Submission + - FSF Argues RIAA's Damages Theory Unconstitutional (blogspot.com)
NewYorkCountryLawyer writes: "For the second time in as many months, the Free Software Foundation has filed an amicus curiae brief on the unconstitutionality of the RIAA's theory
of statutory damages, by which the record companies seek to recover from $750 to $150,000 for infringement of a single MP3 file. The new brief
(PDF), filed in a Philadelphia case, SONY BMG Music Entertainment v. Cloud,
argues that the Department of Justice and RIAA have sought to blur the distinction between damages flowing from a download, which the record companies might be
able to prove, and damages flowing from the defendant's having acted as a 'distributor', which they have never been able to prove. The brief expands upon the shorter brief filed by FSF last month in a Boston case, SONY BMG Music Entertainment v. Tenenbaum, discusses the Supreme Court
legal precedents, and explains why the Department of Justice's argument — that the US Supreme Court's 2003 decision on 'punitive awards' should be ignored — is
legally incorrect. The brief also questions, in a footnote, the RIAA's assumption that every unauthorized download equates with a lost sale, an assumption which was
rejected last year by a federal court in Virginia. A commentator predicts that 'this
new filing will be of enormous significance in stopping the RIAA litigation juggernaut dead in its tracks. Without being able to threaten ridiculously out-sized
'statutory damages' having no relationship to economic reality, the RIAA's whole extortion scheme will go down the drain.'"
