Testimony ends on Day 3 of the Jammie Thomas-RIAA trial
A rogue member of the gallery got cussed out for illicit gadget use, Jammie Thomas-Rasset hit her personal wall, and the jury pondered whether 'tis better to rip than to download as testimony in the RIAA trial of a Minnesota woman concluded on Wednesday.
Jammie Thomas-Rasset was calm and collected on Tuesday. On Wednesday she hit the wall, tearfully recounting the havoc the RIAA has wrought on her life since tapping her originally for a $5,000 payout. (Most citizens contacted with that offer-one-can't-refuse have chosen not to refuse it; Ms. Thomas-Rasset did refuse, and here we are.) She accused Dr. Doug Jacobson, the computer expert who testified Tuesday, of lying (though the jury was instructed to disregard those remarks). She said, again, that she didn't download the music and didn't know who might have, but was steadfast in refusing to pin blame on anyone in particular -- especially her kids.
Blogging for Recording Industry vs. the People, Marc Bourgeois noticed some RIAA moves that might not play well with the parents on the jury. In particular, the plaintiffs' attorney kept at Ms. Thomas-Rasset about alleged inconsistencies in what she'd said about her kids' computer use which was directly supervised (she first said), but not with her watching at every single minute (as she said later). It's hard to image how a single parent with four kids could gaze unwaveringly upon one kid on the computer; the RIAA seemed to find her later qualification inconsistent, but it's quite possible the jury will sympathize.
What about the trip to Best Buy? That was the kids; her oldest son got annoyed when a game wouldn't work and bashed the machine. And the subpoena? She did get a FedEx envelope from the cable company, but she assumed it was the usual terms-and-policies stuff and tossed it without opening. [Do many people just toss FedExes like that? -- AG] And all that music? Some of it was stuff she liked, she said, but many of those artists were platinum; other stuff, the death metal especially, was more to her ex's taste and nothing she'd play.
Ben Sheffner, still doing meticulous blogging work at Copyright and Campaigns, noted that at last Ms. Thomas-Rasset "told a story" -- that is, she explained how the heck she got the dates wrong, what she thinks might have happened, and even what that venerable "tereastarr" username was about. (Those were baby names she liked in case she ever had a daughter. Teenage girls do that sort of thing.) He wasn't sure that the ambiguity of her last pieces of testimony worked -- I didn't do it, but maybe my ex or the kids did, but I don't know, and I've been protecting them from these record company people, and -- but it fits in well with the defense argument that even if someone downloaded these tracks, there's no way of knowing who.
And then there was that rogue gadgethound. According to Twitter user @semiaccurate, also attending the trial faithfully this week, "P.S. jerk lawyer in the gallery caught with Blackberry, Judge Davis not amused, reads him the riot act before giving it back."
Closing argument are slated for today; each side will speak, but rebuttals are not scheduled to occur. The last iteration of Capitol v. Thomas was decided in a matter of hours, so a decision could come as early as today.