# Judge reduces file-sharing damages award by 90 percent. **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [July 11, 2010, 7:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/judge-reduces-file-sharing-damages-award-by-90-percent/546283 "2010-07-11T07:32:02Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 7
**Author:** ![cosmosdan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/a6a055/32.png) [@cosmosdan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cosmosdan)\ **Post date:** [July 12, 2010, 7:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/judge-reduces-file-sharing-damages-award-by-90-percent/546283/121 "2010-07-12T19:39:05Z")
> [@carm](#): > > The point is, comedians go into the profession knowing that they will have to tour to make money, and cannot rely on studio recordings. apples and oranges. Whatever your source of income is , you don’t want people giving away your work. Musicians tour as well and a big portion of the income is selling CDs Tshirts pictures whatever. They also don’t like people showing up to sell bogus non sanctioned merchandise at their concert. The selfish bastards. > [@](#): > > And I wouldn’t distinguish between the charity cd and a normal cd, simply because I never buy cds any more, so I would not be denying sales to either. The question was really, would where the money is going make a difference in conscience about the mental act of justifying a profitless copy. ---
**Author:** ![enigmatic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/898d66/32.png) [@enigmatic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/enigmatic)\ **Post date:** [July 12, 2010, 7:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/judge-reduces-file-sharing-damages-award-by-90-percent/546283/122 "2010-07-12T19:41:03Z")
But as I pointed out earlier an increasing number of products today are effectively reproducible as information. Do you really think workers in arbitrarily defined professions should be less entitled to being rewarded for their work just because they happen to be producing intangible goods. > [@](#): > > The demand for something when it is free is way, way, way, way, way higher than when it is not free. > > The vast majority of music I’ve downloaded is stuff I have never heard, and would never pay for. Do you honestly think that say the car industry would be unaffected if people suddenly were able to duplicate cars by touching them. I mean after all, the vast majority of people who suddenly had a new Porsche would never have bought one before, I’m sure it wouldn’t reduce the companies profits in the slightest :rolleyes: ---
**Author:** ![ivan\_astikov](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/58f4c7/32.png) [@ivan\_astikov](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ivan_astikov)\ **Post date:** [July 12, 2010, 7:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/judge-reduces-file-sharing-damages-award-by-90-percent/546283/123 "2010-07-12T19:45:19Z")
If that technology was about to become available, I’d have thought it would be incumbent on the manufacturers to switch their investments, rather than attempting to stifle new technology? ---
**Author:** ![Lemur866](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lemur866/32/434_2.png) [@Lemur866](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lemur866)\ **Post date:** [July 12, 2010, 7:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/judge-reduces-file-sharing-damages-award-by-90-percent/546283/124 "2010-07-12T19:46:20Z")
> [@cosmosdan](#): > > It’s a crime to copy their product and distribute it for free. No it isn’t. It is not now, and has never been, a crime to violate copyright. ---
**Author:** ![carm](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/c2a13f/32.png) [@carm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carm)\ **Post date:** [July 12, 2010, 8:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/judge-reduces-file-sharing-damages-award-by-90-percent/546283/125 "2010-07-12T20:03:32Z")
**Lemur** , could you clarify what you mean when you say it isn’t a crime? ---
**Author:** ![cosmosdan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/a6a055/32.png) [@cosmosdan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cosmosdan)\ **Post date:** [July 12, 2010, 8:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/judge-reduces-file-sharing-damages-award-by-90-percent/546283/126 "2010-07-12T20:10:13Z")
> [@Lemur866](#): > > No it isn’t. It is not now, and has never been, a crime to violate copyright. are you talking about the difference between civil action and criminal action? While it isn’t a crime to simply copy a CD and give it away, at some point, when a significant number of copies are involved and the money is considerable, I believe that’s a crime. If you make a trunk load of copies of a new poular CD and are selling them cheap I believe that’s a crime. ---
**Author:** ![cosmosdan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/a6a055/32.png) [@cosmosdan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cosmosdan)\ **Post date:** [July 12, 2010, 8:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/judge-reduces-file-sharing-damages-award-by-90-percent/546283/127 "2010-07-12T20:11:20Z")
> [@ivan\_astikov](#): > > If that technology was about to become available, I’d have thought it would be incumbent on the manufacturers to switch their investments, rather than attempting to stifle new technology? where do you get this stuff. The technology isn’t the problem. It’s what how the technology is used, which is decided by people. ---
