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DoJ Sides With RIAA On Damages
Alberto G writes "As Jammie Thomas appeals the $222,000 copyright infringement verdict against her, the Department of Justice has weighed in on a central facet of her appeal: whether the $9,250-per-song damages were unconstitutionally excessive and violated the Due Process Clause of the Constitution. The DoJ says that there's nothing wrong with the figure the jury arrived at: '[G]iven the findings of copyright infringement in this case, the damages awarded under the Copyright Act's statutory damages provision did not violate the Due Process Clause; they were not "so severe and oppressive as to be wholly disproportioned to the offense or obviously unreasonable."' The DoJ also appears to buy into the RIAA's argument that making a file available on a P2P network constitutes copyright infringement. 'It's also impossible for the true damages to be calculated, according to the brief, because it's unknown how many other users accessed the files in the KaZaA share in question and committed further acts of copyright infringement.'"
Oh, right, because this is the same Department of Justice that doesn't see anything wrong with waterboarding, transporting people to secret overseas prisons, etc. It's the same DOJ that kowtowed to Microsoft pretty much the same day that President Bush swore his first oath of office.
!#@%*)anks for hanging up the phone, dear.
If you RTFA, you'll find that the DOJ is siding with the RIAA because the defendant agreed to the terms put forth to the jury. She acknowledged and went along with the instructions, which included precisely how much she could be liable for if found guilty. In so doing she effectively waived her right to make this claim.
I'm one of the last people who would take something the DOJ says seriously these days, but their reasoning on this issue is sound.
More on this at Ars Technica.
From the article summary: "...because it's unknown how many other users accessed the files in the KaZaA share in question and committed further acts of copyright infringement."
Sure, people can debate all day long about how much she should or shouldn't be held liable for given her infringing activities. But how the hell can you use other people's possible, but admittedly unverified activities which might have resulted from something you did to exact additional punishment on the "offender?"
Let's say I'm not paying attention and run over someone's cat. Am I now liable for the possible, but unverifiable, increase in the rodent population in my neighborhood, and consequently liable for potential damages in hospital bills for a contagious disease which might be spread by some lucky rat?
Someone's being prosecuted for stuff that may or may not have happened, and may or may not ever happen, but nonetheless is regarded as damaging in the eyes of the courts. Wow.
512 MB RAM, 20 GB disk, 200 GB transfer, five datacenters. $19.95/month.
And yet if you sue a company for killing a loved one, or if a doctor leaves his watch inside your loved ones body, they want you to be limited to how much you can sue them for. She is paying over 1k for a single song. But you have to limit yourself if a corporation or doctor takes your family members life. Good thing we know our priorities.
...says the anonymous coward...
Don't tell me to get a life. I'm a gamer; I have LOTS of lives!
That is technically incorrect. The lowest form of humor comes from the sounds and odors emitted from the typical human anus.
Come on man, everybody knows that. It's the one thing on this earth that you will find amusing on some level for your entire life.
When you were 2 you laughed when you farted. When you are 92 and sitting in a wheel chair in a nursing home you'll laugh at the old guy next to you who can't get away from your ancient mummy farts.
Appended to the end of comments you post. 120 chars.
And what I said was that the Eighth Amendment may constitute a right you cannot waive. While that right cannot be stripped, it may also be a right you cannot waive, as in you cannot agree to a public dissection (drawing) if the DA wants to pursue that option. You cannot waive your right to be shielded from cruel and unusual punishment.
However, the same court said in Lockyer v. Andrade that life in prison for shoplifting $150 worth of video tapes was not excessive, so I doubt they'll have a problem with the constitutionality of the judgment.
$9000+ per song is nonsense, the music industry would do far better if they took a more generous stance in these matters
If you mod me down, I will become more powerful than you can imagine....
It is pretty obvious that Britney Spears and Usher are the priority in our society.
They are indeed. Think about it: what else does America produce anymore besides "intellectual property"?
You can expect more Draconian copyright and IP as time goes by, not less. Our country has literally nothing else to offer the rest of the world.
it's paying as a punishment for illegally redistributing it, and as a deterrent to future piracy.
Gotcha, so why exactly do we multiply the punishment times the number of songs that were simultaneously shared from a single computer as part of a single instance of a single crime?
$9250 total already seems a bit excessive as punishment for a first conviction of illegally sharing some songs via p2p for no personal gain.
$9250 per song... that's just stupid.
I know a 12 year old who shares some 10,000 songs via p2p; should he or his parents really be fined $92 million?
And for each instance, there should be a greater than 1 to 1 fine so that it's actually a punishment and deterrent.
Right, but its only one instance of the crime. They only got convicted once. It doesn't matter that they were sharing multiple songs.
If a guy steals a handful of bulk M&M's do you count the M's? If a cop pulls you over for speeding do you get charged for each yard you were observed speeding or for each mile over the limit you are? I can see it now...
"Sir, I followed you for the last mile and you consistently went 67. This stretch is a 55. So I'm fining you, and we really need this to be an actual punishment and deterrent so I'll set the base fine at $9250 per instance of the crime."
"Now lets see, there are 63360 inches in a mile, and you were speeding in each one of them... so 63360 x 9250... you owe just over 586 million dollars. I hope you've learned your lesson, son. Your just lucky I pulled you over when I did, I have a suspicion you would have kept up your pace at least another 20 miles if I hadn't. And you know,... this town has always wanted its own jet fighter squadron."