Another P2P music sharing verdict - $675,000

Great Debates
61

OK, he wasn’t fined. But why did the RIAA only sue him for uploading 30 songs when he had thousands available?

Because the judgment against him for even those 30 songs is ridiculous. And they gave him a break, instead of $150,000 per song, only $22,000! Instead of a $4,500,000 judgement, he’s only looking at $650,000!

But why didn’t they sue over every song? If he had only 1000 songs, they could have gotten a judgment for $150,000,000! And if he’s anything like the typical file-sharer, he likely had more than a thousand songs. So if half a million in damages is good, why not 150 million? If that’s how much damage he cost, it would only make sense, right?

So if there are a million kids sharing files in the US, and each kid shares 1000 files, and each file gives damages of $150,000, then the RIAA is looking at an upside of 150 trillion dollars!

That’s a pretty conservative estimate for how much file sharing is happening in the US. You really think the RIAA deserves 150 trillion dollars in damages because of it?

Oh, and discharging the judgment during bankruptcy might not be possible. It’s up to the bankruptcy judge, but my understanding is that damages of this sort are not normally dischargeable. IANABL.

62

The jury decides how much to award in damages. Plaintiff has no control over what the jury decides. Plaintiff is not required to bring suit over every possible wrongful act. Looks to me like Plaintiff sued on the songs they could easily prove.

And I’d like a cite for the notion that this judgment is not dischargeable in bankruptcy.

63

As Red Skeezix noted above, “file sharing” (and P2P in general) is a technology, with lawful and unlawful uses. (My only personal use of file sharing is to download my World of Warcraft patches).

I agree with Oakminster that we shouldn’t be using “file sharing” to euphemistically mean illegal downloading, but at the same time I’d prefer he didn’t use “theft” to mean copyright infringement. So I guess we can’t all get what we want. :slight_smile:

Until about a year ago format shifting was not legal in New Zealand.

(The “Copyright (New Technologies) Amendment Act 2008” was passed in April last year but didn’t come into effect until later in the year). Before that time, to quote a now outdated government web-page there was “no general exception to copyright infringement for private of domestic copying, including “format shifting”, of legitimately purchased recordings from one medium to another to allow playing or viewing via other devices.”

Yep, that means that every New Zealander who’d copied a CD to a tape for their car had violated copyright. Every NZer who’d loaded CDs onto their computer and listened to them through a media player had violated copyright. And (more than likely) every NZer who’d owned an mp3 player before the end of last year had violated copyright. (Yes, I’m sure there was someone, somewhere who was only format shifting their own band’s music… there’s always an exception somewhere) :slight_smile:

Apple had been selling iPods in NZ well before December 2006 when they opened an NZ iTunes store. Before then we couldn’t download music from iTunes (except briefly from iTunes Australia until they closed a loophole – and, to swing off on an even wilder tangent don’t get me started on why we couldn’t buy from iTunes Oz given the Closer Economic Relations trade agreement between us that means that a good or service that can be sold in one country can be sold in the other).

So… What was being put onto all those iPods sold in NZ before the NZ iTunes store?

Although some of it is rather more like theft than others.

64

Ultimately, I can’t see that these judgments are working to the RIAA’s advantage. They don’t actually get the money, because you can’t get blood from a stone. They get some pretty bad publicity (both from people who think that copyright is an outdated concept, and from people who have no particular views on it, but see them as acting like big bullies to teenagers and grandmas). They spend a fortune on legal fees.

Lemur is right. Ultimately, copyright can’t last. I’m not making a moral argument (although I do tend to agree with the moral arguments; I think that we’ll all be a lot better off if society decides that information can’t be owned), but simply a practical one. Bits are simply too easy to copy, and making martyrs of a few kids is hardly any stopgap measure at all.

65

Hmm, I’ve been trying to search for the thread we had on the last ridiculous judgement the RIAA got, but can’t find it. Gfactor was the one who made the claim–not that it was positively not dischargable, but that certain types of judgements were not.

