What are the RIAA monetary damages?

[arubahounds]

Now that the record industry is suing joe blows around the country I think it is fair to look at their damages on a per person basis.

How much money do they lose per person? They're suing people for 150,000 (although you can sue anyone for anything) but what are their real damages?

If people download songs that they'd never buy then damages are zero since there is no lost income from someone who wouldn't have bought it if it weren't free, but I don't think this will fly in the courts.

The courts will need to look at the value of a song to determine compensatory damages. Is a song worth the cost of a CD divided by the number of songs? If so then at most a song is worth $18 / 20 songs = $.90 retail / 2 (the retailer markup) = $.45. So if you download 200 songs the RIAA is owed $90. Vs. the cost of suing you means they'd pay about $5 - 10M in legal costs to recover $90.

Maybe the RIAA will admit that 18 out of 20 of the songs are just crap and the $18 you pay for a CD is really for the 2 songs on it that are any good. This is a risky strategy since that would mean admitting that 90% of their music is worthless and the courts might consider that in determining a song's value.

But say that's their argument. Then assume that every two songs downloaded reprents a CD, or at most $9 per song / 2 (the retailer markup) = $4.50 per song. Every 200 songs downloaded means the RIAA is owned $900.

Even if you figure triple the compensatory amount for punitive damages, the total judgements against individuals would have to be more than $10M to make economic sense. At the highest possible valuation per song that would mean swapping 600 songs. To get to the $150,000 figure the RIAA is suing for you'd have to swap 9000 songs. At the $.45 value you'd have to swap 5,600 songs, or 84,000 songs to get to the $150,000 figure.

How many songs do people swap? I would think that even 1,000 would be pretty high on average, which would mean total damages of between $18,000 and $1,900.

The real value of a song might even be less than $.45, given how cheaply you can buy CD's through record clubs, online retailers and promotions at retail stores.

Plus add the cost of the eventual class action counter suits against the RIAA for whatever and the record industry could wind up a huge loser in this attack on their customers.

I don't think it will be lost on the courts that these lawsuits are a frivilous attempt to use the Judicial System as the RIAA's private marketing tool and not an attempt to recover real damages. It will be interesting to see if they side with the RIAA or with the little guy who can't afford the legal resources available to the record industry.

There's nothing the RIAA can do to stop online distribution. In the coming months and years the marketplace will resolve itself and there will be a viable alternative to the P2P's. Then consumers can buy the songs they want rather than a whole album, which will dramatically cut into their profits. I believe that is the big issue for the RIAA, not piracy but the concept of the consumer buying only what they want. They've gotten fat selling 90% junk.

[StickEGreenleaf]

This is how i see it. The RIAA is just doing this to scare P2P user's into buying there cd's. That's obvious. And thus far it has had a small effect on the percentages of P2P sharing on programs like Kazaa. The RIAA sees it as, if they sue a couple of thousand consumers, spend a couple of million doing it, look like the bad guys for a while, they will eventually get there money back. But what they don't understand is the power of the internet. It is a place where you don't have a face therefore don't feel threatened to download the next P2P program that comes out. Then when the RIAA goes after more user's the entire process will begin again. So eventually the RIAA will brighten up and learn to spend their money on better things...or just go bankrupt. Unless the courts dismiss the entire thing as a waste of time.

So now i'm taking bets. How many times do you feel the RIAA will repeat this process untill they learn. I got 20 bucks that says the RIAA will go after 2 more P2P programs before they finally realize they're wasting their time.

[Statica]

This thread is better suited for General Discussions than in the Internet/WWW forum

[Propain]

Wonder whats gonna happen to the ISP's that turn theses ppl over ? How many accounts are they gonna lose. Im giving them 70$ a month. Great for gaming and a few downloads here and there, but as soon as Im harrassed in any way whatsover than their gonna lose 50$ as Im dropping down to 20$ dialup for surfing/email only. As for Kazaa I havent noticed a drop in users since this whole broohaha has started. And this will make me buy even less CD's alltogheter.

[RayH]

Do as you may. It cost money to answer a subponea. Even if you are right, if the subponea is not answered, you lose by default!

Right now, the RIAA is only going after US violators under US law. By the time they get through with certain people, they may not have enough money to get on the internet!

[arubahounds]

Sorry Statica. I thought that the internet forum was the right place for it since it is about P2P networks.

I don't think it's fair to take it out on the ISP's. Verizon fought the RIAA for a year but lost in the courts. The rest of the ISP's will just line up behind the ruling.

