Internet has made our lives so easy that sometimes it is almost impossible to think life without it! There is so much to be offered online whether it be buying or selling, working or entertaining, etc. But everything has a flip side to it, likewise internet has become a hub for crimes, petty as well as dangerous. Piracy is one such crime which has increased manifold since internet has reached households.

In a recent decision in Minnesota, Court of Appeals, on September 11, 2012, such an issue regarding piracy was raised, discussed and adjudicated upon. The appeal was regarding a dispute between Jammie Thomas Rasset and twenty four sound recording companies (the case can be accessed at: http://www.ca8.uscourts.gov/opndir/12/09/112820P.pdf). In this case, the appellants (sound recording companies) objected the district court’s ruling on damages and sought an award of $222,000 (this amount was awarded by the jury in the first trial). They also sought for an injunction to bar Thomas from making any of their recordings available to the public in future.

Thomas-Rasset was found to willfully infringe the copyrights of these companies by indulging in file-sharing through peer-to-peer network and making these music files available to the public. The recording companies alleged violation under 17 U.S.C. § 106 which deals with exclusive rights in copyrighted works (the Act can be accessed at: http://www.copyright.gov/title17/circ92.pdf). The appellants claim that Thomas-Rasset violated their exclusive right to reproduction and distribution by “impermissibly downloading, distributing, and making available for distribution twenty-four copyrighted sound recordings”.

Thomas Rasset’s contention on the other hand was that the evidence on record demonstrated that it was a case of willful infringement by a consumer with no profit motive. Therefore, any award of the statutory range is applied to her infringement then it is unconstitutional because even the minimum damages (award of $750 per violation) would be “wholly disproportioned to the offense”.

The court’s instructions went on to define “reproduction” so as to include “[t]he act of downloading copyrighted sound recordings on a peer-to-peer network.” The jury found Thomas-Rasset liable for willful infringement and awarded the recording companies statutory damages of $9,250 per work, for a total of $222,000.

The Recording Industry Association of America, the record companies’ trade group, exhibited a sigh of relief after this decision. This might prove to be a boon for the business of song recording companies as most of the revenue is lost when the songs are downloaded without paying any charges. While, the music lovers are going to face some problems with limited supply of free music!