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> Again, though: the 2 million dollar figure is highly implausible. Prosecutors could have argued for it (they can argue anything they want), but it's hard to s
by chaosharmonic 5y ago
> Again, though: the 2 million dollar figure is highly implausible. Prosecutors could have argued for it (they can argue anything they want), but it's hard to see them getting it for a non-remunerative crime that involved publishing academic journal articles.
Actually this ran in parallel with the tail end of the Jammie Thomas-Rasset lawsuit, in which the various damage figures thrown around for sharing two albums' worth of stale, degraded-quality top-40 songs did include one in the seven-figure range.
- tptacek 5y agoThe story of the Thomas-Rasset suit --- a civil suit, not a 2B1.1(b) criminal sentence argument --- is basically about how those 7 figure sums don't hold up in actual court. And that suit was about material with clear commercial value, not 1942 editions of botany journals. I think this example supports my point, rather than challenging it.
- chaosharmonic 5y agoA 6 figure sum did hold up in actual court though -- it initially landed there a few months before he died, and was finalized a few months after. So from the perspective of someone watching this at the time, it's still really not that ridiculous of a worry.