THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
THURSDAY, OCTOBER 4, 2007
NEWS
7A
CRIME
Companies file $1.2 million lawsuit
First of 26,000 people sued by music industry to settle case in court
Jammie Thomas, left, talks with her lawyer Brian Toder, Tuesday outside the Federal Courthouse in Duluth, Minn. Thomas was accused by the recording industry of sharing music online in violation of copyright laws. She is the first of 26,000 people sued by the industry to take her case to trial. An industry group and six recording companies claim she illegally offered 1,702 songs for free on a file-sharing network.
BY JOSHUA FREED ASSOCIATED PRESS
Associated Press
DULUTH, Minn. — A Minnesota woman, who record companies say illegally shared music online, testified in federal court Wednesday that she didn't do it, though she acknowledged giving conflicting dates for the replacement of her computer hard drive.
Six major record companies have accused Jammie Thomas, 30, of sharing 1,702 songs online in violation of the companies' copyrights. The record companies claim they found the songs on a Kazaa file-sharing account they later linked to her.
The companies involved in the lawsuit are Sony BMG, Arista Records LLC, Interscope Records, UMG Recording, Inc., Capitol Records and Warner Bros. Records.
Thomas is the first trial in 26,000 similar cases brought by record companies against individuals across the country. Other defendants ended the cases against them by paying the record companies a settlement.
Thomas said before the trial, which began Tuesday, that her hard drive was replaced in 2004, but she agreed Wednesday that it actually was replaced on March 9, 2005.
The disparity is important because the companies said she received an instant message on Feb. 21, 2005, warning her that she was violating copyright laws by sharing songs online.
The companies said she replaced the drive to cover her tracks — not to rectify persistent problems, as she claims.
Thomas, of Brainerd, Minn., defended giving the erroneous date by saying she had been confused about several dates.
She testified under questioning from record company lawyer Richard Gabriel that while pursuing a college degree in marketing, she did a case study on the original Napster file-sharing program and concluded that it was not illegal. A judge ruled in 2001 that it was.
She acknowledged she listened to — or owned CDs released by
— more than 60 of the artists whose music was in the Kazaa file-sharing folder examined in the case. Thomas denied the folder was hers.
"Did you ever have Kazaa on your computer?" Thomas' attorney, Brian Toder, asked her.
"No," Thomas said.
Thomas set up her computer in court to show the jury how quickly CDs could be copied onto it. That demonstration came in response to testimony from an expert for the record companies, Doug Jacobson, who said the songs on one of Thomas' computer drives were copied at a pace so fast it suggested piracy.
Many appeared just 15 seconds apart, which Jacobson claimed was faster than Thomas could have copied onto the computer songs from CDs she owned.
But each song Thomas copied in court in response to Gabriel's objection took less than 10 seconds to land on the computer.
what was available in February 2005, when the files in contention were put on her hard drive.
Kevin Havemeier, Thomas' boyfriend at the time, testified that she had talked about problems with her hard drive before the lawsuit came up. He also said he never saw her download music.
Jacobson said the comparison might not be valid because the version of Windows Media Player that Thomas used to copy, or "rip", the CDs in court was different from
A worker from Best Buy Co's Geek Squad testified that Thomas' hard drive was replaced under an extended warranty plan in 2005 that would generally have required her approval. But under cross-examination by Toder, the worker said he didn't have a record of her approving
the replacement
Sales of recorded music have decreased in recent years as people have increasingly turned to file-sharing.
The Recording Industry Association of America, which is not a party involved in the lawsuit, said record companies have brought more than 26,000 actions against people they allege shared files online in violation of copyrights. Most defendants have settled by paying a few thousand dollars.
Thomas, who works for the Department of Natural Resources of the Mille Lacs Band of Ojibwe, is
NATURAL DISASTER Million-dollar homes evacuated after landslide
SAN DIEGO — A landslide swept away a chunk of an upscale hilltop neighborhood in San Diego on Wednesday, destroying a home, damaging five others and opening up a 50-yard chasm across a four-lane road.
Forty-six homes in the La Jolla neighborhood were evacuated, but no one was hurt in the collapse, which occurred the morning after city officials warned residents of four homes not to sleep in them because the land might give way.
The collapse shortly before 9 a.m. topped power lines and left a 15-foot-deep ravine of crumpled pavement. Orange traffic cones and sections of big concrete pipes
sat in the fissure slashing across the boulevard.
Holli Weld was walking her son to preschool when the street collapsed.
"It was sinking as I was walking by," she said. "The street was sinking before our eyes."
Authorities said that most residents had gone to work and that only seven people were inside the homes when the collapse occurred
The landslide cut a cone shape through the neighborhood of million-dollar homes, said Robert Hawk, a city engineering geologist. He said that six homes were damaged or destroyed and that two others were in danger, but that the land problems appeared to be contained.
"It is fairly well-defined and localized." Hawk said.
The city sent letters to residents Monday and Tuesday warning them, and the outside firm hired by the city recommended Tuesday that four homes be evacuated, Hawk said.
At least three significant hill slides have occurred in the area between 1961 and 1994, including one in 1961 that destroyed seven homes under construction.
breaks in August.
Officials first became concerned about a landslide three or four weeks ago.
Associated Press
A firm hired by the city last month was in the area this week after a large section of slope on Mount Soledad began to slip, Hawk said. The city began noticing cracks on Soledad Mountain Road in July and water and gas main
Electricity was initially cut off to 2,400 residents but restored to 2,000 within two hours, according to San Diego Gas & Electric Co. Gas was cut off to about 12 neighborhood residents.
For help with:
Forty-six homes on the hilltop road, and two streets below, were evacuated, according to the city fire-rescue department.
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companies are seeking damages set under federal law of $750 to $30,000 for each violation.
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at risk for a judgment of more than $1.2 million if jurors find she did illegally share all 1,702 songs. The
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