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RIAA Must Divulge Expenses-Per-Download
NewYorkCountryLawyer writes "The Court has ordered UMG Recordings, Warner Bros. Records, Interscope Records, Motown, and SONY BMG to disclose their expenses-per-download to the defendant's lawyers, in UMG v. Lindor, a case pending in Brooklyn. The Court held that the expense figures are relevant to the issue of whether the RIAA's attempt to recover damages of $750 or more per 99-cent song file, is an unconstitutional violation of due process."
I've always been amazed by the gall they have quoting that number. What other type of copyright infringement can claim 757.6 times the value of the product as damages? When the SPA goes after companies using pirated commercial software they don't look at an old copy of Windows 98 and try claiming $8000 as damages, do they?
Trolling is a art,
It's already happening. My neighbors are a couple lawyers. Albeit they are criminal and Divorce , they are saying that most people in their firm are getting crap from judges for bringing stupid patent cases to court.
Thankfully their firm is downtown boston so tons of stupid companies go to them daily. These patent trolls are losing money quickly and it's great to see the RIAA is running into the same issue.
They need to update thier business model or face becoming extinct.
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Is it just me or is there a ridiculous number of exhibits and motions in this Lindor case? I count 239 links on Ray's blog just for this one case. I noticed this link from December 14, 2006--a year ago--in which the plaintiffs appear to be stalling on this very issue. The letter makes reference to a hearing from August of 2006. Has this one issue really been going on that long?
They were in a lose-lose situation before they started. Ignore the problem, and the copyright law is useless. Try to enforce your rights, and the legal protections degrade, as you observed.
Fighting the mob is very difficult — but they are trying. At least, a watered-down law may still be a law they may be able to enforce...
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
Just out of curiosity, has anyone on Slashdot been on the receiving end of an RIAA suit, or possibly a lawyer dealing with a client who has been? Or not even directly involved, but just know someone who's been through this ordeal?
Every time a story like this comes up I read as many comments as I can and think, "Well fuck, if it's this obvious to everyone here that what's happening is out of line and in some cases illegal, why can't that message be communicated more broadly?"
I have an extensive list of information I've been saving from Slashdot just on the off chance I ever get an RIAA letter in the mail (I d/l maybe an album per month, 90% of the time I buy it after listening). If I find myself facing one of these suits, I would immediately turn over to my lawyer everything I've compiled to be sure they're aware of what should be argued and what RIAA claims are total BS.
Is there an existing repository for information like this, or is it time people like us Slashdotters created one?
Name...That...Autocomplete!
While the Brooklyn bench has its issues, the RIAA, etc have no "home court advantage" in NYC, nor do they impress the Court system on any level. Unlike a smaller burg this will cut no ice in NYC. RIAA, welcome to an unimpressed, hot Bench. Bout time.
Quoth the Wikipedia "Punitive Damages:"
"statistical studies by law professors and the Department of Justice have found that punitive damages are only awarded in two percent of civil cases which go to trial, and that the median punitive damage award is between $38,000 and $50,000.[7]
In response to judges and juries which award high punitive damages verdicts, the Supreme Court of the United States has made several decisions which limit awards of punitive damages through the due process of law clauses of the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments to the United States Constitution. In a number of cases, the Court has indicated that a 4:1 ratio between punitive and compensatory damages is broad enough to lead to a finding of constitutional impropriety, and that any ratio of 10:1 or higher is almost certainly unconstitutional."
If the song costs $1, and punitive damages of $749 are assessed, it's almost certainly unconstitutional. So why should it be legal statutorily?
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The question I'm asking is whether damages are a form of punishment. If they are, then asking the defendant to pay 1000x the value of a work could constitute cruel and unusual punishment in my eyes.
SRSLY.
Like the phone company did back in the day when they went after some kids for allegedly hacking a 911 system when actually, they downloaded a 'confidential computer text file' reputedly worth over $80k when they were selling copies of it for about 30 bucks. IIRC, they wanted to charge the kids for the cost of the computer system used to create the document, the time logged by the person that typed the document up, plus the salary of said typist's supervisor for the time the typist reputedly spent creating the document.
Understanding the scope of the problem is the first step on the path to true panic.
(Yikes, it's scary to find myself offering an argument for the RIAA's side of something. I'll take a long shower after posting this, but anyway...)
IANAL, but I can't think the courts would refuse to admit a methodologically sound series of independent experiments into evidence, whereby the experimenter seeds a number of files (of varying popularity) with unique, recognizable bitprints, then measures and documents their distribution. The RIAA probably holds the position that a filesharer is responsible not only for the direct downloads he generates, but for subsequent distribution of the file as well. 10 * 10 * 10 gets you over 750 pretty fast.
Admitting the study into evidence might make them have to adjust the damage amounts to consider each song's popularity, but it could conceivably justify an average of 750 copies in circulation * $0.99, over time.
Pi Ran Out