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June 19, 2008, 04:17 PM ET
Law Professors File Brief in Support of Piracy Defendant
Ten American law professors have filed a brief in support of Jammie Thomas, the first and only defendant to go to trial in a music-sharing case brought by the Recording Industry Association of America.
Last October a jury ruled that Jammie Thomas owed Capitol Records $222,000 for sharing music on her computer. Then, last month the judge in the case said he may have “committed a manifest error of law” when he instructed the jury to consider the act of making copyrighted songs available for download equivalent to infringement, whether or not the songs were actually downloaded.
The 10 law scholars argued in their brief that the judge had indeed made an error, and that making a song available when there was no evidence that the song was then illegally downloaded did not violate the copyright owner’s exclusive right of distribution. Courts have been divided on the “making available” issue.
The law professors who filed the brief are Annemarie Bridy, University of Idaho; Michael W. Carroll, Villanova University; Ralph D. Clifford, Southern New England School of Law; Thomas F. Cotter, University of Minnesota; Jon M. Garon, Hamline University; Stephen McJohn, Suffolk University; Tyler T. Ochoa, Santa Clara University; Niels B. Schaumann, William Mitchell College of Law; Christopher Sprigman, University of Virginia; and Prentiss Cox, University of Minnesota Law School (representing the other nine professors).
Here’s a copy of their brief, courtesy of Wired. —Catherine Rampell
Categories: Campus-Piracy, Legal-Troubles
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