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?

[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.

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.