4 ms·

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

by 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.
  - freejazz 2y ago
    It seems incredibly unlikely on what basis? Your complete lack of legal expertise and any insight into legal practice? If you draft a complaint in federal court saying you were owed $30,000, you don't get to later change that to a higher amount without amending. I'm not sure why you think it's a fluke, it's a basic practice of legal drafting. Look at any federal complaint and it's going to be written with language like "in an amount no less than..."
    - lurk2 2y ago
      > It seems incredibly unlikely on what basis? Your complete lack of legal expertise and any insight into legal practice? I worked in the industry for several years, though not in litigation. I've been nothing but courteous to you despite your posts being shallow and dismissive. Review the site guidelines; you are breaking several of them. > If you draft a complaint in federal court saying you were owed $30,000, you don't get to later change that to a higher amount without amending. They weren't asking for $30,000. They were asking for more money than has ever existed. Your contention is that this came about from an industry standard practice of multiplying the statutory maximum by the number of infringements. You already stated yourself that a court was never going to award these damages because it would be impossible to pay them, so the idea that they were leaving money on the table by revising down from the the statutory maximum is nonsensical. You would then ask why they would bother to revise this figure; it's no big deal, right? Industry standard. Maybe the big shots do things differently but I've seen a lot of money get left on the table to avoid bad press, which is why I find it hard to believe there was no one in the loop here who would have had the capacity to suggest that this was a bad idea. My contention is that this didn't happen, because the whole point of these lawsuits was not to recoup damages but to curtail piracy via a chilling effect. > The RIAA's settlement amounts are typically in the neighborhood of $3,000-$4,000 for those who settle once they receive a letter from the music industry. On the other side of the balance sheet is the amount of money paid to SafeNet (formerly MediaSentry) to conduct its investigations, and the cash spent on the RIAA's legal team and on local counsel to help with the various cases. As Pariser admitted under oath today, the entire campaign is a money pit. https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2007/10/music-industry-exec-p2p-litigation-is-a-money-pit/ https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2007/10/music-industry-e...
      - freejazz 2y ago
        > I worked in the industry for several years, though not in litigation. I've been nothing but courteous to you despite your posts being shallow and dismissive. Review the site guidelines; you are breaking several of them. Frankly, I don't find your correspondence courteous at all. > They weren't asking for $30,000. I'm well aware. Did you see the "if". I guess that you find this rude and/or dismissive, but you fundamentally misunderstand my point, and in a way that seems as if you are jumping to. After all, I started the sentence with "if" and then described a scenario explaining how pleading works. Which I guess you understand because you worked in the industry? > Your contention is that this came about from an industry standard practice of multiplying the statutory maximum by the number of infringements. No my contention is that the maximum amount of statutory damages allowed under law is $150k per work infringed, when willfulness is present. In every copyright case involving statutory damages, the pleading will seek the maximum amount of statutory damages available because if you do not, it will be waived. Do you understand the concept of waiver? I ask, not to be rude, but because it does not seem like you do. I'm happy to explain, but I'm sure google or chatgpt could provide perfectly adequate answers. >Maybe the big shots do things differently but I've seen a lot of money get left on the table to avoid bad press, which is why I find it hard to believe there was no one in the loop here who would have had the capacity to suggest that this was a bad idea. My contention is that this didn't happen, because the whole point of these lawsuits was not to recoup damages but to curtail piracy via a chilling effect. Yeah? You see a lot of attorneys in copyright cases not seeking the amount of statutory damages? Where did you see that? As I mentioned, I'm a litigator, and I do a lot of copyright. That's not my experience at all. > The RIAA's settlement amounts are typically in the neighborhood of $3,000-$4,000 for those who settle once they receive a letter from the music industry. I'm not sure what your point is. You do not seem to understand what I am talking about at all, which is that it would be malpractice to not claim the maximum amount of statutory damages available when you plead. You do not have to ultimately seek them at trial, but you cannot go the other direction. I hope that clears things up for you. And this is why I often complain about the reporting of legal cases on sites like ars, sometimes they do a good job, sometimes they only serve to confuse most readers.