As for the notion that the plaintiff has no control over what the judgment was, well, I agree that this is what the laws are. There’s a law, it establishes damages of up to $150,000 for every file made available for upload. And this kid uploaded songs, and was sued for uploading 30 of them.

I’m just arguing that the law awarding these damages is a misguided law, and that slapping a few random kids with million dollar judgements is a misguided way of preventing copyright infringement. Slapping a million kids with one dollar fines would work, slapping one kid with a million dollar fine won’t.

It is practically impossible for the RIAA to sue every copyright infringer. It is practically impossible for them to sue even a tiny percentage of copyright infringers. The overwhelming majority of copyright infringers will never face any sanctions.

So what does this judgement against this one kid accomplish? Are they going to go after the next kid and the next kid and the next kid and the next kid? Considering that suing kids for millions of dollars, when the kids don’t have millions of dollars, well, that’s a funny way to run a railroad.

If this doesn’t deter uploading–and it won’t–then what was the point?

The RIAA doesn’t get any money because the kid has no money. They can sue a million kids, but it won’t matter because none of those million kids has any money either. And so what’s next?

Enforcement is impossible in the digital age. We need some other method of rewarding the creators of the useful arts and sciences. I don’t know what that might be, but either we come up with some other method, or they get nothing anyway, since the current system won’t work. People arguing for the current legal regime are effectively arguing for giving creators nothing. They think they’re sticking up for creators, but the de facto result is as if they were arguing for giving them nothing.

66

The RIAA and the music industry is just going to have to suck it up and accept that the world has changed and find a way to work within the system of filesharing. It’s never going to stop, and they need to reconcile themselves with this and figure out new ways to do business. That’s the long and short of it right there.

67

And how do you propose they do that? How do you make money selling music if we allow people to download it for free?

68

You realize, of course, that if information can’t be owned then that also includes written works, IP, your credit card number, birth date, social security number, home address, bank account and routing numbers, the code to your home security system (assuming you have one), your PIN, etc.

All these are nothing but information and all are stored on a computer somewhere. If you really believe that information can’t be owned and society will be better off that way, please post all of the information listed above*.

Slee

  • I don’t really expect you to post any of that info. The point being is that the ‘information can’t be owned’ argument falls apart because there is certain information that *has *to be owned.
69

Yeah, I was going to point out that, in fact, information can be and needs to be owned. But I also agree that A) these judgements are ridiculous, not in line with reality, and do the RIAA no good financially or publicly and B) copyright law as we know it will need to change, and change drastically, to keep up with modern technology and the habits and possibilities that come with it.

70

I’m sorry, was one of these statements supposed to follow from the other? Is ‘ridiculous’ a legal term of art, or is the implication that judgments within the statutory maximum cannot be ridiculous?

71

A person violated copyright law and now has to pay the copyright holder for it. Seems pretty obvious to me. The decision of whether or not it is a deterrent, or even the reason for the suit in the first case, is one that should be made by the copyright holder.

Which is why cases like this are frustrating. To me, it’s pretty basic. Kid violated the copyright holder’s rights and now must pay for it. Whether or not it is a deterrent, whether or not there are millions of other violations, whether or not RIAA are hypocrites, dumbshits, or evil incarnate, to me, are merely attempts to divert attention.

72

What he said.

73

Well, the implication is that laws enjoy certain presumptions. It’s for the person claiming the law is ridiculous to show some sort of objective reasoning to support his theory.

74

Divert attention from what? This discussion?:

Person 1: The kid violated copyright. He committed a crime. According to the law, he should pay the penalty.
Person 2: He won’t, though; he doesn’t have the money and will file bankrupcy.
Person 1: Right. He won’t pay.
Person 2: Right.
Everyone Else: What they said.
Everyone goes home
Well, that was a fun discussion. All the other discussions we might have do involve those other details like whether it was a good idea, what the effects will be, whether scattershot justice is fair, whether it will be a deterrent, ect. May we have those discussions?

