Judge OKs Challenge To RIAA's $750-Per-Song Claim 333
NewYorkCountryLawyer writes "In UMG v. Lindor, in Brooklyn federal court, the presiding judge has held that Marie Lindor can try to prove that the RIAA's claim of $750-per-song statutory damages is a violation of the Due Process Clause of the Constitution, since she has evidence that the actual wholesale price of the downloads is only 70 cents. This decision activates an earlier ruling by the Magistrate in the case that the record labels must now turn over 'all relevant documents' regarding the prices at which they sell legal downloads to online retailers, and produce a witness to give a deposition by telephone on the subject. Judge Trager rejected the RIAA's claim that the defense was frivolous, pointing out that the RIAA had cited no authorities contradicting the defense, but Ms. Lindor's attorneys had cited cases and law review articles indicating that it was a valid defense. See the Decision at pp. 6-7."
Thank You to Ty Rogers & Ray Beckerman (Score:5, Informative)
Recently, the user NewYorkCountryLawyer has provided us with many stories (bottom of the user page [slashdot.org]) that revolve around the RIAA & music suits. On top of that, oftentimes whenever a legal issue is being discussed, they reply with often insightful/interesting/informative posts (300 since July of this year) from someone who actually spends their entire day dealing with the RIAA & law.
All this despite the shameless way we treated him [slashdot.org] when they answered questions we had about RIAA suits.
On behalf of Slashdot, I would like to thank NewYorkCountryLawyer for bringing to light some of the cases that might not make it in mainstream news & providing us with a realistic view of how things work in the legal world. All too often it is an alien landscape to me that I cannot comprehend.
Re:Thank You to Ty Rogers & Ray Beckerman (Score:2)
Me too! Err...
Thank you!
Re:Thank You to Ty Rogers & Ray Beckerman (Score:2)
Re:Thank You to Ty Rogers & Ray Beckerman (Score:2)
May your attempts succeed.
Re:Thank You to Ty Rogers & Ray Beckerman (Score:5, Informative)
Befriend NewYorkCountryLawyer [slashdot.org]
Thanks, but... (Score:4, Insightful)
I certainly appreciate the legal insight, but did you actually read the interview? I'm too lazy right now to search that article for posts from you, but I certainly read it.
It was awful.
They may be wonderful, open people in person. They might also be world-renowned legal experts for all I know. However, the answers given in that interview were terse, dismissive, and generally not well targeted to their intended audience. I thank them for their contributions to our knowledge pool, but I don't think you can honestly read the article you cited and use it as an example of an ungrateful readership.
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Re:Thanks, but... (Score:4, Informative)
That's exactly the kind on condescension that readers were most complaining about. Yes, we're familiar with complex systems - we deal with them every day. We were hoping to get insight about a system that we're generally unfamiliar with, even if we get the basic gist of it.
Look at this answer:
"It's hard to generalize about that, because each person's facts, each person's personality, each person's intellect and ability, are different. Generally, there is no real good way to handle these cases, so anything anyone does is a mistake, in that sense. But in another sense, there are no mistakes, because there is no right answer."
Well, no kidding. That was utterly and positively content-free. It imparted no information. If they couldn't or didn't want to answer the question, then they should have just said so.
Which leads back to my original position: that interview was awful. It's not fair to say that Slashdotters were overly ungrateful for their input in general, but you can't reasonably hold it against us for not swooning over the wonderful, in-depth answers they didn't provide.
You must not deal with law much (Score:4, Insightful)
In the meantime you should start charging a $2500 retainer before fixing anyones computer. See how far that goes.
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It seems to me that the most important development in all of legal history - codification of the law (popular history marks it as the creation of the Code of Hammurabi [wikipedia.org]) has been eroded into non-existence. Essentially, we are
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When I pointed out that it was an American organisation made up of hundreds of companies his response was along the lines of 'boy are you technical'.
