Copyright damages slashed by federal judge
Are copyright damages limited in some instances? One federal judge certainly thinks so. On January 22, 2010, Judge Michael Davis for the District of Minnesota slashed a $1.9 million jury verdict against file-sharer Jammie Thomas-Rasset to $54,000. This amounted to an award of $2,250 per song.
Thomas-Rasset had originally been fined the $1.9 million on account of sharing 24 songs on the Kazaa network.
The RIAA had chosen to seek “statutory damages” against Thomas-Rasset. Under the Copyright Act, a plaintiff can seek “statutory damages” instead of “actual damages.” The minimum statutory award is $750, and the maximum is $30,000.
Since actual damages in this case would have been incredibly small (songs can be downloaded for about a buck from iTunes), the RIAA sought statutory damages, presumably to scare other file-sharers.
In explaining his decision, Judge Davis wrote that the price tag of $2,250 per song was a “reasonable limit” against a noncommercial individual and did not “veer into the realm of gross injustice.” This represented three times the minimum statutory award of $750.
The Court further noted that Thomas-Rasset “was not a business acting for profit. Instead she was an individual consumer illegally seeking free access to music for her own use.” Any need for deterrence “cannot justify a $2 million verdict for stealing and illegally distributing 24 songs for the sole purpose of obtaining free music.”
Surprisingly, lawyers for Thomas-Rasset are seeking to overturn the verdict entirely. They want a court to rule on whether or not the verdict is constitutional in the first place — a much more difficult task. Judge Davis did not rule on this issue since he opted instead to reduce damages.
It might be better to leave well enough alone. Challenging the constitutionality of the damage award seems like a noble task, but Judge Davis’s decision is also the first written opinion lowering a damage award for copyright infringement (and may have involved some questionable legal analysis as this blog points out).
It seems highly unlikely that the damage provisions of the Copyright Act would be thrown out by any federal judge. Congress has express authority in the Constitution to regulate copyrights (the “Useful Arts” Clause). And legitimate acts of Congress — including the setting of statutory damage awards — would likely be entitled to deference by a court.
An appeal seems rash and might set the way for very bad precedent the other way. But who knows? It seemed unlikely that Thomas-Rasset would get this far in the first place. Maybe her legal team will be able to convince an appellate court that copyright infringement requires an actual showing of damages instead of an arbitrary Congressional estimate.