Quote:
Originally posted by oem_guy_2002
Actual damages do not apply when it relates to copyright law, as the IP holder is not required to prove monatary harm. Just the fact that it is copyrighted implies monatary harm. Instrad the Govt set min and max fined. The minimum is $7000 and the max is $150,000 per violation. As far as i know a court will not be allowed to reduce these fines.
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Interesting. I checked the web and found that the RIAA has the option of sueing for actual damages plus profits earned or statutory damages. The sites I found stated that the range in statutory damages is $750 - $150,000.
I wonder if prior settlements will act as a precedent - the RIAA settled for about $12,000 with some college kids that were running a file swapping service. Assuming they ran many thousands of downloads through their service, the damages per song would still be pretty low.
I would like to believe that the courts would have an inclination to discourage these lawsuits given that the real damages per person are so small. Findings for major damages will only bankrupt individuals and lead to more suits, clogging the courts. But who knows.
In my opinion the lawsuits are only a form of negative advertising, trying to push people back into buying music the old fashioned way when there is obviously a huge demand to download it instead. Do the courts want to get involved in a marketing/business model dispute between the record industry and its customers? Maybe, if the RIAA keeps to a few symbolic suits against major abusers. But there are supposedly 60MM people that meet the RIAA's definition of copyright infringement. If they file suit on only 1% it will dominate the courts for years.