$80,000 Per Shared Song Awarded To RIAA

24 songs shared by a single mom from Minnesota via Kazaa have been the center of a law suit brought upon Jammie Thomas-Rasset by the Recording Industry Association of America. On Friday a federal jury in Minnesota found the 32-year-old mother of four guilty of copyright infringement and ordered her to pay $1.92-million or $80,000 per song shared. Her reaction, “There’s no way they’re ever going to get that,” Ms. Thomas-Rasset said after the verdict. “I’m a mom, limited means, so I’m not going to worry about it now.”

For their part the RIAA said this in an e-mail, “When the facts are presented to juries on these issues, they take this issue seriously and appreciate the real harm that’s done to the music community,”

It's not clear whether or not Thomas-Rasset will challenge the decision but I sure hope she does. I also hope that none of the jurors have kids who have shared any music online, or they may live to regret their ruling in this case...

Source: Globe and Mail

Geek Squad get their man and woman...

ars technica is reporting that two PC owners who chose Best Buy's Geek Squad to do repairs to their PCs have ended up in hot water over their hard drive contents. In one case a young woman who hired the Geek Squad to swap a hard drive out of her machine, is being targeted by the RIAA for alleged file sharing. The second customer finds him self in much deeper trouble after a Geek Squad member found child pornography on his hard drive and tipped off police. The Fayetteville, Arkansas Police found child porn images along with "a commercial video clip of child pornography, and two video clips of minor females changing into swim suits that appeared to have been taken by a hidden video camera," according to the US Attorney's complaint. The man who crossed State lines with the laptop has been sentenced to 135 months in jail and a $10,000 fine. Geek justice is served!