'Innocent Infringement' As A Way To Lower Copyright Infringement Damages?
from the seems-like-a-stretch dept
You often hear it repeated that "ignorance is no defense" to breaking the law, but it may actually be working in one copyright infringement lawsuit. Ray Beckerman has the details on a case where the RIAA is suing a teenager who claimed "innocent infringement" as a way to get the damages lowered from the $750 to $150,000 per file that the RIAA always pushes for. So, while the RIAA pointed out that there was a copyright notice on every CD, the court sided with the girl who pointed out that there was no such copyright notice on Kazaa or the songs she downloaded. In fact, she wasn't even aware that she was "downloading" -- assuming that Kazaa worked more like a radio. Of course, before others make the same argument, it does pay to recognize that the facts in this case are likely to be unique to this case, and probably don't apply in many other cases. The real problem still remains the ridiculous disconnect between the amount of "damages" allowed under the law and the actual "harm" (if any) caused by file sharing.
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Filed Under: copyright, defenses, fines, innocent infringement
Companies: riaa
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Is there a difference?
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umm
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Re: umm
maybe they should try involuntarily...
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Re: umm
If it makes you feel better, the technical term in civil acitons is "liable," not "guilty." "Guilty" is a term used in criminal court. Civil actions don't deal with guilt and innocence - only liability.
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hmmmmmm
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Re:
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Go F* yourself RIAA!
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So true
There is a serious case of unawareness among the general population regarding the nature of copyrighted material sharing, most think it has become something too "normal" to be even considered as "bad".
Interesting, isn't it?
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Now, we have a lawsuit, a family standing to be ruined by this case. The RIAA gain nothing - the roughly $7000 penalty won't pay for a day of lawyers on the other, more frivolous cases - yet they're gotten rid of a set of potentially good customers. Nothing is gained here elsewhere - the people who downloaded from this girl will not suddenly go out and buy a CD. If anything, her family and friends may feel she's been poorly treated and boycott the RIAA in protest. I'm glad I did that a long time ago.
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Profit needs to be the deciding factor
1)Coping purchased content for personal use. Legal, period. Regardless of DRM, format change, modification. I bought it, it is mine, to do with as I please, "for personal use".
2)Coping to distribute for free (a la Kazaa). The Fine should be commensurate with the lose of profit (not revenue) say $0.50 a song times N, where N is some REASONABLE guesstimate. $200 a song seems fair. If you download from Kazaa, $0.50 per song downloaded.
3)Coping for profit (i.e for sale). Everything you made, and more besides. Seems fair to me.
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Root of all evil
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If the songs are sold one at a time as they are with any of the online offerings, why should a penalty for infringement take into consideration songs they didn't copy?
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Re:
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mm
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