Yes, I can be a little technical, and I'd hope that a lawyer discussing his field of expertise would also choose to be technical in his discussions.
Re:Thanks, but... (Score:4, Informative)
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Re:Thank You to Ty Rogers & Ray Beckerman (Score:2)
Shameless?!? Please share with us which one of the many "I don't know" answers they gave us in their responses will be helpful to anyone facing RIAA litigation in the future. For the record, my best friend of the past 22 years is a college buddy who is also an attorney, so I'm very familiar with the evasive "I don't know", "That depends", etc. language lawyers use and I do understand w
Re:Thank You to Ty Rogers & Ray Beckerman (Score:5, Informative)
Dear eldavojohn:
Thank you for your very kind words.
Truth is I love Slashdot, and I even loved doing the interview.
I come from a family where a good argument was the best thing. No doubt it's one of the reasons I gravitated to litigation.
If all the world's forums were as free and open and robust as Slashdot, the world would a lot better place than it is right now.
So it is I who thank you and my fellow Slashdotters.
Damages for companies? (Score:5, Interesting)
Just a pointless gibe about the difference between treatment of companies and individuals, I guess. Forgive me if I got some details wrong of the above information, even.
Re:Damages for companies? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Damages for companies? (Score:5, Interesting)
However, if the number of copies distributed illegally cannot be determined, there is no way to compute damages, right? What if I sue you for "numerous incidents of toe-stepping, leading to loss of income in an undetermined amount due to inability to work brought about by physical and emotional damage suffered as a result of said incidents" and demand $1000k? Should you be forced by the courts to pay the requested amount, with no recourse?
Also, remember that it's a person being sued here, not a company. The defendant did not benefit in any way, because she wasn't selling the copyrighted stuff.
Re:Damages for companies? (Score:4, Interesting)
The hard part is that whatever the decision is, it will be a guess. We have no psychic power and will never know the exact damage. That's ok by me. We're have to do the best we can. Sure, the $750 per song cost should be challenged, but the true cost should almost certainly not be a simple $.70 per song. The truth almost certainly falls somewhere in between.
TW
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No 'poor box' (Score:5, Interesting)
Although a judge can, I believe, force you to donate money to a charity (this is infrequent but I've heard of it happening a few times, usually when they want to eliminate someone's 'ill gotten' gains but can't really give it back to whoever it was taken from, generally stock-market stuff); that would be closest that I think you could get.
The U.S. legal system was designed so that, theoretically at least, the "system" wouldn't benefit in any way from the number of cases that it sees, or how they're adjudicated. This is so you don't get into the Spanish Inquisition-like situation where if the court "does not burn, they do not eat."
Fines, etc. that people are required to pay to the State, go back into the General Fund at the city/state/federal level, and the expenses of the courts, including court-appointed attorneys, are paid out of same by the legislature. Having the courts be self-funding in any way risks creating a juggernaut.
Re:Damages for companies? (Score:4, Informative)
It should be noted that in the US, one couldn't sue someone that simply downloaded the song. Obtaining a copy is not infringement, copying is. Case-law has already pretty much covered that the upload portion of the equation is infringing, but the download is not (nor is serializing the download from RAM to disk).
Also a point of interest with regard to calculating damages for infringement: copyright does not purport to support the making of money off copyrighted materials. The amount of damages (or lack thereof) or whether or not the infringer got financial benefit is immaterial. The testimony regarding revenue loss as a result of the infringement is basically a victim impact statement. Damages for infringement are at the discretion of the judge or jury and have certain statutory limits. If a record company loses a million dollars (and could prove it) as the result of infringement, it doesn't mean that they will get (or are due) a million dollars. Likewise, if the same company suffers no tangible monetary loss, they can still sue and receive damages.
