A Peek Inside the RIAA Trial Jury Room

Why did Jammie Thomas lose the already landmark case filed against her by the RIAA? Because her defense was nonexistent.

That's the chief insight from Michael Hegg, one of the jurors in the case, who spoke to Wired yesterday about the deliberations. In justifying the overall verdict, said Hegg, "We wanted to send a message that you don't do this, that you have been warned."

It's a little surprising to hear such sentiment from a steelworker with no experience with the internet, but it seems to have been rampant in the jury room. The jurors appear to have had broad consensus over her guilt, saying she should have settled when given the opportunity, and that her lawyer's claims that a hacker did the work were wholly unbelievable, particularly since she used her usual user name of Tereastarr on her Kazaa file sharing account. One point in her defense was that a hacker could have accessed her network wirelessly, but Thomas did not have a wireless router. In a word: D'oh!

Regarding the strange amount of damages, set at $9,250 per song, that was a compromise reached in the jury room, with two jurors holding out for the maximum allowable damage level, $150,000 per song, and one holding out for the $750 minimum. In the end, the 12 jurors found a middle ground they could all live with.

There also seems to be a little bit of Minnesota pride at work here. Said Hegg, "I think she thought a jury from Duluth would be naïve. We're not that stupid up here."

Thomas is now appealing the case.