**Author:** ![Lemur866](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lemur866/32/434_2.png) [@Lemur866](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lemur866)\ **Post date:** [July 12, 2010, 8:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/judge-reduces-file-sharing-damages-award-by-90-percent/546283/128 "2010-07-12T20:25:36Z")
> [@enigmatic](#): > > But as I pointed out earlier an increasing number of products today are effectively reproducible as information. Do you really think workers in arbitrarily defined professions should be less entitled to being rewarded for their work just because they happen to be producing intangible goods. > > Do you honestly think that say the car industry would be unaffected if people suddenly were able to duplicate cars by touching them. I mean after all, the vast majority of people who suddenly had a new Porsche would never have bought one before, I’m sure it wouldn’t reduce the companies profits in the slightest :rolleyes: But think about it for a minute. Suppose I have a magic duplicator. I point it at a Porsche, and bing, out pops another Porsche. Wow, this is terrible! This machine allows theft on an unimaginable scale! Except, no it isn’t. It isn’t terrible, it’s wonderful. Yes, a machine that duplicates Porsches is going to collapse Porsche’s corporate profits. Except, who cares? We don’t owe Porsche a living. We give Porsche money because we want fancy cars, and if we don’t pay them, we don’t get a car. If a magic duplicator existed, then many companies will go bankrupt. But so what? All we have to do is give the unemployed people a magic duplicator, and then they won’t care that they don’t have a job anymore, because they can make anything they want. Why do the people at Porsche work so hard making cool cars? Because they want to exchange those cool cars for other stuff. But if they could get the other stuff without having to bother making cars, why would they make cars anymore? Of course, there is no such thing as a magic duplicator ray, and even if we develop cheap fabrictors that could manufacture all kinds of stuff, those fabricators will still require raw materials and energy and time. But we really have such a machine to duplicate digital works. All it takes is the press of a button, and you can copy that picture of a cat wearing sunglasses thousands of times. Millions of times. And it costs nothing, and takes no effort. Copyright law ultimately exists to help the consumer. We want to advance the useful arts and sciences, and so we try to come up with systems that give us more and better. But copyright doesn’t exist to benefit the producers, it only benefits the producers because it turns out that was a very effective way of getting producers to produce more. Will we still have new music if we changed the law to abolish copyright for digital works? Well, we’d have less, and what we had would be more amateur. But thing is, there are thousands and thousands new music titles released every year. The vast majority of these releases make nothing. Digital distribution creates a different set of incentives. Back in the 60s nobody would press and album of recorded music unless they hoped to make money from it, because it cost a lot of money to record, press, and distribute the record. So without some method of compensation, there wouldn’t have been any recorded music. But that’s not true nowadays. Most musicians aren’t megastars, they are just people who enjoy playing music. If they’re lucky, they can eke out a middle-class lifestyle as a professional musician. And I know plenty of people talented enough to be professional musicians, but they have other jobs to pay the bills. Bottom line, copyright law seems to serve the producers, but the ultimate goal is to serve the consumer. Any copyright scheme that benefits producers should only do so because benefiting producers benefits consumers. ---
**Author:** ![cosmosdan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/a6a055/32.png) [@cosmosdan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cosmosdan)\ **Post date:** [July 12, 2010, 8:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/judge-reduces-file-sharing-damages-award-by-90-percent/546283/129 "2010-07-12T20:27:05Z")
[The pertinent law?](http://www.copyright.gov/title17/92chap5.html#506) section 506 covers criminal offenses. To clairify, It appears it can be a crime under certain criteria but in many cases would be a civil matter of copyright violation. ---
**Author:** ![Lemur866](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lemur866/32/434_2.png) [@Lemur866](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lemur866)\ **Post date:** [July 12, 2010, 8:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/judge-reduces-file-sharing-damages-award-by-90-percent/546283/130 "2010-07-12T20:28:34Z")
> [@carm](#): > > **Lemur** , could you clarify what you mean when you say it isn’t a crime? I say it isn’t a crime, because there are no criminal penalties for violation of copyright. It isn’t a crime to copy music, any more than it is a crime to plagarize a term paper. ---
**Author:** ![cosmosdan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/a6a055/32.png) [@cosmosdan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cosmosdan)\ **Post date:** [July 12, 2010, 8:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/judge-reduces-file-sharing-damages-award-by-90-percent/546283/131 "2010-07-12T20:38:40Z")
> [@Lemur866](#): > > Copyright law ultimately exists to help the consumer.We want to advance the useful arts and sciences, and so we try to come up with systems that give us more and better. But copyright doesn’t exist to benefit the producers, it only benefits the producers because it turns out that was a very effective way of getting producers to produce more. It will take more than your assertion to convince me this is true. > [@](#): > > Bottom line, copyright law seems to serve the producers, but the ultimate goal is to serve the consumer. Any copyright scheme that benefits producers should only do so because benefiting producers benefits consumers. and again, you’ll have to do more than just assert this. Copyright law sure seems intended to protect the creator of certain works , much like a patent protects an inventor. If you produce a book, a piece of music , whatever it covers, you own the legal rights to that work. If popular you have a right to get paid if that work , your creation, is used. ---