People very often operate on the false assumption that "damages" in infringement claims are related to estimated financial loss of the rights holder. Copyright intentionally doesn't work that way. Keep in mind that the work has no owner; the only instrument here is a contract (copyright) bestowing limited monopoly rights on copies and derivatives of a work to a single party. It is the responsibility of the rights holder to argue that the accused infringer was subject to and then broke the terms of that contract (entered into by their representative, the state). Its then the court's responsibility to assess the seriousness of the infringement and seek a reasonable remedy (which isn't necessarily limited to monetary damages).
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And when you download a file, you are making a copy of the file, with the original being the network packets, and the copy being the file on your hard drive.
It may be semantics, but then again, so is law.
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Re:Damages for companies? (Score:4, Interesting)
+4, Informative? No, -1 Bullshit. I quote A&M Records, Inc. v. Napster, Inc. [uscourts.gov]:
"We agree that plaintiffs have shown that Napster users infringe at least two of the copyright holders exclusive rights: the rights of reproduction, 106(1); and distribution, 106(3). Napster users who upload file names to the search index for others to copy violate plaintiffs distribution rights. Napster users who download files containing copyrighted music violate plaintiffs reproduction rights."
That is a 2001 case from the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. Unless you got a conflicting opinion from the Supreme court (or at the very least other circuits) I call bullshit on you.
Re:Damages for companies? (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Damages for companies? (Score:5, Interesting)
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Re:Damages for companies? (Score:4, Insightful)
So maybe what P2P software writers ought to do is add a checkbox to their program that says "I've been reamed by the RIAA...you can now download all of my songs without fear of penalty as your right to do so has been paid for".
Re:Damages for companies? (Score:5, Informative)
My colleague Ty Rogers graciously pointed out to me, in reading your comment, the following excerpt from one of the Law Review articles we cited in our briefs:
"There are multiple ways in which we might measure the economic loss caused by a defendant's file-sharing activities. To illustrate one such approach, consider the following example. Suppose that file-sharer W illegally downloads to her computer Led Zeppelin's song Stairway to Heaven. The song is downloaded to a shared folder on her computer and thereby made available for others to copy. Suppose further that three other file-sharers, X, Y, and Z, subsequently download the song from W's computer. Thus, there are four people in this example who desired the song but who did not pay to obtain it. In other words, there are four lost sales. Because file-sharers are sued independently, we need a way to apportion this harm among the relevant actors. How might this be done?
A starting basis for apportioning the harm is to deem the person who initiates a file transfer (the downloader) as having caused harm by that action. This person benefits by receiving for free a work of music that must be purchased to be legitimately obtained. Allowing her to escape responsibility for causing harm is not consistent with her initiative in effecting the illegal transaction. Stated differently, this person's money would have gone to the copyright owner (if indirectly) in order for her to obtain the song, but now the money stays in her pocket as a direct result of her affirmative actions. In contrast, the file-uploader gets no economic reward from her outbound transfer and may be unaware of the sharing. [FN139] Thus, we can assign the downloader responsibility for causing one lost sale by illegally downloading the copyrighted song.
The other half of this transaction is the uploading of this song, so we might also assign to a person responsibility for one unit of economic loss per act of distribution--each time that the actor uploads a copyrighted music file, she is responsible for a lost sale. This seems satisfactory at first because the distribution of copyrighted works is illegal and is necessary for file-sharing to work. This conception, however, overstates the actual economic loss. In *547 our example, this conception would count seven units of economic harm (one for W's song download, three for W's uploads, and three more for each of X, Y, and Z's downloads). Yet the copyright owner in our example has suffered only four lost sales. This scheme, then, is flawed.
