After filing somewhere in the neighborhood of 20,000 lawsuits, the RIAA has seen all of them either settled or dismissed, usually in favor of the record companies. Yesterday, in Duluth, Minn., the first file-sharing case to go to trial began. In Capitol Records v. Jammie Thomas, the RIAA and Capitol content that Thomas, a single mother from Brainerd, Minn. illegally distributed some 1700 songs, though they’re only seeking punitive damages for 25 songs.
Yesterday, in a testy cross, defense council David Toder asked Jennifer Pariser, Sony BMG’s the head of litigation, how many suits the RIAA had filed thus far.
Pariser estimated the number at a “few thousand.” “More like 20,000,” suggested Toder. “That’s probably an overstatement,” Pariser replied. She then made perhaps the most startling comment of the day. Saying that the record labels have spent “millions” on the lawsuits, she then said that “we’ve lost money on this program.”