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I think his point is that the damages they are seeking are basically punitive, not related to actual losses that they have suffered. I doubt anyone is losing to

by lurk2 2y ago

I think his point is that the damages they are seeking are basically punitive, not related to actual losses that they have suffered. I doubt anyone is losing too much sleep over this issue, but the approach the record labels are taking seems like it is clearly intended to dissuade others from doing anything similar to what the Internet Archive is trying to do. The RIAA has a track record of these kinds of punitive measures; think of the music piracy lawsuits they were filing in the mid-2000s.

freejazz 2y ago
But that's exactly what the copyright act provides for... statutory damages not tied to the actual damages lost by the copyright owner, and they are only available in limited circumstances. And statutory damages still have to be tied to something tangible, like the lost license fee, and they do explicitly allow for a jury to add a punitive element. >The RIAA has a track record of these kinds of punitive measures; think of the music piracy lawsuits they were filing in the mid-2000s. How were those punitive as opposed to not? Should they have not sued at all and just let the infringers continue?
- lurk2 2y ago
  > How were those punitive as opposed to not? Should they have not sued at all and just let the infringers continue? In Arista Records LLC v. Lime Group LLC, they tried to sue for more money than existed on earth. I'm not saying they didn't have a case against individual cases of infringement, but it was quite clear what they were doing while they were doing it. The goal was always to intimidate would-be pirates with high-profile cases about grandmas and teenagers losing the family house because they downloaded an MP3 off Kazaa. The damages the RIAA sought from these people were completely disproportionate to the actual financial losses they demonstrated, to the point of being unconscionable. It's notable that they eventually abandoned this strategy by the end of the 2000s as public opinion began turning against them. Weird Al wrote a song about it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zGM8PT1eAvY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zGM8PT1eAvY
  - freejazz 2y ago
    There's pretty much no way any court ever gives any copyright holder the maximum amount allowed under statutory damages, which is only trebled to the possibility of $150k when the infringement was willful. I love Weird Al, but I don't go to him for legal advice or analysis!
    - lurk2 2y ago
      Maybe the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York will convince you where Weird Al could not: > Defendants face a potential award of over a billion dollars in statutory damages alone. If Plaintiffs were able to pursue a statutory damage theory predicated on the number of direct infringers per work, Defendants’ damages could reach into the trillions. See Dkt Entry No. 461 (“Thousands (or even millions) of uploads and downloads occurred across disparate users.”) 3 As Defendants note, Plaintiffs are suggesting an award that is “more money than the entire music recording industry has made since Edison’s invention of the phonograph in 1877.”
      - freejazz 2y ago
        I'm not sure how this is actually a response to my comment. I'm an IP litigator, asserting max statutory damages is something every attorney does at the outset otherwise they'd be waiving that recovery. It's really not the big deal you make it out to be, and nothing in your quote supports that either. Do you think a court is actually going to award more money than the entire world? No. So what are you going on about, really?
        lurk2 2y ago
        > asserting max statutory damages is something every attorney does at the outset otherwise they'd be waiving that recovery Meaning that they could not have asked for a lower amount without waiving their rights to all statutory damages? What it sounds like you're saying is that this was just a fluke of the lawyers who drafted the brief abiding by an industry standard that ended up producing an odd result. This seems incredibly unlikely.

by lurk2 2y ago

freejazz 2y ago

But that's exactly what the copyright act provides for... statutory damages not tied to the actual damages lost by the copyright owner, and they are only available in limited circumstances. And statutory damages still have to be tied to something tangible, like the lost license fee, and they do explicitly allow for a jury to add a punitive element. >The RIAA has a track record of these kinds of punitive measures; think of the music piracy lawsuits they were filing in the mid-2000s. How were those punitive as opposed to not? Should they have not sued at all and just let the infringers continue?

lurk2 2y ago
> How were those punitive as opposed to not? Should they have not sued at all and just let the infringers continue? In Arista Records LLC v. Lime Group LLC, they tried to sue for more money than existed on earth. I'm not saying they didn't have a case against individual cases of infringement, but it was quite clear what they were doing while they were doing it. The goal was always to intimidate would-be pirates with high-profile cases about grandmas and teenagers losing the family house because they downloaded an MP3 off Kazaa. The damages the RIAA sought from these people were completely disproportionate to the actual financial losses they demonstrated, to the point of being unconscionable. It's notable that they eventually abandoned this strategy by the end of the 2000s as public opinion began turning against them. Weird Al wrote a song about it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zGM8PT1eAvY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zGM8PT1eAvY
- freejazz 2y ago
  There's pretty much no way any court ever gives any copyright holder the maximum amount allowed under statutory damages, which is only trebled to the possibility of $150k when the infringement was willful. I love Weird Al, but I don't go to him for legal advice or analysis!
  - lurk2 2y ago
    Maybe the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York will convince you where Weird Al could not: > Defendants face a potential award of over a billion dollars in statutory damages alone. If Plaintiffs were able to pursue a statutory damage theory predicated on the number of direct infringers per work, Defendants’ damages could reach into the trillions. See Dkt Entry No. 461 (“Thousands (or even millions) of uploads and downloads occurred across disparate users.”) 3 As Defendants note, Plaintiffs are suggesting an award that is “more money than the entire music recording industry has made since Edison’s invention of the phonograph in 1877.”
    - freejazz 2y ago
      I'm not sure how this is actually a response to my comment. I'm an IP litigator, asserting max statutory damages is something every attorney does at the outset otherwise they'd be waiving that recovery. It's really not the big deal you make it out to be, and nothing in your quote supports that either. Do you think a court is actually going to award more money than the entire world? No. So what are you going on about, really?
      - lurk2 2y ago
        > asserting max statutory damages is something every attorney does at the outset otherwise they'd be waiving that recovery Meaning that they could not have asked for a lower amount without waiving their rights to all statutory damages? What it sounds like you're saying is that this was just a fluke of the lawyers who drafted the brief abiding by an industry standard that ended up producing an odd result. This seems incredibly unlikely.