Instead, this Note adopts a conception of file-sharing's economic harm that attributes responsibility for economic loss to a person's instances of illegal downloading but not distribution. One person's distribution is another person's downloading, so counting economic loss as caused by acts of distribution, in addition to counting acts of downloading, would overstate the total amount of harm. While this Note settles upon this model of file-sharing's economic harm, it is certainly not a perfect conception. For example, this model does not account for whatever revenue is generated by persons who first illegally download a song for sampling and then later purchase it legitimately. Nor does it counterbalance this revenue by accounting for revenues lost due to a record company's impaired ability to market a collection of several songs as one unit, as on the typical album, or to collect licensing fees from online retailers that play short music samples to their customers. Thus, this Note acknowledges the existence of imperfections in its model of file-sharing's economic harm; it concedes that changes in this model will alter the separation of the punitive and compensatory portions of a statutory damage award and ultimately affect the outcome of substantive due process review.
Having explained why a file-sharer is held responsible for causing one lost sale for each copyrighted work that he or she illegally downloads, it bec
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Re:Damages for companies? (Score:4, Insightful)
The original claim was not for all downstream sharing. It was simply the minimum statutory damage specified by Congress when they wrote the law.
The issue here is not that the RIAA picked an unreasonable figure; the $750 is actually the _minimum_ statutory amount they can ask for. The issue is that the statutory amounts are arguably so unreasonable as to be an unconstitutional violation of due process.
The defendant is not challenging the RIAA per se, but rather the constitutionality of the law itself.
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Well, at first blush, the disparity between cost and damages is enourmous. It doesn't really seem reasonable. But the RIAA bases such things on the premise that if I download a copy of a song, I will only ever have the one copy. Their whole focus is to ensure somehow that I get one copy and only one copy for my money, and that I cannot simply crank out a thousand or more copies for myself, even if my intent is benign. They don't seem to understand that as technology has advanced, their ability to control co
Re:Damages for companies? (Score:5, Insightful)
It's not the like RIAA can't buy an update to it.
Yes, but she dowloaded one copy? (Score:2)
RTFA Disclaimer: I only read the summary, it states: "wholesale price of the downloads"
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Check the law next time, before you talk about whether it's out of date.
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By that logic, I'd say that the law protecting the songs is out of date as well. There is no reason why a single entity should be able to control a bit of information for more than 70 years, that's just crazy. She should get off scott free!
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Sure they will
I'm sure there is a lawyer being hatched right now that will take the case (for T&M plus a small contingency).
Reckon it in terms of upstream bandwidth (Score:5, Interesting)
Upstream bandwidth (kBit/s) 128 (this is my own bandwidth rate)
Time to upload 1 MB (s) 64
Average song size (MB) 5
Time to upload average song (s) 320
Wholesale cost of song (USD) $0.70
Sue-value per song (USD) $750.00
Number of instances req'd 1071.43
Upload time per song sue-value (s) 342857.14
Or just shy of 4 days (3.97).
So 2 days for 256 kBit/s
And 1 day for 512 kBit/s
So basically, a value of $750 means that, if the sole means of distribution is via the network, for each and every count, the plaintiff should have to prove that the defendants computer was on, connected, and maxing it's upstream bandwidth for a period not less than 1 full day, multiplied by their upstream bandwidth divided by 512. I'd expect that also to be tempered by some reasonable fraction accounting for computer downtime, other uses of bandwidth, network overheads, etc.
Has anyone ploughed through the legal documents and found out how many counts they are sueing for, and what Ms Lindors' upstream is? Because if she has 128kBit/s and it's 1,000 counts, they should have to prove that she had her computer uploading music for 11 years straight without a break. (To quote Billy-Bob Thornton in Armageddon, "Most of us don't even have cars that old."). I doubt that much upstream was even available in most places 11 years ago....
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Linear vs. Exponential Spread Responsibility (Score:4, Insightful)
The argument made by the parent and great-grandparent is that you should only be responsible for only your local circle of sharing, and not the further sharing of the people you shared with in the first round. In other words, just the linear spread of the song.
Something tells me the law is probably unclear on where the cutoff on responsibility lies, since the exponential spread of perfect copies is a relatively new issue. And since the RIAA cannot or will not determine what generation in the exponential spread you are, everybody is treated as if they were the primary introducer for sharing the song and hit with the high damages. That's a great example of trying to have your cake and eat it too!
