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UMG Calls Infringement Damages "Excessive"
I Don't Believe in Imaginary Property writes "Why would UMG, one of the four major RIAA members, consider an infringement award 'grossly excessive'? Naturally, because they were the ones ordered to pay it. While they had no trouble with Jammie Thomas being ordered to pay $222k, some 13,214 times the actual costs, they thought that being ordered to pay ten times the actual damages in Bridgeport v. Justin Combs was just too much. Then again, maybe that's why they didn't complain back when the increased statutory damages section was cut from the PRO-IP Act? Now if they could just cut the rest of the act."
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I've not been to a gig or concert in quite a long time, but I distinctly remember most (if not all) tickets having blurb on the back to the effect that you consent to being recorded and the recordings being used commercially, etc.
I don't know if that would hold water, but next time you buy a ticket check it and/or the conditions of sale.
It's official. Most of you are morons.
Well I'm pleased that they just got hit with a $107,834 attorneys fee award.
Ray Beckerman +5 Insightful
"Intellectual property" is not the body of rights defined in law. Intellectual property is the subject of that body of rights. Just as real estate is the land, not the deed.
It's hard to see how a right to prevent others from repeating that which you have written, or to prevent them from building that which you have invented (even if they do it independently), refers to something real.
The way I figure it, .35=26,428.
-the wholesale price per download is around 70 cents
-the expenses including royalties payable are around 35 cents
-therefore the profit per download is around 35 cents
-UMG & friends were awarded $9250 per song file
-9250 divided by
I.e., the Jammie Thomas award bore a ratio to actual damages of 26,428:1.
UMG contends anything more than 10:1 is unconstitutional.
Therefore the maximum permissible award in the Thomas case should have been:
24 songs x $3.50=
$84
Slight discrepancy there, 222,000 versus 84
Ray Beckerman +5 Insightful
I was at a concert recently where they were recording for future commercial purposes.
:)
As well as there being a clause on the back of the ticket (enforceable or not) there were signs at the enterence stating "Tonights performance is being recorded for the future production of a live DVD. By entering this arena, you grant license to to use your image, likeness, blah blah blah. If you do not consent to these terms, please see X person at Y gate for a full refund of your ticket."
Seemed pretty clear-cut to me, and yes I went
09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C0
What units are they using to make the comparison between the two cases? The 13,214 ratio is $damages/$song, while the 10 ratio is $damages/$song/number of copies. If they'd use the same $damages/$song ratio for Universal, the answer would be 5,000,000.
I'd like to know why they weren't hit up for 132,140 ratio myself.
The excuse they use for the "13,214" being "fair" is that even tho it was only sharing a single song, there was no way to tell how many times that copy was copied by others etc etc.
UMG sold a definite number of copies. By the RIAA's logic they should also be responsible for ALL infringment done thanks to the copies sold, as each and every single one of those could have wound up on p2p, copies given to friends, streamed over the net, etc. "There's no proof that that could have happened?" Of course not. But there's no proof that it DIDN'T. Thus statutory damages please.
Suggest you seek more facts on the McDonalds case. Like for instance the fact that the coffee served by that establishment was significantly hotter than that served by all of the surrounding establishments by a significant amount and that McDonalds had received more than 700 complaints of injuries across their chain. The temperature was some 50 degrees hotter than a normal home coffee pot would serve it at. You might also learn that the woman simply wanted her medical costs attended to (that's $15K) and that the large settlement was awarded by the jury that was outraged at McDonald's behavior and attitude. While it's true she should have been more careful and focused the spill occurred while the car was stopped and she was *NOT* driving. I think that most any sane person would expect a spill to be merely painful and not require medical personnel to remove the clothing that had MELTED into her skin. Nor would a normal prudent person expect that a spill might require skin grafts to repair the damage. Would you have felt better about this settlement if it had been a child carrying a cup of coffee for their parent and gotten scalded? Oh wait, kids *had* been burned in the past and still McDonalds insisted on the temp being kept excessively high.
Here are some starter links for you, Google can provide more.
http://www.lectlaw.com/files/cur78.htm
http://www.centerjd.org/free/mythbusters-free/MB_mcdonalds.htm
Build it, Drive it, Improve it! Hybridz.org
John Fogerty's old CCR songs ended up the property of Saul Zaentz, who later sued Fogerty for sounding too much like his old self.
I prefer rogues to imbeciles because they sometimes take a rest.