, chief judge for the U.S. District  
Court for the District of Minnesota, lowered the damages amount, my  
sources said the big labels were satisfied to walk away after winning  
two trials and seeing Davis order Thomas-Rasset to pay a significant  
damage amount in $54,000. RIAA managers believe they have achieved  
whatever deterrent value the case can provide, the sources said.

By the looks of the RIAA's offer, it's apparent that they don't want  
Davis' decision left on the books and is willing to take less damage  
money from Thomas-Rasset in exchange for her help in removing the  
ruling.

More to come