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

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.

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.