An Associated Press article on Yahoo News made interesting reading today. It featured comments made by one Lisa Reinke, a juror from the Jammie Thomas trial. She was one of the jurors that just awarded six years of Ms. Thomas’ wages for “infringing the copyrights” of 24 songs. As it was, she was hit with a $220,000 penalty, which amounted to $9,250.

Reinke demonstrated some impressive logic and reasoning gymnastics when she said,

You go too low, it’s not going to stop the illegal downloading of music,” she said. People are going to think, ‘I could do this, I could go through federal court and get off cheap.

I got hit for a week’s worth of wages once when I was caught speeding and you know what, that was enough to stop me from speeding. I am sure that an $18,000 fine would deter someone from ever downloading pirated music again. That is about the amount that someone pays for a new small car. Six years of wages is a ruinous amount to force someone to pay. I could not live without money for six years, I could not live $18,000 for twelve years and I would probably be struggling to manage if I only had $27,000. $27,000 is how much Jammie Thomas gets if she maintains her present wage and $9000 a year is garnished from it.

Axl Rose has enough money that he never had to worry about smashing a $60,000 grand piano. Green Day’s album Dookie sold over 10 million copies. Janet Jackson has had more number one songs than I can poke a stick at. They are just some of the artists whose songs are believed to be involved in the lawsuit.

The astonishing thing is that there were people on the jury that wanted to charge here $150,000 per song; a sum that Jammie Thomas would have to work 100 years to repay. If a jury is supposed to be a cross section of ordinary members of society, one has to ask when society became so mean. I say, shame on you Lisa Reinke and shame on the rest of the jurors in the trial. There is a place for emotions in a jury decision. You do need to think of the impact on the person being punished and you do need to think about the impact on the victims. Let the punishment fit the crime. You don’t get hit with a $220,000 lawsuit for stealing a $25 t-shirt.

Source: SF Gate