Judge OKs Challenge To RIAA's $750-Per-Song Claim

NewYorkCountryLawyer writes "In UMG v. Lindor, in Brooklyn federal court, the presiding judge has held that Marie Lindor can try to prove that the RIAA's claim of $750-per-song statutory damages is a violation of the Due Process Clause of the Constitution, since she has evidence that the actual wholesale price of the downloads is only 70 cents. This decision activates an earlier ruling by the Magistrate in the case that the record labels must now turn over 'all relevant documents' regarding the prices at which they sell legal downloads to online retailers, and produce a witness to give a deposition by telephone on the subject. Judge Trager rejected the RIAA's claim that the defense was frivolous, pointing out that the RIAA had cited no authorities contradicting the defense, but Ms. Lindor's attorneys had cited cases and law review articles indicating that it was a valid defense. See the Decision at pp. 6-7."

Comments

Damages for companies?

[kria]

I can see the problem with $750 penalty for stealing a 70 cent download... isn't there some ruling that says for companies they can only "gouge" them for damages with a single digit ratio to the actual damages? So to follow that for individuals, that means the largest damages should be... 70 cents times 9... $6.30?

Just a pointless gibe about the difference between treatment of companies and individuals, I guess. Forgive me if I got some details wrong of the above information, even.

Re:Damages for companies?

[Magada]

Hmm. Whoever modded this flamebait is not what I'd call an intelligent person.
However, if the number of copies distributed illegally cannot be determined, there is no way to compute damages, right? What if I sue you for "numerous incidents of toe-stepping, leading to loss of income in an undetermined amount due to inability to work brought about by physical and emotional damage suffered as a result of said incidents" and demand $1000k? Should you be forced by the courts to pay the requested amount, with no recourse?
Also, remember that it's a person being sued here, not a company. The defendant did not benefit in any way, because she wasn't selling the copyrighted stuff.

Re:Damages for companies?

[Total_Wimp]

All good and fine, but if you can't compute exact damages, that doesn't mean that damage wasn't done. Although in your example we could never calculate the true cost of a toe stepping incident, reasonable people could assume that the cost would be much higher if you stepped on a dancer's toe rather than an engineer's toe. Similarly, the cost of a file sharer's damages would be greater than someone who simply downloaded the same song for personal listening.

The hard part is that whatever the decision is, it will be a guess. We have no psychic power and will never know the exact damage. That's ok by me. We're have to do the best we can. Sure, the $750 per song cost should be challenged, but the true cost should almost certainly not be a simple $.70 per song. The truth almost certainly falls somewhere in between.

TW

Re:Damages for companies?

[gundersd]

.. what I'm curious about is who checks that the RIAA hasn't already put a claim in for this particular song somewhere further up the chain? ie. person A shares a file that persons B,C & D download. RIAA files a suit against person A, claims $750 damages. Person A pays. RIAA now files suits against B,C & D (who are now also sharing the file) claiming $750 from each of them too, even though, in theory the claim against person A was for ALL downstream sharing too. Can someone explain the legalese behind that? I'm sure there's probably some reason why they would be allowed to get away with this, but it doesn't seem to make much sense to me at the moment.

Re:Damages for companies?

[Kjella]

It should be noted that in the US, one couldn't sue someone that simply downloaded the song. Obtaining a copy is not infringement, copying is. Case-law has already pretty much covered that the upload portion of the equation is infringing, but the download is not (nor is serializing the download from RAM to disk).

+4, Informative? No, -1 Bullshit. I quote A&M Records, Inc. v. Napster, Inc.:

"We agree that plaintiffs have shown that Napster users infringe at least two of the copyright holders exclusive rights: the rights of reproduction, 106(1); and distribution, 106(3). Napster users who upload file names to the search index for others to copy violate plaintiffs distribution rights. Napster users who download files containing copyrighted music violate plaintiffs reproduction rights."

That is a 2001 case from the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. Unless you got a conflicting opinion from the Supreme court (or at the very least other circuits) I call bullshit on you.

Re:RIAA defense...

[styryx]

This is how I originally understood they were able to get away with charging $750 per song, because it counts for all the people who then go the song from them.

There are a couple of questions I have about this:
1. Why 1000? Why not everybody with a modem considering they all in theory could potentially download the song? It seems to me this number is fabricated and I think it's about time the RIAA went back to school and lost marks for "not showing their working"! Also
2. If 1 person pays for the downloading of 1000 people plus themselves. Then 1000 people haven't broken the law because the music has been paid for?

Reckon it in terms of upstream bandwidth

[Dr_Barnowl]

Upstream bandwidth (kBit/s) 128 (this is my own bandwidth rate)
Time to upload 1 MB (s) 64
Average song size (MB) 5
Time to upload average song (s) 320

Wholesale cost of song (USD) $0.70
Sue-value per song (USD) $750.00
Number of instances req'd 1071.43

Upload time per song sue-value (s) 342857.14

Or just shy of 4 days (3.97).
So 2 days for 256 kBit/s
And 1 day for 512 kBit/s


So basically, a value of $750 means that, if the sole means of distribution is via the network, for each and every count, the plaintiff should have to prove that the defendants computer was on, connected, and maxing it's upstream bandwidth for a period not less than 1 full day, multiplied by their upstream bandwidth divided by 512. I'd expect that also to be tempered by some reasonable fraction accounting for computer downtime, other uses of bandwidth, network overheads, etc.

Has anyone ploughed through the legal documents and found out how many counts they are sueing for, and what Ms Lindors' upstream is? Because if she has 128kBit/s and it's 1,000 counts, they should have to prove that she had her computer uploading music for 11 years straight without a break. (To quote Billy-Bob Thornton in Armageddon, "Most of us don't even have cars that old."). I doubt that much upstream was even available in most places 11 years ago....

No 'poor box'

[Kadin2048]

We don't have those in the states. At least not that I'm aware of.

Although a judge can, I believe, force you to donate money to a charity (this is infrequent but I've heard of it happening a few times, usually when they want to eliminate someone's 'ill gotten' gains but can't really give it back to whoever it was taken from, generally stock-market stuff); that would be closest that I think you could get.

The U.S. legal system was designed so that, theoretically at least, the "system" wouldn't benefit in any way from the number of cases that it sees, or how they're adjudicated. This is so you don't get into the Spanish Inquisition-like situation where if the court "does not burn, they do not eat."

Fines, etc. that people are required to pay to the State, go back into the General Fund at the city/state/federal level, and the expenses of the courts, including court-appointed attorneys, are paid out of same by the legislature. Having the courts be self-funding in any way risks creating a juggernaut.