Copyright Law

Final Plaintiff witnesses in Capitol v. Thomas-Rasset

By Ty Rogers and Ray Beckerman

The last three witnesses called by Plaintiffs where Wade Leak of Sony BMG (recalled from Monday), JoAn Cho of Universal, and Alastier McMullan of EMI North America.

All were asked to testify as to the works plaintiffs were suing over, identify the copyright registrations, the retail CDs, listen to a partial track from each, and identify other works their company owned rights to that appeared in the shared folder. Overall the testimony was relatively uneventful.

On cross the witnesses were asked different questions by defendant. Mr. Leak was not crossed. Ms. Cho was asked several times about reasonableness, and why Universal only chose to pursue a few songs of those found in the shared folder as well as asked to testify as to what would be a reasonable award in the case. She didn't respond much to this line of questioning, repeatedly leaving statutatory damage decisions to the jury. Mr. McMullan was asked about the cost of the single track that Capitol was suing over and what it would cost at retail (less than twenty dollars for the album, and no more than one dollar and twenty-nine cents online).

With those witnesses the Plaintiffs rested.

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Full post as published by Recording Industry vs The People on June 17, 2009 (boomark / email).