Danish Man Fined For Sharing Music, But At Around $2/Song
from the seems-a-bit-more-reasonable dept
It looks like the IFPI has won a lawsuit against a guy in Denmark, who was accused of sharing over 13,000 songs. From the brief description on TorrentFreak, it sounds like there was plenty of evidence pinning this directly to the guy (though, it's not clear if there's evidence that he actually shared the files, or simply made them available). Either way, what's more interesting is that the court has fined him approximately $24,400, or a bit less than $2 per song. As the article notes, the court estimated actual losses from the file sharing, and then used a "doubling up" method. So it sounds like the court said each file cost a little less than a dollar and the fine was double that. While the whole issue of suing people for file sharing still seems a bit absurd, you have to admit that approximately $2/song seems a lot more reasonable than the $750 to $150,000 per song that the RIAA pushes for in the US (and in the Jammie Thomas case it actually got $9250). Even so, the guy in Denmark is thinking about appealing the "doubling up" aspect, believing that even that fine is too high, as there's no evidence that his file sharing resulted in any reduction in sales for the recording industry.Thank you for reading this Techdirt post. With so many things competing for everyone’s attention these days, we really appreciate you giving us your time. We work hard every day to put quality content out there for our community.
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Filed Under: copyright, denmark, file sharing, fines
Companies: ifpi
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OK, you have to factor in the distribution, but in most of these cases there's no evidence that tracks were actually distributed other than to agents of the legal copyright holders. So, the fines are punitive. But, you then have to factor the positive aspects of file sharing - from the fact that people can get excited about music generally to the fact that most studies show that file sharers often buy more music than those who just buy CDs. So, the IFPI (probably not the artists represented) got little more than the cost of the relevant CDs.
Overall, another failure. Nobody's going to be deterred by this ruling and thanks to the restricted release schedules and inflated prices than tend to be opposed in Europe, the guy probably paid less than he would at retail anyway.
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Re:
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piracy arrrr
The greedy f*#&s at the record companies clearly get all crazed about this concept but any musician who gives a rats ass about what they're creating and not just their paycheck is probably very happy that my friend is able to enjoy their recordings, even though the cost of a CD is beyond of their student budget.
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Making available theory in EU
In the European Union it is not a concern whether it was only made available only or redistributed - both are illegal.
It is laid down in Article 3 of the so-called 'Infosoc' directive (DIRECTIVE 2001/29/EC on the harmonisation of certain aspects of copyright and related rights in the information society), and all member states had to adopt it.
Of course it might influence the amount of damages awarded.
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i cant help wondering
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