White Paper Decries RIAA Attempts To Raise Infringement Payouts

Little Big Man writes "Public Knowledge, the CEA, and six other industry and public interest groups have issued a white paper critical of the attempts of the RIAA and other major copyright players to have statutory infringement levels raised. 'Noting that the courts can currently award massive statutory damages without rightsholders having to demonstrate that they have suffered any actual harm, the white paper calls current copyright law a "carefully designed compromise" meant to balance the interests of both parties ... The authors of the white paper paint a dreary future where "copyright trolls" file lawsuits in order to rake in massive amounts of statutory damages, where innovation is stifled, and where artists are afraid to "Recut, Reframe, and Recycle" because of the financial risks involved.'"

Comments

Poison Pill

[TubeSteak]

Let them raise the statuatory infringement cap...
But only if they cut copyright back to 14 years instead of life + 70 yrs.

Re:Poison Pill

[Anonymous Coward]

Do you have any idea how ridiculously fucking short 14 years is?!

That would put everything before 1994 into the public domain. That includes things like Super Mario Bros., the original Linux kernel, the first two Terminator movies, Blade Runner, the first six Star Trek movies, all the Star Trek: The Next Generation episodes, and more into the public domain.

I think it's safe to say that 14 years is ridiculously short. Really anything shorter than 50 years is too short, although even 50 years would public domain some stuff that's still making the creators money.

Re:Poison Pill

[TheRaven64]

That would put everything before 1994 into the public domain. That includes things like Super Mario Bros., the original Linux kernel, the first two Terminator movies, Blade Runner, the first six Star Trek movies, all the Star Trek: The Next Generation episodes, and more into the public domain. And, of these, which are you saying has not made enough money to finance the original development and make a reasonable profit? The aim of copyright, after all, is to promote the development of creative works by allowing the creators to make money from them. If 14 years is enough time for the creators to make enough money from their creations to both fund their development and provide an adequate return on investment to encourage for future funding then 14 years is long enough. It might not be, but none of the counterexamples you cite back up your claim that it's too short.

Re:Poison Pill

[Maxo-Texas]

Regarding "Blade Runner", released in 1982 (26 years)

Aug 3, 2007
Ladd jury orders WB to pay up over profits

The 12-juror panel then ruled 10-2 to adopt the plaintiffs' suggested damage calculations for 12 films produced by the Ladd Co., including "Blade Runner," "Chariots of Fire" and the "Police Academy" movies.

The Superior Court jury delivered a unanimous verdict in finding that the studio breached its duties to the producers. The 12-juror panel then ruled 10-2 to adopt the plaintiffs' suggested damage calculations for 12 films produced by the Ladd Co., including "Blade Runner," "Chariots of Fire" and the "Police Academy" movies.

---

The movie was profitable loooooong ago and the studios are still ripping people off with fancy accounting.

I personally support the original "14 years + option to reup 14 years".

The current disney purchased "forever" system is obscene and removes any respect for the copyright system because it is so obviously unfair and corrupt.

Re:Poison Pill

[mrxak]

Copyrights should last 70 years because that's probably how how the artist will live after they've made it, and possibly help their family after they're dead. Copyright holders are rarely the millionaires you seem to think they are. Yeah, you have the big record companies and movie companies, but a lot more copyrights are being given to authors or freelance photographers, exactly the sorts of people that need long-term protection because chances are they aren't making a lot of money off of their work. You want to shorten patent terms, sure, you want to make it harder for the RIAA to extort people, sure, but let the starving artists have control of their work during their lifetime.

Re:Poison Pill

[dada21]

It means that the content you've now dumped into the public domain will suddenly start showing up on TV, surrounded by ads, making money for the TV network but offering nothing back to the creators.

It means that it'll show up on boot-leg DVDs for $5/pop - with all $5 going to the person who ripped the disk and nothing to the creator.

Good! That's how it should be!

Someone taking a near infiite resource (digital info), combining it with a very finite resource (time/airwaves) and then finding a hungry market for it!

Everything I create I release to the public domain, yet I still make good income on it.

Is this misworded?

[Anonymous Coward]

'Noting that the courts can currently award massive statutory damages without rightsholders having to demonstrate that they have suffered any actual harm, the white paper calls current copyright law a "carefully designed compromise" meant to balance the interests of both parties

I'm misunderstanding how the assignment of statutory damages without a demonstration, much less proof of harm can be considered in the interest of both parties.

Re:Nice idea but...

[mrxak]

It's a money war, and unfortunately every forced copyright settlement is paying politicians for the sorts of laws that make extorting people so easy. Somebody form a lobby group for shutting down the RIAA's frivolous lawsuits and I'll gladly donate money to it.

Re:"Recut, Reframe, and Recycle"? Good Riddance

[Anonymous Coward]

Exactly. Every musician who's written a song that uses the I-IV-V structure is a laughable fraud, because somebody else came up with that idea first.

Don't even get me started on the hacks who use the verse-chorus-verse-chorus-solo-chorus song structure!

Already seeing "Copyright Trolls"

[Jason Levine]

The authors of the white paper paint a dreary future where "copyright trolls" file lawsuits in order to rake in massive amounts of statutory damages

It's not widespread yet as a means for profit, but copyright protection laws are being already being (mis-)used to silence critics and competitors. There was the Lexmark DMCA case where they argued that a competitor's ink replacement system was a violation of the DMCA. There are the widespread Scientology claims of copyright on items they don't own, but want offline. In general, anyone who wants a site offline quickly can just file a DMCA claim on it You can sort out those messy perjury issues later (if they come up at all). Attach a financial reward for filing DMCA claims and suddenly copyright trolls will appear everywhere.

Corporate use of an individual's copyrighted work?

[Christoph]

A corporation took a photo from my website (cgstock.com) and used it in an entire ad campaign (phone book, brochures, newspaper). I saw it, they refused to pay, then sued me for defamation when I wrote about it on my website ( http://www.cgstock.com/essays/vilana ).

The case went to trial in federal court November 5th, 2007 (case 06-01164, District of MN -- my copyright infringement claim and multiple counterclaims over me "disparaging" them...it was a bench trial and I'm still waiting for the judge's ruling).

I explicitly permit non-commercial use of my photos -- personal web pages, schools, etc. (I require a photo credit, but I would not sue over it). But I greatly object if you are making money from my work, you HAVE A BUDGET to pay me, but are cutting me out of the loop to inflate your profits while I'm earning nothing.

There are excessive penalties for copyright infringement where the infringer does not seek to profit, but (speaking subjectively) I would like the corporation that stole my photos (two photos, actually), lied about it, forged evidence, and tied up in court since 2005, to pay "a billion dollars"...not just a token amount, or a few hundred. The risk of getting caught has to be a deterrent, which (for this company) it was not.

(licensing photos largely relies on professionalism and the honor system; if a local bank tells me they are going to use my photo in 1,000 brochures, I assume they are not using it in a TV campaign, billboards, and 100,000 brochures -- if so, the damages should outweigh the benefit of lying).

I guess this relates to the change in copyright law (to address P2P) that equated infringement without a profit motive = infringement with a profit motive.