by lurk2 2y ago

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.
- freejazz 2y ago
  It seems incredibly unlikely on what basis? Your complete lack of legal expertise and any insight into legal practice? If you draft a complaint in federal court saying you were owed $30,000, you don't get to later change that to a higher amount without amending. I'm not sure why you think it's a fluke, it's a basic practice of legal drafting. Look at any federal complaint and it's going to be written with language like "in an amount no less than..."
  - lurk2 2y ago
    > It seems incredibly unlikely on what basis? Your complete lack of legal expertise and any insight into legal practice? I worked in the industry for several years, though not in litigation. I've been nothing but courteous to you despite your posts being shallow and dismissive. Review the site guidelines; you are breaking several of them. > If you draft a complaint in federal court saying you were owed $30,000, you don't get to later change that to a higher amount without amending. They weren't asking for $30,000. They were asking for more money than has ever existed. Your contention is that this came about from an industry standard practice of multiplying the statutory maximum by the number of infringements. You already stated yourself that a court was never going to award these damages because it would be impossible to pay them, so the idea that they were leaving money on the table by revising down from the the statutory maximum is nonsensical. You would then ask why they would bother to revise this figure; it's no big deal, right? Industry standard. Maybe the big shots do things differently but I've seen a lot of money get left on the table to avoid bad press, which is why I find it hard to believe there was no one in the loop here who would have had the capacity to suggest that this was a bad idea. My contention is that this didn't happen, because the whole point of these lawsuits was not to recoup damages but to curtail piracy via a chilling effect. > The RIAA's settlement amounts are typically in the neighborhood of $3,000-$4,000 for those who settle once they receive a letter from the music industry. On the other side of the balance sheet is the amount of money paid to SafeNet (formerly MediaSentry) to conduct its investigations, and the cash spent on the RIAA's legal team and on local counsel to help with the various cases. As Pariser admitted under oath today, the entire campaign is a money pit. https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2007/10/music-industry-exec-p2p-litigation-is-a-money-pit/ https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2007/10/music-industry-e...
    - freejazz 2y ago
      > I worked in the industry for several years, though not in litigation. I've been nothing but courteous to you despite your posts being shallow and dismissive. Review the site guidelines; you are breaking several of them. Frankly, I don't find your correspondence courteous at all. > They weren't asking for $30,000. I'm well aware. Did you see the "if". I guess that you find this rude and/or dismissive, but you fundamentally misunderstand my point, and in a way that seems as if you are jumping to. After all, I started the sentence with "if" and then described a scenario explaining how pleading works. Which I guess you understand because you worked in the industry? > Your contention is that this came about from an industry standard practice of multiplying the statutory maximum by the number of infringements. No my contention is that the maximum amount of statutory damages allowed under law is $150k per work infringed, when willfulness is present. In every copyright case involving statutory damages, the pleading will seek the maximum amount of statutory damages available because if you do not, it will be waived. Do you understand the concept of waiver? I ask, not to be rude, but because it does not seem like you do. I'm happy to explain, but I'm sure google or chatgpt could provide perfectly adequate answers. >Maybe the big shots do things differently but I've seen a lot of money get left on the table to avoid bad press, which is why I find it hard to believe there was no one in the loop here who would have had the capacity to suggest that this was a bad idea. My contention is that this didn't happen, because the whole point of these lawsuits was not to recoup damages but to curtail piracy via a chilling effect. Yeah? You see a lot of attorneys in copyright cases not seeking the amount of statutory damages? Where did you see that? As I mentioned, I'm a litigator, and I do a lot of copyright. That's not my experience at all. > The RIAA's settlement amounts are typically in the neighborhood of $3,000-$4,000 for those who settle once they receive a letter from the music industry. I'm not sure what your point is. You do not seem to understand what I am talking about at all, which is that it would be malpractice to not claim the maximum amount of statutory damages available when you plead. You do not have to ultimately seek them at trial, but you cannot go the other direction. I hope that clears things up for you. And this is why I often complain about the reporting of legal cases on sites like ars, sometimes they do a good job, sometimes they only serve to confuse most readers.