**Author:** ![cosmosdan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/a6a055/32.png) [@cosmosdan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cosmosdan)\ **Post date:** [July 12, 2010, 8:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/judge-reduces-file-sharing-damages-award-by-90-percent/546283/132 "2010-07-12T20:40:01Z")
> [@Lemur866](#): > > I say it isn’t a crime, because there are no criminal penalties for violation of copyright. It isn’t a crime to copy music, any more than it is a crime to plagarize a term paper. then perhaps you could peruse my link on copyright law, specifically the criminal section. It seems to say otherwise. ---
**Author:** ![Lemur866](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lemur866/32/434_2.png) [@Lemur866](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lemur866)\ **Post date:** [July 12, 2010, 8:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/judge-reduces-file-sharing-damages-award-by-90-percent/546283/133 "2010-07-12T20:43:39Z")
No, you don’t have a right to get paid. You have a right to prevent anyone else from copying your work, or making a product that falls under your patent, without your permission. And it turns out that a very common way to get someone to give you permission to copy their work is to offer to pay them some money. But someone wouldn’t have the right to copy your product just by handing you some money. You can’t copy a CD and send the artist a check for $14, that would be a violation of copyright, despite the fact that you paid them. ---
**Author:** ![cosmosdan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/a6a055/32.png) [@cosmosdan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cosmosdan)\ **Post date:** [July 12, 2010, 8:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/judge-reduces-file-sharing-damages-award-by-90-percent/546283/134 "2010-07-12T20:52:26Z")
> [@Lemur866](#): > > No, you don’t have a right to get paid. You have a right to prevent anyone else from copying your work, or making a product that falls under your patent, without your permission. > > And it turns out that a very common way to get someone to give you permission to copy their work is to offer to pay them some money. > > But someone wouldn’t have the right to copy your product just by handing you some money. You can’t copy a CD and send the artist a check for $14, that would be a violation of copyright, despite the fact that you paid them. you’re splitting hairs that have little to do with the discussion. The point is it’s up the those who own the copyrights to decide how much is given away or sold not the consumer. I like accurate language as well, but you’ve yet to address my link to copyright law or show me that those laws are to protect the consumer. It would seem to me that allowing everyone to copy anything they want and give it away or sell it cheap, is better for the consumer , and yet the copright laws seem to specifically designed to prevent such actions. ---
**Author:** ![enigmatic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/898d66/32.png) [@enigmatic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/enigmatic)\ **Post date:** [July 12, 2010, 9:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/judge-reduces-file-sharing-damages-award-by-90-percent/546283/135 "2010-07-12T21:42:27Z")
> [@](#): > > But think about it for a minute. Suppose I have a magic duplicator. I point it at a Porsche, and bing, out pops another Porsche. Wow, this is terrible! This machine allows theft on an unimaginable scale! Except, no it isn’t. It isn’t terrible, it’s wonderful. Yes, a machine that duplicates Porsches is going to collapse Porsche’s corporate profits. Except, who cares? > > We don’t owe Porsche a living. We give Porsche money because we want fancy cars, and if we don’t pay them, we don’t get a car. If a magic duplicator existed, then many companies will go bankrupt. But so what? All we have to do is give the unemployed people a magic duplicator, and then they won’t care that they don’t have a job anymore, because they can make anything they want. Why do the people at Porsche work so hard making cool cars? Because they want to exchange those cool cars for other stuff. But if they could get the other stuff without having to bother making cars, why would they make cars anymore? Do you also believe that if everyone in the world had a ton of gold everyone would be rich? :rolleyes: Without anyone designing new cars there would be nothing to copy. Only a small proportion of the cost of a Porsche is the cost of manufacture and materials. The rest addresses the research, design, and safety testing of the machine. Or maybe you think that the cars that we have now are good enough for the rest of time? Do you believe the same about the music and films that we watch? Should we grind the arts to halt and employ all those silly people in creating only things that can’t be copied? Do you think that musicians and other artists work is so fun and undemanding that they should be able to get a “proper job” during the day and then devote their free time to producing art for the world without thought of recompense. Or maybe you believe their work should be externally funded by society, maybe we should set up public panels to decide which art is the most “worthy” of funding? ---
