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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."
If that is the value, why are they taking such a loss on the sale?
"Thanks for all the money you paid to us. We've used it to buy off ISO among other things" -Microsoft
.. because, leaving aside all the RIAA's bullshit for a minute, I've had a couple of people in my store who thought they could legally download music. Most people just go.. 'yeah, everyone does it..' - but these people bought Kazaa or Audiogalaxy or something for thirty quid and thought that gave them the right down to download music for free. They seemed genuinely surprised when I explained it.
The RIAA has never cared about opposition. What are you going to do, continue to not buy CDs from them? Even if they were to announce that for every song stolen, they would kill a puppy in a country where there are no animal cruelty laws, they would still keep doing brisk buisness: the teenagers buying mainstream CDs at walmart don't care about things like that.
It's not the government using it's power to prop up a failed buisness model. This is the RIAA using the legal system to try to prop up their diminishing buisness by bullying people who share music.
There are certainly some people in government who are sympathetic to the RIAA because of legal bribes in the form of lobbyists and campaign contributions, but that's not the whole government and in this instance, the biggest government involvement is that the legal system is being used by the RIAA.
What you're talking about would be if the government subsidized the RIAA's DRM attempts or things like that. Maybe they do that already, I don't know, but this isn't that.
Anyway, as to why it's so much, it's because sharing music is actually illegal (note that I am not saying it should be or that the RIAA has morality on their side or their tactics are justified, or even that they shouldn't all be shot). It's like asking why tickets for possession of pot are so high. You're not causing any damage to anyone, the fines don't make sense in that reguard.
The only answer is because it's illegal and in many cases, some people have interests in seeing the law enforced even when there's no real benefit to society in it. They fine you for posession because it's illegal, they don't think they like pot smokers, and they can.
I mean most people think, and correctly so in most cases, that if you pay for something, that means it is legal for you to use/have it. Whatever the seller wishes to charge is their business. If you pay what they asked, then the deal is done. If they want to give you a good deal, that's up to them and there is, as they say on the playground "No take backs." If the seller realizes after the sale they sold it for less then they wanted to, too bad.
So it is easy to see how people, especially those who are up on technical news, could be fooled. I remember getting a call from my mom about buying the Adobe Creative Suite. She was searching online to see if she could get a better price, since it is very expensive. Well, she found a place that indeed had a MUCH better price. Now she's pretty clever and realized that it sounded too good. Well, sure as shit, the site was selling pirated software. However, it is easy to see how someone might be fooled. After all, I've got some smoking deals on all kinds of products in a quite legitimate manner. People might figure this is just the same thing.
So it is quite easy to see how someone might download music and perfectly well believe they were not breaking the law.
The question is not whether there should be punishment, the question is whether the punishment fits the crime. $200 a song is outrageous (let alone the $750 normally fined). There is a huge difference between punishment and enslavement. This person would have to work forever to pay off this debt. That hardly fits the crime. Make him pay 2, 3, 4 or even 6 times the cost of the song and that would be punishment enough... but 200 times?!? That is unconscionable. The RIAA needs to be taken down a few notches and SHAME on the courts for allowing them to run their racket as long as they have.
By definition any industry that needs a subsidy is a "failed business model," except that it hasn't failed yet because there are government subsidies. (example: US farms - although they would probably not fail, they'd just have to innovate instead of get paid to not grow anything).
Its = possessive. It's = "it is"
Yes, and something from the Constitution comes to mind... something about cruel and unusual punishment. If you can't be sent to prison for life for shoplifting, why should the RIAA be able to charge you 750 times the sale price (the court was going "easy" on the defendant here by only fining him 200 times the sale price) of their crappy music? Again, read my post... I don't necessarily have a problem with the existence of punishment for these crimes... it is the severity of the punishment that I think is outrageous. You don't see a 20,000% mark-up a little unconscionable?