Posted on 05/15/2008 9:16:35 AM PDT by antiRepublicrat
When Jammie Thomas was found guilty of infringing the copyrights of 24 songs during a trial in Minnesota last year, a jury fined her $222,000 in statutory damages. Given that the record labels arguably lost about 70¢ per song from her (the amount paid by digital download stores like iTunes), this means that Thomas' fine was 13,214 times the actual loss. So when Ray Beckerman of Recording Industry vs. The People recently unearthed a case from last year in which Universal complained about having to pay a mere 10 times the actual damages in a court case of its own, critics smelled the salty tang of hypocrisy.
The case in question involves now-deceased rapper The Notorious B.I.G., whose album Ready to Die incorporated an unlicensed sample of "Singing in the Morning" from the Ohio Players after a Hendrix sample was denied clearance. The sample made its way onto the final album and even onto reissued albums. Bridgeport Music and Westbound Records, which control the rights to the song, sued. A district court ruled in their favor; Bridgeport took the $150,000 maximum in statutory damages, while Westbound sought compensatory and punitive damages. Westbound scored big, earning $366,939 from the jury along with punitive damages of a whopping $3.5 million.
In appealing the ruling, Universal argued that the punitive damages award was "grossly excessive and should be vacated or at least reduced." The reason? It's excessive. The brief quotes a Supreme Court ruling that said, "In practice, few awards exceeding a single-digit ratio between punitive and compensatory damages, to a significant degree, will satisfy due process." Universal pointed out that the award in question was "approximately 10 to 1, far above the line of unconstitutional impropriety."
(Excerpt) Read more at arstechnica.com ...
Why does Congress legislates such robbery? Do they represent the Music Industry or the people?
The ratio for Jamie Thomas case is skewed and assumes she was only liable for a single copy of each of the songs in question. She made the songs available for download and the investigators were unable to determine number of times the songs were downloaded by others. In the case of the Notorious B.I.G. however the numbers were much clearer in that they were able to determine how many copies of the album had been sold. I do tend to side with the author in that I think the penalty for Jammie Thomas was excessive given the fact that she did not make a profit off of the songs.
HF
Friends, IMHO "dere's bin a whole lodda corrupt'n goin' on out dere!" As a result, things are out of whack. We have to set 'em straight or it's only going to get worse.
HF
Perhaps, but then it’s the job of Universal to show how many copies were distributed.
After all, what’s good for the goose. . .
Is that a rhetorical question?
Because they are honest - when someone buys them, they deliver.
ROTFLMAO!!!! You funny!
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