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Some of the torrent sites list the most popular torrents at any given time, virtually all of the top 100 or so are copyrighted material and they all have several hundred seeds and several hundred leeches. Given the relatively large number of users the more traditional P2P sites have I would imagine a good version of a currently popular tune could be downloaded thousands of times, particularly given the unlimited amount of time it could be made
Englsh translation? (Score:2)
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Re:Englsh translation? (Score:5, Funny)
Disclaimer: I'm not African-American, and I have never been to Africa or the less affluent regions of any major city.
Seriously. It WAS in English.
Re:Englsh translation? (Score:5, Funny)
you didn't need to tell us that- it's self-evident.
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I'm sure that will go over as a real knee slapper at the next Klan rally. Good to see racism is alive and well even outside the less affluent regions of major cities.
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Death.
Adultery.
Hell I have a friend who jokes about Aids and he had a few of his friends die of it.
Laughter is the best medicine.
Re:Englsh translation? (Score:5, Funny)
Log from channel #BrooklynCourts
MarieLindor has joined the conversation.
RIAALegalWeenie has joined the conversation.
[RIAALegalWeenie] You ripped our stuff, beeyatch! Give us like 1,000x wot it's worth, or else.
[MarieLindor] Harsh, man. Ur stuff ain't worth it. Anyway u have 2 have Due Process and stuff under the CONSTITUTION! D'OH!!!1!1! Gimme all ur records.
Magistrate has joined the conversation.
[Magistrate] Fair 'nuff. You gotta do it.
[RIAALegalWeenie] No way. We're gonna go to a higher court.
FederalCourtJudge has joined the conversation.
[FederalCourtJudge] I am THE LAW.
[MarieLindor] Yo, Mr Judge Sir. Here's legal stuff that says I'm right. You got my back?
RIAALegalWeenie puts his fingers in his ears.
[RIAALegalWeenie] Not listenin'. Not listenin'. Nyaaaaah nyah.
[RIAALegalWeenie] And 'sides, she's just makin' sh*t up.
FederalCourtJudge has activated a purple lightsaber.
[FederalCourtJudge] This party's over. Go do what my man da Magistrate said, luser.
MarieLindor smiles.
RIAALegalWeenie has left in a huff.
There, I think that about covers it.
(With apologies to the poster who first made this joke, probably much better, but whose post I can't find to credit it.)
$750? (Score:4, Funny)
Well... I did get laid to "Stairway to Heaven" in high school, but I'm not sure it was worth $750 -- sex included.
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Who's the pirates, again? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Who's the pirates, again? (Score:5, Funny)
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RIAA defense... (Score:2, Interesting)
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There are a couple of questions I have about this:
1. Why 1000? Why not everybody with a modem considering they all in theory could potentially download the song? It seems to me this number is fabricated and I think it's about time the RIAA went back to school and lost marks for "not showing their working"! Also
2. If 1 person pays for the downlo
Re:RIAA defense... (Score:4, Insightful)
That would be true if the song was some sort of one of a kind trade secret. But given the availability of these "bootleg" copies, I find it hard to believe that her downloaded copy led to ANY more people not buying the song. The prevalence of this music on the internet, and the ease of making and sharing unprotected copies, means that her download of a single copy almost certainly did NOT make it available to a single person to whom it was not available before.
If you broke into my company and stole our designs and posted them on the internet, then yes, I can make a claim for huge damages. But the cat's out of the bag already - she didn't pay her $0.99, but I find it hard to believe she contributed to even a single person not paying their $0.99.
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that's the part i never figured out. for the price they make people pay for these songs, it seems like it would only work if this upload was propogated on and you were charged for subsequent uploads. but since when is person A made to pay the penalty for the actions of persons B and C? And how come they are allowed to go after people that have allowed large
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Seems like a valid arugment to me. (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Seems like a valid arugment to me. (Score:4, Funny)
-when someone steals your car, you loose it, therefore the damage you suffer is easy to determine (the current value of the car, usually only a portion of its initial value).
