RIAA Foiled By "Innocent Infringement" Defense

NewYorkCountryLawyer writes "In an interesting development in a Texas case against a college-age defendant who was 16 at the time of the infringement, the Judge has denied the RIAA's summary judgment motion and ordered a trial of the damages — even though the defendant admitted copyright infringement using Kazaa — based on the 'innocent infringement' defense, which could reduce the statutory damages to $200 per song file. Relying on BMG v. Gonzalez (PDF), the reasoning of which I have criticized on the 'innocent infringement' issue, the RIAA argued that Ms. Harper does not qualify for the 'innocent infringement' defense, since CD versions of the songs, sold in stores, have copyright notices on them. In its 15-page decision (PDF) the Harper court rejected that contention, holding that 'a question remains as to whether Defendant knew the warnings on compact discs were applicable in this KaZaA setting,' since 'In this case, there were no compact discs with warnings.' Finding that there was a factual issue as to what the defendant knew or didn't know at the time of the infringement, the Court ordered a trial of the damages unless the RIAA agrees to accept $200 — rather than the $750-plus it seeks — per infringed song."

Comments

Under age

[Anonymous Coward]

A person under 18 cannot sue or be sued, without a hell of a bunch of oppostion.
We seem to forget that.

Re:Under age

[sunburntkamel]

Don't use the RIAA's list. they've repeatedly continued to list labels that oppose their tactics (e.g., Epitaph). Use the the RIAA Radar instead.

Innocence vs Ignorance

[Nymz]

Innocent Infringement is an exception made for people that deal with media, like schools, libraries, radio, and tv. If someone acts in accordance with the law, every day, then we aren't going to consider them a criminal because of a single accident. Someone doing nothing but copyright infringement, doesn't qualify under the innocent infringement exception, but is instead ignorant of the law. Whether copyright law is just, or needs updating for the 21st century is another matter.

This at least has a basis

[way2trivial]

it's punitive, and can be reasonable -it is meant to be a deterrent-- it is reasonable to make the financial recompse for a crime more than what the thing is worth at retail

if you shoplift, many state laws allow the store to require recompensation in
excess of the item stolen, this to repay the costs of having the security that the thieves make necassary.

Re:This at least has a basis

[decoy256]

The 8th ammendment also only applies criminal cases. If the RIAA is suing, then it isn't a criminal case. If it IS a criminal case, then the RIAA doesn't get to set the penalty, so stop blaming the RIAA.

Where did you go to law school?

The 8th amendment applies to government actions. Here, the government action is in establishing the law that permits the RIAA to obtain punitive damages 200 times in excess of any actual damages. If there was no such law, the RIAA would have to prove the justification for punitive damages in every case. But the RIAA paid off a few congressmen and got this sweatheart deal passed through.

The government established a law and that governmental action must be scrutinized under the Constitutional limitations put on Congress, in this case the 8th amendment.

indeed, punitive damages can't be

[Trepidity]

The Supreme Court has held that punitive damages can virtually never exceed a 10:1 ratio of actual damages. Whether that ruling would extend to statutory damages has never been tested, but it's possible it might. Certainly the RIAA would not want to argue that the purpose of statutory damages is to be punitive, if it wishes to avoid such an extension.

the Supreme Court has ruled a number of times

[Trepidity]

There is a significant body of Supreme Court jurisprudence invoking the Due Process Clause to limit punitive damage awards in civil cases. The most recent significant decision was 2003's State Farm v. Campbell, which gave a strong presumption to the unconstitutionality of multipliers greater than single digits, and summarized some of the past decisions. To quote from the majority opinion in that case:

"We decline again to impose a bright-line ratio which a punitive damages award cannot exceed. Our jurisprudence and the principles it has now established demonstrate, however, that, in practice, few awards exceeding a single-digit ratio between punitive and compensatory damages, to a significant degree, will satisfy due process. In Haslip, in upholding a punitive damages award, we concluded that an award of more than four times the amount of compensatory damages might be close to the line of constitutional impropriety. We cited that 4-to-1 ratio again in Gore. The Court further referenced a long legislative history, dating back over 700 years and going forward to today, providing for sanctions of double, treble, or quadruple damages to deter and punish. While these ratios are not binding, they are instructive. They demonstrate what should be obvious: Single-digit multipliers are more likely to comport with due process, while still achieving the State's goals of deterrence and retribution, than awards with ratios in range of 500 to 1, or, in this case, of 145 to 1."