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CS ob­tains 97% re­duc­tion of Min­nesota copy­right ver­dict

January 22, 2010

The United States Dis­trict Court for the Dis­trict of Min­nesota (Chief Judge Mi­chael Dav­is) today gran­ted Ca­mara & Sib­ley's mo­tion for a new tri­al, re­mitti­t­ur, and to al­ter or amend the judg­ment in Cap­it­ol Re­cords et. al. v. Jam­mie Thomas-Rasset, the first mu­sic-down­load­ing case to go to tri­al in the United States.

At her ini­tial tri­al, the jury awar­ded $220,000 against Mrs. Thomas. Judge Dav­is gran­ted a new tri­al. At her second tri­al, a dif­fer­ent jury awar­ded al­most $2,000,000. Ap­pear­ing pro bono, we ar­gued in our post-ver­dict mo­tion that the stat­utory-dam­ages pro­vi­sion of the copy­right act can­not be ap­plied to per­mit awards like this in a case over the al­leged down­load­ing and shar­ing of 24 songs — avail­able for $1 each on iTunes — con­sist­ent with the due pro­cess clause of the United States Con­sti­tu­tion.

Judge Dav­is agreed with us and re­mit­ted the judg­ment by al­most 97% to $54,000. The re­cord­ing in­dustry has re­jec­ted Judge Dav­is's re­mitti­t­ur and, ac­cord­ingly, the case will go to tri­al for a third time in Oc­to­ber 2010. We in­tend to chal­lenge even an award of min­im­um stat­utory dam­ages as un­con­sti­tu­tion­al be­cause it bears no re­la­tion to the re­cord­ing in­dustry's $1-per-song ac­tu­al dam­ages.

K.A.D. Ca­mara is lead ap­pel­late coun­sel and handled the post-ver­dict mo­tion. K.A.D. Ca­mara and Joe Sib­ley are lead tri­al coun­sel.