-When someone downloads a song, the real damage is determined by the objective of the downloader:
*He wouldn't have bought the CD because he doesn't have the money, let's say it's free advertisement with potential long term payback (it was my case when I was student, and I then bought many CDs).
*He already has the CD but fears to put it in his PC because of the fear of rootkits or other malwares (that's currently my case), no real harm.
but of course, there is also:
*He burns CDs and sell them for a couple of bucks on markets to finance Al Quaida thermonuclear program, possible harm: millions of deaths + thousands of billions $ of damages.
So the 750$ is just the weighted average of the real potential damges, the only thing I don't understand is why the money doesn't got to the DHS.
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Re:Seems like a valid arugment to me. (Score:5, Insightful)
I argue that the greatest victory of the content industry, contrary to what most would say, was not extending copyrights to 75 years or establishing the draconian protections of the DMCA. Rather, the their greatest triumph has been to define the terms of the debate.
Instead of talking about temporary monopolies, we talk about "intellectual property." Instead of focusing on the "promotion [of] the progress of science and useful arts" (both the wording and the intent of constitution), we exclusively consider the so-called "property rights" of the creator(s).
And because of this, the content industry is able to conflate established property law with completely unrelated areas of law: plagiarism and government-granted monopolies. The result is not surprisingly inconsistent and the source of confusion all-around. Illegal downloaders are labeled as "thieves" instead of what they really are, copyright infringers. The public domain is not viewed as a benefit to society but as a loss of potential profits.
And they even manage to benefit both ways. They can accuse downloaders of theft, BUT THEN use the strict penalties of copyright infringement (originally intended to punish commercial infringement) against non-commercial and non-profiting individuals.
The entire issue is the ultimate triumph of sophistry over justice. Due process is violated when the punishment ($750 per song) doesn't match the crime (non-commercial copyright infringement). The intent of the constitution lays at the wayside when our arts and sciences are actually hurt because of the increased cost and difficulty of actually bringing a product or innovation to the market. The right to free speech is trampled upon when the DMCA is used inappropriately to take down embarrassing internal memos or other evidence of public fraud/deception(ex. Diebold voting machine code).
-Grym
It's about damn time! (Score:3, Insightful)
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I highly doubt it will end the lawsuits, however it may keep the RIAA from suing file shares with fewer than say... 5000 songs. That's about $3500 at 70 cents a song.
Shoplifting... (Score:2, Insightful)
Frivolous, frivolous, FRIVOLOUS!!!!!! (Score:3, Insightful)
The prosecution for a frivolous lawsuit is calling the defense frivolous? Isn't that like the pot calling the sheet of white paper black?
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Whose pots are still black? I know mine are silver or gray in color...as are most...so is the kettle. WTF is with this analogy.
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-b
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$750 sounds right (Score:3, Interesting)
In every situation I have been involved, the complaint from the RIAA or MPAA has been about providing content to others, making it available for others to download from them, actually distributing the content.
The complaints are not about downloading material.
Suppose some individual only shared a file four times. And each of those four downloaders shared it four times. And so on. After only four levels of sharing, there's 256 incidences which could not have happened (theoretically) if that first individual had not shared that content.
Furthermore. we're probably not talking about iTunes-like DRM-enabled content. It's probably a bare, unencumbered media file, which is arguably more valuable than a DRM-restricted file.
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To correct myself, it would be 340 incidents of copyright violation. Each level adds n^4 incidents, so the total number of incidents involved would be 4^4 + 4^3 + 4^2 + 4^1 + 4^0 for a total of 341, assuming the first individual didn't have the right to copy the content to his/her computer in the first place.
