Nate Anderson reports:
The first P2P case to come to trial in the US has lasted five years and now has three verdicts, this one coming after just two hours of deliberation. Jammie Thomas-Rasset must pay $62,500 for each of the 24 songs at issue in the case, for total of $1.5 million.
Read more on Ars Technica and contrast the award with both previous awards in earlier incantations of the trial (reported in Nate’s coverage) and with how awards were handled in a recent case in a German court where the court reduced an exorbitant verdict down to 15 euros per song.
On some level, the RIAA’s case has worked in that it has helped disseminate the message that file-sharing can cost you, but overall, the case has been a huge embarrassment to them as they had wanted Jammie Thomas-Rasset to settle but she chose to keep fighting. At this point, I don’t know how much sympathy either side has from the public.