I wonder why the record co's don't use spoofs to make P2P's more frustrating. I'd read that it would be easy to do and hard to prevent.

[Werewolfdaddy]

The RIAA is just going through denial right now. They've been told that there is no way they can protect themselves from piracy and they don't want to believe it. Like any baby that isn't getting it's way, they've decided to throw a tantrum and ultimately trying to bully people into gettng their way. Besides, it doesn't matter how hard you make it to share files on the internet, you can't stop someone from ripping a cd and distributing it to their friends by hand. That friend gives it to another friend and so on. Eventually, it still gets around.

[Colonel Sanders]

Isn't the RIAA a seperate organization not saleing CDs? If so, I image it will only be a matter of time before the companies shruning out CDs will say, "Hey, your too expensive. Goodbye."

L J

[arubahounds]

There's nothing they can do about people ripping cd's and sharing them with friends, other than use copy protection techniques that can be cracked, but make it a little more difficult to do for the average music listener.

The RIAA isn't as worried about that because the average user isn't going to make that many copies. On the other hand one person can allow thousands of downloads from his PC without any effort at all on his part.

That's why they ought to be using a 2 pronged attack - make the free P2P's a pain in the a** and give people a legal alternative that works, i.e. an online source that has as big a selection as the P2P's, has a fair price and doesn't restrict what you do with the song once you've bought it.

Here's my fantasy of a system that would work:
1. Internet radio with an applet that has links to your online music store of choice. Whenever you hear a song you like, just click on the link to buy it.
2. Whenever you hear an artist you like, click on a link to the artist's catalogue of music and listen to low bit rate versions of their music, with links to buy a higher bit rate version of any song you like. Maybe offer discounts for purchasing more than 1 song at a time.

This would pretty much eliminate the need for "albums". Artists could just post songs as they produce them and add to their catalogue. Hopefully that would mean better quality music and eliminate the need for the filler crap that takes up so much space on CD's.

[glc]

Moderator comment:

There have been quite a few similar threads to this lately with the announcement of the "sting". I have to ask all of you to read Usage Guideline #9 in our FAQ and govern your comments accordingly. We don't tolerate warez and piracy discussions and this really isn't any different where the law is concerned.

Please don't make me edit and close all these threads.

[Mac Medic]

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.

[tigstah]

Originally posted by Werewolfdaddy The RIAA is just going through denial right now. They've been told that there is no way they can protect themselves from piracy and they don't want to believe it. Like any baby that isn't getting it's way, they've decided to throw a tantrum and ultimately trying to bully people into gettng their way. Besides, it doesn't matter how hard you make it to share files on the internet, you can't stop someone from ripping a cd and distributing it to their friends by hand. That friend gives it to another friend and so on. Eventually, it still gets around.

i agree with that statement 100%.
a person can rip and cd and sell it to anyone with a few dollars in their hands......what will the riaa do about that.....go after owners of cd burners....please.
its a lost cause.

[Hey_Mr._Jack]

Linkin Park got famous by distributing mp3's. they went onto similar sounding bands webpages, and told people on that sites forum to listen to this, if i were in a band, i would take it as a compliment if 1,000 people downloaded my music. it's all about the music, if a band is throwing a tantrum over a few lost quarters ('cause honestly, thats all they get per CD) then that shows the integrity of that band; case in point, Limp Bizkit v. Napster

[arubahounds]

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.

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.

[Mac Medic]

Those were exactly that, settlements, out of court, so no presedent. The las thing the RIAA wants to do is go to court and lose, so they will have to pick their battles very carefully. As for the fines, current law allows for a judgement in the amounts i stated. I'm not sure where those RIAA numbers came from but im sure they are innacurate. Maybe I'm wrong but that was the code last time i checked.

[Hey_Mr._Jack]

didn't they force ISP's to hand over documents about their users to find the people with p2p's? isn't that invasion of privacy. unless i'm wrong, they would have to "Hack" (for lack of a more "Politically Correct" term) into ones computer, search, then, IF they did have a p2p, sue, sue, sue. I say, find the ISP's that did this, then get everyone you can find that supports the p2p ideal, but doesn't have it yet to sue the RIAA and their ISP for invasion of privacy. give them a dose of their medicine, bet they didn't think that your normal working "Joe" could throw a tantrum!!!

[glc]

Jack, I'd recommend you read your ISP's terms of service and acceptable use policy carefully before advocating anything.........