Consider the liability (Score:2)
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Original user: 1 = 4^0 = 1
1st level: 1*4 = 4^1 = 4
2nd level: 4*4 = 4^2 = 16
3rd level: 16*4 = 4^3 = 64
4th level: 64*4 = 4^4 = 256
Same damn thing as you said, he just put it in a different order, adding 4th level to 3rd to 2nd to 1st to original user.
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The problem with this statement is that the law does not work in supposition. The Law depends on FACTS (as defined legally, look it up). I present my facts. You argue my facts and present your own facts. I argue your facts. Rinse, r
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While the person has responsibility for what they personally allow to be uploaded from their machine, you cannot hold her responsible for what other people do with that data after they receive it. That is their responsibility, and if the RIAA want recompense for those activities, it is that geometric progression of people that they should chase
Ad infinitum... (Score:2, Interesting)
Ad infinitum, or bounded by what? The total population of the world? The % of the population estimated to have computers? That have computers connected to the internet?
I mean, you can't argue for second generation damages, you
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Let's now assume that someone, say 3 steps down the hierarchy (person B) also get's sued as well as the person at the top (person A). However, the damages for all the people below person A, including B, have been paid by A. So for everyone that B also pays for, the RIAA gets twice the money it is entitled to.
If you want to sue people for indi
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Re:$750 sounds right (Score:5, Informative)
I disagree completely. You can't hold the first sharer liable for the actions of the downloaders; they're responsible for their own actions and should be sued individually for those actions.
The first sharer should be liable only for his or her own actions, which in your example means sharing the song four times, for total damages of around $2.80. IIRC, willful infringement is subject to triple damages, so the RIAA should be awarded $8.40. Note that in the case of sharers who serve up multiple copies of each of thousands of songs, the legitimate damages would be significant.
I have no problem with the RIAA suing people who infringe their copyrights, but they approach it as a purely civil matter, and in civil matters awards are limited by actual damage. I understand that the record labels have a problem that aggregate file sharing may be costing them a great deal, but that still doesn't justify allowing them to pick out a few people and slam them for many hundreds of times the amount of damage that individual did, in the hope that making an "example" will deter others.
Criminal law is all about deterrence. Civil law is primarily about compensation, with some small multiples being applied to awards in order to help keep the number of court cases down.
If the labels want, current copyright law does have some criminal provisions, which will allow them to slam the sharer very hard ($250K per infringement, IIRC, plus jail time). Of course, they'll have to accept the higher standard of proof ("beyond a reasonable doubt"), and they'll first have to prove that the damages exceed a statutory amount ($1500, IIRC), and those damages calculations had better be provably correct.
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And, of course, you should only be liable for the songs you distribute, not those which are subsequently distributed. Those damages would need to be litigated against the other distributers.
Why is one responsible for the actions of others? (Score:2)
By your logic the original gun owner is responsible for every murder. That is not right, a person is responsible for the actions they take and not the actions of those who receive what they distribute. The RIAA needs to find those other downloaders and sue them in turn.
This also fits with a reasonable model of punishment, where only mass piracy is really punished and people
Re:$750 sounds right (Score:4, Informative)
Not going to fly on appeal (Score:2)
Acutal court transcripts (Score:5, Funny)
RIAA Lawyer # 1: Somebody set up us the frivolous lawsuit.
RIAA Lawyer # 2: We get signal.
RIAA: What !
RIAA Lawyer # 2: Main screen turn on.
RIAA: It's you !!
Judge: How are you gentlemen !!
Judge: All your "relevant documents" are belong to us.
Judge: You are on the way to destruction.
RIAA: What you say !!
Judge: You have no chance to survive make your time.
Judge: Ha Ha Ha Ha
RIAA Lawyer # 1: RIAA !! *
RIAA: Take off every 'attorneys' !!
RIAA: You know what you doing.
RIAA: Move 'attorneys'.
RIAA: For great injustice.
Proper Damages - Doing It Right (Score:2, Interesting)
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
It establishes a price point (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3, Informative)