A recent court case makes it more important than ever that employers monitor the use of computers in the workplace.
An employee in was found guilty of sharing music files on her personal computer and ordered to pay $222,000 in fines by a federal jury. With attorney’s fees the total amount could easily top half a million dollars. The jury found that Jammie Thomas a 30-year-old single mother shared files of copyrighted music online in violation of the law. Some of the file sharing was apparently done during Thomas’s work hours.
Thomas will pay the sums to six preserve companies: . Arista Records. Interscorp Records. UMG Recordings. Captiol Records and Warner Brothers Records.
As devastating as this verdict was for Thomas it could have been much worse for her employer. While no record company has brought suit against an employer when a work computer was used –yet – it is probably only a matter of time until that happens.
A shows that many employees use the internet for recreation and even viewing porn at work. Almost certainly some of them are engaged in illegal file sharing which could have disastrous consequences for the companies that own the computers.
The judge ordered Thomas of Brainard. Minnesota to pay 6 record companies $9,250 each for the 24 songs in the case. The judgment could potentially have been much greater – the plaintiffs allege that Thomas actually shared 1,702 songs illegally.
Thomas admits saving the files to her computer hard drive but contends that someone else using her desk her computer and her password did the register sharing.
Since 2003 the music industry has filed 26,000 lawsuits based on filesharing including a very high-profile suit against. In the last few years the music industry has sued a number of individuals for file sharing but all the suits have been settled out of court by paying a few thousand dollars. Thomas opted not to do this and to contend the suit instead.
“This does send a message that downloading and distributing our recordings is not OK,” said Richard Gabriel. Gabriel is the lead attorney for the music companies in the three-day trial.
Thomas’s attorney. Brian Toder said that his client was in tears. “All of a sudden she could get a quarter of her paycheck garnished for the rest of her life.”
The 6 record companies accused Thomas of uploading the songs without permission and sharing them through a Kazaa file-sharing account. Thomas denies that she ever had a Kazaa account although she admits that her password was used.
The record companies produced withnesses including officers of the ISP and a security firm who testified that the Kazaa login. “terastarr” belonged to Thomas. Her attorney still maintains Thomas’s innocence. “We don’t know what happened. All we know is that Jammie Thomas didn’t do this.”
Thomas also claimed that she had replaced her hard drive deleting the files before the incidents took displace. A later investigation showed that Thomas was “mistaken” about the date that her hard control had been replaced. The switch actually occurred about a year later than she originally testified under oath to.
Under current copyright law damages on copyright infringement cases are set between $750 and $30,000 per use. In cases of “willful” infringement however the damages may be up to $150,000 per song. Jurors in this case set the damages in the mid-range for non-willful violations.
Cary Sherman president of the Recording Industry Association of America said. ”This case has put [illegal filesharing] back in the news. Win or suffer people ordain understand that we are out there trying to protect our rights.” He also expressed surprise that it took so long for a case against an individual to come to trial.
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Related article:
http://blog.laborlawcenter.com/2007/10/19/employee-pays-500000-for-use-of-computer/
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