**Author:** ![carm](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/c2a13f/32.png) [@carm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carm)\ **Post date:** [July 12, 2010, 9:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/judge-reduces-file-sharing-damages-award-by-90-percent/546283/136 "2010-07-12T21:56:28Z")
Why does music need funding? Anyone I know in a band saved up and bought their instruments. ---
**Author:** ![kanicbird](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/5f8ce5/32.png) [@kanicbird](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kanicbird)\ **Post date:** [July 12, 2010, 10:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/judge-reduces-file-sharing-damages-award-by-90-percent/546283/137 "2010-07-12T22:16:15Z")
> [@Dan\_Norder](#): > > If gangs of car thieves were so widespread that car dealerships couldn’t make any money selling cars, would your answer be that nobody should sell cars? It’s “consumer preference” and “technology” at fault because cars are easy to hotwire? Would kanicbird think cars should be a “gift to humanity” that no one should be able to earn a living off of? There is a big difference between taking a product from one and distributing it to the other, in this process there is a net loss in the process, it is not creative. OTHO expanding the availability of music is creative, it expands and benefits all of humanity. ---
**Author:** ![Brown\_Eyed\_Girl](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/brown_eyed_girl/32/3574_2.png) [@Brown\_Eyed\_Girl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Brown_Eyed_Girl)\ **Post date:** [July 12, 2010, 10:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/judge-reduces-file-sharing-damages-award-by-90-percent/546283/138 "2010-07-12T22:16:35Z")
> [@cosmosdan](#): > > There’s no realisitic comparison between me repeating a joke I heard from some comic and an exact copy of a CD that’s for sale. > > Let me ask this > We see the big labels as giant bad guys who can take the hit so screw them. What if someone creates a great CD and all the profits are going to feed the starving families in Africa or Aids research or something. Would copying that CD and giving it away seem more objectionable? No. When music is made to benefit starving families from Africa and AIDS patients you get [this](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M9BNoNFKCBI&feature=related) and [this](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w5cX_ncZLls), which, it cannot be argued, represents everything that is wrong with mixing social activism with commercial music. And if this is all that the labels behind RIAA had to offer in musical entertainment, this thread would not even exist. ---
**Author:** ![cosmosdan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/a6a055/32.png) [@cosmosdan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cosmosdan)\ **Post date:** [July 12, 2010, 10:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/judge-reduces-file-sharing-damages-award-by-90-percent/546283/139 "2010-07-12T22:50:09Z")
> [@kanicbird](#): > > There is a big difference between taking a product from one and distributing it to the other, in this process there is a net loss in the process, it is not creative. > > OTHO expanding the availability of music is creative, it expands and benefits all of humanity. The person who owns the product should be the one to decide how much to give away to benifit all humanity. Robin Hood was still a thief and music piracy doesn’t just affect the rich, it affects Will Scarlett as well. ---
**Author:** ![brickbacon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/898d66/32.png) [@brickbacon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/brickbacon)\ **Post date:** [July 12, 2010, 10:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/judge-reduces-file-sharing-damages-award-by-90-percent/546283/140 "2010-07-12T22:51:31Z")
> [@cosmosdan](#): > > Not a valid comparison. If I learn to play a certain song from another artist it’s not the same as an exact copy is it? The crux of the matter is not whether it’s an exact copy; it’s that they think the infringement represent a monetary loss for them. The RIAA, et al. would have a problem with me doing my (crappy) version of an popular artist’s album without compensating them regardless of how closely I can approximate the source material. In their mind, the issue is whether they think I have cost them sales. If someone is less likely to buy their product because of something I did. That’s why cover bands and bars still have to pay the appropriate people. While the quality of the “copy” is tangentially relevant, it is not the main issue. That’s why the joke analogy is apt. Chris Rock certainly has a harder time selling his original HBO special on DVD when people retell the jokes on a regular basis, yet I doubt he (or anyone) expects the joke tellers should compensate him. Additionally, most chain restaurants have people that visit other restaurants to get menu ideas. If PF Chang’s decides to replicate a bunch of recipes one of their chefs found at another restaurant, is that any worse than a person copying an Eminem album? Filesharing is basically the duplication of a “recipe” of zeros and ones in the same way a food recipe works. It’s just the instructions to reproduce a given product. Why can PF Chang’s reproduce another person work without problems whereas I cannot do the same? We view restaurants as selling a service (a dining experience) or a physical product (food); not the idea that enabled the creation of those products (a recipe). Since musicians no longer have to provide the consumer with a physical product (a CD), they cannot expect to be compensated as if they are. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/judge-reduces-file-sharing-damages-award-by-90-percent/546283.md?page=6) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/judge-reduces-file-sharing-damages-award-by-90-percent/546283.md?page=8)