RIAA Foiled By "Innocent Infringement" Defense 220
NewYorkCountryLawyer writes "In an interesting development in a Texas case against a college-age defendant who was 16 at the time of the infringement, the Judge has denied the RIAA's summary judgment motion and ordered a trial of the damages — even though the defendant admitted copyright infringement using Kazaa — based on the 'innocent infringement' defense, which could reduce the statutory damages to $200 per song file. Relying on BMG v. Gonzalez (PDF), the reasoning of which I have criticized on the 'innocent infringement' issue, the RIAA argued that Ms. Harper does not qualify for the 'innocent infringement' defense, since CD versions of the songs, sold in stores, have copyright notices on them. In its 15-page decision (PDF) the Harper court rejected that contention, holding that 'a question
remains as to whether Defendant knew the warnings on compact discs were applicable in this KaZaA setting,' since 'In this case, there were no compact discs with warnings.' Finding that there was a factual issue as to what the defendant knew or didn't know at the time of the infringement, the Court ordered a trial of the damages unless the RIAA agrees to accept $200 — rather than the $750-plus it seeks — per infringed song."
Under age (Score:4, Informative)
A person under 18 cannot sue or be sued, without a hell of a bunch of oppostion.
We seem to forget that.
Innocence vs Ignorance (Score:5, Informative)
This at least has a basis (Score:5, Informative)
it's punitive, and can be reasonable -it is meant to be a deterrent-- it is reasonable to make the financial recompse for a crime more than what the thing is worth at retail
if you shoplift, many state laws allow the store to require recompensation in
excess of the item stolen, this to repay the costs of having the security that the thieves make necassary.
Re:What is "innocent infringement"? (Score:2, Informative)
Copyright infringement is the violation of any exclusive right held by the copyright owner. Infringement may be intentional or unintentional. Often called "innocent infringement," unintentional infringement occurs when an author creates an ostensibly new work that later proves to be a mere reproduction of an existing work, though the author was unaware of the identity between the two at the time the copy was made. For example, former Beatle musician George Harrison was guilty of innocent infringement when he released the song "My Sweet Lord," which a court found was the same song as the Chiffons' "He's So Fine," only with different words. The court said that Harrison had "subconsciously" borrowed the Chiffons' unique motif.
Re:well now.... (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Under age (Score:3, Informative)
I have honestly refused to buy a cd since all this shit started.
I hope you mean that you've refused to buy any CD published by a label represented by the RIAA [riaa.org]. Otherwise it'd just be stupid.
Re:Why don't they sell songs at $200 a pop? (Score:2, Informative)
A penalty is fine, but a 2000% penalty? The percentages aren't that high on anything else...
It gets worse, it's actually a 20,000% penalty.
Original value = 100% ($.99/song) or ~$1.00
200% = 2 * 100% = ~$2.00
~$20.00 = 2,000%
~$200.00 = 20,000%
Re:This at least has a basis (Score:4, Informative)
The 8th ammendment also only applies criminal cases. If the RIAA is suing, then it isn't a criminal case. If it IS a criminal case, then the RIAA doesn't get to set the penalty, so stop blaming the RIAA.
Where did you go to law school?
The 8th amendment applies to government actions. Here, the government action is in establishing the law that permits the RIAA to obtain punitive damages 200 times in excess of any actual damages. If there was no such law, the RIAA would have to prove the justification for punitive damages in every case. But the RIAA paid off a few congressmen and got this sweatheart deal passed through.
The government established a law and that governmental action must be scrutinized under the Constitutional limitations put on Congress, in this case the 8th amendment.
Re:too late (Score:3, Informative)
Why doesn't someone simply tell the judge about it?
Defendant is represented by counsel. I'm sure her counsel will tell the judge about it, if it comes up. If the RIAA takes the judge's offer, though, it might not come up.
Re:This at least has a basis (Score:3, Informative)
Please tell me where I made a factual mistake. The 8th ammendment applies to criminal cases, period.
The 8th amendment has not been applied only to criminal cases. In Austin v. United States, 509 U.S. 602 (1993), the Court noted that the application of the excessive fines clause to civil forfeiture did not depend on whether it was a civil or criminal procedure, but rather on whether the forfeiture could be seen as punishment.
In addition, punitive damages are established by the state either through case law or legislation, so regardless of how it is used in civil cases by private parties, it still originates from governmental action and therefore triggers the 8th amendment.
So yes, the 8th ammendment scrutinizes the government actions (which is exactly what I mean when I say the RIAA is not to blame here, because the RIAA is not the one "supposedly" violating the constitution). Blame the government, blame the law, don't blame the RIAA for following the laws that are in place.
Except that it was the RIAA and its lobbyists that got the law on the books in the first place, so I can blame the RIAA.
If you don't like it, challenge it to the Supreme Court (and good luck with the "cruel and unusual" bit, or even the "excessive fines" bit, because $199 on top of the cost of something is hardly excessive.
No, it's $750+, the $200 was the "nice-guy" discount. That is 750 times actual damages. The Supreme Court has previously stated that punitive damages in excess of 4 times actual damages was unconstitutional and has stated in dicta that anything over 10 times is pretty much automatically unconstitutional
Here, you have the RIAA getting legislation that permits punitive damages in excess of 750 times actual damages. And you're going to tell me that the RIAA is innocent in this travesty? I think not.
indeed, punitive damages can't be (Score:5, Informative)
The Supreme Court has held that punitive damages can virtually never exceed a 10:1 ratio of actual damages. Whether that ruling would extend to statutory damages has never been tested, but it's possible it might. Certainly the RIAA would not want to argue that the purpose of statutory damages is to be punitive, if it wishes to avoid such an extension.
the Supreme Court has ruled a number of times (Score:5, Informative)
There is a significant body of Supreme Court jurisprudence invoking the Due Process Clause to limit punitive damage awards in civil cases. The most recent significant decision was 2003's State Farm v. Campbell, which gave a strong presumption to the unconstitutionality of multipliers greater than single digits, and summarized some of the past decisions. To quote from the majority opinion in that case [cornell.edu]:
"We decline again to impose a bright-line ratio which a punitive damages award cannot exceed. Our jurisprudence and the principles it has now established demonstrate, however, that, in practice, few awards exceeding a single-digit ratio between punitive and compensatory damages, to a significant degree, will satisfy due process. In Haslip, in upholding a punitive damages award, we concluded that an award of more than four times the amount of compensatory damages might be close to the line of constitutional impropriety. We cited that 4-to-1 ratio again in Gore. The Court further referenced a long legislative history, dating back over 700 years and going forward to today, providing for sanctions of double, treble, or quadruple damages to deter and punish. While these ratios are not binding, they are instructive. They demonstrate what should be obvious: Single-digit multipliers are more likely to comport with due process, while still achieving the State's goals of deterrence and retribution, than awards with ratios in range of 500 to 1, or, in this case, of 145 to 1."
Re:Under age (Score:4, Informative)