Anyone on this thread that is in the M biz understands this ruling.The non music biz people will not.
I’m in the music biz - as a musician. But musicians are to the music biz what ford escorts are to the car rental biz.
My main gripe with this (other than the ridiculous scale of the fine) is that it means that "intent" alone is sufficient for conviction of file-sharing.
I find that a very dangerous "thought-crime" precedent.
Understand, I'm very sensitive to IP issues, I make my living on proprietary software and (to a small degree) making music. But this precedent is not good for freedom of thought and action.
I stopped buying music years ago. Don’t need it, not worth it.
Not in the M biz, but this ruling IMO is a complete public relations disaster for you people (and I doubt that's fully understood by those in the M biz).
For those not in the M biz, here's how this worked. Federal law governs copyright infringement and section 504 of chapter 17 of the United States Code, 17 U.S.C. sec. 504, governs damages in copyright cases.
Section 504(1)says: "the copyright owner may elect, at any time before final judgment is rendered, to recover, instead of actual damages and profits, an award of statutory damages for all infringements involved in the action, with respect to any one work, for which any one infringer is liable individually, or for which any two or more infringers are liable jointly and severally, in a sum of not less than $750 or more than $30,000 as the court considers just. For the purposes of this subsection, all the parts of a compilation or derivative work constitute one work."
The law goes on in section 504(2) to provide: "In a case where the copyright owner sustains the burden of proving, and the court finds, that infringement was committed willfully, the court in its discretion may increase the award of statutory damages to a sum of not more than $150,000."
Here, the 32 year old female defendant admitted downloading at least 24 songs. As in all jury trials, the jury was given a set of instructions by the judge. These instructions are prepared by the lawyers, approved by the court, and based on the law. They are instructions on the law, not the facts, and the jury is required to abide by these instructions, i.e., the law, in reaching a verdict and awarding damages.
Didn't see the jury actual instructions, but they no doubt said something like, "If you find that the defendant downloaded a song and if you further find the defendant willfully or knowingly downloaded such song, then you must find for plaintiff and award plaintiff such damages as you find are appropriate in an amount between $30,000 and $150,000." Or something like that.
Interestingly, the jury awarded plaintiffs $80,000 per song on 24 songs. My guess, based on that figure and maximum statutory damages, is that the jury decided to split the difference in slight favor of defendant. Also, I also seem to recall reading from reports of the first trial that there was evidence the defendant lied or was shown to have been untruthful in her deposition testimony.
In any event, the jury's award does not reflect an over abundance of sympathy for the defendant but, as they say, it could've been a lot worse. And it's pretty safe to say the record companies will never collect the full amount of this judgment against this poor woman, but then I don't think that was their goal. They just wanted a head to put on a pike as a warning to the music downloaders of this world.
If music was marketed differently I don’t think musicians would lose much by downloading. Probably make more money. Over-priced cds and crap music and crap media (cds) hurt more than poor folks pirates.
parsy, who still has his vinyl
I know that a woman received a harsher penalty for dowloading two dozen songs than she would have for killing someone. If that puts me in the "not understanding" camp, so be it. It also makes me a tad reluctant to spend another penny on packaged music. Not that I have in at least a decade.