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Internet users who say they download music dropped from 32 percent in October 2002
to 22 percent in January 2005, and more than half of the January 2005 downloaders said
that they purchased their music from an online service, such as iTunes. However, the
report cautioned that because of the stigma associated with illegal downloading, fewer
people may be willing to admit they do it. Interestingly, about half of music downloaders
said they have gotten music from email, instant messages, or someone else's MP3 player
or iPod [90].
The RIAA's campaign to impose severe penalties on file sharers has been successful
in the courtroom, but huge jury judgments against file sharers have been overruled by
judges. In June 2009, a federal jury in Minnesota ordered Jammie Thomas-Rassert, a sin-
gle mother of four, to pay $1.92 million—$80,000 a song—for violating the copyrights
of 24 songs [91]. (The RIAA accused her of making 1,700 songs available on Kazaa, but
they only tried to prove 24 copyright infringements.) In July 2011, Judge Michael Davis
reduced the damage award against Thomas-Rassett to $54,000. Judge Davis called the
original award “appalling,” and said it was “so severe and oppressive as to be wholly
disproportioned to the offense and obviously unreasonable” [92].
Another verdict went the RIAA's way in July 2009. The RIAA had accused Joel
Tenenbaum of copyright infringement for using Kazaa to share 31 music files. The
jury awarded the music companies $675,000, or $22,500 per song [5]. In July 2010,
Judge Nancy Gertner reduced the jury's award to $67,500. In her ruling, Judge Gert-
ner wrote: “There is substantial evidence indicating that Congress did not contemplate
that the Copyright Act's broad statutory damages provision would be applied to col-
lege students like Tenenbaum who file-shared without any pecuniary gain. . . . There is
no question that this reduced award is still severe, even harsh. It not only adequately
compensates the plaintiffs for the relatively minor harm that Tenenbaum caused them;
it sends a strong message that those who exploit peer-to-peer networks to unlawfully
download and distribute copyrighted works run the risk of incurring substantial dam-
ages awards” [6].
During these trials the RIAA did not prove that people had actually downloaded
songs from the defendants' computers. Instead, they contended that simply making the
music files available to others was a violation of copyright law. In other words, making it
possible for someone to download a music file from you means you've violated copyright
law, even if no one ever does it. In April 2008, a federal court judge in New York agreed
with the position of the RIAA, but judges in Massachusetts and Arizona reached the
opposite conclusion, holding that simply making music files available for copying is not
copyright infringement [93, 94, 95].
4.6.5 MGM v. Grokster
A group of movie studios, recording companies, music publishers, and songwriters sued
Grokster and StreamCast for the copyright infringements of their users. The plaintiffs
(henceforth referred to as MGM) sought damages and an injunction against the de-
fendants.
During the discovery phase of the litigation, the following facts were revealed:
 
 
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