75

You don’t think it’s ridiculous that a kid who shared 30 songs has to pay damages of $650,000?

Of course it’s ridiculous.

Yes, we have an obligation to obey the law. And if we think the law is unjust, we should advocate changing the law. I think this is unjust, and I advocate changing the law.

Apparently some people disagree, and think a $650,000 judgment seems proportional to the harm this kid caused. Those people are crazy.

As far as I can see, their reasoning goes:

We have to protect copyright holders
Copyright violation is rampant
It’s impossible to prosecute most copyright violators
Therefore, we need some way to deter copyright violators, even though we won’t catch most of them
Therefore, when we do catch one, we should subject him to harsh and uncompromising punishment.

But that’s a ridiculous way to run a railroad. This kid didn’t cause $650,000 worth of damages, regardless of what the law says. At most he caused a couple hundred bucks worth of damages. You know it, I know it, the Ameircan people know it.

And of course, he can’t pay. You know he can’t pay, I know he can’t pay, the American people know he can’t pay, and the RIAA know he can’t pay.

So since they can’t get any money out of him, why did they sue him? To deter future copyright violators. But will that work? No it won’t. Therefore, the wildly out of proportion damages are unjust.

As for the contention that the kid violated copyright and now he has to pay the price, well, that’s fine. What should that price be, though? A few hundred bucks seems fair to me. $650,000 doesn’t. Especially since he’ll never actually pay that.

What this demonstrates is the need to reform copyright. Our current system is unworkable, and these arbitrary statutory damages are ludicrious and inhuman. Suggesting that we should keep doing what we’re doing, only harder, is fucking stupid. Since it won’t, you know, work.

76

I seem to recall reading that music artists make the vast majority of their fortunes touring as opposed to selling actual records. Of course, this is no help to the studio execs because their current model is quickly failing. But then are we talking about protecting the interests of the artists/the creators or those of the side industries that sprung up to feed off the creators? RIAA is not about the artists, it’s all for the big corporations that survive vampirically off the artists.

Oh, and well put, Lemur.

My own feeling is that RIAA doesn’t sue for all instances of copyright violation because the resulting award would be distasteful and completely indefensible to the most of the public. The fact that they have the moral high ground here does them no favors at all.

77

Well, it’d be impractical to sue for all copyright violations relating to computer file sharing.

However, even presuming they could there is no way in hell they would.

It is one thing for them to nail some relative few and make headlines.

If they nailed everyone who did then I doubt there is a family in America who wouldn’t have someone in their extended family who wasn’t nailed. Imagine hitting every family in the United States for $500,000.

Want to see the laws changed right quick and not in favor of the RIAA then suing everyone would be a sure way to do that. The hue and cry would be deafening and there would not be enough lobbyists in all the world to save the RIAA.

78

Like I said, pretty basic, isn’t it. Glad we can agree.

Knock yourself out. But the final decision on those things will, and should, remain with the copyright holder, not the millions of people looking for ways to try and legitimize what the kid did. But instead of those discussions, what we get are posts ripping on the RIAA, playing up the “everybody is doing it” mentality, or playing semantic games over whether or not what the kid did is “theft”.

79

Well, the RIAA deserves to be ripped on and this is just one reason.

I think most people here would be fine with the guy having some punishment for what he did. I just think most people find $675,000 laughably egregious as a penalty for what he did.

Is some sanity in the law too much to ask for?

80

Oh well that’s easy
a) he didn’t do that much damage

b) when you show your cite that the RIAA payed up the relative billions they owe VLC, by logic of this judgment, then we can talk.

Oh it was “punitive”, well if the plaintiff feels it’s deserved how come the RIAA hasn’t pressured it’s lead company, Sony BMG to feel proportional pain for it’s infringement? Since it’s bankrupting this guy wouldn’t equal pain be Sony BMG paying VLC a bankrupting amount as well?

Guess the RIAA only thinks this law is a good law when it suits them…