US Supreme Court Could Scrutinize RIAA Damage Awards
US Supreme Court Could Scrutinize RIAA Damage Awards
Posted 05/28/2010 at 2:42pm
| by Ryan Whitwam
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The Supreme may take up a case revolving around the principal of the "innocent infringer" defense. This loophole is built into the Copyright Act and allows for an award of damages less than the $750 minimum. Whitney Harper was a teenager when she shared 37 songs on Limewire. She's now a college student and has been ordered to pay the RIAA $27,750, or $750 per track by a federal appeals court. That overturned a lower court ruling ordering damages of $200 per song, or $7400.
The lower court granted Harper the innocent infringer defense because she was under the age of 17 at the time of infringement. Harper claimed she didn't know what she was doing was illegal file sharing, saying she believed it to be like streaming internet radio. The appeals court said the special provisions did not apply because music CDs carry copyright notices. Harper's attorneys point out that digital files carry no such warning.
When the higher court increased the damages, the now older and wiser Harper decided to press her case with the Supreme Court. The high court still has yet to decide whether or not to accept the case. Where do you come down? Is $750 per song a reasonable damage amount here?
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ajax344
June 02, 2010 at 5:53pm
why doesn't the RIAA just sue people for the straight up cost of the song, so a dollar per song. I mean if they want a deterrent, suing some (no offense) stupid kid that dl's only 37 songs, thats not going to work for competent torrenters who run stuff that masks their IP or its not going to stop anything, 37 songs is like nothing compared to what millions of people download. I also feel like at the point where you turn off seeding on a torrent any argument of "you also distributed copyrighted material" can go out the window.
Make em pay for the song if you have that much trouble with it. That way the people downloading like literally tens of thousands of songs would be the only people really worrying a whole lot and then the RIAA would stop picking on kids downloading like ~100 songs
Keith E. Whisman
May 31, 2010 at 12:19am
From what I read in the article it appears that $750 dollars is the minimum fine payable to the patent holder for each copyright infringement is the current law. What I want to know is that just for music copyright infringement or is that for all copyright infringement activities like if I went out and reverse engineered an Intel 980X and built an exact duplicate and sold it? Or better yet lets say I go out of my way and following the designs on Rambus' patents and built memory to the letter exactly the same as their designs and then sell them without permission from anyone is that punishable by a fine that will be no less than $750dollars for each product sold?Of course unless I was under a rock and can prove to be an innocent infringer and then am only required to pay $200 bucks to the copy right holder?
I just want to clarify this as $750dollars per song does seem to be quite crazy especially when you can purchase tracks for .99 cents and even less then that.
Also has anyone tried to show how easy it is to share music unintentionally? There are lots of programs that automatically search for music on your computer to share as you install them and even Windows offers sharing folders. So I can see how a novice can unintentionally share music. And since it was unintentional and provable then there should be no fine. None of this minimum $200 crap. If your innocent then your innocent.
Like this. I got a ticket in the state of Texas for having an incorrect home address on my license. In the State of Arizona where I live and am Licensed with only require that you notify the Arizona DMV of changes of address within 30 days. When I moved I changed my address with the Arizona DMV and was not required to get a new license reflecting the new address. Texas gave me a ticket. Reciprocity laws say that Texas has to honor Arizona Laws when it comes to an Arizona License. If it were a Texas license then they could have ticketed me. They still ticketed me. I was innocent but still was forced to pay $400 dollars. Screwed Up. I could prove I was innocent.
ShinyGardevoir
May 28, 2010 at 5:07pm
How fair a fine is depends the on the circumstances of downloading. A $1 per song fine would be fine if you were using a direct download service because you are just downloading and that's it. With a P2P like Limewire you are also uploading and helping others infringe therefore a hgher fine makes sense. A fine of $750 per song is absolutely outrageous though because I seriously doubt she uploaded the songs an equivalent of 750 times each.
zNelson24
May 28, 2010 at 4:32pm
If I were a judge, I would just give a $50-$100 fine for piracy and call it a day. No "per song" penalties or anything like that. I hear of people getting $300 fines for stealing a pen from a store.
What courts need to do is do an investigation as to who is illegally sharing the music. RIAA dosen't give 2 shits about piracy, they just want cash. They don't want it to stop cause thats how they make money. Call me paranoid.
techuman
May 28, 2010 at 3:18pm
$750 per song is robbery! the origninal price of a song ($1) where did they add up to $200 and then $750!? and for what reasons?(besides sharing online)
I mean are you serious?! its not like she went and sold copies on the street for profits.
Vegan
May 28, 2010 at 6:23pm
They're not getting you for stealing for yourself, they're getting you for being a distributor to potentially thousands of people.
Cota
May 28, 2010 at 4:28pm
The real deal is to scare people about sharing their songs, besides they may be asking for all that much money because they suppose a lot of people got them for free too, she shared them she got screwed to pay for all those people that got them too.
Danthrax66
May 28, 2010 at 3:41pm
They wouldn't have sued her if she did that.
Live, Learn, and Shut the Fuck Up.
Danthrax66
May 28, 2010 at 2:51pm
$1 per song would be fair. Fuck the RIAA.
Live, Learn, and Shut the Fuck Up.
mesiah
May 28, 2010 at 9:23pm
One dollar per song? Are you serious? If you get cought stealing something from a store they don't say "Just pay the ticket price, no harm no foul." You pay the value of the item, plus damages, plus court fees, and whatever else they want to tack on. $750 per song may seem like alot, but it depends on how long the person was sharing the song and how many people downloaded it from them. What if she had shared the song with 10,000 people? How about a dollar per download of the song? Then she would owe $10,000 for one song >.>
To0nces
May 29, 2010 at 8:12am
You're making the false assumption that 1 download = 1 lost sale. That's the problem with most anti-piracy arguments. They make claims which are impossible to measure. In the case of kids under 17, there should be a cap on damages, just like kids in juvenile court face smaller penalties than if they were tried as an adult.
Biceps
May 29, 2010 at 9:51am
In my opinion, it absolutely does not matter if piracy results in a lost sale or not. First of all, whether a specific act of piracy results in a lost sale is impossible to measure. Second, whether an actual sale was lost or not, something was 'provided' (taken) without being paid for... and it wasn't something free, it was something that is for sale. In the end, whether a sale was lost or not, a theft (on whatever level) definitely occurred. It really is that simple.
Some of the convoluted arguments I hear from people trying to rationalize 'piracy' because of 'poor' quality, high prices, DRM, etc, are starting to sound like the same crazy shit I hear from people saying we never made it to the moon, or that Obama is actually the (real) devil in a president's body. They are circular arguments, and the people who use them aren't going to change their tunes, because they want to rationalize their thefts.
A product comes as a package, sucky content, annoying DRM, license restrictions and all. If you don't like it, do not buy it... but don't steal it. If you steal it and get caught, I guess $750 is a little high, yes... but considering the pure stupidity of many of the 'pro-piracy' arguments I see out there, I think that *perhaps* these dweebs need a little sense knocked into them.
j0k3r.31337
May 29, 2010 at 11:15pm
Let's get off our high horses and think real life. I know people that was only fined $500 for distribution of Methamphetamines. But they want to fine the girl $750 per song for music downloads. Personally I think that's just rediculous they have enough money as it is they could ruin that girl for life over a few lousy songs. What is this world coming to.
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