Idle State

In a RIAA (Recording Industry Association of America) Court Case a jury has ruled against single mother Jammie Thomas, in favour of Capitol Records. The damages amount to US$ 222 000 or $9250 per song that Thomas illegally downloaded.

The RIAA Lawyers stated: "This does send a message, we hope, that both downloading and distributing music is not ok."

The full story is available on ars technica.

In the US, copyright infringement, such as downloading music illegally using programs such as Limewire and then allowing other people to download the music from you can generate statutory damages for Copyright Infringement of up to US$150 000 per song.

It seems to me, however, that something is desperately and morally wrong with the scale of these kind of statutory damages. If I were, for instance, hit by a car being driven by an RIAA lawyer and I were to sustain permanent injury to my leg, I could make a claim for, say, ball park, AU $230 000. A severe spinal injury and perhaps, the loss of a toe, might get me, say, AU $250 000.

The problem here, is that the real damage and loss to the RIAA and the Copyright Owner is considerably lower - as some have calculated. The jury in this trial have set the damages, seemingly arbitrarily, which give the damages this kind of equivalency to say, a permanent leg injury which is nonsense.

When will sense prevail?