RECORDING GLUTTONS WANT OVER A $1 MILLION FOR EACH IMPROPERLY DOWNLOADED

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ARS TECHNICAL - Not content with the current (and already massive)
statutory damages allowed under copyright law, the RIAA is pushing to
expand the provision. The issue is compilations, which now are treated
as a single work. In the RIAA's perfect world, each copied track would
count as a separate act of infringement, meaning that a copying a
ten-song CD even one time could end up costing a defendant $1.5 million
if done willfully. . .

The change to statutory damages is contained in the PRO-IP Act that is
currently up for consideration in Congress. . . Google's top copyright
lawyer (and the man who wrote a seven-volume treatise on the subject of
copyright law), William Patry, called the bill the most "outrageously
gluttonous IP bill ever introduced in the US."

The industries pushing it (music, especially) have an "unslakable lust
for more and more rights, longer terms of protection, draconian criminal
provisions, and civil damages that bear no resemblance to the damages
suffered," he said.

Public Knowledge head Gigi Sohn testified before Congress last year that
statutory damages are already "disproportionate penalties for
infringement," pointing that it hardly seems fair to bill someone like
Jammie Thomas more than $9,000 per song when each track costs a buck.
Even accounting for a punitive penalty, that seems absurdly high.

http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20080129-
statutory-damages-not-high-enough.html


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