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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."
I've been wondering how much certain record companies might owe me. They often sell live albums recorded when their artists have been on tour and these albums contain not only the protected intellectual property of the artist but also the protected intellectual property of the audience which they often use to fill in gaps between songs or fade in and out of the main song.
Now I have attended some of these concerts which were later either televised or recorded and these recordings do contain my own work, mainly rythmic clapping and shouting but as yet I have to see a single penny from any of the record companies who, it seems to me, are intent on taking my own work and using it to sell records without paying me for any of the performance and composition rights I am owed.
If any lawyers would be like to comment and let me know how best to approach the companies in question with a view to getting my due royalties I would appreciate it.
The laws (and associated penalties) apply to you, not us.
Yours truly,
Big Media(tm)
You wish to engage in corporate hypocrisy:
>cancel
>allow
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.
...isn't the UMG/Universal case worse? I mean, they were clearly using the unlicenced song for profit and an album version without it wasn't even available. Jammie Thomas, on the other hand, even it was true that she was sharing copyrighted songs, she wasn't profiting from it.
"He who has the gold, makes the rules."
Well, ok. Technically, the rules aren't being made here, but this is just another example of the perversion of justice that exists among the elite in America. By and large, the America's "upper class", which include the wealthy, the politicians, celebrities, athletes, and corporations, aren't subject to the same blind justice as everyone else in this country.
If you have money and/or power, you have a way out.
Rule #1 -- Politics always trumps technology.
Well I'm pleased that they just got hit with a $107,834 attorneys fee award.
Ray Beckerman +5 Insightful
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