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The way I understand the tracker scene, most don't care about restricting distribution of their tracks. But when others are actually selling, I'd think some aut
by lolc 7y ago
The way I understand the tracker scene, most don't care about restricting distribution of their tracks. But when others are actually selling, I'd think some authors might disagree with that.
The original authors can sue. And given the extensive documentation on these tracks, it would be an easy case. But whether there'd be any money to recover is unclear. Given the paltry damages you likely get when you're not selling yourself and tolerating copying anyway. Also the seller might be hard to reach legally, and you'd still have to actually sue, which comes with costs.
So the other route is sending notices to at least damage the business model.
- mikekchar 7y agoJust a quick note because it's often confused: the fact that you tolerate infringement in one place will not affect a judgement in another. That will happen with trademark, but not copyright.
- lolc 7y agoYes, I didn't want to imply that not suing in other cases would change the legal options. And while I'm not deeply familiar with the topic, I just remember that determining damages depends in part on the price you charge for licences. So I think when you don't licence but tolerate unlicensed distribution, it becomes harder to argue for damages. Though as another commenter has pointed out, in the U.S. at least there are statutory damages.
- thaumasiotes 7y ago> Given the paltry damages you likely get when you're not selling yourself and tolerating copying anyway. Aren't there statutory damages?
- henriquez 7y agoYes, statutory damages of $150,000 for each work infringed. The fact that it was commercial infringement would be aggravating and more supportive of the full penalties if litigated. But lawyers often repeat the phrase "you can't squeeze blood from a turnip." It's unlikely that whoever infringed the copyright would be able to afford a judgement like this, and so suing them would be pointless. DMCA would be an easier way for the actual copyright holders to take this down without bankrupting themselves on fruitless litigation. A note to the OP: copyright infringement is not "stealing" because infringement does not deprive someone else of the use of the work. You wouldn't download a car.
- thaumasiotes 7y agoSure, but "you can't recover damages because the other person has no money to take" is a totally different argument from "you can't get damages because the other person didn't cause any harm".
- lolc 7y agoThanks for expanding on it. But just to be clear, statutory damages are "up to" $150,000 in the U.S. I don't think a court would award that much in this case. Do you know of comparable cases that got the maximum?